Team Herald
PANJIM: Three dynamic professionals are in the midst of a drive around the country as part of the Great Indian Footprint to advocate the idea that it important to not honk unless required. The “Horn Not Ok Please” campaign will take the three men across 41 cities in 41 days which will require them to cover well over 12,000 kms.
All of the Kochi-based young CEOs, Nitin George, Krishna Kumar and Mithun Arvind, who were on their first stop in Panjim on Monday, said it was important to reduce the use of the horn and improve the quality of life. They said that as they drove from Kochi to Goa, they did not horn unnecessarily unless faced with a recalcitrant cow that refused to move. Kumar said attempts were made to make them use the horn as they drove but they desisted.
George, CEO of QPlay Technologies, is the youngest and he was a part of the delegation of the Startup Village to Silicon Valley. Kumar is the CEO of Green Pepper Consulting and Arvind, the senior most, heads A Team Adventures. This Band of Brothers’ as they like to call themselves have their top end Nissan Terrano fitted with life-saving equipment like oxygen cylinders, ropes and medical kits. In case of emergencies, the Young India chapters and Army centres have been informed and will be useful support for their trip, if required.
The Nissan Terrano has been fitted with technology to track the heart rates of the passengers as well as usage of fuel apart from other things. Speaking to the media, Arvind said, “People talk of going around Europe or America on long car drives but I feel it is important that we travel around our beautiful country. We also felt that we ought to do it with a purpose to bring about a change in our behaviour.”
The trio intends to go to Pehelgam as part of the journey and give specially prepared food for the service men stationed at high altitude. From Goa they are expected to leave for Mumbai in the early hours of Tuesday and reach that city later in the evening.
From there they will travel to Surat, Vadodara, Ahmadabad, Udaipur, Ajmer, Jaipur, Agra, Delhi, Chandigarh, Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Amritsar, Pathankot, Jammu, Srinagar, Pehelgam, Sonmarg, Kargil, Leh, Manali, Simla, Dehradun, Nainital, Lucknow, Varanasi, Bodh Gaya, Siliguri, Thimpu, Darjeeling, Kolkata, Kharagpur, Cuttack, Puri, Berhampur, Vizag, Vijayawada, Nellore, Chennai, Pondicherry, Thanjavur, Trichy, Munnar and then back to Kochi.
The Horn Not OK Please (HNOP) is a national campaign initiated by Young India against unnecessary honking, spreading social awareness regarding noise pollution and initiating action at the community level to reduce the growing menace of vehicle honking.
