London, <keyword id="6354645" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="researchers">Researchers</keyword> have estimated that a <keyword id="54821" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="total">total</keyword> of 20.5 million years of life have been lost due to <keyword id="8763838" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="covid-19">Covid-19</keyword> worldwide with an average of 16 years per individual death. The years of <keyword id="10801345" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Life-lost">life lost</keyword> rate is the difference between an individual's age at death and their life expectancy. The life years lost rate due to the <keyword id="43587" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="pandemic">pandemic</keyword> has been between two and nine times greater than the mean years of life lost rate associated with seasonal flu, said the study published in the journal Scientific Reports. "Our results confirm that the mortality impact of covid-19 is large, not only in terms of numbers of deaths, but also in terms of years of life lost," said the authors, who consider their study a snapshot of the situation of the pandemic in early 2021. The study by a group researchers from several international universities and research centres, including Hector Pifarre i Arolas and Guillem Lopez Casasnovas, both researchers at the Centre for Research in Health and Economics at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, Spain has estimated the premature mortality impact of Covid-19. They have done so by calculating years of life lost (YLL) due to covid-19 compared to YLL for other common illnesses, such as the flu or cardiovascular diseases. The study involved data from 81 countries. They analysed data on life expectancy and made projections of total deaths from Covid-19 by country. Of the total years of life lost, 44.9 per cent occurred in individuals between 55 and 75 years of age, 30.2 per cent among people under 55, and 25 per cent in the over 75s, said the study. In the countries for which records of the number of deaths by sex were available, YLL was 44 per cent higher in men than in women. In 35 of the countries studied, the data coverage spans at least nine months; in these cases, this suggests that it will probably include the full impacts of the pandemic in 2020, or at least its first waves, while for other countries, these figures are still rising. The authors warned that "these results must be understood in the context of an ongoing, evolving pandemic; this study is a snapshot of the possible impacts of Covid-19 on years of life lost on January 6, 2021". SEE ALSO: <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/stock-market/news/nurecas-100-crore-ipo-heres-how-to-check-share-allotment-status/articleshow/81135236.cms">Nureca’s ₹100 crore IPO: Here’s how to check share allotment status</a> <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/travel/article/exploring-the-unreal-beauty-of-the-andaman-islands/articleshow/81126293.cms">Exploring the unreal beauty of the Andaman Islands</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/india-may-require-twitter-facebook-and-others-to-remove-unlawful-content-within-36-hours/articleshow/81104740.cms">India may require Twitter, Facebook and others to remove unlawful content within 36 hours</a>

Over 20 million years of life lost worldwide due to COVID-19, says study

New Delhi, Fresh Covid-19 cases continue to show an upward trend over the past one week. <keyword id="3658" type="LOCATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="India">India</keyword> reported 14,199 new cases in the <keyword id="113551" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="last">last</keyword> 24 hours on Monday with the overall tally mounting to 1,10,05,850, health officials said. The <keyword id="191419" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Ministry-of-Health-and-Family-Welfare">Ministry of Health and Family Welfare</keyword> said that there were 83 more deaths, taking the <keyword id="10804744" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="overall-toll">overall toll</keyword> to 1,56,385. Over past one month, the country has been recording less than 15,000 new infections daily with the toll not crossing the 200-mark. However, in the past few days the Coronavirus cases in various parts of the country suddenly showed a spike. On Saturday, 14,264 cases were reported, on February 20, there were 13,993, on February 19, the count of new cases was 13,193, on February 18 it was 12,881, on February 17, the number was 11,610, on February 16 the number was 9,121. Last week, the health ministry officials said that the average daily new infections for the last 15 days were oscillating between 9,000 to 12,000 while the deaths were between 78 to 120. On February 9, India had reported 9,110 new cases, the lowest this year so far. Last year, the lowest 9,633 cases were recorded on June 3. As per the Ministry's data, there are 1,50,055 active cases at present after 9,695 patients were discharged in a day. Till now, 1,06,99,410 persons have been discharged so far. The recovery rate has remained to 97.22 per cent, while the fatality rate is 1.42 per cent. The ministry also informed that 6,20,216 samples were tested on Sunday. The cumulative tests done by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) so far stands at 21,15,51,746 Meanwhile, more than 1,11,16,854 doses of corona vaccine have been administered in the country since the drive began on January 16 after approval for 'Covishield' and '<keyword id="9485939" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="covaxin">Covaxin</keyword>'. As per the <keyword id="83655" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Union-health-ministry">Union Health Ministry</keyword>, India has become the fastest nation in terms of the vaccine doses administered, even though many countries had launched their vaccination campaigns much earlier. SEE ALSO: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/ecommerce/news/discounts-have-dropped-lower-on-the-customer-priority-list-say-indian-online-retailers/articleshow/81145830.cms">Discounts have dropped lower on the customer’s priority list, say Indian e-tailers</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/stock-market/news/how-to-check-railtel-ipo-share-allotment-status-online/articleshow/81145120.cms">Indian Railways owned RailTel’s IPO: Here’s how to check share allotment status</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/stock-market/news/nurecas-100-crore-ipo-heres-how-to-check-share-allotment-status/articleshow/81135236.cms">Nureca’s ₹100 crore IPO: Here’s how to check share allotment status</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/travel/article/exploring-the-unreal-beauty-of-the-andaman-islands/articleshow/81126293.cms">Exploring the unreal beauty of the Andaman Islands</a>

