The Golden Sparrow on Saturday 19/07/2014

PAGES: 16+16 (TGS LIFE) | PRICE: `5

PUNE, JULY 19, 2014 | www.goldensparrow.com

EDIT PAGE

Bajaj grant promotes community spirit P 12

SPORTS

START-UP CITY

“Provide resources to popularise kabaddi” P 16

A spot for women’s talent to shine P9

NITIN VIRKAR

Signpost Action begins on black money abroad The Indian government has started proceedings against citizens who have stashed away ill-gotten money abroad, with a Special Investigating Team (SIT) looking at how to get it back, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said in the Parliament on Friday.

“We are in the process of communicating to the Swiss authorities.

Whatever is possible within the parameters of law, we will do,” the finance minister said in the Lok Sabha during question hour.

“Tax proceedings have begun,” he said, replying to a question posed

by Anurag Thakur, a fellow lawmaker of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

He said the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi had nothing to hide on this.

BJP sends legal notice to Kejriwal A Delhi BJP legislator on Thursday asked Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief Arvind Kejriwal to pay Rs 1 crore in damages for tarnishing the party’s image by making “baseless” allegations of horse-trading against it. In a legal notice to the former Delhi chief minister, RP Singh said if the Bharatiya Janata Party is defamed on the basis of false allegations, then it will also be his defamation.

“I had no other option but to send Kejriwal a legal notice for defamation since he has levelled baseless charges against the BJP of indulging in horsetrading to form the government in Delhi,” Singh told reporters here.

Singh demanded Rs1 crore from Kejriwal for causing “mental agony, harassment and defamation”. He also asked the AAP chief to tender a public apology for his false and defamatory allegations within seven days.

Kejriwal has accused the BJP of offering Rs20 crore to Congress legislators to form the government in the national capital.

Mamata critic prof alleges police excess An eminent economist, known for his trenchant criticism of West Bengal’s Mamata Banerjee regime, has alleged police harassment after officials came calling at his house claiming his car was involved in a crime.

Debasish Sarkar, a professor at the government-run Jhargram Raj College in West Midnapore district, Thursday met city police Joint Commissioner Rajiv Mishra and complained that he was needlessly harassed by the police.

A known face on TV debates, Sarkar said that the police on Wednesday night posed him a volley of questions claiming that four-five people travelling in his car were allegedly involved in a crime at Khidirpur earlier in the day.

“I don’t have a driver and my car was nowhere near Khidirpur yesterday (Wednesday). I had gone to the airport to drop my wife and daughter and at the time of the alleged offence, in all probability, my car was either at my home or near it,” Sarkar said.

He said Mishra told him that a truck driver whose money and mobile phone were snatched by some miscreants, had given police Sarkar’s car number saying the vehicle had sped away from the area soon after.

Earlier in 2012, the state education department had served Sarkar a notice seeking explanation about his criticism of the state government on local TV channels.

Flight MH17: One of many flights shot down in Russian airspace TGS NEWS SERVICE @TGSWeekly

Your city is a

Design Hub

This city of young people has emerged as one of the major design hubs in the country.

Who are the people who made this possible?

Special Report on P13

The annual India Design Mark awardees’ exhibition was held in the city in February

Sexual Harassment Act

India gets first free online course TGS NEWS SERVICE @TGSWeekly The Centre for Social Research (CSR), New Delhi, has developed India’s first online course on the Sexual Harassment at the Workplace Act 2013 in partnership with Rainmaker.

The course is a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course), which is a free course featuring lectures by Dr Ranjana Kumari, Director of CSR, accompanied by written course material explaining the requirements of the sexual harassment law.

“The course is about Sexual Harassment at Workplace Act, on completing the course the user will be thoroughly informed about the new law and also know how to proceed in case of such an occurrence,” said Amitabh Kumar,

Head of Media and Communications, Centre For Social Research.

He explains that sexual harassment is the single most under-reported crime in most societies. Mostly all sexual assaults are against women. Sexual harassment is encountered by women in all spaces of the everyday life, be it the household, the streets, the offices etc. In every space the dynamics vary and thus the way to tackle the issue of sexual harassment would also vary.

One such space that needs significant intervention is that of the ‘workplace’.

Sexual harassment at workplace typically ranges from mildly distasteful sexist comments and jokes, pornographic pin-up posters, provocative electronic mail and X-rated computer software all the way to outright assault and rape in extreme cases. Sexual fa-

While the exact cause of the crash of Malaysia Airlines fl ight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur wasn’t clear initially, it is now almost certain that the commercial airline was shot down by a surface to air missile while it was in Ukrainian airspace.

All the 298 people on board died in the crash.

It isn’t clear yet which group fired the missile at the commercial jet, but this isn’t the first time that a commercial aircraft has been shot down over Russian or former Soviet nations’ airspace.

Mashable, The Guardian and NPR have put together lists of commercial aircraft that have been shot down over Russian airspace, most of which took place in the Soviet-era. And guess what, the borders of former Soviet nations and Russia have had the most strikes with 9 of the 22 incidents that have ever taken place since 1940 being recorded in the region.

However, when it comes to aircraft being shot down by surface to air missiles the list is much shorter. Unfortunately the last such incident is reported to have taken place in 2001, ironically enough in Ukraine.

Here’s a brief history of all the commercial aircraft that have been shot down in the region: June 14, 1940: A aircraft of Finnish airline Aereo O/Y from Estonia to Finland is shot down by USSR bombers despite a truce between the two nations. The plane crashed in the sea and resulted in 9 deaths.

July 27, 1955: Bulgarian jets shoot down an El Al fight from Vienna to Tel Aviv after it accidentally strayed into the nation’s airspace and refused to land. 58 people on board the aircraft were killed.

April 20, 1978: Soviet jets intercept and reportedly fire at Korean Air

Our prayers with victims: Modi Prime minister Narendra Modi on Friday said that his thoughts and prayers were with the families of those who lost their lives in the Malaysian Airlines flight that crashed in Ukraine on Thursday.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of those who lost their lives on board Flight MH17. We stand with them in this hour of grief,” Modi said in a tweet.

fl ight 902 near Murmansk after it went off course and entered Soviet airspace.

The airline pilot, however, managed to make an emergency landing on a frozen lake and casualties were limited to just two deaths.

September 1, 1983: Korean Air Lines fl ight from New York to Seoul is shot down by a Soviet jet near the Russian island of Sakhalin after it reportedly drifted into USSR airspace. All 269 on board, including US Congressman Larry McDonald. The Russians reportedly believed the aircraft was a US military surveillance plane.

Who are these people?

Investigating agencies have released this picture from a CCTV grab of the two suspects who allegedly planted the bomb at the parking area of Faraskhana/ Vishrambaug police stations on July 10.

After obtaining the CCTV recording of the duo, it is now suspected that the allegedly bomb assemblers, carrier and planters had made the planning and assembling in Satara. However, there are still no clues where the suspects made all the preparations, including the plot to steal the motorcycle.

The two suspects had allegedly stolen the motorcycle of a policeman from Satara district court premises sometime between July 25 and July 27. The cop had lodged a complaint of theft against unknown persons with the Satara police station.

The suspects have been seen in the image riding the stolen motorcycle from Satara towards Pune early on the morning of July 10,Thursday. Later, the motorcycle was parked at the police station and blast took place at 2.05 pm on July 10. Six persons were injured in the incident. gitesh.shelke@goldensparrow.com Related report p3

vours rather than merit and hard work often effect women in male-dominated workplaces of any kind.

“Information is the most sustainable form of empowerment. Working women need to be aware about their rights at the workplace, this enables them to protect themselves from exploitation. As sexual harassment at workplace act, is a pan India act, applicable across the country it’s essential that all employees women and men are aware of it,” he adds.

This course will help the working women understand the steps to take in case of such a violation and can also act as support for other colleagues, who might be facing such exploitation.

This course will provide a fundamental understanding of this Act in a simple, concise and comprehensive manner.

World Cup celebrations were subdued for Puneri Germans

BY PRACHI BARI @prachibari

Germans in the city enjoying their historic moment with Indian friends

There are as many as 1,000 Germans living in Pune and what they missed most on July 14th was being at home to celebrate the stunning German victory at the FIFA World Cup. They wanted to be back in Germany partying out on the streets, drinking beers as a toast and basically basking in the win. But since they were in Pune they could not shout and scream and take out winning rallies as it was in the middle of the night.

Anna Marie Mamar who works in Pune said, “I wish I was back in my country when the team won the FIFA World Cup. It is difficult to tell you

how much Football means to us. Right now, they are celebrating in Germany.

I miss the atmosphere, everyone is talking about it throughout, and here it was only till the game lasted. But we won and I still can’t believe it.”

Frank Hoff mann who works with Indo German Chamber of Commerce (IGCC) said one actually needs to be loyal and an ardent fan of football “to under the craziness of our country for this game.”

He would have liked to party throughout the week for the national team but all that he and his friends did was to “get together in my home and watch the match.”

Jannis Schwebs, an intern with IGCC, plays football as a hobby. He

calls himself a loyal follower and is willing to go at lengths to promote this sport. “Th is game holds a lot of promises and means as much to us as does cricket for you. Football is the ultimate game for us. It is a great achievement for our country to win this cup after coming close to winning it in the last tournament,” he said.

Jannis and his group of friends held a lot of discussions about tactics and players and each of the players had a supporter.

“We did not have a particular person to head, but looked at the matches as a team. It was a fantastic moment and wish I was in Germany when we won.”

Contd on p 10

THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY JULY 19 , 2014

The call of Sindh: A vanished homeland P4

Choose food carefully during the monsoon P5

PUNE

“Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can’t help them, at least don’t hurt them.”

- Dalai Lama

Yerawada Central Prison sets an example Prison inmates are being taught life-changing skills with the help of NGOs to enable them to earn a livelihood

BY BARNALEE HANDIQUE @barnalee Behind the impregnable high-rise walls of Yerawada Central Prison, an industry is silently changing the lives of inmates. Th is one of the largest prisons in South Asia has a rich history. A number of freedom fighters such as Mahatma Gandhi, Sarojini Naidu, Jawaharlal Nehru, Lokmanya Tilak and Motilal Nehru were imprisoned here during the freedom struggle.

Prison superintendent Yogesh Desai invited me to his chamber in the jail, that was built in 1871. I saw some slice of the inmates’ craftsmanship in artistic paintings adorning the walls of the chamber and a shining brass plaque engraved with a Mahahashtra Police symbol. Desai said that the decorative items have been made by the inmates.

The freshly baked cookies that were offered with tea were straight from the prison bakery.

The jail official said that the inmates, 3,500 convicts including 250 women, manage the various enterprises like bakery, looms, carpentry and

agricultural farms in a synchronised manner, under the supervision of Desai’s team of 150 staff.

FIRST STEP The objective behind setting up shops was to provide a platform for inmates to change, reform and rehabilitate.

“We wanted to engage them in a particular skill that will facilitate them to earn a livelihood

“We wanted to engage them in a particular skill that will facilitate them to earn a livelihood after their release.”

- Meeran Chadha Borwankar, Additional DGP (Prisons)

Yerawada jail inmates can learn employable skills through training in the jail industry. Faces have been blurred to protect identity

after their release.

Additional director general of police (prisons) Meeran Chadha Borwankar has revived many units that were shutdown,” Desai said.

Cells and industrial units are spread over the 64-acre jail area. The sounds that are heard inside the jail come from the furniture workshop, bakery, looms and smithy. Farming is done on the agricultural tract adjacent to the prison.

BUILDING BLOCKS Equipped with the latest machines and looms, the bedsheets, teakwood furniture, handmade fi les and gift wrappers and hand-woven carpets made in the jail are famous.

Stitching uniforms for a school in Shirur and making barracks for a college are the latest orders that the jail has bagged.

The prison has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Science and Technology Park (STP) to study and determine the areas for providing technological skills to supplement the ongoing process of inmate rehabilitation by making them employable.

“We are tyingup with authorities like the industries department of Mahratta Chamber of Commerce Industries & Agriculture (MCCIA), department of technical and vocational skills. Food expert Karen Anand and designer Falguni Gokhale are helping

us with marketing and designing our logo,” Borwanker said.

TRAINING The state government provides teachers to train inmates in a trade that interest them. The Rotary Club of Pune Central has assigned a teacher to help Sanjay Dutt to make paper bags that are later sold to various boutiques in Mumbai and Thane. A professional artist from Nagpur had taught Rahul More, who is serving a life term. City artist Ravi Paranjape had recently inaugurated the exhibition of More’s works organised at Balgandharva.

NGOs, Crossword, Prison Ministry, Vedanta Foundation and Yuva Parivartan are providing computer training to prisoners.

Godrej and Art of Living Foundation will soon train inmates to repair ACs and refrigerators.

A street act named love: Youth shows your true self Six years ago teenager Tarun Gidwani walked out of an art discourse in Bangalore, determined to make a difference and stand out. But things did not go according to his plans and he got sucked into the daily grind of life.

Today, the 25-year-old lawyer is a happy man. He has managed to find time in a fastpaced life to bring some joy .

“I was shy and unsure of how to take my ideas forward. I am glad I shook off that feeling and decided to be useful to my fellows,” said Tarun, who can be spotted at Koregaon Park, thrice a week, holding a sign that reads ‘You’re Perfect’.

Recalling the first day he ventured out with the board, Tarun said, “I had chosen Koregaon Park’s lane one. There was this lady who just looked at the board and burst out crying. I also started weeping with her. We just stood there and wept, and she left with a smile. That moment is etched in my memory and I realised the power of one good sentence. All the board carries is ‘You’re Perfect’. I did not have to spend any money or use any media to help her feel better.”

Tarun started standing at various spots in Koregaon Park area, making some people smile and other snub him. “At first, I thought only youngsters will understand me and the older lot will grumble. I was overwhelmed to see a welcome response from every age group,” said Tarun, who shifted to the city from Hyderabad two years ago. Having covered the lanes of Hyderabad and Mumbai in the past, he takes the occasional booing and cuss words that

ANIRUDDHA RAJANDEKAR

ANJALI SHETTY @shetty_anjali

Young lad Tarun Gidwani is helping many change their lives through his unique signage reading...

‘You’re perfect’

he receives with a smile.

About the sign Tarun said that the word ‘perfect’ means without bias or expectation.

It is just a word that describes an individual without delving deeper.

“I thought of many words but nothing seemed better than ‘You’re Perfect’.

And, it has worked wonders for me and others,” shared Tarun, who plans to present badges or souvenirs to people in return for their love and smiles.

“Many a time people present me with goodies that they buy from the nearby cafes.

I feel bad that I have nothing to give them

in return. I am planning to give them badges or stickers. Till then, I shall just exchange pleasantries.” Last week, two girls went up to him and hugged him before thanking him for giving them a ray of hope.

An emotional Tarun said, “They told me that I saved a life. I am no superhero. All I want is to make a small difference by spreading happiness.”

Agreeing to the city’s cosmopolitican culture, he said, “It is a myth that Puneites living in certain areas are rude to strangers. I have covered SB Road, Shaniwar Peth, anjali.shetty@goldensparrow.com

Yogesh Desai

INCENTIVE AND DURATION Cash incentives are given to inmates for their work. The daily wage of an unskilled, semiskilled and skilled worker is Rs 25, Rs 35 and Rs 40 respectively. The money can be used by the inmate to buy fruits or other requirements or send it home.

The working hours are between 7.30 am and 10.30 am, followed by one-hour lunch break and then from noon till 4 pm. The inmates work in groups of 10 to 14 under the guidance of an instructor, except on Sundays and government holidays. According to the jail superintendent, women inmates are taught how to make dusters, coasters, candles, incense sticks, sarees, embroidery and purses. Special classes are also run to train them to become beauticians and nurses.

“Our skilled inmates can easily fi ll manpower in various industries,” Desai said.

barnalee.handique@goldensparrow.com

Maha jail industry financial turnover (2012-2013) • • • • • • • • • • • •

Factory section management: `6.09 crore Weaving section (handloom): `37.51 lakh Powerloom: `1.4 crore Dyeing Section: `2.55 crore Tailoring section: `30.02 lakh Blacksmithy section: `18.62 lakh Carpentry and painting section: `61.03 lakh Leather section: `7.6 lakh Paper factory section: `10.99 lakh Laundry: `2.4 lakh Bakery: `28.26 lakh Female jail tailoring section: `6.9 lakh

A friend in need...

The makeshift restaurant Imdadi Hotel that serves mouth-watering eats during Ramzan, also helps out the needy through the Imdadi Social Welfare Organisation

BY PRACHI BARI @prachibari

As the sun sets, the clarion call or the Azaan is heard in the distance, a sudden hush falls over the Ashirwad Hall in Camp.

For the last 29 years, Imdadi hotels have become a trusted name in serving Iftar in the city. “Imdadi — the word has been coined from ‘Imdad ’— meaning to help,” explains Bashir Khan Bargir, one of the founders of Imdadi hotel, a makeshift restaurant set up only during the holy month of Ramzan. He is one of the 24 members, who started this unique hotel.

Mustafa Jaffar Sheikh aka Bhaiyya, Shakeel Mujaid, Ibrahim Sheikh, Aziz Bagwan, Zubair Tajmat are all friends from Mominpura. Once while sipping sherbet in Zubair’s cold drink house, they thought of starting a small eatery to help people break their fast during Ramzan.

It was in 1985 that the group put up sherbet, chai, chana, bhajipav in Mominpura and on the first day, they made around Rs 3,000.

“It was a big day for us. We were not expecting such a great response. Towards the end of the month, we made around Rs 25,000 and decided to use the money for some good cause.

We gave it to needy for paying their children’s education, or even buying school paraphernalia,” adds Zubair Tajmat.

After their initial success, the group decided to go big and built a mandap and handpicked cooks from Mumbai to begin a hotel two years later.

And this is how the Imdadi hotel was born.

The group also started an Imdadi Social Welfare Organisation to help the needy. Caste and religion are put aside and anybody and anyone can approach them when in need. The group helps the needy in many ways like buying school uniforms, books or paying school college fees and even assisting people for hospitalisations and paying their hospital fees.

SWAPNIL SONAWANE

Tarun Gidwani loves to bring a smile on the faces of passers-by with his signage that says ‘ You’re perfect’. The 25-year-old lawyer has been going around the city, making friends with perfect strangers

Meeran Borwankar

THE SALE AND BUSINESS It is mandatory for government offices, institutes and colleges to fulfi ll their requirement from the products made at the jail. The prison also supplies bread and other bakery products to the nearby Yerawada mental asylum. The central prison also maintains a store displaying finished products on sale for civilians.

Exhibitions are also organised during festivals. The prison store also participated at the Farmers’ Markets and the Yellow Ribbon Festival organised by Ishanya Mall.

The jail has three of the 11 correctional units across the state and these small centres are said to be the biggest contributors to Maharashtra’s Rs 8 crore prison industries. The Yerawada prison had contributed Rs 18 lakh in the last financial year.

The smiles on the faces of inmates who have learnt skills that will secure them a future life of dignity, tells the success of a plan to change the lives of these prisoners.

Making money is not the aim of the group behind Imdadi hotel as their 100 per cent profit goes to charity

The idea to help the needy came to this group when once outside Mecca Masjid in Ghorpadi Peth, an old woman was praying hard and asking for alms. “Her son was in KEM hospital and needed money for his treatment. We were deeply moved and tried to raise money to help her,” explains Mustafa Sheikh. This is the 29th year of the Imdadi hotel and second year at the Ashirwad Hall. Prior to this for four years the hotel was set up in Lady Hawabai School ground, next to Babajaan Dargah, Camp. The group needs Rs 4 to 5 lakh to offer quality food and all the group members volunteer and pitch in every year.

The group fels sad that youth are not very keen on taking up any kind of social work or being a part of it. “Youth are not getting involved as much as we would want them too. They should realise that ‘service to humanity is service to God’ and should help the needy. They can also extend their support in the form of monetary aids,” believesBashir. prachibari@gmail.com

THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY PUNE

Satellite imagery of Pune has indicated that the city is experiencing haphazard growth with a ribbon pattern of development along state and national highways and a leapfrog pattern because of hills and rivers

On the technology ‘trak’ P6

Bajaj grant under CSR is biggest of its kind for a grateful CoEP P7

Dengue Prevention

‘Faraskhana bomb meticulously assembled’

With delay in monsoon, take care to keep ailment at bay The welcome monsoon brings with it the unhealthy baggage of ailments like dengue and malaria. Timely preventive measures by municipal authorities and citizens can help check the spread of waterborne diseases.

Dengue has claimed two victims in the city as per the records shared

by Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) and private hospitals. Delayed monsoon has aggravated the situation.

PMC chief health officer Dr ST Pardeshi said that 20 new patients have been detected with the waterborne ailment on Tuesday taking the total figure to 188. The municipal authorities have purchased five types of medicines and distributed to hospitals, besides taking preventive measures and spreading awareness through the 15 ward offices and sanitary inspectors.

The health officials of PimpriChinchwad have reported 23 dengue cases since June, and 25 positive and 137 suspected cases have been recorded between July 1 and July 13. A Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) survey has identified 400 breeding places among 283 households after inspecting over 2,200 houses, informed PCMC health officer Dr

TGS NEWS SERVICE @TGSWeekly The study of the clues recovered from the blast site, in front of the Faraskhana police station, reveals that the suspected terrorists have used ammonium nitrate, potassium chlorate, an analogue clock (as timer) and ball bearings and screws as splinters.

These components of the bomb were recovered by the forensic experts from the site of the blast and were under examination Pune and Kalina (Mumbai).

