Ahmedabad Airport customs delayed Solar Impulse takeoff by two hours, pilots "upset"

By A Representative
"Customs clearance" at the Ahmedabad airport delayed the take off of the Solar Impulse plane by nearly two hours on March 17-18 night. Soon after the delay, tweets began to pound taking strong exception to the way Indian customs behave. They quoted the pilot Andre Borschberg that "bureaucratic delays" held up the flight plan of the solar plane from Ahmedabad to Varanasi. The Solar Impulse website has confirmed the delay due to "customs issues".
One of the Tweets by Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, for instance, said, "Shameful but who's bothered?" Another, by Govind Etheraj, said, "Man can fly an aircraft powered by the sun, but can't beat Indian customs, reminder of limits of technology." The Swiss aircraft finally took off from Ahmedabad 7:20 am, heading from India to Myanmar with a stopover at Varanasi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's constituency.

A cartoon put up on Solar Impulse website "protesting" customs delay

According to reports, the delay "frustrated some members of the plane's crew", with one of the pilots Bertrand Piccard, writing on the Twitter, "If there is no adventure in the future, it is not because of a lack of ideas, but because of excessive administration." The distance of over 1,000 kilometres to Varanasi is expected to take 15 hours, reaching there late in the evening, at around 9 pm.
Earlier, Solar Impulse was due to leave Ahmedabad on Sunday, but cloudy weather and rains twice delayed its departure. The aircraft is attempting a 35,000-kilometre journey without using fossil fuel with the aim of promoting the use of clean technologies. Its arrival in Ahmedabad was interpreted by the officialdom in India as a "recognition" of huge encouragement supposedly given to solar technology in Gujarat under Modi's rule, which lasted till he became Prime Minister last year.

The pilot waits for customs clearance

Before the customs issues cropped up to delay the flight to takeoff, the Solar Impulse website said, "Solar Impulse will take off for its third flight from Ahmedabad (Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport, AMD/VAAH) in the Republic of India, to Varanasi (Lal Bahadur Shastri Airport, VNS/VIBN) in the Republic of India. The pilot will fly the zero-fuel airplane on about 1127.9km (609NM) for an estimated time of 15 hours. Maximum altitude on the flight will be 5180 meters."
It underlined, "Yoga originated in India over 5,000 years ago, and today is used by André Borschberg while flying Si2. He and Bertrand Piccard use the opportunity to talk about clean technologies among Gujarat's rapid technical innovation."

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Why was this BJP leader forced to call off marriage of his daughter with Muslim boy?

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* A marriage of two individuals belonging to different faiths was ultimately postponed as the 'champions' of the social morality dominated the discourse and threatened the father of the girl who happened to be the chairman of Pauri city municipality. Yashpal Benam, a BJP leader, posted the invitation of his daughter's wedding with a Muslim boy from Uttar Pradesh. Both the boy and the girl became friend during their B Tech course and were in relationship. There were reports that they already got married in the court but we don't know the reality. Perhaps the family of the girl wanted to send a message of 'acceptability' and 'appreciation' of such a marriage by the society. Invitations were sent to all but soon after it went wide spread on the social media, the champion of Hindu dharma jumped into the fray and started threatening the father. There were hundreds of calls asking the father hundreds of questions about the marriage. What...

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