India records fresh 14,199 COVID-19 cases in last 24 hours

New Delhi, <keyword id="10062958" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="transaction-auditor-grant-thornton">Transaction auditor Grant Thornton</keyword>, in a report shared with the <keyword id="57372" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Administrator">Administrator</keyword> of <keyword id="127124" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="DHFL">DHFL</keyword>, has found certain transactions which are undervalued, fraudulent and preferential in nature, putting the newly-discovered fraud at ₹6,182 crore. The Administrator of <keyword id="6423706" type="DOMAIN" weightage="20" keywordseo="dewan-housing-finance">Dewan Housing Finance</keyword> Company Ltd, appointed under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 to carry out the duties under it, obtained assistance from <keyword id="10802312" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="reputed-professional-agency">reputed professional agency</keyword>, Grant Thornton to conduct investigation of the affairs of the company in respect of transactions qualified under sections 43 to 51, and sections 65 and 66 of the Code. Accordingly, the Administrator of the Company received an initial report from the professional agency appointed as the transaction auditor, indicating that there are certain transactions which are undervalued, fraudulent and preferential in nature, falling under the aforesaid sections of the Code, as per a filing. On basis of the investigation and observations of the transaction auditor, the Administrator has filed an application before the Mumbai bench of the <keyword id="6354457" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="National-Company-Law-Tribunal">National Company Law Tribunal</keyword> (NCLT) under Section 45, Section 60(5) and Section 66 of the Code on February 20, 2021 in respect of disbursement made to certain entities as other large project loans (OLPL), against Kapil Wadhawan, <keyword id="2992416" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Dheeraj-Wadhawan">Dheeraj Wadhawan</keyword>, Creatoz Builders Pvt Ltd, Ikshudip Fincap Pvt Ltd, Rite Developers Pvt Ltd and certain other entities. It is to be noted that further filings may be undertaken, in due course. The nature of fraud is in relation to irregularities in disbursement of OLPL loans by the company in the past. As per the transaction auditor report shared with the Administrator, the monetary impact of the above transactions covered under the application amounts to ₹5,381.90 crore towards outstanding principal, ₹589.36 crore towards accrued interest and ₹210.85 crore towards notional loss of interest on account of charging lower rate of interest. Thus, the total impact of such transactions, as detailed in the transaction auditor's report, has been sought from the relevant entities involved, along with the interest for the relevant period, through the said application filed with NCLT. As per the report prepared by the transaction auditor, the concerned transactions occurred over a period of time, detailed in the report. Based on the report, the application has been filed with NCLT, Mumbai against 33 respondents, including Kapil Wadhawan, Dheeraj Wadhawan, Creatoz Builders Pvt Ltd, Ikshudip Fincap Pvt Ltd, Rite Developers Pvt Ltd and certain other entities. The preliminary estimation included in the application places the monetary impact of the concerned transactions at approximately ₹6,182.11 crore (which includes ₹210.85 crore towards notional loss of interest on account of charging lower rate of interest). All relevant details regarding these proceedings have been included in the application filed before the National Company Law Tribunal, Mumbai and is presently pending consideration. SEE ALSO: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/stock-market/news/nurecas-100-crore-ipo-heres-how-to-check-share-allotment-status/articleshow/81135236.cms">Nureca’s ₹100 crore IPO: Here’s how to check share allotment status</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/travel/article/exploring-the-unreal-beauty-of-the-andaman-islands/articleshow/81126293.cms">Exploring the unreal beauty of the Andaman Islands</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/stock-market/news/happiest-minds-is-leveraging-its-partnerships-with-big-players-like-google-microsoft-aws-salesforce/articleshow/81105035.cms">Happiest Minds is a smaller company that does the same thing as MindTree and L&amp;T Infotech — but clearly it is doing it a lot better</a>

Fraudulent transactions of ₹6,182 crore in DHFL unearthed

New Delhi, Jan 29 () In order to prevent illegal fishing in India's exclusive economic zone (EEZ), the government has drafted a new bill that aims to regulate fishing beyond the country's territorial waters, according to sources.
 An EEZ is a sea zone generally extending 200 nautical miles from a country's coastline that is reserved for the respective country under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) for exploration and use of marine resources, including energy production from water and wind.
 The bill on regulation and managing fishing in EEZ, which has been drafted by the fisheries ministry and is yet to get the Cabinet approval, assumes significance in the backdrop of growing illegal fishing in the zone.
 "At present, a state government governs the territorial sea up to 12 nautical miles. Beyond that is India's EEZ and there is no law governing this zone. As a result, anybody can come and fish in this area," a highly place source said.
 While territorial sea is a state subject, the EEZ is governed by the Central government. The objective of the new bill is to issue licence for fishing in the EEZ and curb illegal fishing from countries like China, the source said.
 Under the proposed bill, state governments will be allowed to issue licence for fishing in EEZ as per the Central government's direction because fishermen who want to fish in EEZ have to cross the territorial sea which is governed by the states, the source added.
 "Only our fishermen with licence will be able to fish in EEZ. Fishermen safety will be taken care of. No foreign vessels can enter this zone except with a right to passage which they have to apply," another source said.
 The bill also proposes to impose heavy penalty on fishermen venturing into the EEZ without a legal permit and after the third offence, their vessels/boat will be impounded, the source said.
 Besides, the government proposes to make monitoring, control and surveillance (MCS) of fishing vessels under the proposed law, the source added.
 The Andaman Islands account for 30 per cent of India's EEZ. LUX ABM