The state forensic sciences laboratory submitted its report to the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) team which is probing the blast case. The report states that the bomb was made using ammonium nitrate and potassium chlorate as explosives, an analogue clock (as timer) and ball bearings and screws as splinters.

The ATS officials said that the bomb was assembled meticulously and could have caused massive damage to the life and property. Six persons were injured in the blast and ball bearings from head and thigh of the two victims have been recovered after doctors performed operations on them earlier this week.

The ATS and Pune city police teams, probing the incident, are studying the CCTV footage from a single camera located in front of the police station, in a private building. The footage shows how the blast took place but it was not yet ascertained from which direction the planters came and parked their motorcycle in the parking area of the police station.

It is suspected that majority of the damage from the bomb’s blast has been sustained by the motorcycles parked adjacent to the stolen motorcycle used to plant the blast. There were four two-wheelers on the either sides of the suspected motorcycle. The wreckages of these motorcycles studded with the splinters were recovered from the site.

ATS squad, divided in 10 teams, has spread across the state to probe the blast case and the teams might be travelling in other states also.

IANS

BY ARCHANA DAHIWAL AND ASHOK BHAT @ArchanaDahiwal and @ashok_bhat

Change water in vases and bowls on alternate days

Send us the correct answers at contest.tgs@gmail.com and be one of the three lucky winners to receive gift coupons.

Remove water from flower pot plates on alternate days

Park?

2. How many outlets did WS Bakers launch on July 12, 2014?

Keep water storage containers dry Loosen soil of potted plants to prevent Clear pipe the accumulation of blockages and put stagnant water on insecticide in roof surface of hardened gutters soil

Civic body carries out fumigation drive and distribute medicines to counter dengue spread

Pavan Salvi. Dengue fever is a severe, flu-like illness that affects infants, young children and adults through the bite of an infected Aedes aegypti mosquito. The mosquito gets the virus by biting an infected person.

PCMC medical health department has drafted plans to control vectorborne diseases and spread public awareness. The preventive measures include wearing full sleeve clothes and not expose body to mosquito bites, applying repellents on children

and elders, using mosquito coils and electric vapour mats and mosquito nets.

It is necessary to break the cycle of mosquito-human–mosquito infection as mosquitoes become infected when they bite people suffering from dengue.

Household premises should not have any place having stagnant water as it is a breeding place for Aedes mosquito.

Symptoms Transmitted by the bite of Aedes mosquito, symptoms appear in three to 14 days with mild to incapacitating high fever with severe headache, eye, muscle and joint pain, rashes, dehydration and nausea.

archana.dahiwal@goldensparrow.com enews.mediasurvices@gmail.com

BY ASHOK BHAT @ashok_bhat

Congress contested in only four in last assembly election. Delegations of aspirants accompanied by their followers came to meet the party observer.

Solanky took a review of four segments from Pune and three assembly segments from the district.

Veteran party workers said they had not witnessed such a quiet reception for an AICC observer in the last 50 years.

During a similar exercise in 2009, the crowds of party workers were so dense that the road in front of Congress Bhavan had to be closed to traffic for a dayparty. This was the time when the party’s senior leader Suresh Kalmadi was the MP and the leader of the city Congress and he had mobilised a show of strength for the AICC observer.

Congress Bhavan had also worn a deserted look when the Lok Sabha results were declared

recently conducted a free tasting and cake exhibition. “We were expecting around a lakh of guests but to our surprise we had a whopping number of 5 lakh people in two days. Th is encouraged us to do better and we hope people give us the same response with our newly opened outlets as well.”

They are in the process of setting up master franchisees within Maharashtra in cities, Nashik, Beed and Aurangabad to name a few. anjali.shetty@goldensparrow.com

3. What does author Saaz

Agarwal’s book Sindh talk about?

4. What are the foods to avoid

during monsoons according to Dr Amrapali Patil?

5. Who started Shezelements and what is the idea behind it?

6. What are the techniques used on horses before the racing season?

7. Which fi lm marked the debut of actor Kriti Sanon?

8. What do sisters Disha and

Jinisha enjoy doing together?

9. How does Crossword deal

with overall change of people shifting to e-books and

Internet over buying physical books?

10. Which countries influenced

chef Prasad Metrani to create a unique Mastani flavour?

Contest # 4 winners 1. Loveen Motwani 2. Iffat Yasmin

enews.mediasurvices@gmail.com

40 pc discount at Galani Fashions The annual sale at the advent of monsoon at Galani Fashions, Ravivar Peth and KK Market branches have received an overwhelming response, a release issued by the garment retailer said.

The 50,000 sq ft showroom at KK Market, Satara Road offers an extensive variety for customers and huge parking space.

The store has announced a whopping 40 per cent discount on the already low wholesale prices along with a number of gifts on purchases. Galani Fashions has planned another showroom at Kumthekar Road which will open soon. The firm is a well-known name in readymades for the last 50 years.

With this issue

D

GE PA

Space wagon

S PAGE EW I V

In the issue ON TH EI N

ANIRUDDHA RAJANDEKAR

Yogesh Shelar’s mission is to be the best in baking industry and generate employment

The Congress had contested in just four of the eight assembly segments in the last elections Out of the eight assembly segments of Pune city, the

ON TH ET O

workers who were present. There was no show of enthusiasm with crowds playing the dhol-tasha or shouting slogans as a show of their enthusiasm.

This newest bakery products chain with over 50 outlets spread across the town believes in putting 100 per cent in whatever they do. Anjali Shetty reports

generate employment, Shelar insists that they would not like to harp only on this factor. “We have around 650 people working with us but this is not what we want to highlight. We want to give people a tasty and healthy treat through our bakeries. We have outsourced and in-produced a lot of varieties in cakes, pastries and desserts so Puneites will no longer have to rely on out station bakeries for their celebrations,” said Shelar.

WS Bakers experienced a great response from the city when they

nswers to the following 10 A questions are embedded in the stories featured in this edition.

‘You’re perfect’ at Koregaon

WS Bakers set to make a mark in Pune For director-partner WS Foods Pvt Ltd, Yogesh Shelar, a company does not stand to just make profit for the owners but also to give their best to the citizens and generate employment.

“We don’t work for money. Our vision to create a brand that will not only put Pune on the international map but also give it something to call their own,” said Shelar, who conducted a survey and researched across the world before getting into the baking industry.

WS Bakers launched 50 plus outlets on July 12 in Pune and are in the process of reaching the ‘100’ mark soon. “100 is our go to number.

We have to include that number in whatever we do. We had no background in this stream and went to international food festivals in China and Dubai to understand it better. Our idea is to give Pune a bakery that they can call than own in reasonable rates.

Our products range from Rs20 for pastries to Rs 5 lakh for customised cakes,” added Shelar, who has partner Jayant Waidande helping him around.

Though the brand intends to

No. 5

Gidwani to stand with a board

Ramlal Solanky became witness to a thin crowd and a quiet reception not seen in the party’s 50-year history in the city

It was an unusual sight at Congress Bhavan early this week when the All India Congress Committee (AICC) observer Ramlal Solanky was greeted with a stony silence by the assembled Congressmen without any grand welcome or slogan shouting.

Solanky was here to take a review of the party’s preparedness for the forthcoming assembly elections. In his two days visit he observed an unusual silence at Congress headquarters in the city, the likes of which was never witnessed in the last two decades in the city.

When Solanky arrived at Congress Bhavan on Monday, there was just the party’s office-bearers and some party

TGS Quiz Contest

1. What prompted lawyer Tarun

Stony silence greets AICC observer at Cong Bhavan

editor_tgs@goldensparrow.com

TGS NEWS SERVICE @shetty_anjali

Prevention begins at home

ON TH ER E

JULY 19, 2014

‘Roam’ Com

PAGE GE UL D

Mastani 2.0

THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY JULY 19, 2014

Dealing with the ache of being ‘friend-zoned’ P8

Signposts Sevasadan offers foreign language course Pune Sevasadan Society, a philanthropic organisation founded by the late Ramabai Ranade and social worker Gopal Krishna Deodhar, has started a school for students who wish to learn foreign languages. The school will be run on its Erandwane campus and the first course will be for German. The courses offered include an Intensive Certificate Course and Diploma Course. The first batch will run from August 1 to December 15, while the diploma course will be held from January 1, 2015 to May 15, 2015 and eligibility for both courses is SSC. Contact Erandwane campus at 25439263 and Laxmi Road campus at 24459182, 24455538 or send mail to punesevasadansociety@gmail.com.

Android app to help find missing persons Sare Jahan Se Acha Foundation, a non-profit company, has created a web-based application, ‘Project ReUnite’, that has database of missing and found persons. The Android application is an effort to reunite families and has posts providing details to help facilitate recognition by family and friends of missing persons.

Financial help sought for girl’s medical health Shreya Dhumal is a four-year-old girl with a hearing impairment who needs cochlear implant insertion and rehabilitation. She needs financial assistance for the operation scheduled at July end. The medical expense include sonata with Opus 1 (Rs 5,35,000), surgery / hospitalisation (Rs 95,000), and mapping and therapy (Rs 55,000).

Contact KEM Hospital ENT consultant Dr Neelam Vaid on 26225600/ 66037300 for details.

Our newspaper is interactive and you are welcome to write in to our various segments: • Letters to the Editor, email: editor_tgs@ goldensparrow.com; editor_tgs@gmail.com by post: The Editor, The Golden Sparrow on Saturday, 16411 Madhav Heritage, Tilak Road, Pune-411030, (Best letter gets a weekly prize) • Articles for the Relationships page relationships@ goldensparrow.com, relationships.tgs@ gmail.com • The Way Forward with compassion & hope wayforward@ goldensparrow.com, wayforward@ gmail.com • Want to become an entrepreneur? For mentoring advice, write to our associates: mentoring@pune.tie.org • Get weekly events listed: listings.tgslife@gmail.com

“...when I first visited Sindh in 1916, it attracted me in a special way and a bond was established between the Sindhis and me that has proved capable of bearing severe strains.” —Gandhiji wrote in 1929

The call of Sindh: A vanished homeland Saaz Aggarwal’s book is a poignant story on the displacement of her mother during the 1947 partition from Sindh, and the author’s effort to relive it RITU GOYAL HARISH @ritugh City-based author, biographer and painter Saaz Aggarwal’s slice-of-history Sindh: Stories from a Vanished Homeland, is a poignant story on the displacement of her mother during the partition in 1947 from Sindh (now in Pakistan).

Her mother was 13, and had fled to India with her parents. The Saaz Aggarwal book recounts her memories of Sindh. Aggarwal says that writing the book gave her a sense of identity. Her mother passed away in March 2014.

She was 79 EXCERPTS FROM THE INTERVIEW In a previous interview, you have mentioned that you grew up not knowing much about Sindh. Did the memories of your mother evoke a sense of loss in you, of never knowing the origins of your community?

Did you feel uprooted from your current identity?

In fact, my mother’s memories gave me a sense of connection that I never had before. As a child, I took my circumstances for granted. There was never a time in my life when I felt a sense of loss at not knowing the origins of my parents’ communities. However, the new knowledge added a new dimension to my sense of who I am. For example, I see my love for needlework as something that was passed down to me over generations.

Undoubtedly in telling these stories your mother may have had to confront the ghosts of a past that you knew little of. How tough was it to empathise with her sense of loss?

My mother was most matter of fact when talking about these things.

Thinking it over, I suspect she dealt with the past in her characteristic

The cover of the book and (above) the relief fund cheque bearing the signature of the then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, given to the Sindh Hindu Seva Samiti

restrictions on free travel. Yet another was the longing to visit an ancestral homeland, and delight at doing so. A fourth was the fear of being in a country where we are officially perceived as enemies. However, most important of all has been the love that we were showered with.

My first visit to Sindh was the most exciting and most meaningful trip I have ever made in my life. The warmth and hospitality my family and I received changed our feelings towards not just Pakistan but towards humanity as a whole.

practical way. There were days when she would wake up and tell me about dreams in which she had met and spent happy times with loved ones from back then. She was re-establishing links with long lost cousins and referring to the past and to old traditions quite often, something she had never done before. It might have been more about closure and a therapeutic reclaiming of a closeted past, than an agonising raking up of past trauma.

The empathy and pain I did feel was for my grandparents. While I was writing this book, I was seared with regret that I would never be able to tell them how sad I felt for their loss, how much I admired the courage with which

they had left behind their old lives and gone on to make new ones, and how grateful I felt for the sacrifices they made which gave us what we have today.

Was it cathartic for your mother to visit Sindh after the book was released?

My mother refused to travel with me to her birthplace. When I tried to persuade her, she said, “They threw us out. I will never go back!”

As for me, during my two short trips to Sindh, I experienced a wide spectrum of feelings. One was the excitement of visiting a region that is so intimately a part of our lives and yet forbidden to us. Another was frustration and unhappiness with the difficulty of entering and the

of the great Sufi poet Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai, and the fishermen on the Indus delta.

Others are precious ones sourced for me by family members, some whom I had never met but called out of the blue with the request.

They climbed into dusty lofts and scoured long forgotten albums, scanning and sending me images of close relatives scattered by partition so I had never seen them.

The newspaper clippings were painstakingly simulated for the book by my daughter Veda, who designed the book and How did the Sindhi the cover. The maps I community react to the didn’t dare download book? from the Internet and My book continues drew them myself. to sell well so I suppose Some historical - Saaz Aggarwal it struck a chord. In photos were sent to me a way it made my by the Indian Institute mother feel special – of Sindhology at she was with me at the South Asian Gandhidham. My favourite is the cheque Festival of Literature in London. to the Sindh Hindu Seva Samiti from the To her great embarrassment, two young Prime Minister’s Relief Fund. Signed Sindhi students went and touched her

by Jawaharlal Nehru, it donates feet. the princely sum of Rs 1,200 to the Sindhi community!

Tell us about some of the special photographs in the book.

Where does the book go from here?

Some of them were taken especially I have started working on a sequel, for me by young Pakistani friends I which I think I am going to call Sindhi made on Facebook, Dinar Qadri and Tapestry.

Ali Irfan Shah. These include the ritugoyalharish@gmail.com photographs of Bhit Shah at the shrine

“My first visit to Sindh was the most exciting and meaningful trip of my life.”

With focus on safety, residents join hands to install CCTVs

Supported by corporators, the areas of Masulkar Colony and Yamunanagar are covered by 40 and 27 such eyes in the sky

BY ARCHANA DAHIWAL @ArchanaDahiwal

TGS is interactive

India must make heroes out of entrepreneurs P9

PUNE

Leading by example, the residents of Masulkar Colony (Pimpri) and Yamunanagar (Nigdi) have pooled in funds to install CCTVs on their premises with corporators’ support.

These areas are witnessing rising cases of house break-in, burglary, chain-

snatching and rash driving.

The Yamunanagar housing society has put up 27 CCTVs and 40 CCTVs are covering Masulkar Colony. The residents of Yamunanagar were helped by businessmen and industrialists who contributed Rs 1,000 to Rs 15,000 each.

A board displaying ‘Be careful, you are under CCTV cameras’ welcomes

visitors entering these housing societies and these cameras are monitored by the local police chowky. Corporator Sameer Masulkar offered the money that he was to spend on his birthday for the CCTV project at Masulkar Colony.

Sulbha Ubale, the corporator of Yamunanagar, Sector 21, NigdiPradhikaran, said, “Incidences of burglary, theft and chain-snatching

Letters to the Editor

have reduced after the installation of CCTVs. The footage collected has even helped the police in their investigations.” The corporator has urged Ganesh mandals to reserve funds for installing CCTVs in their areas instead of spending money on pandals and decorations and contribute towards the social cause.

Masulkar said, “The storage

friends in this university that paper leakage is a regular practice. I would like to say that things have become very messy at the UoP. Proper management, transparency and stern actions is needed to become eligible for the title ‘Oxford of the East’.

Otherwise one day we will not see the name of the University of Pune in the list of recognised universities from India.

—Jigar B Hindocha (Hindocha gets the prize for best letter of the week)

Abandoning Sanskrit.

What have we done? and students had to reappear for the examination. I would also like to highlight that this was not the fi rst time that a paper leaked. Th is has been happening for the past many years and the question paper is available with students on the previous night itself.

I had heard about it from my

archana.dahiwal@goldensparrow.com

editor_tgs@goldensparrow.com

University of Pune desperately needs cleaning up!

With reference to the editorial ‘Oxford of the East?’ dated June 28, I agree with the writer’s perspective that, “Th ink twice before invoking the exalted reference to Oxford.”

I had completed my graduation from Sant Gadge Baba Amravati University (SGBAU) and came here to pursue Masters in Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of Pune (UoP). Like me, many friends preferred the UoP over other universities for various post graduation courses. If we look at our experience with UoP, it is not as per expectation. We had thought it would be better than SGBAU but it is not.

The entire mess of goof-ups regarding delay in declaration of results, errors in assessment and delay in revaluation of papers ended with the Controller of Examination Sampada Joshi’s suspension orders. Does everything end here?

No, even in the summer examinations of the Masters of Business Administration (MBA), the second semester paper was leaked

capacity of these equipment is 30 days and the footage has helped in the police investigation. The presence of CCTV has also seen fewer incidents of rash driving. Ganesh mandal representatives and citizens have identified spots that witness heavy traffic and plan to install CCTVs on these stretches.”

A few days ago, I met a group of students from Thailand near Crossword book store on Senapati Bapat Road.

When they came to know that I was doing research and analysis of classical languages and knew Sanskrit and Pali, they began to converse with me in Sanskrit which pleased me.

I wondered with a tinge of pain that students from a foreign

country came to Pune’s Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute in search of reference books in Sanskrit and here the people in India, precisely in Pune, are so indifferent to these magnificent ancient languages which are reservoirs of profound wisdom.

Agreed, youngsters must learn English but they shouldn’t become anglicised in their attitude and approach to life and people around them.

I’ll request TGS on Saturday to carry pieces and exhort readers to delve into the boundless knowledge hidden in the ancient books written in Sanskrit, Persian, Arabic, Pali and Prakrit. It exasperates me no end when Indians rue and resent that westerners took away their books and plagiarised their (Indians’) ideas.

When we’re so blase about our own heritage and history, why shouldn’t others take away our sources of knowledge? At least, they’ve preserved them and helped mankind in higher intellectual pursuits. What have we done? It’s a million dollar question.

—Sumit Paul

TGS is interesting and informative I am an Iranian refugee living in India since the past 36 years. Your newspaper is very interesting and informative.

Congratulations on the launch of this weekly newspaper.

—Behzad Amiri

Write to Us Letters to the Editor may be emailed to editor_tgs@goldensparrow. com or mailed to Golden Sparrow Publishing Pvt Ltd, 1641 Madhav Heritage, Tilak Road, Pune-411030.

The Best Letter of the Week will receive a special gift from Venus Traders, Pune’s finest stationery departmental.

CITY

THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY JULY 19, 2014

PUNE

The Trishund Ganapati Temple built by the Gosavis in Somwar Peth has been described as an “intriguing temple without a shikhara” by the late urban historian, Samita Gupta

The `16,924 poll ‘scam’: Will Cong lose Ashok Chavan, Maharashtra?

Leprosy, still claiming victims

P 10

P 11

Choose food carefully during the monsoon

Signposts Passport mela

Workshop on medicinal plants Vaidya Khadiwale Research Institute will be holding a workshop on introduction of medicinal plants on July 24 between 4 pm and 6 pm. The open meet will be organised on the institute campus at Shaniwar Peth.

Blood donation camp on Sunday Rotary Club and Sai Shree Charitable Trust have organised a blood donation camp at Sai Shree Hospital, Parihar Square, Aundh on Sunday. The camp will be held from 9 am to 4 pm.

Ensure to eat the right food to keep waterborne ailments at bay and follow nutritionists and doctors’ dos and don’ts.

Dr Amrapali Patil said that the common ailments during rainy season are food and waterborne diseases. Hence, one should avoid street food. “The chaats at roadside vendors might be contaminated. Be careful with fruits that are cut, lemonades, juices and ice-creams sold at roadside shops.

The Ayurvedic reason cited for avoiding spicy foods and including ginger, black pepper and other spices in the diet is that it aids digestion that is normally weak during the rainy season due to ‘vata prakopa’ and ‘agni maandya’ (Ayurvedic terms for ‘increased flatulence’ and ‘indigestion’ respectively).

Clinical nutritionist Anushree Shetty said, “One needs to be careful while selecting the foods for cooking.

Rainy season aggravates pitta (acidity) that causes hyperacidity, ind igest ion, skin disorders, hair loss

and infections. Cases of arthritis, gastric disturbances, asthma, sinusitis and diarrhoea also rise during this season For those who love to eat out but avoid for health reasons, Patil serves options. “Homemade chaats, juices and foods are good substitutes.

Wash veggies and fruits thoroughly.

If eating out is a must, consume edibles that are piping hot and fresh,” she said.

Nutritionist Aarati Pillai cites the importance of drinking clean water.

“Avoid buying sprouts from vendors as they usually keep them open and it may get infected with fl ies. Make sprouts at home or eating more dals and other lentils. Since green leaves are rich in iron, vitamins and minerals, replace them with soyabean or sorghum,” she said.

Anushree rules out sea food fish, prawns and crab as it is the breeding season for them and the scope for stomach infection and food poisoning is high. “Hot soups can be included in your meals as they will not only help for cold and flu but will also keep your stomach full and make you feel light.

Masala chai with ginger, cardamom, cinnamon and herbal tea have antibacterial properties that boosts immunity,” she said.

