The Golden Sparrow on Saturday 09/08/2014

Page 1

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

PUNE, AUGUST 9, 2014 | www.goldensparrow.com

SPORTS

CITY

PUNE’S PEOPLE WITH A PURPOSE

‘Making the sport creditable was a big task’ P 15

If we ignore rules, we will only have tragedies: Madhav Gadgil, ecologist P3

Transforming the lives of street children with education P2

Can they co-exist?

Signposts Rupee drops to five-month low The rupee was trading at a five-month low on Friday, dropping to 61.70 to a dollar, as foreign funds continued to sell their stocks and fresh concerns emerged over the situation in Iraq. After plunging to its lowest level since March 5 with a drop of as much as 38 paise over the previous close, the rupee recovered a bit to 61.61 but the sentiments remained weak for the Indian currency.

Jaswant Singh hospitalised Former union minister Jaswant Singh was hospitalised after suffering a head injury, an official said Friday. “He (Singh) has sustained a head injury and has been admitted to the ICU,” said a doctor of the Army Research and Referral Hospital where the former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader was admitted early Friday.

Modi not our focus for Maha polls: Chavan BY FP POLITICS Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan, who is on an overdrive to alter the public perception of his government, appears set to take on prime minister Narendra Prithviraj Chavan Modi. With the rebellion of senior Congress minister Narayan Rane now safely doused, and the issue of his own leadership of the state firmly settled by the high command, Chavan gave a series of interviews in which he did not shy away from taking on the former Gujarat chief minister. The Maharashtra government is currently on an image-building blitzkrieg, with the idea for the publicity

overdrive having come from the former Gujarat government under Modi, whose aggressive campaigning and in-yourface publicity blitzkrieg ahead of the Lok Sabha elections is being seen by Congressmen as the key reason for the Modi wave. But while his government may have taken a leaf from Modi’s book in preparation for the polls, the prime minister will not be the focus of the CongressNCP campaign for the assembly polls, the chief minister has said. In an interview to Mint, Chavan said, “Modi is not going to be the chief minister of Maharashtra, so no question of him being made the focal point of our campaigning. We will go to the people with the work we have done in the past five years. We will tell the people, Maharashtra was the number one state and will maintain its numero uno status if we are voted back to power.” Contd on p 10

RAHUL RAUT

As India changes, so does Rakshabandhan

Disha Deshmukh has been tying rakhi to her sister Durva (left) for the last five years

BY ANJALI SHETTY @shetty_anjali Disha Deshmukh, a standard V student can’t wait for Sunday, August 10. It is the day when she will put on her new dress, make-up and most importantly, receive a gift of her choice. This Rakshabandan, Disha is among

those many siblings who do not fret about not having a brother. She instead ties a rakhi to her elder sister Durva. Traditionally, Rakshabandan is a festival that celebrates the love and bond between brothers and sisters. But today things have changed as sisters and single children have found novel ways to celebrate the festival.

Today sisters and single children have found ways to enjoy the festival “Disha was three when she walked up to me and asked, ‘Di, why don’t we have a brother? Everyone in her playschool had shared their celebrations on Rakshabandan and she was feeling left out. That is when I said, ‘I am here to protect you and am no less than a brother.’ So, since that year she has been religiously tying me a rakhi,” said Durva, a third year BCom student. What Disha loves most about this festival is that “Durva-di gets me a gift of my choice. I mean it’s not my birthday or a special occasion but I still get to unwrap a gift.” Contd on p 10

PHOTOMONTAGE BY THEREFORE DESIGN

SCIENCE superstition

Well-known scientist Dr Vijay Bhatkar clarifies his position on the ‘planchette controversy’ while praising Dr Narendra Dabholkar’s work. See Spotlight, P 13

Centre for Research in Consciousness planned Stung by the controversy generated by what he says is inaccurate reporting of his views, eminent computer scientist Dr Vijay Bhatkar has resolved to establish a worldclass Centre for Research in Consciousness in Pune. This Centre will function under the ISpace India International Multiversity which he heads and will conduct research on the convergence of science and spiritualism. A number of leading scientists from India and abroad will be associated with this centre, Dr Bhatkar said in an exclusive interview to The Golden Sparrow on Saturday. He said that such centres are being established in the United States, Europe and Russia. “In fact, I want to conduct scientific research into the concept of ‘Swasamwedha’ and ‘Chaitanya Shakti’ as mentioned by Sant Dnyaneshwar in the Dnyaneshwari. This shall be the mission of my life from here on,” he said. “This controversy has inspired me to start this centre. It will go into issues of consciousness, life after death,”

Dr Bhatkar said. He gave the analogy of a computer, where the hardware can be seen but not the software. Even if the hardware is destroyed, technology can be used to enable the data and the software to escape through wireless transmission and lodge in another computer. “It is in this context that the Internet was created when the US thought that if the Russians bombed the Pentagon, then all the intelligence would be lost. That was how the Internet protocol was born,” he noted. The research in consciousness will look into aspects of the soul, mind, meditation, life after death and other such issues. “Today science and spirituality are perceived separately; but the ancient Indian system of knowledge treats them as integral. Science searches the nature of external reality. Spiritualism tries to search, who is it that is trying to search. ‘Science without spiritualism is half knowledge’. Swami Vivekananda expressed this thought for the first time in his Chicago talk that science and spiritualism must be pursued together,” he said.


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.