Govt drafts new bill to prevent illegal fishing in India's EEZ

Travel means different things to different people. A short flight followed by a taxi transfer to a stylish resort with an inviting pool satisfies many people’s needs. But for those with time to spare and incurable wanderlust, there are plenty of exotic, hard-to-reach destinations that involve a lot more plan­ning than does a long weekend in Phuket. Mobile phone signals aren’t guaranteed in the following places but travel bragging rights definitely are. These destinations even come with their own superlatives. Even in a list of desolate destinations, Pitcairn Island wins by some distance. Best known as the 18th century hiding place of mutineers from the British ship HMS Bounty, no inhabited island is further from a mainland. The British Overseas Territory is barely more accessible today than it was in 1790. Anyone planning to visit from Hong Kong would need to fly to <keyword id="4741" type="LOCATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Tokyo">Tokyo</keyword> for a connection to Papeete, in Tahiti, from where there are two four-hour flights a week to Mangareva, in the Gambier Islands. It’s then a 32-hour trip to Pitcairn aboard a supply boat that departs only every three months. A few years ago, officials launched a campaign to encourage people to join the isolated community. Only one person applied. The world’s coldest permanently settled area, Oymyakon shivers in the Siberian permafrost a two-day drive across the Russian <keyword id="101920" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Tundra">tundra</keyword> from the nearest airport. Winter in the gold mining town is so frigid that drivers leave their car engines running all day to keep them from seizing up. Students are expected to attend classes unless the mercury falls below minus 52 degrees Celsius (-61.6 degrees Fahrenheit) and newly arrived visitors are reminded that saliva freezes in open mouths, glasses stick to faces and batteries last only a few minutes. Few crops survive in temperatures that can plummet to a bone-chilling minus 70 degrees and locals make do with reindeer meat, raw flesh shaved from frozen fish and ice cubes of horse blood with macaroni. Based on a year-round average temperature of 34.5 degrees Celsius (94.1 degrees Fahrenheit), the Danakil Depression is the hottest place on Earth. The inhospitable desert in northern <keyword id="61936" type="LOCATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Ethiopia">Ethiopia</keyword> is also one of the lowest points on the planet, at 125 metres below sea level. Visitors need to tread carefully – the surreal landscape is littered with sulphur springs, geysers, acidic pools, huge salt pans, volcanoes and multicoloured mineral lakes. Amazingly, there is human activity at the “gateway to hell”. More than 700 officially registered salt miners toil in the furnace-like conditions for about US$7 per day. Located in the Bay of Bengal, more than 1,300km (807 miles) off the east coast of India, the Andaman Islands are the peaks of a submerged <keyword id="6439698" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="20" keywordseo="mountain">mountain</keyword> range. The tropical archipelago boasts pristine beaches, coral reefs and an abundance of wildlife. Of the 572 islands, only about 30 are inhabited, one of which is regarded as the most difficult place to set foot on as it’s home to the world’s most isolated tribe. North Sentinel Island gained notoriety last year when an American tourist was killed by bow and arrow-wielding Sentinelese warriors, having ignored warnings from fisherman not to go ashore. An out-of-the-way settlement in a hard-to-reach country, Ittoqqortoormiit is the remotest inhabited community in the western hemisphere. Weekly flights to this distant corner of Greenland require an onward helicopter transfer to the village, although for a month or two in summer, cruise ships are able to negotiate the ice­berg-infested waters. The 450 inhabitants rely on fishing and hunting (including an annual quota of 35 polar bears) for survival and let off steam by dog sledding and snowmobile camping trips along the banks of Scoresby Sund. The world’s longest fjord serves as a gateway to Northeast Greenland National Park, the world’s largest. The luxury resorts of the Maldives are easy enough to reach, usually with a sea­plane or speedboat transfer after a long-haul flight. For something more quirky, book a flight to Gan. From 1941 to 1976, the southernmost island in the archipelago served as a British Navy and <keyword id="113964" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Royal-Air-Force">Royal Air Force</keyword> base. Much of the military infrastructure remains, including the airfield, parade ground, a mildewing art deco cinema and rows of low-rise garrison buildings. The British also built a causeway linking Gan to three neighbouring islands – the resulting 18km (11-mile) road is the longest in the Maldives. The beguiling beauty of Wadi Rum feels older than time. For centuries only nomadic Bedouins were able to survive in the inhospitable desert, situated in the far south of Jordan, the safest country in the Middle East. Then along came charismatic British officer T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia), who led an Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire from Wadi Rum during the first world war. His description of the other­worldly desert formations and empty landscape as “vast, echoing and God-like” is as accurate today as it was a century ago. Gan, in the Maldives. Photo: Tim Pile The most remote inhabited archipelago in the world, volcanic <keyword id="1046045" type="LOCATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Tristan-da-Cunha">Tristan da Cunha</keyword> lies 2,432km (1,511 miles) west of Cape Town. Another British Overseas Territory, the main island is home to 246 residents with nine different surnames. About 400km (249 miles) south and unin­habit­ed except for six weather station personnel, Gough Island is possib­ly the world’s least accessible world heritage site. Appropriately enough, it shares the Unesco designation with Inaccessible Island, 30km (19 miles) southwest of Tristan. The only way of reaching this far-flung South Atlantic bolt-hole is by ship from Cape Town – a seven-day sailing that operates nine times a year. More than six million tourists visited Grand Canyon National Park in 2018 but hidden away in the craggy sandstone formations lies the only village inside the canyon. Supai is the capital of the <keyword id="8232283" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Havasupai">Havasupai</keyword> Indian Reservation and the “people of the blue-green water” inhabit what has been described as the most remote community in the lower 48 states. Despite being just 13km (8 miles) from the nearest road, the only way to reach the settlement and stunning turquoise waterfalls is by helicopter, mule or on foot. Located 480km (298 miles) north of the Arctic Circle, Utqiagvik, <keyword id="20636" type="LOCATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Alaska">Alaska</keyword>, is the northernmost town in the United States. When the sun sets in mid-November, it doesn’t rise again for 65 days. There are no roads in or out, so the Iñupiaq Eskimo settlement is accessible only by plane from Anchorage, or barge during the brief summer months. Locals still hunt and fish, but that’s partly because supermarket prices are among the highest in the world.