Doctors have also advised inclusion of fruits, curd, barley, oats, brown rice, almonds, walnuts and peanuts in the diet.

Dr Amrapali Patil

ANIRUDDHA RAJANDEKAR

A passport mela will be organised at the Passport Seva Kendra at Mundhwa on July 26. The event will accept 600 applicants of regular passports and 200 under the tatkal scheme, excluding those of ‘on hold, walk in’. The online appointments will be opened on July 21 at noon for the tatkal applications. Applicants from Pune, Ahmednagar, Kolhapur, Sangli, Satara and Solapur districts can avail of this facility.

BY ANJALI SHETTY @shetty_anjali

The monsoon has revived in the state with Pune receiving consistent rainfall for the past four days. Poor rainfall had forced Pune Municipal Corporation and irrigation department officials to increase water cuts

Ayurvedic tips by Anushree Shetty • Make sure that you consume water within 24 hours of boiling • Consume hot water instead of cold • Use ghee, oil and salt in small amount • Consumption of honey is recommended in this season • Add garlic, pepper, ginger, asafoetida (hing), jeera powder, turmeric and coriander in food as it helps in digestion and improve immunity.

anjali.shetty@goldensparrow.com

• Consume bitter foods like bitter gourd, neem, fenugreek, turmeric as it fights infection

Follow these advice

Orientation by British Council The British Council has organised an education UK pre-departure orientation for those interested in higher studies at the British Library, Fergusson College Road from 10.30 am on July 21. The programme has been designed to initiate into a student life in the UK and will assist in visa application from visa officers representing The British Deputy High Commission, travel, settling in UK, accommodation, health, safety and security.

Participants can speak to the alumni who will share their experiences of studying in the UK. Contact 1800 102 4353 for registration.

• Drink made by adding a pinch of salt, pepper, long pepper and ginger helps in digestion

• Eat easily digestible meals • Wash fruits and vegetables thoroughly. Soak in vinegar for a few minutes • Keep away from damp places and unhygienic environment as you can catch infection. Avoid using public toilets • Use clean and dry clothes

• Doing Panchkarma-Vaman helps in detoxification. Vaman is a cleansing process involving consumption of more than a litre of warm water on empty stomach early morning followed by forcibly vomiting it out.

• Oil massages and hot water bath are recommended during rainy season.

Software to check authenticity of driving licence

BY GITESH SHELKE @gitesh_shelke

The software will be included on the present app of the city police

The city traffic police have come up with a software to check the authenticity of driving licences. The holders of 3,500 driving licences impounded by the traffic police since 2011 for traffic offences have not bothered

to get it back from the city courts, forcing the authorities to wake up to the reality of these offenders either getting duplicate or fresh driving licences made from the Regional Transport Office (RTO), Pune. The software will be run by the traffic police and RTO, Pune.

The offenders are given L-Tem (temporary licence), allowing them to drive vehicles after they fail to pay a fine

Have you been to…

A peek into the world of trains in just halfan-hour is what describes Joshi’s Museum of Miniature Railways the best.

Founded by businessman BS Joshi in 1998, the museum is the result of Joshi’s passion and obsession with railways.

It was started to promote hobbies and recreational activities. Currently the place is looked after by Joshi’s son Ravindra.

The museum houses a workshop on the ground floor where miniature models of engines are manufactured for the Railway Ministry and others. The workshop also includes a section that sells toy trains.

However, the staff advises parents to not treat these miniatures as toys but buy them for their children only after explaining the significance of the model being bought.

Therefore, the models are sold only to children above the age of eight. One can find a variety of imported miniature train models in this section. The basic goal is to get people to take up hobbies seriously.

DO NOT MISS: The museum is a visual treat for children below the age of five. Also interesting is the display of steam trains, diesel engines, high speed Inter-trolley bus, rope railway, funicular railway, Wuppertal hanging railway, hat section with reversing station for steam trains,

two lane highway with moving cars, fairground with a circus which has changing shows, a Ferris wheel and the merry-go-round with minute detailing. anjali.shetty@goldensparrow.com

How to reach:

GA Kulkarni Road, Near Karishma Society, Kothrud TIMINGS: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday: 9 am-5 pm, Thursday: 9 am-1 pm Saturday: 9 am-4 pm, Entry fee: `80 (No tickets for children below 5)

authorities when the offenders visit the RTO to get duplicate or fresh licences made as it contains details of motorists,” Kamire said, adding that the handy software will be made available at all traffic divisions and a special drive will be launched to trace the offenders.

“It’s an offence to hold such a licence,” he said. gitesh.shelke@goldensparrow.com

CIB Pune plans to undertake initiatives for the community

BY ANJALI SHETTY @shetty_anjali

Have you ever thought of the gifts you possess in the form of your talents and how you can be helpful to the community in the smallest way possible?

This is what the Pune chapter of Caux Initiatives for Business (CIB) is trying to emphasise in its efforts to gather like-minded people who could contribute to various social initiatives in the city in an ethical manner.

CIB at a session at ICC Towers brought together captains of business and industry, businessmen, professors, students and other professionals for an experience sharing and interactive session on ‘the journey to ethical leadership and living’.

The session was led by wellknown trainer, mentor, coach and facilitator Arun Wakhlu who shared Swami Vivekananda’s words that anything that results in oneness is ethical and anything that divides is unethical.

“Ethical behaviour is defined by three most important connections, namely, one with your inner most self, second with you and other people and third between you and nature. When you start connecting with the above that is when purity, honesty, unselfishness and love comes in, thus avoiding all unethical behaviour,” Wakhlu said.

“As a city we are a people full of

SWAPNIL SONAWANE

BY ANJALI SHETTY @shetty_anjali

ANIRUDDHA RAJANDEKAR

Joshi’s museum of miniature trains

at the time of being picked by the traffic police. The 3,500 motorists are yet to pay a fine and get back their licences that are submitted to courts.

Inspector RS Kamire (traffic administration) said that the offenders might have obtained fresh licences by faking FIRs or submitted fabricated affidavits to get duplicate licences.

“The software will help alert the

Mentor Arun Wakhlu talked on the need for like-minded people to contribute to various social initiatives in the city in an ethical manner

gifts but we are not coming together.

We have people working for various causes but none know of each other.

As a community we should share our resources and that will result in an ethical community,” said Wakhlu.

CIB’s Pune chapter believes that many possibilities are available for everyone. Therefore, it is for us to decide what will be the purpose of our life in business/industry or our workplace and what will we do to stand up for it.

“We have people doing great work from tree plantations to cleanliness awareness drives. But it is all happening at individual levels,” Wakhlu said, adding that if people united in their efforts, great results, nothing short of a miracle, could be achieved CIB convenor TP Mukherjee who has been actively involved with this movement said, “CIB does not

accept the contention that profits can only be made through financial impropriety, distortion of legal rules and unfair labour practices. The objectives of CIB are to promote a culture of honesty and integrity in the workplace, to equip people with practice tools, grounded in a moral and ethical framework for use in their places of work. Having said that we want the support of people from within the community to bring about a change. Each one of us has a special talent. If we use that for a bigger purpose we will not need to succumb to unethical behaviour,” he said.

CIB Pune chapter meets every second Saturday of the month inviting people from all walks of life to join. For more details visit iofc. org/www.cauxbusiness.org or email: cib.ap india@gmail.com anjali.shetty@goldensparrow.com

THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY JULY 19, 2014

Debt mutual funds suffer large outflows P 14

Slideways cruises to another victory P 15

The first website that went online was http://info.cern.ch on August 6, 1991.

Top 5

ANIRUDDHA RAJANDEKAR

City Blogger of the Week

On the technology ‘trak’

business websites The National Stock Exchange is India’s leading stock exchange, which was set up by leading institutions to give a modern, fully automated screen-based trading system with national reach. Nse-india.com, provides securities market information, including real time graphs, investment information, live market data etc.

Bombay Stock Exchange — bseindia.com is a website which was established as the premier Indian stock exchange with best-in-class global practice in technology, products innovation and customer service. The website showcases real time stock quotes, stock market news, graphs and customised tools for stock research.

Arun Prabhudesai speaks about his blog, trak.in, its genesis, his love for Twitter and more

BY RITU GOYAL HARISH @ritugh

W

ith 2940 followers on Twitter, 14,533 fans on FaceBook and more than 50 million hits since it started in 2007, trak.in is India’s best-known blog for insights in to the business of technology, mobiles and start-ups.

Brainchild of Pune-based Arun Prabhudesai, trak.in’s popularity can be measured from the striking figures quoted above.

When browsing through the blog and reading its contents, one would expect Prabhudesai to be the quintessential tech geek. But he has a penchant for breaking clichéd notions, just as he has done with his entrepreneurship skills — he has to his credit three start-ups and this highly successful blog. He is an avid blogger and one of the active supporters of the tech/startup community in Pune.

THE BEGINNING When Prabhudesai hopped onto the IT wagon despite his civil engineering degree from the College of Engineering Pune, way back in 1996, he was proffered the opportunity to live abroad for many years, courtesy his job.

“It was exciting but not very satisfying. When I began reading about the upward trend of the Indian economy I wished to return to Pune.

But I didn’t know what was happening in India. So I decided to research on government policies and technology as I was very keen on starting my own business,” he says, adding, “trak.in started in 2007 when I realised that there were many people like me who

were looking for such information.”

In the first six months he received very encouraging feedback from readers. “They liked my posts and even though I returned to India in 2008 and started a company (which was later sold) I never gave up writing.” trak. in is popular for its content: analysis, viewpoints, news and information and insights into the way the whole business of technology, be it mobiles, the internet, e-commerce etc. works.

“I am passionate about technology and the business side of technology”, says Prabhudesai.

THE INTERNET BOOM Over the following years, India saw an upsurge in Internet penetration.

Social media like Twitter and FaceBook found an exciting audience in India that was yearning for information,

Arun Prabhudesai, an avid blogger and one of the active supporters of the tech/startup community in Pune

updates and knowledge on technology and trak.in found wide scale acceptance amongst them.

In 2008 trak.in joined Twitter and Prabhudesai himself likes the medium.

What endears him to this social media

Life in the time of #Selfie

is the ease of communication. “You can talk to hundreds of people in one short sentence. It is so easy to share on Twitter that it has become a part of us” he says. It also allows him to interact directly with the end user. While

expressing everything in 140 characters is no mean feat, trak.in has over 9500 tweets!

He admits that over the years he has not worked aggressively towards monetising the blog. “It makes a little money from ads etc. but nothing major.”

Yet, the trak.in team has grown to 5-6 writers who churn out posts that keep the blog updated and its readers’ desire for all things tech gratified.

Prabhudesai believes that India is still at a nascent stage when it comes to tapping the Internet as a source of business. “We have 130-140 million people on the internet today on varied devices – computers and mobiles.

This number should go up to 500-600 million and then the exposure would be unimaginable” he points out.

In his quest to communicate about his passion, Prabhudesai has created a venture that not only satisfies his creativity but also engages with the user who hungers for such information. That sounds like a win-win for all! ritugoyalharish@gmail.com

India Infoline Ltd — indiainfoline. com consists of online financial news from India. It comprises sections covering data on Indian companies, stock market information and other financial research data. The site’s diversified business model includes credit and finance, wealth management, financial product distribution, asset management, capital market advisory and investment banking.

Trade India — tradeindia.com provides a detailed and an all-inclusive database of Indian manufacturers and exporters. It also consists of the largest database of Indian buyers and sellers. It is one of India’s largest B2B market websites.

Money Control — moneycontrol. com is one of India’s leading financial information source. Its the official site for CNBC TV18, and provides news, views, and analysis on equity, stock markets, commodities, personal finance, mutual funds, insurance etc.

Lessons from a barefoot movement Barefoot College, a one-of-a-kind school, in Rajasthan teaches rural women and men, most of who are illiterate, to become professionals. Its founder, Sanjit Roy, explains how it works

Is it all about capturing memories, embracing oneself, means of reaching out to the world or being extremely critical of oneself?

BY ISHANI BOSE @ishani_bose Harish Panchabhai’s profile on Instagram has 200 selfies. Whether it is while receiving a Flipkart parcel at his doorstep, posing with his pet dog Yana or giving out hyperbolic expressions with a long lost friend, the 23-year-old makes it a point to capture it all. His answer to the craze is: “The word selfie didn’t even officially exist a year ago. My images are not just about my friends and me, but about all the memories associated with that particular moment. I enjoy clicking photos a lot and selfies are just a part of it.”

Selfie is short-hand for selfportrait and front camera on smartphones and tablets have made it a popular photography skill.

Professional photographer and selfie-enthusiast Purva Damle has 360-400 selfies, which she regularly uses to change her profile photos on Whatsapp and Facebook, “I believe the more we are comfortable in front of the camera, the better we’ll be able to perform as a photographer. Taking a selfie means, that I’m continuously experimenting with my thought pro-

PUNE

Harish Panchabhai in a ‘selfie’ mood

cess and creativity. It is more about getting comfortable with the camera.”

Selfie as a popular form of photography was first taken in the early 1900s after the invention of Kodak Brownie Box Camera that made photographic self-portraiture a more ubiquitous phenomenon. The technique in those days involved one standing in front of a mirror and aiming a point-and-shoot camera in front of it. Celebrities like Miley Cyrus, Rihanna, Priyanka Chopra, Sonam Kapoor and others are perpetual selfie takers. The flood of selfies posted on social networking sites in their various forms has raised a very pertinent question: Does clicking selfie mean being self-obsessed?

Does it make one feel validated in the eyes of peers?

According to a recent report published by the American Psychiatric Association, a person’s constant desire to take a selfie has been officially classified as a mental disorder. The dis-

order has been categorised into three levels—borderline selfitis (taking at least three photos a day without posting them online), acute selfitis (three pictures a day and posting them all on social media) and chronic selfitis (an uncontrollable urge to take selfies and posting more than six a day).

“People are so critical about the way they look in front of others that they forget the whole joy of capturing moments and preserving memories,” says clinical psychologist Natasha Pirani, adding that taking selfies is turning into a personality disorder.

She advices cognitive behaviour therapy involving changing one’s cognition and thought process. “One needs to exercise some control over taking selfies. If it is resulting in a person becoming more and more critical about the way he/she looks, then it is high time to press the stop button,” she warns. ishani.bose@goldensparrow.com

BY RITU GOYAL HARISH @ritugh “Who is a professional? A professional is someone who has a combination of competence, confidence and belief. A water diviner is a professional. A traditional midwife is a professional. A traditional bone setter is a professional” said Sanjit Roy, popularly known as Bunker, social activist, educator and founder of Barefoot College in a TED Talk in 2011.

“These are professionals all over the world. You find them in any inaccessible village around the world. And we thought that these people should come into the mainstream and show that the knowledge and skills they have are universal” he said.

The reaction of the elders of the village he chose to begin his project in, prompted Roy to redefine professionalism. “The elders (of the village) gave me some very sound and profound advice. They said, “Please, don’t bring anyone with a degree and qualification into your college.”

“So it’s the only college in India where, if you should have a PhD or a Master’s, you are disqualified to come.

You have to be a cop-out or a wash-out or a dropout to come to our college” he added.

Roy goes on to explain how 12 ‘Barefoot architects’ “Who can’t read and write” constructed the first Barefoot College in 1986 at a cost of $1.50

a sq ft. He talks about how the “skills” and “knowledge” of the village elders resulted in greening the college campus that a “high-powered, paper-qualified expert” had rejected as impossible due to water scarcity and rocky soil.

The college’s own solar electrification was done by a Hindu priest, “Who’s only done eight years of primary schooling” said Roy. The most interesting anecdote relates to the children of the villages he works in. Every five years children between 6 and14 elect a prime minister.

“The prime minister is 12 years old.

She looks after 20 goats in the morning, but she’s prime minister in the evening. She has a cabinet, a minister of education, a minister for energy, a minister for health. And they actually monitor and supervise 150 schools for 7,000 children.”

This girl was given the World’s Children’s Prize in 2006 and was invited to Sweden to receive it. Her confidence stumped the Queen of Sweden who asked Roy, “Can you ask this child where she got her confidence from? She’s only 12 years old, and she’s not dazzled by anything.”

“And the girl, who’s on her left, turned to me and looked at the queen straight in the eye and said, “Please tell her I’m the prime minister” “ said Roy. https://www.ted.com/talks/bunker_roy

Sanjit Roy, better known as, Bunker Roy

WHAT ARE TED TALKS? TED is a global platform where people from different fields come together and speak for 18 minutes or less about their respective disciplines. It was started in 1984 by a non-profit organisation called Sapling Foundation, under the slogan — Ideas worth sharing. Initially it organised conferences where matters related to technology, design and entertainment merged, but today it includes varied topics such as business, photography, art, science and the like.

THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY JULY 19, 2014

PUNE

ED UCATION

CARE ER

“At Thermax, we support Akanksha and Teach For India, apart from writing out a cheque. Again, let me repeat that it is important that employees take an interest in social activities.”

- Anu Aga, ex-chairperson, Thermax Ltd

Signposts MTech courses at DIAT Defence Institute of Advanced Technology (DIAT), in collaboration with Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), Indian Institute of Sciences has started two new courses, MTech in Bio-Science and Technology and MTech in Technology Management. The students who have enrolled for these new courses include scientists from DRDO, officers from the three services, coast guard and sponsored candidates from Indian Industries like Bharat Forge and Bharat Electronics.

MAEER’s MIT holds FDP MAEER’s MIT School of Management conducted a week-long Faculty Development Programme (FDP) on Advanced Research Methods and Hypothesis Testing recently. The FDP seeks to impart knowledge on research methodology, quantitative techniques, hypothesis testing, etc.

As many as 47 faculty members and research scholars from various institutes across India have participated in this FDP which was inaugurated

by Dr SN Pathan (Former VC, Nagpur University). Prof DP Apte (DirectorMIT School of Business, Pune) was present on this occasion.

Creativity is the key to success in the future, and primary education is where teachers can bring creativity in children at that level.

- APJ Abdul Kalam

Bajaj grant under CSR is biggest of its kind for a grateful CoEP

College of Engineering, Pune will be using the Rs 4.5 crore grant, received under the CSR for the facelift of its mechanical department

BY MANASI JOSHI SARAF @GargiManasi Keeping their promise of giving back to society, Sanjeev Bajaj, managing director of Bajaj Finserv and Rajeev Bajaj, managing director of Bajaj Auto, have donated Rs 4.5 crore for the facelift of mechanical department of College of Engineering, Pune (CoEP).

Interestingly, this is the first time that the college has received such a big amount as grant. The money will be utilised for the renovation of the building, construction of laboratories and buying of latest equipment used for engineering courses,” said head of the mechanical department SN Sapali.

“We have signed a memorandum of understanding on July 13, for the renovation of this 101-year-old building,” informed Sapali.

He added, “It is a heritage building and thus, we cannot take up a major renovation project from the outside.

To keeps its outer look intact, the walls or columns of this building will not be touched during the renovation work.

But since the building is quite tall, we will be constructing a few storeys from inside for laboratories, research student rooms and other purposes. We have

“With this grant we would be developing seven to eight laboratories.”

- SN Sapali

already received a cheque of Rs 50 lakh in advance and the work has already started,” he said, adding that renowned architect Christophe Benninger will be handling the renovation. He said that the grants, which are part of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), will be used to buy furniture, air conditioners, to change the electric fittings, and to install fire-fighting equipment.

“With this grant we would be developing seven to eight laboratories, computer laboratory. It is the biggest department in the college with 37 faculty members and 800 students,” said Sapali.

Sapali has credited this success to college director AD Sahasrebudhe, Board of Governance (BOG) president FC Kohli and BOG member Prataprao Pawar.

A total number of 978 students were awarded certificates at the graduation ceremony of the eighth batch of engineers at the College of Engineering, Pune. University of Pune vice-chancellor WN Gade was the chief guest for the function

BRINGING LAURELS

manasisaraf@gmail.com

Modern College starts vocational courses to enhance students’ employability

The institute has introduced courses on greenhouse and food technology in collaboration with industry

BY MANASI JOSHI SARAF @GargiManasi

Aarini Joshi, a Class I student of Army Public School, has secured second rank in the seventh International Mathematics Olympiad conducted by the Science Olympiad Foundation (SOF) recently at Delhi. Joshi also received Rs 25,000 and medal

Life’s Lesson Steps to better concentration When concentrating on studies or work, switch off all your gadgets that distract you

Experts’ tips to maximise concentration: Work to a plan: When you get down to studying or working on a task, decide the amount of work

1

you’ll get done in the next two hours or three hours that you’ve allotted to that session. Th is helps the mind work efficiently without wasting time.

Get adequate rest: The mind 2 works best when it has got sufficient rest. Adequate rest and sleep are therefore important.

Eat light: Do not overeat because 3 that will make you drowsy.

Eating light keeps away hunger and helps you focus better.

Take short breaks after an 4 hour of concentrated work; it helps to take a break of about 10 minutes and shift the mind to something else, some small tasks and chores. The mind feels refreshed with this and one can return to work with vigour.

For students, it’s important 5 where you study. You can’t sit in front of the TV or in the drawing room. The noise and interruptions won’t let you concentrate. Don’t sit with a bunch of friends who will tend to gossip or discuss things. A quiet place whether at home or office is the best.

course. In terms of syllabus, the food technology course will provide students with training in hygiene, microbiology in food sciences, milk processing and manufacturing of processed food.

The Greenhouse technology course includes training in construction of green houses, plants development, preservation of tissue culture, horticulture, floriculture, vegetables, organic industry and allied branches.

