Daily Archives: January 6, 2010

Gulmarg army men to represent India in Olympics

According to bleacherreport.com (Anita Lobo), three Indian athletes will represent India at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games from February 12–28.

The Indian qualifiers are luge specialist Shiva Keshavan, who won Silver at the recent Asian Championship in Japan, Tashi Lundup, and Jamyang Namgyal, who are employed by the Indian Army and stationed at Gulmarg, which is the tiny-but-serving winter sports capital of India.

While this is Keshavan’s fourth Olympics, it’s the first where he has corporate sponsors (Swissair, Limca Book of records, and Reebok) and a full-time coach. There is no such support for the two Army men.

WHAT A SHAME – Update Feb 24, 2010: Overheard (from BBC actually):
Vancouver’s Indo-Canadian community has rallied to provide funding and uniforms for India’s three-man Winter Olympics team… The owner of a sports shop donated track suits for the opening ceremonies, saying the rush was on to get the Indian flag embroidered onto the gear. And a local Punjabi radio station is raising funds for the team – made up of a luger and two skiers.

The luge used by captain Shiva Keshavan is also donated – by lawyers in India. Five lawyers chipped in 450,000 rupees ($9,700; £6,200) after Keshavan’s old luge – held together by duct tape and screws – broke during training in November.

Alpine skier Jamyang Namgial and cross-country skier Tashi Lundup round out the team.

High Altitude Research Laboratory (HARL) at Gulmarg

Gulmarg has its share of high end scientific research as well. Interestingly, there is a BARC lab that could as well become an attraction for visitors.

The High Altitude Research Laboratory was established at Gulmarg, Kashmir in 1963, on the initiative of Dr. H. J. Bhabha, to provide the scientific community of the country a self contained high altitude / high latitude laboratory for scientific research. Over the years a range of scientific investigations in the field of ionospheric studies, cosmic ray astrophysics, radio astronomy, geomagnetism, atmospheric neutron monitoring, high altitude flora and fauna etc. have been conducted from this laboratory.

The Bhabha Atomic Research Center’s Astrophysical Sciences Division operates three outstation facilities at Mt. Abu, Srinagar and Gulmarg. The activities at the Mumbai and Mt. Abu laboratories are centred around high-energy Gamma Ray Astronomy, Theoretical Astrophysics and Instrumentation Development, while a low energy Neutron Monitor is operated at the High Altitude Research Laboratory, Gulmarg. Locally relevant Radiation Application studies and Instrumentation Development activities are being pursued in the Srinagar laboratory.

Amongst the work that has been undertaken at Gulmarg HARL is:

Gamma-ray astronomy activities -> SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)