12 of the most remote travel destinations on Earth, each with its own superlative

International news channel <keyword id="148173" type="PERSON" weightage="80" keywordseo="Al-Jazeera">Al Jazeera</keyword> was today forced to go off air in the country for five days as the government penalised it for repeatedly showing wrong maps of India. 
 
 
Al Jazeera today only showed a blank screen with a message saying that "as instructed by the ministry of Information and Broadcasting, this channel will not be available from 00.01 hours on 22nd April till 00.01 hours on 27th April 2015." 
 
 
Earlier in an order, I&amp;B ministry had said that it had come to its notice that Al Jazeera had shown a wrong map of India in some of its broadcasts in 2013 and 2014, after which the matter was referred to Surveyor General of India (SGI). 
 
 
The SGI had observed that in some of the maps displayed by Al Jazeera, "a portion of Indian territory of Jammu and Kashmir (i.e. PoK and Aksai Chin) has not been shown as a part of Indian territory." The channel also did not show Lakshadweep and Andaman Islands in some of the maps, the SGI said. 
 The SGI also said that the maps were not in accordance with the Survey of India copyright map and is also against the National Map policy, 2005 and map restriction policy issued by Ministry of Defence from time to time. The <keyword id="6374106" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="Ministry-of-External-Affairs">Ministry of External Affairs</keyword> also pointed out similar airing of a wrong map by the channel. 
 
In their reply to a Show Cause Notice, Al Jazeera said that all maps that are displayed by them are generated by an internationally known software used by Global News Providers. The channel also added that it takes <keyword id="44734" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="Indian-Government">Indian government</keyword>'s concerns about maps very seriously and accordingly reviews all its India and Pakistan maps to ensure compatibility with recent official UN map. 
 
 As per the order of the I&amp;B ministry, the <keyword id="1885025" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="Inter-Ministerial-Committee">Inter Ministerial Committee</keyword> (IMC) which was also attended by representatives of the MEA, after deliberations, held that the channel had clearly violated the provisions of the programme code and recommended to prohibit transmission or re-transmission of the channel throughout India for five days.

Al Jazeera pulled off air for 5 days in India for showing wrong Indian map

The latest leads in the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner suggest that the plane turned west and then<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-exclusive-radar-data-suggests-missing-malaysia-plane-flown-deliberately-toward-andamans---sources-2014-14"> flew for at least four hours </a>after its last confirmed location between Malaysia and Vietnam.
Based on military radar data, this evidence makes it seem increasingly likely that the jet was commandeered along with its 239 passengers, whether by terrorists or crew members. Now people are discussing the possibility that the plane landed somewhere and is part of a larger plan.
There are <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/missing-flight-could-be-anywhere-in-circle-2014-3">many places that Flight 370 could have reached in four hours</a> - its fuel could have taken it approximately 2,530 miles in any direction - even if it is thought to have flown west.
Some have speculated that the jet might have been flying to Pakistan or India, both of which are in the general direction the plane appears to have been headed. The Andaman Islands, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/india-using-heat-seeking-devices-to-search-for-missing-malaysia-plane-2014-3">where Indian authorities are currently searching</a>, are another possible destination. However, the islands are largely uninhabited jungle and there is only one airport in that area.
One Business Insider reader speculates that the missing Boeing 777 might have been headed for a <a href="http://www.airport.lk/AIS/62.htm">small and irregularly used airport</a> in the politically unstable northern tip of Sri Lanka, territory associated with the supposedly defunct Tamil Tiger terrorist group.
<div class="KonaFilter image-container"><div class="image">Google Maps</div></div>
Here's a look at the airport from Google Earth:
<div class="KonaFilter image-container"><div class="image">Google EarthThis screenshot from Google Earth shows an aerial view of Jaffna airport.</div></div> 
This particular area of Sri Lanka <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-22652210">has been rife with conflict</a>. In 2009, Sri Lanka's army defeated the Tamil Tiger rebels, also known as the LTTE, suppressing a separatist movement for the large Tamil population in the north. In 2009, TIME <a href="http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1869501,00.html">described</a> the LTTE as "one of the most organized, effective, and brutal terrorist groups in the world." After the Tamil defeat, Sri Lanka's army began moving in to retake the territory, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-22652210">according to</a> BBC.
Even if the plane was commandeered, of course, the intention might have been to crash it into something or crash it in place where it would never be found. Or the plane might have crashed prior to reaching its intended destination.
But it also seems conceivable that the plane was intentionally flown to an airport somewhere in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, or anywhere else within its range. If you have ideas or theories, we would be eager to hear them.