The courses are in English and besides in-depth knowledge, students will be given training

in entrepreneurship, law and regulation, ethics and management, implementation and principles.

The Green Technology course has been introduced in collaboration with India Green House Private limited, while for Food Technology, Modern College has joined hands with Gits India, Tasty Bites, Pravin Masale, Kharat said. “The college has always been in forefront to cater to the changing needs of the society and introduction of these courses is a step towards this,” Kharat concludes. manasisaraf@gmail.com

Pursuing My Career

A lawyer must be passionate to attain success Internship at the National Green Tribunal was a lifetime experience for me. It gave me a wider knowledge of the field

BY ANIRUDDHA KULKARNI In my experience as a law student, passion is the essential element for the study and practice of law and life.

My three years in Marathwada Mitramandal’s Shankarrao Chavan Law College, Pune, taught me that there are no short-cuts to success.

Notes may give you marks but won’t give you knowledge. I believe that there are three key factors crucial for a law student — good English, knowledge about current affairs and internships.

Among these, the most important is internship. It plays a vital role in giving you a basic idea of the court and legal system. I did two internships under practising lawyers, but my breakthrough was when I was selected to undergo judicial internship at the National Green Tribunal (NGT).

Tribunals are specialised courts which handle only sectorspecific cases like administrative, armed forces, banking, company, consumer, electricity, intellectual property, insurance, tax, telecom among others.

Judicial internship differs from an internship under a lawyer, because when interning under a lawyer one studies and researches the case from his client’s side, but when interning under a judge, both the sides are placed in front of you, and you have to assist him in deciding the case, so it’s interesting as well as important while working on that level.

Knowledge I am gaining at the NGT is very informative and productive. Doing an internship at the NGT is a prestigious thing for me. It makes me feel proud that I actually contributed to a judgment of a Superior Court which affects big parties and projects.

Since January, when I joined NGT, I have contributed research to at least 10 important judgments.

I see to it as my small share in protecting environment at the threshold of my career.

Law leaves much room for interpretation but very little for self doubt. So do thorough study and research which will force doubt to make way for confidence which will give you an edge over your peers.

ANIRUDDHA RAJANDEKAR

One of the important habits for success is the ability to concentrate, be it in studies or at work. The quality of results you can generate depends significantly on your ability to concentrate on a task effectively.

The mind’s ability to concentrate on a given task and deliver results may be compared to a magnifying glass that helps concentrates the rays of the sun and burns a piece of paper which individual rays cannot do.

Today’s generation is poor at concentration because of multiple distractions such as mobile phones, TV, Facebook and Internet chats.

Constant interruptions from family, friends and others should also be avoided as this disrupts concentration and causes poor results. Our devices have to be put on silent mode or switched off. Also, are you a morning person or a night person? If you are a person who is most productive during the mornings, get up early and get started. The evenings then can be for relaxation. Reverse this if you are a night person.

Modern College of Arts, Science and Commerce, Ganeshkhind has started a new course, Bachelor in Vocational degree in Greenhouse Technology and Food Technology.

“The courses will empower students to pursue employment or entrepreneurship in the chosen area of interest,” said college principal Sanjay Kharat.

Kharat said, “Ours is the only college to have these courses. The University Grants’ Commission

(UGC) has launched a scheme for skills development-based higher education. This scheme was designed under National Skill Qualification Framework (NSQF).

To make the curriculum more in compliance with industry, we have tied up with various industries from both the branches and have framed the syllabus accordingly. This will help industries save their time on training the new recruits while on the other hand studenst will get job oppertunity,” Kharat added.

Students who have completed their HSC are eligible for this

RE LATIONSHIPS “True love is sacrifice. It is in giving, not in getting; in losing, not in gaining; in realising, not in possessing, that we love!”

—JP Vaswani

THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY JULY 19, 2014

PUNE

When men and women are able to respect and accept their differences then love has a chance to blossom.

—John Gray, author

Dealing with the ache of being ‘friend-zoned’ It’s an emotionally painful situation when the person you love does not reciprocate your love but wants you only as a friend. Such a relationship cannot be sustained for long, says Ishani Bose

Relationships are never easy but of all the complexities that it has to offer, being friend-zoned is perhaps the worst kind. “Friend-zone” is a term used to describe dissimilarity in romantic feelings between two individuals--- where one person is interested in romance, and the other wishes to ‘just be friends.’

As mutually satisfying emotional and social exchanges form the basis of all good and peaceful relationships, being friend-zoned and having one -sided feelings for someone is no less than heartbreak.

When one enters into a friend-zone situation, he/she finds himself/herself stuck in a barter which is neither fair nor equal. It will often lead to a partner getting whatever he/she wants, while the friend-zoned person finds his/ her emotional needs not being addressed. In other words, he/ she is often seen cutting himself/ herself short.

Akhil Deshmukh (25), still remembers his first heartbreak. He met the ‘perfect’ girl (as he likes to call her) during his first year of graduation. “We were both new to college and noted down each other’s numbers just as any ‘new’ friends would do, but with time, what started off as phone calls to exchange notes, turned out to be long conversations about varied topics. Those endless conversations brought us really close,” he explains.

However, while Akhil knew the girl had become more than a friend to him, she just saw him as a very good friend, who she did not want to lose. “I tried being vocal about my feelings, but she would intervene and end the conversation by saying she did not want to ruin

PIC FOR REPRESENTATIONAL PURPOSE ONLY. IANS

TGS NEWS SERVICE @ishani_bose

As mutually satisfying emotional and social exchanges form the basis of all good and peaceful relationships, being friend-zoned and having one -sided feelings for someone is no less than a heart break

what we had. However, it wasn’t fair to me. I couldn’t be her friend as my feelings would always get in the way. Alas, I put an end to it.

It was difficult but I had to do it,” he says.

American social psychologist, Elaine Hatfield, who along with her associates, had developed a theory called as ‘The Matching Hypothesis’, in 1966, stated that for individuals to end up in a mutually satisfying relationship, it is necessary for them to match

each other on a number of levels.

She further stated that individuals, who end up romantically linked with one another, tend to be equal or at least approximately equal in some of their most desirable characteristics.

Twenty six-year-old Karishma Sharma (name changed) couldn’t agree more. She was madly in love for the longest time with her childhood friend. “We both were very different from each other.

While I was quiet, reserved and

simple, he was loud, crazy and always the heart of the party.

We could never have been happy together but I remember being obsessed with him for a long time.

Eventually, he started dating someone else, and I had to move on. Needless to say, we drifted apart,” she says.

Shashank Joshi, meanwhilehand, is quite frank in telling how his best friend and he decided to mutually friendzone each other. “We know each

other for almost seven-eight years now. We share a very special bond and everyone in our group teases us saying we’ll end up together someday. Once, in a vulnerable situation, we did confess our feelings for one another but then realised that our friendship was far more important to us than anything else in the world and decided to bury that moment for good and never bring it up,” he says.

Ishani.bose@goldensparrow.com

Lots of homework for your child?

Don’t complain, parents

Sometimes when you are caring for your elderly parents, it gets very frustrating when there are high demands on your time on the home front and the work front. There is your own family and children to take care of and there are elderly parents and their priorities. Balancing all of this becomes difficult. Further, the elderly can be very fastidious and stubborn in their demands, complicating the situation. Often like small children, they don’t have patience and want their demands to be met promptly and immediately.

There is a lot of love and respect for them but the

frustration builds up. What is the way out?

- Loving son, Pune The very fact that you are an active carer for your aged parents indicates you have both compassion and gratitude. Are you caring for them alone or can you garner the support of other family members? Can all family members share the responsibility? Yes, the elderly can be ‘difficult’ at times but have they not put up with you when you were ‘difficult,’ if not unmanageable? Are you sure you will not become ‘difficult’ to your children when you grow old? I’m not saying it is easy. Frustration can build up. Do you remember Aesop’s fable about the father, the son and the donkey? You can’t please everybody. As long as you are sure you are doing your duty, can you live with their discontent? Can you explain your intentions and limitations to them? Is your sense of duty clouded by your desire for appreciation?

Remember that you can lead a horse to water,you cannot make it drink. Carry on doing your duty to your elders. To be happy or not with what you do is their choice.

(The writer is a multi-faceted personality who believes in responding with compassion and hope to the difficult situations in life.)

BY ANJALI SHETTY @shetty_anjali Living is an art, a skill, a technique. You need to learn and practice it as you would a game or musical instrument says Swami Parathasarathy, a philosopher, who renounced a lucrative shipping business early in life and dedicated his life to study, research and propagation of Vedanta.

Speaking on ‘Harmony in Marriage’ in the city on July 15, Swamiji spoke of the various factors that cause problems in relationships and then provided simple and logical solutions.

“A building stands on the basic principle of mathematics. If there is no mathematics there will be no building. But a mathematician cannot build a building. Mathematics applied is engineering and that is the knowledge behind a building. This is the truth behind the building. Similarly, great truths of life have been laid down by great men. Origin of this knowledge is the absolute Vedanta given by great saints,” said Swami.

The question he is often asked is, ‘Can marriage bring harmony? To which he answeres, “When two people come together how does one maintain harmony? It is like asking can a knife bring about usefulness in a family. It could be used in the kitchen but also to stab each other. By itself it has no meaning.

It depends on how it is made use of. By itself it is neither useful nor destructive.”

So how does one use partnership then?

“The most important thing to remember is that it is not about who you marry or who you meet.

What really matters is how you meet. Therefore in relationships what you have to understand is that no minds can meet. And you and your partner are two minds. They cannot go parallel all the time. If you understand the above, then there will be no problems for you,” says Swami.

He believes that in India, relationships are better off as they are based on duties and

VIKRANT DATE

ANIRUDDHA RAJANDEKAR

When someone is ailing or chronically ill in the family, the caregiver, who is on call 24x7 feels a lot of physical and mental stress.

Things get complicated if the caregiver- a son/ daughter/husband/wife- is suffering from some common ailment such as diabetes. It is simple to understand that you have to take care of your health first, but not always practical; often, caregivers tend to miss their meals while waiting for the doctors or medical attention. What would you advise?

- Worried caregiver, Pune I agree that caring for an ailing family member can upset family life and put a strain on caregivers. I also agree that waiting for medical

attention is quite common and can disturb meal schedules. If the caregiver is a diabetic, he/she can even become a care seeker in the process.

Can such persons carry biscuits, sandwiches or light snacks with them that they can munch anywhere and prevent hypoglycaemia? Also, can such caregivers get together to form a support group? For example, the Schizophrenia Awareness Association of Pune runs a self help support group for care givers of persons with mental illness. These caregivers meet regularly, share their experiences and support one another.

There is strength in numbers!

Guys, it’s not like the one who broke your heart, doesn’t have a heart. It’s not like she never wanted to reciprocate the feelings of love. She may be having her own concerns, her own reasons. She may be in a dilemma. There are always two ways to perceive the happenings around. Go for the positive one.

A girl who may be worried about parental disapproval or societal disapproval isn’t portraying cowardice - not at all. Her concerns are always justified some way or the other. Let us not, for now, discuss where our society is lacking.

A young woman’s concerns are weighed by many factors; her love for her family which took care of all her needs since childhood, is very deep. She is going to leave this family after marriage and therefore, a lot of thought goes behind deciding on a life-partner. You may call her ‘ultra-conservative’; there may be a caste issue and parental opposition involved, as is common in our society. In the Indian situation, it’s very difficult for a young woman to go against her family for the sake of someone whom she has known just for a year or two. It is possible that she may be in love with someone else, something that one should accept gracefully.

It is better to weigh these factors and be realistic before one decides to express love and decide on marriage. If there is disappointment, the heartbreak can be severe. Young men also need to accept that when it comes to deciding on a lifepartner, girls have a better decision-making ability than boys. Every action of hers is well-thought out.

Thus, do not be harsh on a young woman just because your love for her was not accepted. Understand that she never rejected you or your love; she has simply rejected herself falling in love with you for reasons beyond her control. You too need to respect your family.

Come on guys, we all have a love story of our own and it’s just that some of us are successful and some are not.

Failure in love doesn’t mean that you have failed in life.

Well-known spiritual guide Swami Parthasarathy says that if one wants to live in harmony in any relationship, one has to lead a life based on the spirit of service and sacrifice

Is a problem bothering you and you are unable to decide what to do? Write in to us at wayforward@goldensparrow.com for advice from C Ravindranath

Strangely, a school teacher I spoke to told me that parents of LKG had complained that children were not given enough homework! If we agree that both schools and parents want children to be smart and bright, learning cannot be confined only t o the classroom. The ‘quantum’ of homework has been debated for aeons without an equitable solution. Are you upset over the amount of homework because you find it difficult to cope with? Do other parents feel the same way? If so, could you discuss this in the next PTA meeting?

‘Too much’ or ‘too less’ is only a matter of perspective. Could you put in a little extra effort, sacrifice a bit of TV time and pay more attention to your kids? No pain, no gain!

Do not be too harsh on the person who breaks your heart. There may be other reasons for this which you need to understand, says Karan

A successful marriage is based on love and service

The Way Forward

Nowadays, many schools dump a lot of homework on children even in early primary school. Schools want their students to be smart and toppers in later years and not remain average. But parents, especially working mothers feel the pressure and also get angry at the amount of homework that the child is burdened with. Parents also want their children to do well in studies and yet feel that a lot is being expected from the child in terms of homework.

Is something wrong somewhere?

- A Concerned Parent, Pune

For all those who have failed in love...

Swami Parathasarathy

not rights as compared to the West. The moment you claim rights in a relationship you are being selfish. There should be no thought of expectations from a relationship. “Any relationship that rests on rights perishes and that rests on duties flourishes,” says he.

Attachment is often passed off as love in our society. But when love is polluted by selfishness it is attachment.

“Attachment without selfishness is equal to love. It is pure. If you are attached to your spouse/children/family then they will reject that part of you. Attachment repels, love attracts. This entire world is built on attachment. The sooner you realise the better.

To have a disease is terrible but having a disease and not knowing about it is fatal.

Khalil Gibran said, ‘Marriage is like a temple built on two pillars, if the pillars get too close the temple will collapse!’”

Swami says if you expect things differently from what they are then problems will surely arise. Therefore, one needs to analyse and assess their relationships and come to terms with the behaviour of their partner. Once you have understood this, life will be smooth and simple. anjali.shetty@goldensparrow.com

THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY JULY 19, 2014

PUNE

“In every crisis, if you look carefully, you will spot an opportunity. My insistence is on finding and seizing that opportunity.”

—Verghese Kurien

Signposts Workshop on cashew processing

Session on business growth TiE Pune, the forum for entrepreneurship development, has organised a one-day workshop on ‘Swayambhu Creating an Effective Organisational Structure for Business Growth - Introductory Workshop’ on July 19. It will be conducted by Atul Kherde, an accredited trainer who has been successful in motivating people to stretch beyond their limitations to work in changed practices. For details, visit www.facebook.com/tiepune

A spot for women’s talent to shine

ShezElements, Pune’s first female artiste management and booking agency, has given voice to many performers since its launch three months back

BY ANJALI SHETTY @shetty_anjali Co-partners of Elements Inc, Neha Mistry and Varun Malkhani, who have a long standing association with Submerge, Sunburn and recently Storm Festival, believe that women in today’s industry are no longer an underling power. With this thought and previous experience of managing women artistes, they launched ShezElements to represent exclusive female artistes, national as well as international.

Neha shares, “We have been running Elements.inc (parent company) for over six years and have organised tours for a lot of talented international artistes. The demand for them is huge. We, gradually, realised there are a lot of talented female artistes in the country, who need a boost. That is when we decided to segregate and have a sister company called ShezElements, which is a female artiste management and booking agency.”

According to Neha and Varun, the market for female artistes is very big in India but not as big as the current EDM (Electronic, dance, music) market. “And this is the reason why we decided to promote ‘only female’ artistes in India,” adds Neha.

Talking about their interest in music, Neha says, “We have been musically involved for years. Our parent company Elements.inc has

ANIRUDDHA RAJANDEKAR

The Mahratta Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Agriculture (MCCIA) will be organising a seminar on ‘Business Opportunities in Cashew Processing’ at Navalmal Firodia Conference Hall, 5th floor, MCCIA Trade Tower, SB Road between 4 pm and 6 pm on July 22. The seminar will be conducted by Maharashtra Kaju Vikas Sanshodhan Sangh (Maha-Cashew) president Dr PB Kolekar.

The event is beneficial for progressive farmers, growers and members of growers’ associations and those who are interested in starting a cashew processing unit.

“I think the soul of an entrepreneur is to keep trying until you find the successful idea.”

—Sabeer Bhatia

The dedicated duo It all started in January 2008, when Neha and Varun were officially hired by GAIA (Pune) as nightclub promoters. This is when they launched themselves under the banner of Elements.

Inc. Even at such a nascent stage, they managed to book powerhouses like Gordon Edge, Tristan Garner, Pete Gooding , Alex Miles, Ma Faiza and John OO Fleming, Perfect Stranger, Klement from Bulgaria, Tatva Kundalini, Bandish Projekt, Norman Doray, Jez Pereira, Robert Babicz among others to play at the club.

Neha Mistry and Varun Malkhani, through their sister company ShezElements, are promoting female artistes

been promoting music and artistes for over six years. With our sister company, ShezElements, there are a lot of musically talented national and international figures who have exclusively signed our roster. In such a big and growing industry, not everyone recognises female talent and which

is why we have taken up the task of promoting them.”

Famous women artistes promoted by them are DJ Pearl (Nikhil Chinappa’s wife) and DJ Priyanjana.

They are also promoting a newcomer in the industry, DJ Kalee for a while now.

Want to start an enterprise? What next?

TGS NEWS SERVICE @TGSWeekly TiE Pune, has organised an interactive breakfast session on ‘What to do after deciding to become an entrepreneur based on a great business idea’, on July 23, between 8.30 am and 10.30 am Th is workshop will help participants find answers to questions such as: When do you raise money?

Who do you raise it from? Who are your co-founders or team members? Why are they critical? Have you validated the value proposition of your product/solution? Why is it important this early in the life cycle

of a start-up? At what stage do you go out with your product and get customers? Who should these customers be?

What is your business model for selling? Is it free? Is it freemium?

Is it transaction based? Is it userbased? Why these decisions need to be thought through? Do you need s ales people? If yes, what is the sales model? When do you bring on sales people? When do you hire your VP of sales?

The discussion will be led by Sanjay Shirole, Lead, Global Alliances, SAP Start-up Focus Programme. Shirole is a CEO with a proven track record of

founding and leading technology startups and transforming them into highly profitable and valuable companies.

His specialities include CEO/ entrepreneur, board member/advisor for high technology companies, broad expertise in technology and globalisation. Deep understanding of SaaS business models, mobile cloud computing and location based services (LBS).

Lead Global Alliances, SAP has evangelised the SAP Start-up Focus programme to the start-up ecosystem of VCs, accelerators, incubators, universities, government organisations and event organisers around the world.

The SAP Start-up Focus programme provides technology, resources and community at no cost to start-ups with big data needs enabling them to accelerate development, market traction and fund raising.

He is a Board Adviser, Care at Hand, 955 Dreams and Founder President & CEO of Xora Inc (19992011) and WebApps Inc (1996-1999) Participants may visit https:// www.facebook.com/tiepune for more details and register for this programme at: https://in.explara.com/e/ tiepune23rdjuly editor_tgs@goldensparrow.com

India must make heroes out of entrepreneurs

BY RITU GOYAL HARISH @ritugh A few years ago, India’s much loved and respected president Dr APJ Abdul Kalam exhorted fellow Indians to make India a country of entrepreneurs not employees. His view was that the only way India can progress is when its citizens participate in nation building by creating ventures, impacting lives and reaching out to their dreams.

Yet as a nation of 1.2 billion, the entrepreneurial dream evades many for varied reasons. Anyone who has ever harboured aspirations to become an entrepreneur has had to face obstacles every step of the way. From cultural restrictions to parental and peer pressure, ignorance of the world of “Going it Solo” and lack of any handson experience or education, the road to fulfi lling the entrepreneurial dream is fraught with challenges.

“The only way we can make our nation wake up to the potential of entrepreneurship as a tool of personal as well as growth of the nation is to legendise entrepreneurs” says Nandini Vaidyanathan, founder-mentor CARMa Connect, a Bengaluru-based company that mentors entrepreneurs.

“We are a story-telling culture.

We need to legendise entrepreneurs the way we legendise heroes. A young entrepreneur who gets his fi rst paycheck, his fi rst customer, his fi rst hundredth customer, his fi rst hire, his fi rst product, every single thing needs to be legendised,” she says.

Nandini who has mentored over 800 people in the past eight years (and

Who is a mentor?

“A mentor is somebody who brings his experience, his knowledge and his network to the table. He has the ability to handle the aspirant through every step of the way - from a thought in his head, to going to market. The biggest challenge thing is that the mentor will hold their hand every step of the way.” Most of all Nandini says, “A mentor is your best risk mitigation strategy.”

Nandini Vaidyanathan has mentored over 800 people who are interested in starting a business in the past eight years

calls it a ridiculously low number), also discusses the reasons why ‘entrepreneurship’ is not embraced by middle class Indians.

“In India, the middle and the lower middle class have realised that no Samaritan is going to pull them out of poverty. The only thing that will help is education. Parents push the children through a professional

programme with the dream that on the day of reckoning with a certificate in their hand, their children will free them from the bondage of poverty, low aspiration and a mediocre life” she says.

“Now if this child were to say (after an engineering or a MBA programme) I am going to become an entrepreneur, the natural reaction of parents is one

of shock because they have been told that working in a corporate job is exceedingly comfortable. The salaries are fancy and there is a certain lifestyle associated with all of it, which includes frequent foreign travel,” she elaborates.

