Screen time is skyrocketing 🤓
Travel restarts, Fossils discovered, and Swiggy looks set to deliver booze.
Hi 👋, Tanvi here.
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Stock market summary:
US - S&P 500 down 0.78% 🔽
India - Sensex up 0.37% 🔼
Travel in the age of a pandemic ✈️
Not all travel is the same and the pandemic is complicating things in various ways. Riding a train, boarding a plane or taking a bus are all looking different now as social distancing measures apply differently in each context. In all, we may never really go back to the old ways of travel again, ever.
While working from home has benefited many, people whose life and business depended on travel such as businessmen, journalists or travel bloggers are likely to face the brunt. The effects are essentially of two types, 1. the travel industry hurting because people won’t travel and 2. businesses that depended on travel will suffer.
Moving on, as global airline companies ponder how operations may look like in the post corona world they are considering many alternatives. Such as fewer people onboard airplanes in the future with safety measures such as wearing masks at all times. Other measures include fast testing facilities 15 minutes prior to boarding and raising their hands if they wanna go use the washroom on board.
Trains are looking at similar facilities, particularly in the Europe where rail network is very dense and essential to passenger and goods movement on the continent.
Also, ride sharing companies such as Uber and Lyft have started a checklist for riders which includes wearing masks, not putting on the AC for ventilation purposes, and not hailing rides if they are feeling unwell. Carpooling of more than 3 people remains suspended mostly across the world.
Finally, experts believe the pandemic will force more people to consider buying cars. While cars are still a luxury purchase in India, in developed countries like the US or Canada, car sales were tanking over the past few years as people were adopting Uber and Lyft more actively. But all that is set to change.
On that note, Indian domestic flights are set to resume from 25 May:
Here are some rules the flyers will have to abide by:
Mandatory thermal screening
Middle seat will not be vacant
Web check ins only
Install Arogya Setu app on the phone, children under 14 exempt
Wearing gloves and masks compulsorily at airports
Baggage will be sanitized
Report to the airport 2 hours prior to the flight
Airport staff will be provided PPE
The restarting of flights after a 2 month hiatus is raising serious concerns among people and officials as major cities like Delhi and Mumbai are still in red zones with a lot of cases. Read more…
30+ years of screen time 💻
A new study has shown that an average adult over a span of one's lifetime, will spend a staggering 34 years looking at screens from ages 18-81. An average person ends up staring at the screen for over 13 hours a day which adds up to 4,866 hours each year and 301,733 hours throughout the adult’s 62 years!
Since the lockdown these figures have spiked. Video calls have doubled as people have been working from home and away from friends and family. The study also showed that adults use their phones almost immediately after they wake up. But all this screen time also strains the eyes as people rarely stop to take breaks.
To relieve the stress off the eyes, vision directly recommends the 20 second rule which advises you to take a break every 20 minutes, look away from the screen for 20 seconds and shift your attention to something at least 20 feet away!
Practice that, fam!
Swiggy to the rescue 🚚
In one of our previous newsletters we had mentioned how booze is going to be one call away soon, as Swiggy and other food delivery portals are seeking licenses from the government to allow home delivery of alcohol.
The wish seems to have been granted and alcohol is now one call away for real!
Bengaluru based food-tech unicorn Swiggy has enabled food delivery of alcohol through the wine shops section on its app. The service first went live in Ranchi today and Swiggy is thinking of implementing it in other parts of the country.
The orders will have a unique OTP which will be required at the time of delivery by the purchaser to ensure that no underage drinking is promoted. 👏
This move by Swiggy is a great step towards maintaining social distancing and it will make sure that no unnecessary crowding takes place outside the wine shops. 🍷
Diggin’ up the past ⚒️
A 5-cm long fossil of a rare toothless dinosaur that was unearthed in 2015 in Australia has been recognized to be of an Elaphrosaurus that scientists assume might have walked the surface of the earth 110 million years ago.
Elaphrosaurus were creatures with long necks, small arms and relatively larger bodies. Studies speculate that the younger dinosaurs had teeth while the older ones’ teeth were replaced with a beak as they aged.
It will corroborate with the speculations once the archaeologists find a skull. On a similar note:
Excavators find ancient relics in Ayodhya
During some land leveling work at Ayodhya, excavators found many articles of archaeological importance such as a 5 feet tall Shivalinga, 7 pillars of black touchstone and 6 of red sandstone.
The excavations started after the Yogi government allowed construction after the Supreme Court’s landmark judgement on the Ayodhya dispute last November. Read more...
What else are we snackin’ 🍿
🚜Rajiv Gandhi Nyay Yojna launched for farmers in Chattisgarh
🌎 Global cases of coronavirus now cross 5 Million, while India cases stand at 1.12 Lakh, an increase of 5000 in a day
🌊 Dams burst in Michigan, over 10,000 people evacuated
🌀 2.5 lakh compensation announced as Cyclone Amphan claims 76 lives
Tweet of the day -
Countless times we tell ourselves that the lack of resources (be it time, money, or knowledge) is what stops up from doing things we always wanted to do.
We are mostly wrong.
The only thing standing between you and the things you want is the reason you keep telling yourself as to why you can’t achieve it. That’s a line we borrowed from the Wolf of Wall Street, but you get the point nonetheless. You need vision, you need belief, you need action.
Resources are always abundant. You have a voice, a pen, a computer, a home, electricity, food, and your mind. Nowadays that’s enough to impart on paths of massive change with just that much. Take the first step. Act.
However small, the first step is all that matters. Like we’ve said multiple times before, push yourself to take that online course, learn that skill, start that project you’ve always wanted to. There has not been a better time to do that. Check out our earlier publications about how you can do that (here and here).
The time is now.
Hope you took a thing or two away from today’s edition. 😀
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