Could This Be Where The Plane Was Headed?

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div>Wish that you could afford to <keyword id="6354692" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Travel">travel</keyword> more?According to Patrick Martin Schroeder, you can.For the past eight years, he's traveled around the world and spent approximately $45,000 in the process, which averages out to just $15 per day.To date, he's visited 125 countries, including all of North America, South America, and Europe.You can view a <a href="http://worldbicyclist.com/">full map of his travels on his website</a> and see photos from his adventures on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Patrick-Martin-Schroeder/523764137720844">his Facebook page</a>.Recently, he shared his tips and tricks <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3ay40s/ive_visited_125_countries_on_a_15_a_day_budget_ama/">in a Reddit "Ask Me Anything" discussion.</a>Here are his tips for aspiring budget travelers:<h3>1. Expensive countries make it easier to spend less. </h3>As counterintuitive as it sounds, being in a country with a high cost of living forces travelers to seek out the most affordable options. "In Europe I'd go camping and couchsurfing all the time out of necessity, but here in Asia I'd happily pay for accommodation, because it's cheaper," <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3ay40s/ive_visited_125_countries_on_a_15_a_day_budget_ama/csh0dk9">he writes</a>. "But of course that adds up and in the end I pay more."<h3>2. Couchsurfing is your friend.</h3><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div></div></div>Over the course of the six months he spent in the US and Canada, <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3ay40s/ive_visited_125_countries_on_a_15_a_day_budget_ama/csh0dk9">Schroeder didn't spend a single dollar on accommodations</a>.He recommends using both <a href="https://www.couchsurfing.com/">Couchsurfing.org </a>and <a href="https://www.warmshowers.org/">Warmshowers.org</a> to find places to stay for free in foreign countries.<h3>3. Use a little-known search engine for flights.</h3>Using <a href="https://matrix.itasoftware.com/">ITA Software's Matrix Airfare Search</a> can help you find the cheapest flights.Some flexibility in your travel plans also helps. "Search by month, it will give you all prices for 30 days in a row. Pick the cheapest," <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3ay40s/ive_visited_125_countries_on_a_15_a_day_budget_ama/csh6o7n">he recommends.</a>If you're looking for more insight on how to save money on airfare, read <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/23-secrets-to-booking-cheap-flights-2012-7">23 secrets to booking cheap flights</a>.<h3>4. You don't need to save a lot of money to get started.</h3><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div></div></div><a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3ay40s/ive_visited_125_countries_on_a_15_a_day_budget_ama/csh93qx">Schroeder admits that he's lucky</a> - after saving up money to travel around the world for a year, he ended up inheriting a house, and renting it out is his main source of income.But even if that hadn't happened, he says, he'd still be out exploring the world.Traveling costs him under $6,000 a year, and he estimates that he could work for just three months to save that amount.If you're looking for a similar adventure, he recommends <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3ay40s/ive_visited_125_countries_on_a_15_a_day_budget_ama/csh62p9">getting started with a small savings goal.</a> "Start saving $20 a week. If you do that for a year, you have $1,000, which is enough for 2-3 months."<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div></div></div><h3>5. Look for out-of-the way destinations.</h3>Anyone looking to travel on a budget should look for places that have little to no tourism, Schroeder told Business Insider. "It's not so much about the destination itself, but that the people living there will perceive you differently," he explains. "If the locals are used to rich westerners that spend a lot of money, they see you as a business opportunity. But if they barely come in contact with foreigners, then their curiosity wins and you will get a much more personal contact. You will be a guest, not a walking ATM."Destinations that he recommends include the Andaman Islands, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Djibouti, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana.<h3>6. Get worldwide health insurance.</h3><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div></div></div><a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3ay40s/ive_visited_125_countries_on_a_15_a_day_budget_ama/csh6c8y">Schroeder doesn't count insurance</a> when calculating his $15-a-day budget.He told Business Insider that he pays 300 euros (approximately $334 USD) per year for a worldwide plan that allows him to visit a doctor in any country that he's visiting, just in case something goes wrong.<h3>7. Carry enough cash for a month.</h3>Once you get off the beaten tourist track, you probably won't be able to use your credit card.Schroeder makes sure to enough enough cash on hand to cover a month's worth of expenses - which, on his $15-a-day budget, comes to $450. Although carrying large amounts of cash can be risky, <a href="http://www.reddit.com/user/Meph248">he writes</a>, "The world is far safer than most people assume."<h3>8. Try touring the world by bike.</h3><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div></div></div>Often, the most expensive part of any trip is transportation.Schroeder takes flights only when absolutely necessary, and <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3ay40s/ive_visited_125_countries_on_a_15_a_day_budget_ama/cshlwvb">travels from country to country on his bike</a>.He told Business Insider that he's gone through six bikes in the past eight years while traveling and paid 800 euros (~$892 USD) for the first, 100 euros (~$111 USD) for the second, and 400 euros (~$446 USD) for the third.Since then, he's attracted sponsors, and got his last three bikes for free.And since bicycling doesn't cost anything, he can spend most of his daily budget on food.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div></div></div><h3>9. The hardest part is leaving your comfort zone.</h3>Once you're on the road, living without familiar luxuries becomes easy, Schroeder says. But getting out of your routine to start traveling can be a challenge, particularly when it mean giving up creature comforts. "As a huge nerd, the hardest thing to give up was my gaming PC and fast internet connection," he told Business Insider, adding that he also misses having access to western supermarkets and a refrigerator. He <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3ay40s/ive_visited_125_countries_on_a_15_a_day_budget_ama/csh87do">wrote on Reddit</a> that he periodically returns home to Germany, but tries to keep those visits short. "When I start treating luxuries like a kitchen, running hot water, fast internet, etc as standard, THEN I LEAVE." <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/new-omega-globemaster-watch-unboxing-2015-5">Forget the Apple Watch - here's the new watch everyone on Wall Street wants</a></h3> <div> <div> <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="5iaDNwdDrYYMm2yipFb14ndbRkPnemqO" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div> </div> </div> </div>