“The way they see it is that it’s a struggle being an entrepreneur, you don’t make money at the end of it…and why would you want to waste all your education? Our convoluted cultural logic makes people believe that entrepreneurship is not for educated people” she says.

What doesn’t help matters is also the misconception people have between businesses and entrepreneurial ventures. Nandini believes that there is a clear distinction between the two.

“Entrepreneurship is about ideation, it is about being Prometheus (who stole fi re from the fi re gods), the pioneer, its about the tremendous urge to leave a footprint, the passion to create something different. Business on the other hand, is – I want to work for myself. It is a livelihood alternative to being employed by somebody.”

What makes matters worse is that the professional academic environment in India does not encourage entrepreneurship. On the contrary, Nandini says they are hostile to it.

“Engineering and MBA colleges are mandated for placements not to build entrepreneurial talent.”

By legendising entrepreneurs and hailing their small or big successes we send a strong message of hope to those who harbour such dreams. ritugoyalharish@gmail.com

Their terms for promoting artistes, includes exclusivity and specifications.

The artistes cannot be clubbed or promoted by anybody else during that term and has to give in all his/her specifications to the company.

The price range for promotion packages starts from Rs 30,000 and

goes up to Rs 80,000.

Pune, being tagged as the student capital of India, has a lot of youth who are inclined towards music. “The demand for female artistes is observing an upward trend in the city, with lots of clubs arranging ‘Ladies Nights’ as a part of their theme party,” says Varun.

When compared to metros like Mumbai, Bangalore or Delhi, Pune, a Tier-II city is still lagging behind.

“But there is always a scope for the city to emerge as a music hub, which will happen gradually,” says Neha. anjali.shetty@goldensparrow.com

Start-up Mentor

It is important to identify competition in your biz This feature is a collaboration between The Golden Sparrow on Saturday and The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), the world’s largest non-profit network of entrepreneurs. For additional questions about your entrepreneurial challenges, write to mentoring@pune.tie.org I am founding a software product company and planning to develop and market a payroll product. What should I be considering while I go about this exercise?

– Vinod Verma Let me propose a possible approach step by step that will help you with this planning process. Each one of the steps is a detailed exercise and probably warrants a post on Vishwas Mahajan its own. However, we will try and be brief.

• Identifying the problem you are trying to solve or unmet need you are trying to meet • Identifying the customer and segment the customer • Identifying the TAM and SAM (Total Available and Segmented Addressable Market) • Identifying the competition / its products One of the first things that you want to understand while developing a product is the customer who will purchase your product / service.

• Identifying the problem you are trying to solve or unmet need you are trying to meet would be the first step.

However, as you have already decided on what product you want to develop, I suppose that you have done this exercise thoroughly. If you haven’t ask yourself these questions.

• Identifying the customer and segment the customer: Having decided on the product, your next step is to identify the customer for your product. There are primarily two types of products based on the customer profi le. B2B (Business to Business) and B2C (Business to Consumer). As your product payroll software is going to be used by business to calculate the compensation to its employees, it will fall in B2B category. In other words, you will sell to businesses as against end consumers.

• B2B Markets have certain characteristics and these include complex decision-making process, ‘rational’ or ‘non-impulsive’ buyers, target audiences that are smaller than consumer target markets, long-term buyers and fewer behavioural and needs-based segments. So to some extent it’s easier to do segmentation.

• Customer Segment or Market Segment is a subset of broad market that has common and differentiated needs and those that behave in a similar manner when making a purchase decision. In your case, you may segment the customer by industry your product will serve (manufacturing or hospitality or something) or delivery technology (SaaS or Software as a Service or on premise installation) or geography (domestic or international). As you can see the segment that you choose to operate in will drive crucial decisions on the product itself, its features, among other things.

• TAM and SAM (Total Available Market and Segmented Addressable Market) is to do with putting numbers to the buyers in market segment that you wish to address.

The multiplication of average price of your product with the TAM will give you the revenue number that your segment can generate.

• Another important thing is identifying competition, its features, its pricing, service levels, etc., and finding out what you are going to do differently from the competitors that exist, Prima facie, the market for your type of product seems to be crowded.

Just google ‘payroll software’ and you will see the results. This means that there is an even greater need for you to assess the competition and see if you can create differentiation.

We will dive a bit deeper into some of these important aspects in future columns.

Vishwas Mahajan, president of TiE Pune Chapter answers real life questions of entrepreneurs

THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY JULY 19, 2014

City serving on a firm base P 15

PUNE

“The budget does not reflect the aspiration of the common man. Most of the announcements are ministry programmes, which the finance minister is announcing and encroaching upon their domain.”

- Congress leader Veerappa Moily

The `16,924 poll ‘scam’: Will Cong In Delhi, BJP’s best lose Ashok Chavan, Maharashtra? bet is a minority govt, not Cong defections

BY FP POLITICS Failing to include an advertisement that cost `16,924 as part of his election expenditure report to the Election Commission could cost former Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chavan dearly, coming just when it appeared that he’d emerged from the shadow of the Adarsh scam and could play a major role in the Congress campaign for the Maharashtra Assembly election later this year.

The case pertains to Chavan’s successful 2009 campaign from the Bhokar Assembly seat in Nanded, which he contested as sitting chief minister and won by a huge margin. Former minister and losing independent candidate in that election Dr Madhav Kinhalkar registered a complaint with the EC alleging use of ‘paid news reports’. Chavan moved the Bombay High Court and then the Supreme Court against Kinhalkar’s demand for a probe by the EC. Acting on the SC’s orders, the EC has now said Chavan had failed to lodge his poll expenditure in the manner prescribed by the law. He could be disqualified unless he offers “a good reason” for the lapse in accurately reporting his election spending, the EC order says. Chavan will have to respond to the show cause notice in 20 days.

While the case pertains to the Bhokar Assembly seat from which Chavan has resigned following his election as Member of Parliament from Nanded in May this year, but the disqualification will also apply to Lok Sabha, as well.

For his own part, Chavan claims that the notice from the EC is not about paid news but only about a newspaper advertisement whose cost was not duly included in expenditure records dispatched by all candidates to the EC. The tenor of the EC order signals

Instead of buying MLAs from the open market, BJP should rule the Capital as a minority with 29 members

BY R JAGANNATHAN

What’s making everybody in the state Congress nervous is whether the party will risk fielding Ashok Chavan (2nd from left) as one of the major campaigners for the Assembly election in the eventuality that he is disqualified - IANS

that the commission means business, but there is nothing yet to suggest that Chavan’s disqualification is certain. But the threat is real, and if the former chief minister is indeed disqualified, it would be nothing short of a critical body blow to the Congress party.

During his campaign for LS election, it was amply clear that in Marathwada, the region Chavan dominates, and in most other parts of Maharashtra (barring Mumbai and Pune), the Adarsh imbroglio is simply a non-issue for voters. Chavan’s win was always assured.

State Congress leaders have chosen to play it safe, for now, saying it’s still not necessary that Chavan will be disqualified. But what’s making everybody in the state Congress nervous is whether the party will risk fielding Chavan as one of the major campaigners for the Assembly election in the eventuality that he is disqualified.

It’s a Catch 22 situation for the state Congress. The Bharatiya Janata Party will have yet another stick with which to to beat the Congress.

Even deal-making with the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) will be a huge challenge with NCP supremo Sharad Pawar having reportedly made a pitch for a change in the state Congress leadership during a meeting with senior Congress leader AK Antony and Sonia Gandhi’s political secretary Ahmed Patel.

The chief minister is no mass leader, he is not even a powerful orator. A technocrat-administrator, his skills in electoral politics are probably better suited to backroom activity, numbercrunching, strategising, and planning.

So it’s his predecessor Ashok Chavan who is likely to be the Congress party’s star campaigner in what will be the first Assembly election in Maharashtra since the demise of former chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh. With Narayan

Puneri Germans and their moment of joy Contd from p 1 Florian Wedler who works in the automotive industry felt that although he celebrated it here with his friends, he wished he could shout and announce it to the world about his winnings.

Wedler also plays football but feels that Pune lacks grounds for playing football. We all gathered at a private place to enjoy and watch the finals but I really miss the whole excitement of being in Germany. We saw it on TV but if I was back home, I would have

been on the streets, shouting and enjoying waving flags and basically enjoying with beers and lights all around us. It is difficult to explain the magnitude of the celebrations. It is a very unique moment, something special and you cannot repeat it. I am soon on a break and eagerly waiting to visit my fatherland.”

Project Manager with an automobile company, Glenda Bouzek is very happy and over the moon with her country’s win but was disappointed and left with a bad taste at the way she and her friends

were treated during the finals.

She had bought a package of food and drinks unlimited for the finals at a restaurant in Koregaon Park but was disappointed when the staff did not let her celebrate with beer and German Sausages. ”We were denied to even make a toast minutes before the win,” she said, saying she is eagerly awaiting her visit to Germany to watch the winners in action in the Bundes League which is very important for any German.

Why Modi’s body language was wrong

BY KHYATI BHATT It was somewhat disconcerting to watch Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s lacklustre performance in the first speech he gave to an international audience during the recent BRICS summit. While one can understand his nervousness on the occasion, but his apparent discomfort and lack of preparedness in making a speech in English showed that he was not the confident politician we saw during the election campaign. It was not the content of this speech, but his non-verbal behaviours that amounted to give his audience an exit ticket. Here are some of the more glaring ones.

Lack of eye contact: It is a must for any speaker to look into the audience’s eyes to connect with them. A good speaker normally looks around the seated audience, halting every few seconds to make eye contact with any one specific person, and then again moves his eyes around. Modi was so busy reading from his written speech that he barely glanced

up for a few milliseconds, spending no time on eye contact whatsoever. This behaviour can get irritating and disengaging for the audience.

Shifting feet: Throughout his speech, Modi shifted from one foot to the other, swinging like a pendulum, making it difficult to watch him with a steady gaze. This behaviour suggests his nervousness and perhaps a desire to be elsewhere.

Self touching gestures: Any self touching gestures, like clutching your arms, or touching your face, signify nervousness and apprehension. As Desmond Morris puts it in People Watching, “Self -intimacies are movements that provide comfort because they are unconsciously mimed acts of being touched by someone else.” They are a pseudo replacement for the need to be comforted. In some pictures, Modi can be seen massaging the fingers of one hand with the other, barely one minute into the speech.

Clutching the podium: Clutching the two ends of the podium is an easy way to release tension. But this locks the hands which can otherwise be used to highlight the points that one makes.

Anyone who has watched Modi in other speeches back home would know that he is a master at using his hands for effective emphasis and illustration. The larger the audience, the more emphatic would be his hand movements to ensure that the people sitting on the last seats don’t miss his energy. One is only left guessing as to what happened to those hand movements during this particular speech in Brasilia.

Lack of correct expressions: If you turn off the volume, you cannot make out whether Modi is reading out a grocery list or proposing solutions that can take the BRICS nations forward to build a better tomorrow.

(The author is a body language consultant.)

Copyright: Firstpost.com

Rane sulking, Ashok Chavan will be the sole Congress leader who can campaign across the state with confidence.

The only other major state leader for the Congress, and with a large OBC mass base of his own, is Sushilkumar Shinde. But the former Union minister not only lost the general election by a large margin, he also failed to post a lead in the Solapur Assembly segment represented in the legislature by his daughter Praniti.

At the same time, Pawar on Sunday reiterated a comment he made a few weeks back, that the Congress top brass in Delhi is keen for him to take the reins of the Congress in Maharashtra. A longer political exile for Ashok Chavan will be a welcome windfall for the junior alliance partner. Fighting with their backs to the wall already, bad news for Chavan will doubtless be worse news for the Congress.

(By special arrangement with Firstpost.com)

The buzz is that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would prefer to form a government in Delhi — even if short-lived — with MLAs purchased from the open market, most probably some Congress blacklegs. Some CM candidates are also being talked about, including Jagdish Mukhi.

Arvind Kejriwal of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is already shouting about alleged efforts to buy MLAs; Congress party’s leaders have denied their MLAs are going to defect.

The BJP’s current strength in the suspended Delhi assembly is 28 – the same as AAP. The Congress has eight, with the Shiromani Akali Dal, Janata Dal (United) and independents having one each.

One wonders why the BJP, which declined to form a government in December when it had 31 members in the assembly, should want to form one now when it has just 28 MLAs in a 70-member assembly. With hindsight one can say that this decision was sound, for Arvind Kejriwal then formed the government, made huge mistakes and lost his moral lustre.

But this time the BJP can’t count on luck alone. Of course, with three BJP MLAs resigning after getting elected to the Lok Sabha (Harsh Vardhan, Ramesh Bidhuri and Pervesh Verma), the effective strength of the assembly is

67, which brings the halfway mark down to 34. But that is still five short for the BJP, which will have the clear support of just 29 MLAs now (28 of its own plus one Akali Dal).

So what are the BJP’s real options?

Prime minister Narendra Modi’s best bet, assuming he does not want to chance an election right now, would be to ask his party to form a minority government with 29 MLAs (it could be 30 or 31 if the JD(U) and independents can be persuaded to join in) and hope the Congress will not try to pull it down immediately.

There are two reasons to expect this: the Congress can’t be very eager to face another election right now. If this happens, the BJP can hope to rule for a few months and focus on populist decisions. It can then choose when to seek another election at a time of its choosing.

Of course, the Congress may feel compelled to vote against the BJP by using the usual “communal” argument. This, too, cannot be bad for the BJP. It can then claim that the Congress and AAP are in it together. The collusion is evidence that they have a secret understanding between themselves. The BJP can go to an election with this rhetoric.

The BJP may be best served by forming a minority government without overtly trying to break any of the other parties. But either way, it cannot avoid an election either this year or the next.

Copyright: Firstpost.com

BJP cannot avoid an election either this year or the next

HIV drugs: Through patent pools, new innovative production to begin

BY G PRAMOD KUMAR The creative and innovative ways of reproduction of HIV medicines in countries such as India, Brazil and Thailand had spawned new possibilities for expanding people’s access to lifesaving medicines in the developing world. They saved millions of lives while crashing prices and increasing availability.

Still, some drugs are difficult to copy, because of their complexity, even though countries such as India and Thailand are bold on breaking patents and allowing local companies to manufacture generic copies. The way HIV-drugs paved the way for improving access to treatment is a global best practice, a success story that had no parallel before. The prices of HIV medicines has crashed by 99 per cent since 2000. The average cost of treatment, which was about $ 10,000 by the turn of millennium is about US $ 70 in countries such as India.

The next generation of accessibility and affordability seems to be through a patent pool, in which a third party negotiates with the MNC drug companies and creates a pool that is then shared with manufacturers from developing countries. And HIV-drugs seem to be the leader here too. The Hindu reported on Friday that the “United Nations-backed Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) has announced sub-licensing agreements with seven pharmaceutical companies for the manufacture of two anti-AIDS drugs.”

The report said that Indian

pharmaceutical companies such as Cipla, Aurobindo Pharma, Micro Labs, Emcure and Mylan’s Indian subsidiary are part of the group of companies which will make generic HIV medicines, atazanavir (ATV) and dolutegravir (DTG), two new generation drugs. The agreement will increase the availability of the drugs faster and sooner. It will also increase competition and will be a big boost to national treatment programmes. Governments would be able to include them in their list of available medicines.

Compared to the past, when the original manufacturers of the HIV drugs - the MNC drug companies - fought with national governments and local manufacturers against generic production, the new arrangement is through a mutual agreement. The Big Pharma agrees to share its patent through the MPP, which in turn licenses the manufacturers in the developing countries. The closest to this development has been the regime of voluntary licensing when the original manufacturer licenses one or a select number of companies to make the drug for a royalty. The problem with this is that the patent is unquestioned and the prices are higher than the generic versions.

Most importantly, under voluntary licensing, the beneficiary never gets, or

is under no compulsion to master, the technology to manufacture.

The MPP was formed in 2010 at the request of the international community through an innovative financing mechanism called UNITAID to improve access to HIV medicines.

The MPP called sharing of patents a “win-win solution” because it helps original manufacturers to share their products in poor countries and still make money. Supporters of the generic production and enforcing TRIPS flexibilities (such as breaking patents through compulsory licensing) might argue that it’s favourable to the Big Pharma or an indirect way of making profits in resource-poor settings without the threat of generic production.

Subsequently, agreements are signed and sub-licenses are issued to local manufacturers. Once they start production, in close consultation with the MPP which helps with product development, regulatory approval and technology transfer, the prices are expected to fall further because of competition. Patent holders get a royalty, while people living with HIV get access to the latest drugs while local companies also make a profit.

Copyright: Firstpost.com

THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY JULY 19, 2014

PUNE

“Our study draws a line under the debate: B vitamins do not reduce cognitive decline as we age.

Taking folic acid and vitamin B-12 is sadly not going to prevent Alzheimer’s disease,” said Oxford University professor Robert Clarke

Redefining the art of useful recycling P 13

A country on the verge of a nervous breakdown

Britain’s sense of nationhood is being diluted, many Britons say, and the country’s prime minister believes it’s time for a restoration of “British values” , even if no one can define what they are STEVEN ERLANGER LONDON - The United Kingdom is lying on the psychiatrist’s couch.

Suddenly the country seems uncertain of its identity, its place in the world, its relationships with its closest family members and its neighbors.

It is a bizarre moment in the history of an ancient realm, insufficiently grasped by its allies, especially across the ocean. Britain is having a kind of nervous breakdown, and its friends aren’t sure whether to say something or just look away.

Many Britons ask: Does Scotland still love us? Will it stay or vote for divorce? Even if we don’t love the European Union, do we really want to leave? And if we leave, will America still think we have a “special relationship”, or is it more committed to others, like Beijing and Berlin?

Britons wonder if they can still afford to sit at the high table of international powers. Even if they keep their expensive nuclear deterrent, do they really want an army smaller than it has been since Waterloo? Military intervention alongside the Americans after Tony Blair, Iraq and Afghanistan, is well, all a bit difficult now, so much so that the Conservative prime minister, David Cameron, can lose a parliamentary vote on a key issue - bombing Syria - and not feel he has to resign.

Queen Elizabeth II is a wonderful old trouper, in her fuchsia suits and matching hats, tromping along her dutiful path in sensible court shoes. But King Charles III? Divorced, impatient, meddling some suggest skipping a generation and going right to that nice, young William,

with his pretty wife and perfect baby.

Then there’s the odd coalition government, the first in decades, and party leaders who all lack a certain gravitas. Plus all the heated agonising about those Eastern European immigrants, let alone Muslims; Cameron was criticised for insisting that Britain remains a Christian country. The BBC is marred by scandal, and even the famous British tabloids, the “red tops,” have to be careful these days, after the phone hacking trials.

And let’s not get started on England’s humiliation in the World Cup. Along with institutions like the Church of England, the sense of nationhood is being diluted, many Britons say. Time, Cameron has said, for a restoration of “British values,” even if no one can quite define what they are.

Just the other day, Cameron went on about Magna Carta, which turns 800 next year, and how he wanted to ensure that all students were taught its lessons of citizenship and parliamentary power.

Two years ago, Cameron couldn’t translate Magna Carta into English for David Letterman. (Great Charter, by the way.) But now he admonished that “we should not be squeamish about our achievements, or bashful about our Britishness”; he called “belief in freedom, tolerance of others, accepting personal and social responsibility, respecting and upholding the rule of law,” as “British as the Union Flag, football and fish and chips.”

Of course, those are essentially French and German values too, minus the flag and the fish and chips. The lukewarm attitudes of a growing immigrant population to national symbols and ideals, from the monarchy to the military and the troubled BBC, are also echoed on the left, as they have traditionally been.

A recent survey of social attitudes was particularly revealing about what it means to be British these days. In 2003, 86 per cent of respondents thought it was important to speak English to be

considered “truly British”; now, 95 per cent do. And while 69 per cent in 2003 thought it vital to have lived in Britain “most of your life,” now 77 per cent do.

“I don’t think we’ve had such a rocky ride in a very, very long time, since your lot parted company with us,” said Martin Woollacott, an editorial writer for The Guardian, referring to the United States.

The Scottish referendum in September, the general election next May and Cameron’s promise of a referendum on British membership in the European Union “will greatly affect our future,” he said. “They could break up the state or take the state out of the EU.” No matter what happens in Scotland, Woollacott said, “there will have to be a new start for British politics.”

It ’s a l l quite a

departure from the poorer, far less cosmopolitan Britain I encountered more than 30 years ago, when I first lived here as a journalist. Then, Margaret Thatcher was fresh off her military victory in the Falkland Islands; she was sometimes referred to as Boadicea, after the Celtic queen who fought the Romans, and sometimes as “the Leaderene,” and sometimes as Tina - as in, there is no alternative. A verb was created for her management style - she attacked, or “handbagged,” institutions and the members of her Cabinet, nearly all men, one of whom, John Nott, expressed his love for her.

More important, she had a plan.

She changed Britain from the inside, and not always to everyone’s liking, humbling militant unions and forcing the Labour Party into a necessary confrontation with modernity.

Internationally, too, she was admired, from the Reagan White House to the Kremlin. It was Thatcher who identified Mikhail S Gorbachev as a comer and invited him to London in December 1984, four months before he became Soviet general secretary.

Britain then “punched above its weight,” its counsel sought eagerly, if not always happily, by Reagan and his successor, George Bush, whom Thatcher admonished after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, that “this is no time to go wobbly.”