9 tips to travel on the cheap from someone who's visited 125 countries on $15 a day

In 1906, in a lodging house for Indian students in Highgate, a pleasant area of north London, a young lawyer called Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi dropped in on a law student called Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, who happened to be frying prawns at the time. Savarkar offered Gandhi some of his meal; Gandhi, a vegetarian, refused. Savarkar allegedly retorted that only a fool would attempt to resist the British without being fortified by animal protein.
The meeting is said to have begun hostilities between the two young Indian nationalists; whether or not the story is apocryphal, there were real reasons for antipathy.
The two men had very different approaches to the struggle against Britain. Gandhi, who became leader of the Indian National Congress (INC), was a pacifist with an inclusive attitude towards Muslims and Christians. Savarkar, who would lead the Hindu Mahasabha, was a right-wing majoritarian who spawned the idea of hindutva, or Hindu-ness--the belief that the Hindu identity is inseparable from the Indian identity. Congress eclipsed the Mahasabha and, since history belongs to the victors, the story of India's independence movement became one of non-violence. But the strand of thought that Savarkar represented was more important than is generally recognised, and is enjoying a revival.
A member of the Mahasabha broke away to form the paramilitary Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), or national volunteer organisation, in 1925, modelled, some say, on the British army. A social rather than explicitly political organisation, it presented itself as the world's largest non-governmental group, in which like-minded, khaki-uniformed men could gather for dawn calisthenics. It recruited boys at an impressionable age, as the Jesuits did, the better to inculcate them with discipline and with passion for the cause. One such was the eight-year-old Narendra Modi. The future prime minister attended training sessions with the RSS, was subsequently inducted as a cadet, and in 1985 was assigned by the RSS to its political wing, the Bharatiya Janata Party, which he rose to lead.
Mr Modi is India's strongest leader since Indira Gandhi, and its most controversial. The source of controversy is his failure in 2002, when chief minister of Gujarat, to avert a massacre of Muslims, which opponents attribute to a hostility to Muslims born of the ideology that Savarkar spawned. Mr Modi has never apologised for the massacre, though he said last year that he felt regret over them, as he would at seeing a puppy run over in the street. Nor has he made any attempt to distance himself from the RSS.
The RSS, meanwhile, is becoming more overtly political. Mohan Bhagwat, its current leader, is somewhat in the mould of Savarkar, paraphrasing his beliefs and promoting Hindutva. In August this year Mr Bhagwat directly echoed Savarkar by saying all who live in "Hindustan" are in fact Hindus, whatever Muslims, Christians or secular Hindus might say. More striking, the RSS leader has switched the organisation's methods. Now, far from eschewing party politics, the group has become an enthusiastic and effective actor within it. The RSS's millions of members and volunteers (no one knows just how many active ones there really are) played a big role in electing the BJP by a landslide in 2014. At least 19 ministers in government, including Mr Modi, have a background in the RSS. Its leaders are seconded to senior posts in the party too. So the ideas of the man who inspired the RSS matter more than ever before.
<h3>The naked jumper</h3>
The lawyer described by a British official in 1906 as "a small man with an intelligent face and a nervous manner" does not sound like the muscular hero that Indian nationalists crave, but Savarkar clearly had a certain dash. In 1910, while he was in London, he was charged with conspiring to wage war against the king and with providing weapons used to assassinate a Briton in the Indian civil service, sentenced to two life terms--50 years--in jail and sent back to India. While the steamship "Morea" was berthed in Marseille harbour, he slipped away from his guards, leapt, almost naked, into the sea and swam ashore. Unfortunately for the eulogists, he was promptly caught by French police and bundled back to the ship.
His daring did, however, win him fame, and also created legal history. France's government, annoyed that Britain had overseen an arrest on its territory, wanted Savarkar returned. Britain refused so the matter went to the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague. It ruled his arrest was indeed "irregular", but decided Savarkar might as well stay in India. The case was one of the earliest heard by the tribunal.
Savarkar's next stop was the Andaman Islands--a group of islands in the Bay of Bengal. This palm-fringed tropical paradise served as a penal colony for the British. Cellular Jail in the capital, Port Blair, is now a memorial for freedom campaigners. In a park opposite stands a row of statues of independence heroes. One is of a slender man with a pinched face behind round spectacles. A pen protrudes from his jacket pocket, one hand rests on a part-furled umbrella and the other wags a finger at the sky. You might mistake him for a prissy bank manager, but a plaque identifies him as Vinayak Damodar Savarkar. The park is named after him.
Ranjit Savarkar, his great-nephew, who runs the Savarkar trust, says that he showed great fortitude in jail. A trained yogi, he overcame thoughts of suicide. Other inmates nicknamed him "Barrister Babu", for his London legal training. Already a published historian and poet, he used Cellular Jail to work on his writing--literally: he wrote on its walls. He spent a decade there before being moved to the mainland in 1921. He was subsequently freed, after pledging to keep out of politics--a promise which the ideology he was developing in jail suggests he did not intend to keep.
A fierce nationalist, he adored Guiseppe Mazzini, who fought for the unification of Italy, writing about him in the hope of inspiring resistance to the British in India. Savarkar believed that India is really composed of, and must only be run by, Hindus. In his 1924 book, "Hindutva", he drew on cultural, philosophical and religious practices of ancient Hinduism, a rich faith that allows immense variety in how it is followed. But he also distinguished the ideology of hindutva--an attempt to unite disparate Hindus in a political project--from the religion. He himself was an atheist, and disapproved of aspects of traditional Hindu belief, dismissing cow worship as superstitious--a stance that would upset many today. He was an early outspoken opponent of caste discrimination. In the 1920s and 1930s others among the emerging Indian political elite opposed "untouchability", the rejection as sub-human of those considered "below caste". But Savarkar went further, saying modern India should drop altogether the idea of dividing people by caste.
His attitude towards Muslims, who made up a quarter of the population before partition, and other non-Hindus was less liberal. He regarded them as alien and separate, in effect not as real Indians. He was fiercely opposed to the formation of Pakistan and what his great-nephew calls the "appeasement" of Muslims. He believed that they, along with the Europeans, had crushed Hindus for a millennium--a sentiment echoed by Mr Modi in an address to parliament after his election this year, when he spoke of ending "1,200 years of slave mentality" in India.
Aside from his view of Muslims, the big difference between Savarkar and the nationalists in the INC lay in their contrasting attitudes to violence. He also wrote one of the first Indian accounts of the uprising in 1857, centred in Delhi. Known as the "Mutiny" to the British, it is referred to by many Indians as the "first war of independence"--echoing the title of Savarkar's book, "The Indian War of Independence". It was a gruesome episode, in which hundreds of thousands were killed, but Savarkar was untroubled by the violence, and seemed to justify the murders of British women and children. His works are steeped in a desire for revenge against those who have humiliated Hindus, and his frustration with the passivity of his co-religionists: "I want all Hindus to get themselves re-animated and re-born into a martial race." In his early years, he circulated manuals on bomb making. He approved of--and probably assisted in--the assassination of colonial administrators. He was suspected, for example, of encouraging a student radical who shot dead Sir Curzon Wyllie, a government official, one summer night on a Kensington street in 1909.
<h3>Rewriting history</h3>