Britain today is far richer and more

sophisticated, with London having become an almost impossibly expensive global capital, a hot spot and sanctuary for money and power, culture and art.

Yet London can seem a country of its own, an empire sucking in workers and money, not just from the rest of the world, but from the rest of Britain, too, where life goes on in a more traditional, modest fashion, but where people are less happy with the sense of flux.

Simon Jenkins, a British political columnist and historian, thinks that even though the country is going through a puzzled period, it has become a more self-assured place than it was in the 1970s. “Then Britain was seriously in a mess,” he said, before Thatcher began to alter political life. Then the clichés were about “the British disease” and “the sick man of Europe,” and that’s gone, he said.

When I raised the diagnosis of national neurosis recently to a group of establishment Britons, there was something of a collective sigh.

David Howell, now Baron Howell of Guildford, a former Conservative Cabinet minister, was prompted to respond in “The World Today,” a magazine of the Royal Institute of International Affairs.

“A London-based American correspondent,” he wrote, referring to me, said that Britain these days appeared to be having an identity crisis. “Unfair?” he wrote. “Definitely. Irritating? Very.

Yet with a maddening tinge of truth.

Somehow, on a fast-shifting world stage, the British story does seem to have become more confused.” © 2014 New York Times News Service

Shadow of brutal ’79 Leprosy, still claiming victims war darkens Vietnam’s view of China relations NATALIE ANGIER

Memories of a ferocious conflict between Vietnam and China permeate the sour relations between the two countries now at odds over contested waters

LANG SON, Vietnam - She was 14 when Chinese artillery fire echoed across the hills around her home in northern Vietnam, and hundreds of thousands of Chinese soldiers swarmed across the border. She remembers sprinting with her parents through the peach trees, her waist-length hair flying, as they fled the invaders.

They ran straight into the enemy.

Her mother was shot and killed in front of her; minutes later, her father was wounded.

“I was horrified. I didn’t think I would survive. The bullets were flying all around. I could hear them and smell the gunfire,” said Ha Thi Hien, now 49, fluttering her hands so they grazed her head to show how close the bullets came on the first day of the short, brutal war.

The conflict between China and Vietnam in 1979 lasted less than a month. But the fighting was so ferocious that its legacy permeates the current sour relations between the two Communist countries now at odds over hotly contested waters in the South China Sea. Both sides declared victory then, though neither side prevailed, and both armies suffered horrendous losses.

If a war erupted over territorial rights and the recent positioning of a Chinese oil rig off the coast of Vietnam in the South China Sea, China, with its increasingly modernized navy, would likely win, military experts say. So in a situation some liken to that of Mexico astride the United States, Vietnam must exercise the art of living alongside a powerful

JUSTIN MOTT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

JANE PERLEZ

The gravestone of Hien’s mother, who was killed in the 1979 conflict with China. Hien’s father was wounded.

nation, a skill it has practiced over several thousand years of intermittent occupation and more than a dozen wars with China.

But with China, far richer, militarily stronger and more ambitious than at any time the two countries have faced each other in the modern era, how far to needle Beijing, when to pull back, and how to factor in the United States are becoming trickier.

During the current tensions, the anti-Chinese sentiments of the Vietnamese people seem to have run ahead of the country’s ruling Politburo.

“People in Vietnam want to be outside China’s grip,” said Pham Xuan Nguyen, chairman of the Hanoi Literature Association, who protested against the oil rig outside the Chinese Embassy in Hanoi. “But the Vietnamese people are wondering what is the strategy of the government, and wondering if the government is really against China or compromising.”

Part of the aloofness is the result of a US executive order that

prohibits the sale of US weapons to Vietnam, a vestige of the Vietnam War. But Washington is showing increasing interest in lifting the ban, and the expected new US ambassador to Vietnam, Ted Osius, who is awaiting confirmation from the Senate, said in testimony in June that easing the embargo should be considered.

For the moment, Vietnam buys weapons mainly from Russia, Israel and India. In a move intended to encourage Vietnam to accept more from Washington, Secretary of State John Kerry announced $18 million in nonlethal aid for Vietnam’s maritime security during a visit in December. China and Vietnam normalized relations in 1991. But skirmishes resurfaced two months ago with the arrival of the Chinese oil rig in waters claimed by both countries off Vietnam’s coast.

Hien, who now runs a guesthouse and welcomes Chinese clients, says she still lives with the memories of her teenage terror. © 2014 New York Times News Service

Throughout his adolescence, José Ramirez Jr, now a clinical social worker in Houston, Texas, had a shifting array of bewildering symptoms.

Sometimes, he was feverish; at other times, nauseated. He’d find swellings on his hands and his feet and open sores that wouldn’t heal.

He’d grow hypersensitive to touch, unable to bear even the slightest rustle of a bedsheet. Or his forearms would turn numb, a complication he gamely sought to exploit.

“I’d insert safety pins into my skin,” he said, “to try to impress girls.”

Dermatologists were baffled. Eczema?

Lupus? Varicose veins? Spiritualists spoke of demonic possession.

Finally, Ramirez’s sister, who worked at the local hospital, persuaded two doctors there to take on her brother’s medical mystery. They did every possible test. They sent biopsied tissue to federal researchers in Atlanta, Georgia.

“Within 24 hours, the director of the Texas Health Department came to see me,” Ramirez said. “He told me I had leprosy.”

It was 1968, Ramirez had just turned 20, and he would spend the next seven years at the National Leprosarium in Carville, Louisiana.

Today, Ramirez, 66, is considered cured of the disorder, and he has no visible signs of it no facial scarring or disfigurement, no loss of digits or clawing in of the hands and feet.

“I’m very fortunate,” he said, “that the experimental medications they gave me prevented a lot of that.”

Emotional scarring is another matter.

The “stigma, guilt and shame” that follow the disorder defy belief, Ramirez said, and public ignorance about it remains profound. That is why he has given talks around the world, with the essential message that everything you think you know about Hansen’s disease, about leprosy, is probably wrong.

That message resonates with researchers as well, who say that, for all the antiquity and notoriety of the disease, leprosy continues to surprise and confound them. The illness can now readily be cured through a sustained course of antibiotics, yet the basic nature of the microbial culprit - a waxy, rod-shaped character called Mycobacterium leprae - is still being sketched out. New research suggests that the leprosy parasite is a paradox encapsulated at once rugged and feeble, exacting and inept.

One research group recently proposed that leprosy may be the oldest infectious disease to go specifically for human beings, with origins dating back millions of years, certainly suggesting a pathogen of formidable persistence.

Yet scientists have also found that the

Jose Ramirez and his daughter Erika, at his home in Houston, June 10, 2014. Ramierz spent seven years in an adult leprosarium before being cured and now gives talks around the world to help eradicate a profound public ignorance about the condition which he says contributes to many survivors’ shame and guilt. (Michael Stravato/The New York Times)

leprosy bacillus is remarkably poor at migrating between human hosts. It dies quickly outside the body - a couple of hours on a lab slide, and that’s it - and about 95 per cent of people appear immune to it.

“I refer to it as a wimp of a pathogen,” said Richard Truman, the chief of the laboratory research branch at the National Hansen’s Disease Program, a federal program dedicated to the treatment and study of leprosy.

And a flabby one, too.

Whereas the genomes in most bacteria are streamlined sets of chemical instructions for spurring the fastest possible replication, recent studies have found that nearly half the DNA in M leprae consists of so-called pseudogenes, inert genetic sequences that once encoded proteins but are now useless.

Some researchers attribute the microbe’s decayed genome to its prolonged and virtually exclusive relationship with its human host.

“It’s reductive evolution,” said Erwin Schurr, a molecular geneticist at McGill University - a swapping of plasticity in favor of specialization and a degree of complacency.

Slow-growing though the bacteria may be, if left untreated, they will multiply into the many trillions, forming thick, scaly nodules on the face and extremities - “lepra” is the Greek word for scaly - and destroying the Schwann cells that sheathe and protect the nerves of the

peripheral nervous system. Today, Hansen’s is classified as a rare disease, yet it still strikes some 200,000 people a year, most of them in Brazil, India and other developing nations.

Schurr and other investigators have identified a handful of leprosy-susceptibility genes, variants of human genes that for stillmysterious reasons appear to enhance the likelihood that exposure to the pathogen will result in the disease.

The susceptibility genes also seem to play a role in other, relatively common immune syndromes like Crohn’s disease, a bowel inflammation.

Medical historians are overhauling leprosy tropes, questioning the assumption that people with leprosy have always and everywhere been shunned and reviled. Through new scrutiny of documents, art and skeletal remains from the medieval era, when fear of “the leper” was supposedly at its height, scholars are piecing together a more nuanced portrait of how the afflicted were viewed.

The microbe prefers the nine-banded armadillo over people. Truman advises people who spot a wild armadillo to steer clear, but please leave the hunting rifle behind.

“Armadillos are living in our environment, and they’re wonderful for taking out fire ants.”

Whose sting, after all, is truly medieval.

Ramirez says public ignorance about the ailment remains profound

© 2014 New York Times News Service

TH E EDIT PAGE

JULY 19, 2014

PUNE

Editor’s pick THE HINDU

“Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone else planted a tree long ago.”

- Warren Buffett

THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY

Bajaj grant promotes community spirit `450 lakh, which translates to `4.5 crore, is not a small amount. Th is is the amount of the grant that the citybased Bajaj Auto announced in favour of one of Pune’s most prestigious educational institutions, the College of Engineering, Pune (COEP).

The grant will be released in a phase-wise manner to the mechanical engineering department of the college from where two members of the Bajaj family Rajiv and Sanjiv Bajaj - the young leaders of the Bajaj Group today passed out with degree.

Announcing the grant, their father and Bajaj Auto chairman Rahul Bajaj said something that ought to strike a chord with each one of us. He spoke of the “principle of trusteeship” that is an intrinsic part of the Group’s DNA, as enunciated by the founder, Jamnalal Bajaj, that is “being carried forward with great dedication”.

Mahatma Gandhi also spoke of the principle of trusteeship which essentially means that the wealth that belongs to us, in fact, belongs to society and we are merely trustees who will ensure that it would be utilised for a productive purpose.

The grant for COEP will go towards its modernisation of the CoEP and will benefit the children of this city and this country, and bring about a lot of good.

Each one of us is wealthy in our own ways - none of us is without talent and it is our responsibility and the responsibility of our community leaders to ensure that this talent is used productively for the benefit of our less privileged human beings.

It was in this week that Warren Buffet, one of the world’s richest persons, pledged $2.8 billion to charity. Th is was also the week when the newly-established Caux Initiatives for Business, CIB (Pune chapter) convened a meeting at the Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Limited to bring students, professionals, business leaders, corporate trainers and teachers; people with different talents together to undertake socially-relevant initiatives in Pune. A report on that meeting has been carried on page 5. In our own small ways, what can we do to make life better in this city? How can we contribute? How can we come together and take up small and big initiatives for Pune? Th is is what is meant by the community spirit and all it requires is for like-minded people to come together and work for a cause. Write to us and let your voice be heard through this newspaper. There is enormous fulfi lment in life when we have the satisfaction of doing our bit for society.

There is enormous fulfilment in doing our bit for society

Call for Ved Pratap Vaidik’s arrest is silly There is clamour all around demanding that journalist and Yoga guru Baba Ramdev’s confidant Ved Pratap Vaidik be arrested for a recent meeting with the alleged 26/11 Mumbai terror attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed.

Vaidik’s primary identity is that of a Hindi journalist. He is dyed in saff ron, is open about his devotion to Hindutva and is very well connected, especially in top Hindutva circles.

Therefore, when political parties of various hues demand that he be arrested for meeting Saeed, one can understand that they are indulging in politics - making loud noise, rousing passions and doing everything possible to grab attention.

The demand for Vaidik’s arrest is irrational because the profession of journalism requires that we journalists meet one and all - saints, criminals and terrorists, the rich and the poor, the selfish and the selfless. It’s hardly worth mentioning that the world’s most wanted terrorists and criminals like Osama bin Laden and Dawood Ibrahim have been interviewed by reputed and highly respected journalists.

Vaidik cannot be denied his journalistic credentials and therefore there is no ques-

tion of having him arrested. If there is evidence to show that he was assisted by the government or a government functionary in his meeting with Said, then certainly, it calls for investigations and appropriate action, as required.

Having said all this, it is indeed disgraceful that even “the nation wants to know” journalist Arnab Goswami should join the “arrest Vaidik” bandwagon.

Following his demand for Vaidik’s arrest, a newspaper sought to analyse his style of journalism and noted that “the senior television journalist often takes up a topic for outrage and masquerades as judge, jury and executioner himself, to pronounce a verdict on the issue. As the decibels soar, sanity is often the easiest casualty”.

Is this good journalism or “TRP journalism” where gullible viewers are hooked on to a channel/TV personality merely to increase viewership and consequently advertising revenue?

The fact of the matter is that a journalist needs to meet anyone and everyone to understand socio-political issues, trends and implications and hold a mirror to society through his or her writing. There is nothing wrong in a journalist’s meeting with a terrorist and this cannot constitute grounds for arrest.

Vol-1* lssue No.: 5 Printed and Published by: Shrikant Honnavarkar on behalf of Golden Sparrow Publishing Pvt. Ltd. Printed at Diligent Media Corporation Ltd, Plot No. EL-201, TTC Industrial Area, MIDC, Mahape, Navi Mumbai.

Published at Golden Sparrow Publishing Pvt. Ltd. 1641, Madhav Heritage, Tilak Road, Pune-411 030, Tel: 020-2432 4332/33.

Editor: Abhay Vaidya (Responsible for the selection of news under the PRB Act, 1867)

Surendra in The Hindu, July 10, 2014

Indian Muslims must decry radical ways

BY RAJAQUE RAHMAN

Spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar has urged the likes of Syed Imam Bukhari and Zakir Naik to go to Iraq and preach peace to ISIS. Sri Sri is not only prodding them to take the responsibility of mitigating the sufferings in Iraq but also underlining that their brand of Islam runs the risk of encouraging ISIS-type of fanaticism in India.

What’s happening in Iraq and Syria is not a conventional Shia-Sunni confl ict. It is a case of motivated groups of wrongly indoctrinated fighters going out of control and playing havoc.

They are killing Sunnis, Sufis, Shias and Christians. Their call for Caliphate is just a camouflage to spread Wahhabism in areas traditionally dominated by spiritually-oriented liberal Muslim sects.

Tragically, rogue groups patronized by the Wahhabis rule thousands of square miles in this area today. And that’s scary. Following an orthodox form of Islam that insists on a literal interpretation of the Quran, the Wahhabis believe that all those who don’t subscribe to their brand of Islam are to be hated, persecuted, even executed.

And from Algeria to Afghanistan to Iraq, they have done that religiously.

Osama bin Laden to Mullah Omar to now Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, all are propagators of this school of thought.

The root of hatred is systematically nurtured in the madrassas of Saudi Arabia and exported all over the globe. The

What’s happening in Iraq and Syria is not a conventional Shia-Sunni conflict. It is a case of motivated groups of wrongly indoctrinated fighters going out of control and playing havoc religious curriculum in Saudi Arabia teaches children as young as 13 that in Allah’s eyes, people are of just two types. Wahhabis, the blessed ones, and the rest. The rest include all non-Wahhabi Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus and others.

What Islam needs today is not a

movement towards orthodoxy, but a dynamic interpretation of its tenets. There can be no debate or compromise about its core creed. But its interpretation and application should change from time to time. When it’s frozen at a certain period, it becomes outdated and loses its charm and appeal. And that is the biggest tragedy of the ummah today. The deviant behaviors are so rampant to make radical groups believe that a revivalist agenda and strict policing are the only way.

This distorted rigidity is what has kept the Arab world backward and is also making Muslims in India vulnerable. The rising influence of the Tablighi Jamaat, effectively the flag bearers of Wahhabism in the Indian subcontinent, is a worrying factor.

A recent news item talked about an Intelligence Bureau report which says some 25,000 Wahhabi preachers visited India last year, addressing over 1.2 million people in events organized mostly

by Tablighi Jamaats. This is dangerous.

It is a known fact that groups like Indian Mujahideen draw their inspiration from this ideology. Add to it the millions of petro-dollar flowing into Indian madrassas from Wahhabi groups in Saudi Arabia. Along with the investment comes a heavy dose of ideological and cultural preaching.

I was shocked when I recently visited an Islamic seminary in Bangalore. Barring the location sans the date palms and desert sands, it looked like a mini Saudi Arabia. It had nothing Indian. That way, the Wahhabis have

What is Wisdom?

Even death may be a boon to life, replacing the old and exhausted form To the philosopher, all things are friendly with one young and fresh; who knows and sacred, all events profitable, all days but death may be the greatest invention holy, all men divine. that life has ever made?

— Emerson The death of the part is the life of What is wisdom? I feel like a droplet of the whole, as in the changing cells of spray which proudly poised for a moour flesh. We cannot sit in judgment ment on the crest of a wave, undertakes upon the world by asking how well it to analyze the sea. conforms to the pleasure of a moment, Ideally, wisdom is total perspective or to the good of one individual, or one — seeing an object, event, or idea in all species, or one star. How small our its pertinent relationships. Spinoza decategories of pessimism and optimism fined wisdom as seeing things in seem when placed against the view of eternity; I suggest definperspective of the sky! ing it as seeing things in view of Are there any special ways the whole. of acquiring a large perspecObviously we can only aptive? Yes. First, by living perproach such total perspective; to ceptively; so the farmer, faced possess it would be to be God. with a fateful immensity day The first lesson of philosophy after day, may become patient is that philosophy is the study and wise. Secondly, by studying of any part of experience in the THINK things in space through science; light of our whole experience; partly in this way Einstein bethe second lesson is that the philosocame wise. Thirdly, by studying events pher is a very small part in a very large in time through history. “May my son whole. Just as philosopher means not study history,” said Napoleon, “for it is a “possessor” but a “lover” of wisdom, the only true philosophy, the only true so we can only seek wisdom devotedly, psychology;” thereby we learn both the like a lover fated, as on Keats’ Grecian nature and the possibilities of man. The urn, never to possess, but only to desire. past is not dead; it is the sum of the facPerhaps it is more blessed to desire than tors operating in the present. The presto possess. ent is the past rolled up into a moment Shall we have examples? Rain falls; for action; the past is the present unravyou mourn that your tennis games eled in history for our understanding. must be postponed; you are not a phiTherefore invite the great men of the losopher. But you console yourself past into your homes. Put their works with the thought, “How grateful the or lives on your shelves as books, their parched earth will be for the rain!” You architecture, sculpture, and painting have seen the event in a larger perspecon your walls as pictures; let them play tive, and you are beginning to approach their music for you. Make room in your wisdom. rooms for Confucius, Buddha, Plato,

BY WILL DURANT

Euripides, Lucretius, Christ, Seneca, Montaigne, Marcus Aurelius, Heloise, Shakespeare, Bacon, Spinoza, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Gibbon, Goethe, Shelley, Keats, Heine, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Spengler, Anatole France, Albert Schweitzer. Let these men be your comrades, your bedfellows; give them half an hour each day; slowly they will share in remaking you to perspective, tolerance, wisdom, and a more avid love of a deepened life.

Don’t think of these men as dead; they will be alive hundreds of years after I shall be dead. They live in a magic City of God, peopled by all the geniuses — the great statesmen, poets, artists, philosophers, women, lovers, saints — whom humanity keeps alive in its memory.

Plato is there, leading his students through geometry to philosophy; Spinoza is there, polishing his lenses, inhaling dust and exhaling wisdom; Goethe is there, thirsting like Faust for knowledge and loveliness, and falling in love at seventy-three; Mendelssohn is there, teaching Goethe to savor Beethoven; Shelley is there, with peanuts in one pocket and raisins in the other and content with them as a well-balanced meal; they are all there in that amazing treasure house of our race, that veritable Fort Knox of wisdom and beauty; patiently there they wait for you.

Be bold, young lovers of wisdom, and enter with open hands and minds the City of God. (An abridged version of the essay What is Wisdom? first published in 1957.)

already succeeded in insulating the Indian Muslims from the mainstream and sowing a rigid ideology. This ideological arrangement could also be behind Deoband’s stated apprehensions against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s proposed plan for Madrassa reforms.

This trend can destroy Indian social fabrics. Not only it will create a chasm between an increasingly fanatical Muslim population and the rest but also has the risk of all hell breaking loose among different sects of Indian Muslims.

This ideological invasion needs to be checked immediately. ISIS may not dream of taking over Delhi but they will be keen to unleash their influence on radical Muslim groups in Kashmir and elsewhere in India. And they will sneak in not in combat uniforms but most likely as religious preachers. India needs to be alert to this.

Liberal Indian Muslims must stand up to join this national jehad of saving the nation from the clutches of orthodoxy! Condemning Osama bin Laden is not enough. We need to fight the mindset that gave birth to bin Laden. Let’s take it upon ourselves the task of ensuring that this radical ideology is not taught and preached in any form in India.

(The author is social worker and currently works as a volunteer of the Art of Living foundation. He can be reached on rajaque@gmail.com. The views expressed in the article are personal.)

- Indo Asian News Service

Limericks of the week

BY C RAVINDRANATH

Who are we after?

The latest controversy’s gist Is seemingly the journalist ‘Tis no matter for laughter To forget what we are after The journalist - or the terrorist?

Now forget football

Some won, some got a licking Game over, but the clock’s ticking Forget football Rise to your call And show you are alive and kicking

Rain, rain...

Perhaps to assuage our pains There have been some rains The question to the fore Is “Will there be more?”