Today, some Indians adulate him. On the day your correspondent called in at Cellular Jail, a party of jovial men in their 80s and 90s, an official "Eminent Committee of Freedom Fighters", was also visiting. Among the last surviving veterans who battled the British in the Quit India movement in the 1940s, they raised gnarled fists to chant "Jai Hind", posed for pictures and praised Savarkar as strong. The local MP called veer (brave) Savarkar a "ferocious, dangerous man who frightened off the British". Rashida Iqbal, the jail's curator, assessed him as "one of the most important freedom fighters". Port Blair's airport, like the park, bears his name. Some 2,000km away, in his native Maharashtra, a street and a park in Mumbai also each carry his name. (In London a blue plaque identifies his former home in Highgate.)
Savarkar's enthusiasm for violence sits uncomfortably with conventional ideas of how India got its independence. India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and then the Congress party (successor to the INC) promoted a pacifist narrative of history, the idea that Gandhi and the likes of B.R. Ambedkar, a social reformer who inspired the Modern Buddhist Movement, triumphed through non-violent resistance. That meant downplaying the bloodshed of 1857, in which atrocities were perpetrated by both sides, and also the roles of Savarkar, Subhas Chandra Bose and Vallabhbhai Patel.
Bose, the Bengali leader of an Indian National Army against the British in the second world war and an ally of Hitler and imperial Japan, led some 40,000 soldiers against the British. (He didn't get far, though the Japanese briefly handed him control of the Andamans.) Patel, the "Iron Man of India", had the Bismarckian task of uniting the country. He oversaw the integration of 562 princely states into India, threatening and using military force. Operation Polo in 1948, a five-day conquest of Hyderabad, a wealthy and Muslim-run state in the south, was bloody indeed. Official estimates, only made public in 2013, suggest the fighting and subsequent Hindu-Muslim clashes there killed between 27,000 and 40,000 people. Some historians claim the real toll might have been five times higher.
The way the story of Indian independence is told is beginning to change. Mr Modi and the BJP are keen to celebrate muscular, nationalist figures. Patel is likely to have a much higher profile in future: in the national budget, in July 2014, the government set aside $32m to erect a statue of him in Gujarat, twice the size of the Statue of Liberty, by 2018. And while Mr Modi frequently invokes Gandhi's name and beliefs, he refers almost as often to Swami Vivekananda, a 19th-century nationalist who revived Hinduism and promoted it abroad. Mr Modi is said to be named after him (the swami was originally called Narendra Nath Datta) and frequently poses before his photograph. Vivekananda's ideas on invigorating Hinduism foreshadowed Savarkar's hindutva project.
Savarkar's profile is lower, but is also rising. Educational comics, hagiographies and patriotic films retell parts of his life story. In 2008 Mr Modi, then chief minister of Gujarat, inaugurated a website (savarkar.org) that promotes a man "largely unknown to the masses because of the vicious propaganda against him and misunderstanding around him that has been created over several decades", and in 2012 he launched a Gujarati-language biopic. A previous BJP-led government put Savarkar's portrait in parliament. On his birthday this year, May 28th, the prime minister paid homage to him there. Mr Modi tweeted about Savarkar's "tireless efforts towards the regeneration of our motherland". Ranjit Savarkar's group plans various events to mark the 50th anniversary of Savarkar's death in 1966. (Aged 83, he submitted to what he called atmaarpan--refusing food, water or medicine in order to die. It took 20 days.)
Yet Savarkar remains immensely divisive. He was a fiercely outspoken critic of Gandhi, still India's top national hero: he called Gandhi weak, a "sissy" and far too willing to collaborate with Britain. Gandhian talk of man's common humanity he regarded as utopian to the point of naivety. In articles from the 1920s to the 1940s Savarkar lambasted Gandhi as a "crazy lunatic" who "happens to babble...[about] compassion, forgiveness", yet "notwithstanding his sublime and broad heart, the Mahatma has a very narrow and immature head." Gandhi promoted ahimsa, a Buddhist rejection of violence which Savarkar called "mealy-mouthed". He said Gandhi was a hypocrite for supporting violence by the British against Germany in the first world war. Nor did he cheer Gandhi's prominent backing for the Ottoman Caliphate Movement, designed to win Indian Muslims to oppose British colonial rule.