But then, let’s not rack our brains

THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY July 19, 2014

PUNE

ORGANISATION

A non-profit organisation, ADI was founded by designers from Pune and Bengaluru in 2011. ADI is a pan-India organisation that conducts activities and events with design in the forefront.

Darpana Athale who cofounded ADI says that it’s the push from Pune designers that led to the formation of it.

She also says that the Pune chapter of the ADI is the largest indicative of Pune’s locus as the design hub of the country.

www.adi.org.in

PUNE’S PROMINENT DESIGN HOUSES*

Advandes Design Directions Elephant Strategy + Design Onio Design Sarvasva The Circus Works Ticket Design * IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER

CITY’S POPULAR DESIGN SCHOOLS*

DSK INTERNATIONAL CAMPUS DYPDC MIT INSTITUTE OF DESIGN SYMBIOSIS INSTITUTE OF DESIGN

Young designer’s class creation

TGS: Your design won an award last year. What was the ethos behind it?

SC: I joined DesignPARK, a design arm of Parksons Packaging, Pune as a fresher after completing my Masters from MIT and started working in a very focused paper based industry.

Being a designer, we are trained to observe things, micro or macro, and to come up with solutions. At places like

DRIVEN BY DESIGN Apart from being a national educational hub Pune has emerged as one of the top design destinations in the country.

Who are the people who made this possible? Ritu Goyal Harish brings you the story TGS NEWS SERVICE @ritugh Contrary to popular belief, Pune’s sobriquet as a design hub did not begin with the design of the TATA Nano, it only consolidated it.

In the 1980s, Pune saw the establishment of several design houses that kept themselves in business by catering to needs of clients whose restricted version of design was all they had. Most of them were alumni of National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, one of India’s oldest and most coveted educational institutions for budding designers.

Darpana Athale, founder director and principal designer at Sarvasva, a company she founded with her husband Mukund Athale says, “This was the time when no one gave design any importance and design was synonymous with interior and fashion design.”

It was a slow and arduous process but the wheels of fortune began churning with the advent of the industrial boom. Multinational companies, big corporate houses, and even bigger manufacturing companies from across the world began operations in Pune. Suddenly there emerged a clientele that wanted “design” services.

“People started understanding what design really is,” says Athale.

The growth of Pune as a hub of design was rapid once the floodgates opened. “People begun seeing design as part of our daily lives. Knowledge, understanding and acceptance grew and design came to the forefront. Now

people know how design adds value to their product,” she adds.

Pune has changed. It is well known on the world map as a hub of

“The three strong pillars — manufacturing, electronics and IT — have helped turn Pune into a design hub” —Darpana Athale world-class design. Design Houses have innumerable international and domestic awards to their credit and the kind of work churned out can only be termed astounding.

“Pune is no more the city next to Mumbai. It has its own identity and presence. A lot of business development is happening through design,” observes Athale. According to her, the three strong pillars with a strong presence in the city helped turn Pune into a design hub – industry (manufacturing, electronics and IT), design houses and educational institutes.

“Very few cities in India have all

these together. Pune’s environment is conducive to creating collaboration between these three pillars,” she says.

Also, thanks to globalisation, people travel more and see first hand how design is part of everyday culture in other countries. They observe and return with more awareness.

What also helped Pune’s growth immensely has been the commitment of the designers in the city to the growth of the field. The Pune Design Festival (PDF) begun in 2006 is one such endeavour. The PDF is an informal festival of interaction, networking, gaining information and fun. It is completely volunteer driven.

Athale is one of the brains behind the PDF and her name is synonymous with the design movement in Pune.

“We are very heavily into design promotions” she admits.

Elaborating on the PDF Athale says, “It is an event ‘by designers to push designers’ from Pune and make Pune a design hub. It is the only event managed in India by designers themselves without support from business houses.”

Since its inception, the PDF has turned into an annual celebration.

“Initially our only aim was to celebrate design and create awareness but it has grown in strength. It is a unique Glocal event. We conduct exhibitions, invite speakers from across the world, and partner with other organisations etc. It retains a strong Pune connect, essence and presence. It has helped put Pune on the design map of the world” she adds. ritugoyalharish@gmail.com

Multiple award winning design by Design Directions

With a work attracting global envy, he remains grounded

BY RITU GOYAL HARISH @ritugh An astounding number of awards to their credit, a plethora of work that is immediately awe-inspiring and ingenious, meeting the prolific duo, and Satish Gokhale can be an experience any person with a creative bent of mind will covet.

By the year 2005 they had won the National Award for Design (Business World and NID Design Excellence Awards) three times. “I fear that Satish will get a lifetime award and will be asked to retire!” quips Falguni.

National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad alumni, the Gokhales made Pune their home in the mid 80s and by 1988, founded Design Directions Pvt Ltd. Since then the company has produced some of the most innovative, user friendly and cost effective designs for their clients.

“To us design is not skin deep. It’s inside out and outside in. In coming up with the right solutions, we have to cross-pollinate technology and apply a level of innovation” says Satish.

From medical equipment to electronic and consumer products, from brand strategy to communication design, the company has a wide repertoire. Multi-talented Falguni (she’s also a painter and jewellery designer) has also done some incredible work with User Interfaces (UI). She

SATISH GOKHALE

“To us design is not skin deep. It’s inside out and outside in. Right solutions need cross pollinate tech and innovation”

recounts the UI for Reliance Refinery in Jamnagar as one of her most challenging projects.

To Satish the design and production of TATA Swach, TATA’s low cost water purifier is one of his most challenging. “It is essential to see a product develop from start to finish.

We worked on TATA Swach for nearly nine years and it has won the maximum number of awards,” says he.

The company also created the world’s first solar powered mobile computer, which has won them the Red Dot Design Award, Germany, this year. The innovation has won five other awards as well. “The device can be used when you’re walking, like a slate. It is solar power based because it is targeted at rural areas,” reveals Satish.

From 1988 to 2014, it has been a roller coaster for the duo. But the company has grown in leaps and bounds because it follows age-old business principles. “I believe design builds relations,” says Satish.

Although he accepts that in “those days” the acceptance for design was non-existent, their persistence and commitment has held them in good stead. “Our business is global but choose to be in Pune. We have no offices abroad,” reveals Falguni.

She says that Pune has been known as the Oxford of the East and design has added to the diverse student community. ritugoyalharish@gmail.com

paNBin is perhaps every woman’s dream come true. It is a combination of a Dust Pan and a Dust Bin, designed by young designer Sudhanwa Chavan, who won the Indian Design Forum Award, 2013 for his incredibly quirky design. In an insightful chat with The Golden Sparrow on Saturday, he revealed the ethos behind his design and defines what aspiring designers need to do

Mumbai, space comes at a premium cost and we cannot afford to waste floor area. This thought inspired me to design paNBin, a multifunctional product that will reduce the visual clutter in any house. Concept paNBin also breaks the contemporary visual language of dustbins.

TGS: Do you think quirky designs are now being taken seriously in the industry? What is the connection between being ‘out of the box’ and strange?

SC: The acceptance for quirky

designs has increased for sure but still it is not widely accepted in India. Graphic design industry is one step ahead in this manner.

A design can be out of the box but I am hesitant to call it strange. It actually depends on how we define the word strange. By strange if we mean unusual, then yes a product, tangible or intangible, can surprise you by virtue of its design but if we mean ‘difficult to understand’ then a particular design may not work. Quirky designs are an output from designers with artistic inclination at some level.

TGS: How do you feel this industry will grow in the future?

SC: Indian industry has and is under the process of understanding the importance of design. You may take 100 brand names, which we all know,that have design centres but there are thousands of small industries that need to be tapped and it is not easy to go to a random manufacturer and convince him that we can design their products.

TGS: Your one piece of advice to budding designers.

SC: Majority of the industrial designers working in industries are doing cosmetic changes and the roles get restricted to that. Designers are much more capable than that. I don’t expect there should be an invention everyday but it should be given a serious thought.

Budding designers should focus on inventions and not face- lifts as they are capable of doing so.

Amit Inamdar has made 21 designs ranging from shopping bags, pouches, pencil holders, school bags and sling bags from discarded flex posters

Redefining the art of useful recycling

BY RITU GOYAL HARISH @ritugh Often wondered what happens to the huge flex posters that have become a part of the landscape of our city?

Flex banners (which are nothing but plastic reinforced with thread) are the most popular medium of posters and outdoors publicity and miles and miles of them are discarded after one use. These waterproof sheets often end up as roofs for roadside teashops or wind up in our already bursting landfi lls adding to the mountains of plastic that we are unable to manage.

Pune-based designer Amit Inamdar took it upon himself to find ways of recycling the deceptive flex, which has several positive properties also. It is strong, waterproof, comes in bright colours and is long lasting.

“Almost all banners are very vibrant and when you think colours, you think of kids,” says Inamdar. Six months of R&D and Inamdar was able to design a school bag using discarded flex banners.

Inamdar started an initiative to market the flex bags and called it +One. They currently have 21 designs to their credit ranging from shopping bags, pouches, pencil holders, school bags, sling bags and many more. These upscaled bags are unique since no flex banner is similar to another, and are colourful and trendy. “It is impossible to figure out that they have been made from a discarded material. There is no compromise on quality” he points out.

After working in diverse areas such as marine design, designing medical equipment and even road safety for a £150,000 project funded by the UK government, to Inamdar, design is not just about innovation. “Design is where you use your creative intent for the betterment of people,” says he.

“Understanding new technology AMIT INAMDAR

“Innovation must be cheaper, useful, safer, easier to use than other products” and finding a use for it for people is design innovation. This innovation must be cheaper, useful, safer, easier to use than other products” he adds. It must also be saleable.

Along with design innovation and recycling of flex, he also donates these school bags to schoolchildren who can’t afford them. By connecting with ecoconscious people Inamdar promotes the concept of using design for a social cause and has also employed four families from lower income groups to help in manufacturing these products.

Inamdar has also designed slippers that can be used as beach wear and is in the process of designing raincoats for paddy field workers. “The true essence of design is to have an impact” avers Inamdar and to him, his work with +One gives him the most satisfaction. ritugoyalharish@gmail.com

MONEY MATT ER S “Banking sector to see exponential growth eg mortgages to grow from 5 trillion in 2010 to 40 trillion by 2020.”

-Deepak Parekh

Signposts Maharashtra boost for land development The Maharashtra government has decided to streamline the complicated issue of clearing agricultural lands for developmental activities, a step aimed at boosting housing and infrastructure. According to the revised norms approved by the state cabinet, it will be no longer mandatory for securing district collector’s prior permission for “Non Agriculture” (NA) status for lands already earmarked for development in the development plan (DP) for various areas. These (areas) will comprise the jurisdiction of municipal corporations and municipal councils where the DPs have already been prepared and published. Those seeking NA for developing such lands as per the DP rules will have to apply to the local civic body and intimate the district collector and revenue department within a month.

Besides, a data bank will be created at all district levels for compiling necessary documents. Each department will not separately demand all documents from the applicants.

(IANS)

India’s gold imports in June up 65 per cent The high imports of the precious metal have marginally pushed up India’s trade deficit to $11.76 billion in June from $11.28 billion a year ago period. After declining for seven months in a row, India’s gold imports in June grew 65.13 per cent to $3.12 billion from $1.88 billion in June 2013. In October 2013, gold imports had risen 62.5 per cent to $1.3 billion. The government has imposed restrictions on inbound shipments of the precious metal to narrow the current account deficit (CAD). India’s CAD, which is the excess of foreign exchange outflows over inflows, touched a historic high of 4.8 per cent of GDP in 2012-13, mainly due to rising imports of petroleum products and gold.

Amita Phadnis

director, Oyster & Pearl group of hospitals ...we improve the poor infrastructure and governance. A political will is lacking to develop the city. There are several cities all over the world that are highly populated yet well-planned like Tokyo. Ministries need to chalk out a 20-year plan. With the right mindset and the right people in power, we can get good roads, flyovers, public garbage system, and residential and commercial areas. Efforts must be made to showcase the history, art and culture of Pune and develop the tourism industry. It should become a matter of pride and social status to be active in these fields.

No other facet of the financial sector is more mysterious, risky, rewarding, romantic and creative than venture capital (VC). Stories of entrepreneurs, with a bright idea, backed by venture capitalists and going on to create sensational products or services like a Google or Apple, fill us with awe and wonder. It is probably the only facet of the vast financial sector from where some public good can emerge—in the form of a path-breaking new product or service.

The problem is, of the many ideas that get funded, we get to know only what eventually succeeds. The most celebrated examples of venture capital success these days are in the field of

JULY 19, 2014

PUNE

“Our organisations will need o embrace agility, powered by teams with the aptitude and capability for continual learning.”

- Cyrus P Mistry

Debt mutual funds suffer large outflows Mutual funds have sold as much as Rs 4,500 crore of debt in two days leading to higher bond yields. Are investors doing it due to the new tax norms?

JASON MONTEIRO Last year, we saw bond yields rise as foreign investors started heavily selling Indian debt. This year after the budget announcement, mutual funds have sold as much as Rs 4,500 crore of debt in two days. This has been the highest amount sold on two consecutive days since 31 July 2013. On 10 July 2014, the Union Budget 2014-15 announced, higher long-term capital gain (LTCG) tax for non-equity mutual funds. On the day of the budget mutual funds sold Rs 1,183.50 crore of debt and on the next day as much as Rs 3,351.30 crore of debt securities were sold, according to data released by the Securities and Exchange Board of India. Foreign investors on the other hand were net buyers of around Rs 988.24 crore of Indian debt over the same period. The benchmark 10-year government bond yield rose by four basis points to 8.77 per cent on 11 July 2014 from 8.73 per cent on 9 July 2014.

Was this due to heavy redemptions from debt mutual funds on account of the LTCG tax amendments?

Finance minister Arun Jaitley, in his maiden budget, announced that tax on debt mutual funds will be increased to 20 per cent (from 10 per cent earlier), as well as the holding period for classification as long term would be extended to 36 months from the earlier 12 months. This was an attempt to bring parity between different instruments.

Reports mention that the tax impact could result in huge outflows from debt mutual funds. The Association of Mutual Funds in India has written to the regulator and the finance ministry to ensure that none of the tax proposals are brought in force

investors. Murthy Nagarajan, headfi xed income, Quantum AMC, mention that, “These norms are aimed at the corporate investors who used to invest for one year and avail of tax benefits byinvesting in a fi xed maturity plan. The same corporate investors if they invest in bank deposits will pay at the highest marginal tax rates.

The retail investors participation has been nominal in one year FMPs. The idea is to pluck this tax arbitrage for corporates. Going forward, the FMP money maturity may be invested in liquid funds or in bank fi xed deposits.”

CLARIFICATIONS REQUIRED Another issue with this regulation is its applicability. There has been no clear instruction on when would this tax norm be effective and would investors have to pay long term capital gains tax of 20 per cent if they have redeemed their investment during the period between April 1, when the revised rate is proposed to take effect, and July

with retrospective effect which could lead to heavy redemptions. The FM has announced that he may consider imposing this next year instead of this year itself.

Commenting on the impact of this regulation, A Balasubramanian, CEO, Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund said, “I would assume that FMPs as an asset class would lose attraction for

To hell with governance!

The weaker the governance of a company, the faster its shares seem to be flying R BALAKRISHNAN Our markets seem to be headed for good days. There is optimism everywhere and, each day, a new broker keeps predicting a higher and higher target for the index. This is a great time to open your cupboards and see what kind of shares you still own and revamp your portfolio. What is noticeable in this rally is that prices of the shares of good companies are going up, but those of dubious companies are shooting up even higher. The weaker the governance of a company, the better it seems to be doing on the stock markets. If I have a list of characteristics of companies one should avoid, it seems to be the list I should have invested into, just before the elections.

A company like Suzlon should have had its share prices languishing, given its huge debt. But it has given spectacular returns! It is just an example and there are many with worse credentials, either on financials or on management, that have given super returns. The logic seems to be that the biggest rally will be in the most beaten-down stocks. No one wants to remember why those stocks became ‘beaten-down’ in the first place.

The regulator, the Securities and

computing, software and the field that combines these two with essential human behaviour and psychology, viz. social media. Massive global successes of VC-funded social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and so on, have become part of our lives. Ventures that fail are never highlighted; they are hidden from the public view, keeping the aura of VC business intact.

What is the VC business really like? Louis Gerken, a venture capitalist himself, offers an insider’s view. He

10, the date of its announcement. A clarification is said to be issued.

Similarly, the budget highlights mentions a line about ‘Uniform tax treatment for pension fund and mutual fund linked retirement plans’, however, the budget speech, and neither the finance bill mentions anything about taxation for mutual fund linked retirement plans.

Again the applicability of Section 80 CCD for private sector employees investing in a pension fund has been a much discussed issue. Industry experts have different views of the same. Some are saying the section was reworded to bring clarity and thus would have no implication for private sector employees who have claimed deduction under this section. Others have the view that, private sector employees, employed on or before 1 January 2004 would have wrongly claimed a tax deduction under this section.

By special arrangement with moneylife.in

short term and will come largely on the longer term. So, anyone with money for this category would need to come in for three years.” Further, he mentioned that, “The increase in long-term capital gain tax for debt funds would encourage investors to come in longer term saving.”

Much of the mutual fund redemptions could be from corporate

Life insurance? get smarter

Life insurance companies come up a wide variety of products to hook you. Many are irrelevant and harmful.

Here is how to know that is being pitched at you any good R BALAKRISHNAN

Exchange Board of India (SEBI), is desperate to get more participants and issuers into the markets. For instance, instead of insisting on government companies diluting a minimum of 25 per cent to the public to remain listed, it has continued with a lower 10 per cent and given three years to achieve that 25 per cent dilution. What is the guarantee that the government will oblige? Market conditions do change. And, if it is a question of market depth, how can SEBI be sure that in three years there would be enough depth in the market?

The retail investor is today faced with the most aggressive promoters and the most liberal of regulators. This is a potent combination and I do not see the investor emerging as a winner in this unequal battle.

Valuations are getting higher, probably reflecting the economic changes that will happen over the next two to five years. Watch government actions closely. If they show signs of following the same path as that of the earlier government, get the hell out of this market. @moneylife

Book review: A trip through the exotic land of venture capital DEBASHIS BASU

THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY

explains how VCs work tracing the fascinating history of the activity to its present. The VC business has its roots in early 20th century to Carnegie Steel Company which was sold to the United States Steel Corporation in 1901 for $480 million, of which about half went to the founder Andrew Carnegie. The secondlargest shareholder was Carnegie’s partner, Henry Phipps. “In 1907, Phipps formed Bessemer Trust as a private family office to manage his fortune. Four yea rs later, he transferred $4 million in stocks and bonds to each of his five

children and Bessemer Venture Partners was launched—the nation’s first venture capital firm of the US. The firm has prospered, managing more than $4 billion of venture capital, invested in over 130 companies around the world.”

They are present in India too, though their investment has been in some dubious companies.

Gerken also offers background information on VC investors and their investment strategies. The book explains the current investment climate, sharing data on the growth of new start-ups and the challenges they face. A large part of the book is devoted to advocating the good side of VC—the multiplier social impact that a successful VC-funded enterprise can create. @moneylife

At its core, life insurance is where you pay some money regularly to an agency and, on your death, your nominees/legal heirs get a pre-determined sum from that agency. If you live, nobody gets anything. This is what a pure term policy offers. It is similar to medical insurance.

You want the cost of treatment for major illnesses to be covered. You pay a premium. You do not get any money back. When you are willing to pay an annual fee for an illness, with no return, the same principle should apply for your life too.

But the whole industry exists to mislead you. You will not be told about this basic principle of life insurance and sold pure term policies. Most insurers, agents and writers on personal finance (not Moneylife) push investment products that are disguised as insurance policies.

For instance, I recently came across a newsletter that talks about something called ‘HDFC Life Sanchay’. I am using this product merely as an illustration and have no view on the product.

According to the newsletter, if you are 35 years old and take this policy, you will be paying an annual premium of Rs 55,618 for 15 years. At the end of 15

years, you will get a ‘Lumpsum’ benefit of Rs 5 lakh, plus ‘Sum Assured’ of Rs 2.27 lakh. And, should you die during the tenure of the policy, your nominee will get 10 times the sum assured!

It is possible that I may not have deciphered the full payout; but, if so, the write-up is shoddy. A second reading tells me that it is possible that the payout on survival could be around Rs 5 lakh. These insurance agents and the companies’ websites always keep the language complex so as to confuse the lay person.

In other words, I pay them a total amount of over Rs 8 lakh and get back less than that! And the life cover is a measly Rs 23 lakh or so! And, now, I see one more asterisk. The premiums are exclusive of service tax! Without using an excel sheet, I can see that I get negative returns. If I had paid around Rs 12,000 as term insurance premium, I would have got a Rs 1 crore life cover.

And if I take Rs 43,000 each year and put it into a bank recurring deposit (RD) at 8 per cent, for 15 years, it would be worth around Rs 11.70 lakh at the end! The newsletter does not bother to do such an analysis. In the name of insurance, they hide the returns the product gives you. @moneylife

To analyse any investment product...

• Write down the amount of life cover offered; • The total premium or payout over the life of the product; • The payback at the end, if you survive; take the highest and lowest from the illustration. If they do not provide you this number, do not buy the product.

Next, do the following: • Find out how much a pure term policy (only life cover, no money on your surviving the term) would cost. Let us call this the ‘expense’; • From the premium above (on the investment product), deduct the expense; • Assume that you invest the balance in an RD or liquid scheme of a mutual fund at, say, 8% and write down the resulting number; • Compare this number with the payback under the product being sold.