Over the years, Savarkar was eclipsed by his rival. During the 1920s and 1930s, the INC benefited from its ability to claim plausibly that it spoke for Muslims as well as Hindus, which made it a more credible interlocutor with the colonial authorities. Perhaps more important, it had an impressive organisation and, in Gandhi and later in Nehru, accomplished political leaders.
By the mid 1940s Savarkar and his supporters in the Mahasabha (which he led until his death) had a new gripe against Gandhi. They were enraged at the prospect of Pakistan seceding from India. Gandhi, in their eyes, did nothing to stop that "vivisection". Worse, he seemed to favour Pakistan when it sent forces to violently seize Kashmir, evidence to Savarkar that warlike Muslims were again crushing passive Hindus. When Nehru applied economic sanctions on Pakistan (refusing to pass on its share of central-bank funds from before independence), Gandhi launched a fast in protest and forced him to back down. To Savarkar's followers in the Mahasabha, that constituted national betrayal.
On January 30th 1948 Gandhi was assassinated in Delhi. The killer, Nathuram Godse, was a member of the Mahasabha, edited its newspaper and was an associate of Savarkar's. Godse's explanation of his actions echoed Savarkar: he said he murdered Gandhi for his "false notions of Hindu-Muslim unity" and in fury over the secession of Pakistan. Savarkar was arrested and tried as a plotter in the murder. He denied all and was acquitted. That did not convince everybody. As the leader of the Mahasabha, who had praised the efficacy of violence and railed against Muslims, it was reasonable to suspect he had at least inspired Gandhi's killer. A.G. Noorani, author of a book on Savarkar and Godse, goes further. He draws a parallel to the Kensington murder of Wylie in 1909, saying the elder man had twice pressed others to pull the trigger. "I would definitely call him complicit in the assassination of Gandhi," he concludes. He points, too, to an official commission of inquiry into Gandhi's death, in the late 1960s, which drew on testimony unavailable at the original trial. It found the evidence was "destructive of any theory other than the conspiracy to murder by Savarkar and his group". Following Gandhi's murder the RSS was also banned, for a year. Yet the final reason why Savarkar should remain unacceptable in modern India goes beyond suspicion over Gandhi's murder. It lies in his attitude to his fellow, non-Hindu, Indians. In his own writing he relates joyfully how as a 12-year-old boy he led a gang of schoolmates to stone his village mosque and smash its windows and tiles, in the aftermath of Hindu-Muslim riots. Relating how "we vandalised the mosque to our heart's content", he adds that when confronted by Muslim boys, he and his pals wielded knives and sticks and chased them away.
Throughout his writing he sets out Muslims as savage, immoral, sensual and eager to destroy the Hindu way of life. In 1937 he wrote of there being "two antagonistic nations living side by side in India", an idea that relies on using religion as the defining characteristic of any Indian, one utterly against the secular constitution of India. And while he occasionally wrote admiringly of the political and religious fervour of Islam, or rather of Muslim political leaders, he did so to encourage his fellow Hindus to match or exceed it.
In India today the fear of communal clashes--between Hindus and Muslims--should not be overblown. But it is never far away. Especially before elections, parties exploit religious tensions. Those who promote hindutva and echo Savarkar whip up stories of "love jihad", alleging that Muslim men convert large numbers of Hindu women by seducing them. Earlier this month a BJP parliamentarian praised Godse as a "patriot" equal to Gandhi. Members of the increasingly influential RSS feel emboldened. Such majoritarian politics, when a larger religious group sets out to absorb or flatten a minority, is utterly destructive. One need only look at the failure of Pakistan as a reminder of that. Sarvarkar could be a brilliant, eloquent and progressive leader. He could also be extremist, violent and divisive. If his influence grows, India's tolerance and moderation will be at risk.
"Notwithstanding his...broad heart, the Mahatma has a very narrow and immature head," wrote Savarkar
&#xa0;
Savarkar (back row, second left) was arrested and tried as a plotter in Gandhi's murder. He was acquitted
&#xa0;
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