So the next time an insurance salesman comes to you, get smarter.

SPORTS

THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY JULY 19, 2014

PUNE

“The German had a special team that was the best in the tournament and it will be difficult to defeat them in the future as their performance will improve over time.”

- Former German coach and player Franz Beckenbauer

“It was not an easy decision. It has been a great privilege representing my country during the past 18 years, but I believe this is the right time.”

- Sri Lanka skipper Mahela Jayawardene on retirement

MSLTA’s successful implementation of its plan to ‘promote the sport’ has bloomed into 500 courts and 6000 players.

Ashish Phadnis brings you the success story TGS NEWS SERVICE @phadnis_ashish

plan by sports associations, parents and end-users, the players.

The initiative that blossomed to PUNE: Despite having talented players, adorn the city with the impressive Pune was nowhere on the tennis map of record of courts and contests was the country 25 years ago. But thanks to started by the MSLTA in somewhere the efforts taken by the Maharashtra around 1980. Until then there was lack State Lawn Tennis Association of facilities and exposure to the city (MSLTA) around 1980, players and hence, the it now boosts a hoard of need was felt to organise talented players bringing more tournaments to laurels to the city. give a push to them.

The city now has When the game was one of the best tennis restricted to the club level nurseries in the country. and was played mainly at It has around 500 tennis the core parts of the city, courts with more than the sports enthusiasts 6,000 players actively and businessmen taking part in the various Rajkumar Chordiya tournaments. and Purshottam Lohiya Ace city tennis came forward to build players like Arjun the first private tennis Kadhe, Rutuja Bhosale court in Mukundnagar and Sahil Deshmukh area. The duo also developed the Hillside have impressive records Gymkhana tennis at the international level courts in Bibwewadi. while Sahil Gaware, Later in 1994-95, the Namita Bal and development graph of Devanshi Bhimjiyani — Sunder Iyer, treasurer, tennis shot up during the are dominating at the construction boom, when national level. Even the most of the realtors built city’s annual calendar has gone up to 30 contests, which may tennis courts in their housing projects be the largest for any city in the country. and helped popularising the sport.

“It was the turning point for the This is a result of efficient laying of groundwork and proper execution of a city tennis as the game was no more

“Players are getting in Fed Cup but not in the Davis Cup. We want Pune players to regularly make it.”

Olympic champion banned VIENNA: Former Olympic champion Evi Sachenbacher-Stehle has been handed a two-year ban for doping at the Sochi Olympic Games in February. The International Biathlon Union (IBU) said the German “committed an in-competition doping offence at the 2014 Sochi Olympic Games”, reported Xinhua. The 33-year-old won crosscountry Olympic gold in 2002 and 2010 before switching to biathlon.

Indian team to tour Czech NEW DELHI: The Under-23 Indian men’s football team will have two exposure trips to Czech Republic and China before they leave for the Asian Games to be held at Incheon from September 19. Thirty probables are currently training in Bangalore under coach Wim Koevermans at a camp which started July 1. A 25-member squad will leave for Czech Republic July 21 and return Aug 8. There, India will play three matches against three clubs -- Senco Doubravka, FK Most and TJ Domazlice. The squad will then travel to China from Aug 25 to Sep 8.

Mithali Raj to lead India MUMBAI: Mithali Raj will be the skipper of the Indian women’s cricket team which will tour England in August to play a four-day Test match and three One-Day Internationals (ODI). Wicketkeeper Karuna Jain has been named the vice-captain of the 15-member squad. The series will start with a Test from August 13-16 at Sir Paul Getty’s Ground, Wormsley. The squad: Mithali Raj, Karuna Jain, Smriti Mandhana, MD Thirushkamini, Punam Raut, Harmanpreet Kaur, Jhulan Goswami, Niranjana N, Shubhlakshmi Sharma, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Ekta Bisht, Poonam Yadav, Swagathika Rath, Vanitha VR, Sushma Verma.

restricted to clubs. Players, who were earlier deprived, got opportunities to prove themselves with better infrastructure and increased number of tournaments,” said MSLTA treasurer Sunder Iyer.

Academies in Pune Nandan Bal Tennis Academy MSLTA School of Tennis, Balewadi Futurepro Tennis Academy, Yerwada Deccan Gymkhana, PYC Sunny Jacob Tennis Academy, Camp

The city’s love for the sport, good infrastructure, popular coaches and pleasant climate attracted outside players to shift base to Pune.

“The systematic growth of the sport convinced parents to allow kids to take up tennis; many housing societies built courts and playing the game became a status symbol,” Iyer added.

THE FUTURE PLANS The association is taking the sport to a higher level on the infrastructure front as many parents think that it is the need the hour.

“We need to upgrade the facility to improve players’ performance at the international level. For that, players need world-class coaches, mental

Premier clubs on a shopping spree

trainers and video analyst and it’s not possible for every player and his or her parents to arrange for such facilities on their own,” said Jagdish Banthia, father of Siddhant who has been qualified for the Junior Wimbledon Open to be held this year.

Keeping that in mind, the association is currently working on a centre of excellence in Balewadi.

“This centre will provide mental trainers, video analyst, dieticians and other facilities at one place. Any city player can avail the facility by paying nominal charges,” said Iyer, who is also planning to raise the level of tournaments in city.

“The events need to be bigger and we have to invest huge amounts of money

To tap the potential of promising players in tribal areas, the Pune Metropolitan District Tennis Association (PMDTA) which was formed in 2012, has proposed a development project.

“The implementation of the project will give the youth from Baramati, Indapur, Machar and Bhor talukas better opportunities to excel. We will be providing racquets, balls and shoes to the selected participants in these areas,” said Iyer who also works as secretary of PMDTA. The project is based upon MSLTA’s tribal development plan, under which 30 tribal students from Gondiya, Chandrapur, Gadhchiroli and Bhandara are undergoing All India Tennis Association’s level-one coaching course.

“Generally a coach from Pune or Mumbai will not prefer to go to these remote areas to teach and the youth from these places cannot afford to shift base to cities.

So, MSLTA started a coaching course at Nagpur in 2013 for youths with guaranteed job. The first batch will be completing their course in July and now they can take up coaching, umpiring and even lay courts in their villages,” said Iyer, the brain behind the tribal development plan.

to get the higher level tourneys. As most of our city players are competing in high-level national and international contests, they don’t participate in local tournaments. Hence, we need to organise more super series tournaments to attract them,” he said. ashish.phadnis@goldensparrow.com

IANS

Signposts

ANIRUDDHA RAJANDEKAR

City serving on a firm base

Hunting rural talent

After World Cup football, the top clubs over the globe are busy in roping the superstars of the tournament to strengthen their squads ahead of the 2014-15 season

LONDON: The biggest football extravaganza is over for the stars and upcoming talented players. But, the league season is starting within a month and now it’s a time for top clubs to get busy trying to add these stars to their squads in time.

The biggest transfer of the season definitely would be Luis Suarez moving to Barcelona from Liverpool for £75m. The Uruguayan striker who is serving a fourweek ban from all football-related activity after biting Italy’s Giorgio Chiellini’s shoulder during a World Cup match.

GERMAN DOMINATION The well-oiled German machine has not just laid their hands on the trophy but their key players are also in high demand from the top clubs. German defender Mats Hummels, who played a key role in team’s World Cup success is enjoying lucrative offer from English Premier Leag ue giants

Manchester United and Spanish club Barcelona.

Even Hummels’ teammate Marco Reus is also linked with moves to either United or Liverpool. Though the midfielder missed World Cup due to ankle injury, both clubs are engaging in a £45 million battle for the 25-year old German.

The rumours say that Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho is trying to persuade midfielder Sami Khedira to join Chelsea instead of Arsenal, after the 27-year-old is out of contract in a year and has refused a new deal with Real Madrid.

However, Toni Kroos has completed his transfer to Real Madrid for an undisclosed fee from Bayern Munich. The attacking midfielder had long been linked with a move to Manchester United and he has now signed a contract with Madrid until the summer of 2020.

STRONG AFRICAN This edition of the World Cup witnessed a brilliant show from African teams like Algeria, Nigeria and Ivory Coast. Naturally, the Premier League managers are looking for these fresh talents.

Currently, Nigeria midfielder Michel Babatunde claims about an offer from Sunderland while, Algerian Yacine Brahimi has been linked with Tottenham Hotspur. Ivory Coast striker Wilfried Bony is eager to make a bid to Swansea City.

However, the big news would be Alex Song’s return to Arsenal from FC Barcelona.

Though, the Cameroon midfielder has been handed a three-match World Cup ban following his sending off against Croatia his former club are interested in ending his Spanish frustration. Even Chelsea and Man United are both keen to add a holding midfielder to their squad.

His teammate Samuel Eto’o is said to be on the brink of a move to Roma after a single year $7 million deal with Chelsea. Another Cameroon player Vincent Aboubakar has caught the eye of several European clubs including Chelsea and Leicester City.

Meanwhile, Paris Saint Germain are close to completing the signing of the Ivory Coast right-back Serge Aurier even after being heavily linked with Arsenal. Ghana winger Andre Ayew’s performance has drawn attention from both Liverpool and their great rivals Manchester United.

With inputs from Agencies

Top Transfers

Mat Hummels

Player Cesc Fàbregas Ander Herrera Luke Shaw Adam Lallana Diego Costa

From Barcelona Athletic Bilbao Southampton Southampton Atlético Madrid

To Chelsea Man United Man United Liverpool Chelsea

Price £30m £29m £27m £25m £32m

Byram Godrej during his 2000cc class event in Coimbatore

Slideways cruises to another victory

The crew from Pune clinches three podium at second round of the Indian Rally Championship in Coimbatore

COIMBATORE: It was a rally of attrition for the crew members driving the four Polo and one Baleno for Slideways Industries at the Rally of Coimbatore held recently.

Powered by JK Tyre, the rally was organised at the windmill farms of Kethanur, 60km outside Coimbatore city, and the service park was located at the Kari Motor Speedway. The event coincided with the second round of the JK Tyre Racing Championship. The great festival of motorsport witnessed a lot of action for the four Pune-based drivers.

Sirish Chandran (co-driver Nikhil Pai) was on the pace from the start and, by the second stage, had climbed to third spot in the overall standings and second in the 1600cc class.

Driving the Slideways Polo to the limit and working the JK rally tyres to the optimum, Sirish was out to prove why he’s rated as one of the top rally drivers in the country. And he did not disappoint and zoomed quicker than the larger-engined Cedia. However, on stage 3, disaster struck when the driveshaft broke leading to immediate retirement.

Making a comeback to rallying, Team principal Rohan Pawar (co-driver Arjun Mehta) stepped on the gas from

the word go in the team’s Polo.

Rohan underwent training under former national champion Vikram Mathias for three days in Coimbatore and the results were evident with Rohan matching the pace of the frontrunners.

He even clocked faster times than the winner of the 1600cc class in the previous round in Nashik.

Luck, however, wasn’t on his side and he incurred a one-minute penalty at the end of day one for checking into the time control early. Rohan drove flat out on day two to make up for the lost time but as they say fate is a cruel mistress and having got lost on the pace notes in a particularly fast section, he clipped a tree stump and suffered a rally-ending crash.

Rolling three times, the duo was out of the rally, with just one stage to go. It was his first crash in two seasons, and the first time his co-driver Arjun hadn’t finished on the podium. But the duo were still thrilled to be on the pace of the frontrunners.

Byram Godrej, the winner of 2000cc class at the Nashik event, finished third overall and kept the Slideways flag flying high. Putting his best foot forward against the more powerful Cedia rally cars, Byram (co-driver A G Somayya) finished second in the 2000cc class.

SPORTS “Kabaddi is a fast paced sport and I am looking forward to some adrenalin rush moments during the League. I am really excited to be a part of World Kabaddi League.”

- United Singhs kabaddi team co-owner Sonakshi Sinha

Signposts Pune FC Under-15 trials PUNE: Pune Football Club will conduct trials for its Under-15 team for the forthcoming 2014-15 season at Pune FC training pitches in Mamurdi on August 2-3. The said trials are open to only Pune-residents keeping in mind the need to develop and train talent from the city. All players are requested to be present on time and come in their football kits. For further details, contact Pune FC on (9764002228 or 8390903188).

State ranking TT from July 21 PUNE: Sharada Sports Centre will conduct 2nd Maharashtra State Ranking Table Tennis tournament at Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex in Balewadi from July 21. Belvalkar Housing is the main sponsor for the tournament, which offers a total prize money of Rs90,000. Over 900 players have confirmed their participation. Prior to the tournament, 1st Veterans State Ranking Table Tennis Tournament, sponsored by Pate Developers will be held from Saturday (July 19) at the same venue.

Damale award to Nandan Bal PUNE: Former Davis Cup coach Nandan Bal will be honoured with Late Capt Shivrampant Damale award at Maharashtra Mandal, Mukundnagar on July 27. Sports writer Dr Sanjeev Sonawane will felicitated by Late LtGen YD Sahastrabudhe award. The awards will be presented at hands of Police Commissioner Satish Mathur.

Deshpande, Jha script wins PUNE: Aditya Deshpande, Johnson Nardisani and Anupam Jha assimilated half-century breaks on their way to third round wins in the Kumar Khandelwal Memorial Open Snooker tournament at Deccan Gymkhana.

PYC’s Deshpande posted a break of 53 in the fifth frame to beat Jaideep Khandekar of Deccan Gymkhana, after the two were tied 2-2 in a fiercelyfought contest.

Deshpande won the first frame on black ball finish 58-57, before losing the next two 29-68, 38-52. Yet another black-ball humdinger saw him even the scores as he took the fourth frame 48-42.

THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY JULY 19, 2014

PUNE

“I’m going to sound a bit like Arsène Wenger now but I didn’t see the incident. To be honest with you it’s a big mountain out of a molehill.”

- England captain Alastair Cook

‘Provide resources to popularise kabaddi’

Renowned kabaddi coach Kaushik Ramphal feels that a planning from the grass-root level is required to maintain dominance at the international level

BY ASHISH PHADNIS @phadnis_ashish PUNE: In India, traditional wrestling takes place in a clay or dirt pits, where wrestlers live and train together. It is a part of the ancient Indian culture.

And this is the reason why they find it difficult to shift to modern format of mat wrestling at the international level. It took several years of hard work and planning, before the Indian wrestlers started winning medals at the Olympics.

Now another traditional Indian game, kabaddi, is likely to go through the similar phase at the international arena. Though, currently Indian players are dominating even on the new mat format, it might not be the same case when the European and the African teams will participate with their full strength. Therefore, the Amateur Kabaddi Federation of India (AKFI) should take the necessary steps to keep their legacy alive, stated renowned kabaddi coach Ramphal Kaushik.

“In most of the villages, the game is still played on mud or clay pitches.

It’s our duty to provide them proper mats and acknowledge them with the latest rules and regulation. In Haryana, we have a mat ground in almost every village. We have even provided mats to the schools. The kids are learning the game on the mats and it won’t be difficult for them to excel even at the international level,” said Kaushik, the winner of the best coach award of Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) in 2011.

Puneri Paltan squad Wazir Singh (Captain), Arabinda Khuntia, Jitesh Joshi, K Balamahendran, Mahipal Narwal, Manoj Kumar, Mostafa Noudehi (Iran), Nitin More, Pravin Niwale, Simon Kubura (Kenya), Sunil Lande and Waleed Hasani (Oman).

Don’t miss the action Aug 12: Pune vs Vizag Aug 13: Mumbai vs Bengaluru; Pune vs Kolkata Aug 14: Delhi vs Bengaluru; Pune vs Jaipur Aug 15: Delhi vs Mumbai; Pune vs Patna At Shiv Chhatrapati sports complex in Balewadi

The Puneri Paltan squad pose for shutterbugs with their coach and owners during the unveiling ceremony in Pune

Kaushik is also coaching Puneri Paltan, a team supported by Insurekot Sports Pvt Ltd, a Mumbai-based firm, in Pro Kabaddi League, slated to kickoff later this month. On the occasion of the unveiling ceremony of team’s logo,

Sunilduth Narayanan clinches national title TGS NEWS SERVICE @TGSWeekly PUNE: Sunilduth Lyna Narayanan of Kerala clinched the boys’ title in the 44th National Open Junior Under-19 Chess Championship at Shiv Chhatrapati sports complex in Balewadi on Friday.

After the penultimate round Narayanan and Aravindh Chithambaram were jointly at the top with eight points each. However, Chithambaram lost his crucial battle against G Akash of Tamil Nadu, thus clearing the way for Kerala lad to victory. At the top board, Narayanan scripted a hard-fought win over Kumaran B of Tamil Nadu.

Meanwhile, Pune’s candidate master Abhimanyu Puranik defeated

International Master Karthikeyan Murali to finish in the top-6.

Earlier, in the penultimate round Murali, the top-ranked player in the field from Tamil Nadu played with white pieces and made ample use of fi rst chance to put Sunilduth on the backfoot before the two decided to draw their contest. The two leaders were closely followed by five players—Murali, Fenil Shah, Harsha Bharathakoti, B Kumaran and G Akash — all with 7.5 points each.

In the girls section, Michelle Catherina of Tamil Nadu caused a flutter when she defeated the overnight leader and fellow state mate, Saranya J, on the top table. Both Michelle and Woman FIDE Master Saranya were on eight points each. editor_tgs@goldensparrow.com

anthem and jersey, Kaushik said that Maharashtra has rich heritage of the game.

“The legends like Buwa Salvi and Shantaram Jadhav have played a great role in promoting the sport in past.

However, it has lost out to other sports in terms of popularity and investments over the years. I believe this league would bring back the glory in the state,” added Kaushik.

Puneri Paltan will be captained

by Wazir Singh, who has a long and distinguished record in the sport. He has represented India, Rajasthan and CISF. He was part of the team that won the silver medal for India in the South Asian Beach Games in 2011.

“I urge every individual from Pune and across the country, to extend their support to Puneri Paltan and the League. I am confident that our team will pose a strong challenge and we look forward to a hard-fought and successful tournament,” said the skipper. phadnis.ashish@goldensparrow.com

Invitation Price

`5

Annual Subscription

`199

VOICE OF THE PEOPLE

H EARD.

The opposite of ‘Main Khelega!’

Just how entertaining could test cricket become if it borrowed football’s crybaby tactics?

BY MALAY DESAI @malayD As we wake up to the vacuum at half past nine and half past one in the nights following the World Cup, let’s take the moments to recall its stellar performances. The lead actor in a ‘diving’ role undoubtedly was Dutch winger Arjen Robben, whose spectacular leap of faith helped his team beat Mexico; the finest among supporting roles was by Brazil’s Fred who touched a referee’s heart and by his colleague Marcelo, though his cameo was slammed by critics.

Football may be the only sport in the world where grown men, role models of physical achievement, athletes at the top of their fitness curves, would put on an act of being hurt when they’re actually not. The feigning of injury and subsequent bawling like babies has its perks –for it can mislead the referee to

reward a game-changing free kick or penalty kick.

Given how prevalent these acting skills have come to be within the exotic game of football, it’s worthy to wonder how much the globally popular sport of cricket (conditions apply) can imbibe some of them to make it more entertaining. Agreed the Bodyline era is over and we now have state-of-theart gear to protect a batsman against darting leather, but think about how tests can survive in the future with the help of dramatics.

Fending off English batsmen on Day five of a critical away test? No problem. Wait till an Ian Bell slams a cover drive, get a Jadeja at cover to ‘dive’ Robben-style so the cherry strikes his body, then initiate Operation Wince until the umpire does the rest.

Penalty ideas could include Ian Bell facing Bhuvaneshwar Kumar without protection; Ian Bell juggling four bails at once or Ian Bell being made to field at Silly Point while Jadeja takes a retaliatory shot. Wait, the sheer possibility of penalties whenever a shot hits a Silly Point man can simply resuscitate the format.

On the other hand, and think about this when our boys are facing chin music on a green top at Lord’s this weekend, the batsmen could have so many appeals against balls hitting arms, helmets, nether regions, zipping past their noses or simply being too quick to spot.

It could be the perfect antithesis of the defining moment in 1989 when a curly-haired 16-year-old named Sachin Tendulkar, after being hit by a rogue of a Waqar Younis bouncer on his nose, said, “Main khelega!” Now, an out-of-form Indian top-order bat, on being meted similar treatment, could say “Main nahin khelega!” with a cringe. C’mon, don’t our poor batsmen need to have some rules to bear this tyrannicalage of bowlers? With Sriniuncle as Big Daddy, this proposal has good chances.

PS: On a serious note, the keen football follower will know of a few good men among many phony actors, who do not believe in any dramatics on field. Two of them are Miroslav Klose, the highest World Cup scorer of all time and Lionel Messi, arguably the greatest in today’s game.

PUNE’S FIRST WEEKLY NEWSPAPER

THE GOLDEN SPARROW TO SUBSCRIBE

ON SATURDAY

Contact your newspaper vendor today or The Golden Sparrow circulation executive for assistance Area TGS Executive Camp, Quarter Gate, Pune Station,Yerawada, Chandan Nagar ------------------- Manoj Dhumal Kothrud, Karvenagar, Nalstop, Bhusari Colony, Warje ------------------------------ Prasad Lonkar Padmvati, Swargate, Sinhagad Road, Appa Balwant Chowk & Peth areas ------ Ananda Hajare PCMC, Kalewadi, Nigdi, Bhosari, Sangvi, Bopodi ---------------------------------- Yogesh Kolekar

Contact Number 9890066516 8421540282 7507169414 9011055077