The Golden Sparrow on Saturday 30/08/2014

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PUNE, AUGUST 30, 2014 | www.goldensparrow.com

SPORTS

EDUCATION & CAREER

PUNE’S PEOPLE WITH A PURPOSE

China connection P 16

China Calling P8

Fighting Parkinson’s with dance P2 ANIRUDDHA RAJANDEKAR

THE SAD STATE OF PUNE’S ‘ZERO STONE’

Help restore Pune’s Zero Stone

Given its significance, this valuable part of the city’s heritage ought to be restored, fenced and beautified ABHAY VAIDYA @vaidya_abhay

USA

WIKI COMMONS

ALASKA

WIKI COMMONS

BUDAPEST

WIKI COMMONS

WIKI COMMONS

NAGPUR

The Zero Stone monument in Nagpur and other parts of the world

Signposts PM Modi tweets in Japanese Prime minister Narendra Modi on Thursday put out a series of tweets in Japanese and said that as his friends from Japan had asked him to talk to the people of Japan directly, he had done so. Modi is scheduled to visit Japan from August 30 to September 3.

In a tweet in Japanese, he said he was very “excited” about the visit that will strengthen the relationship between the two countries. In another tweet addressed to his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe, Modi said he deeply respected Abe’s leadership.

National Herald case: Court defers hearing A court on Thursday fixed December 9 as the next date of hearing in a case against Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and her son and party vice president Rahul Gandhi and others over acquisition of the National Herald newspaper.

Metropolitan Magistrate Gomati Manocha deferred the hearing after it was apprised that the Delhi High Court has put on hold a trial court’s summons issued against Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and others till September 3.

On June 26, the trial court had issued summons to the Congress leaders on a complaint by BJP leader Subramanian Swamy alleging “cheating” in the acquisition of the paper’s publisher.

A four-year-old toddler was expelled from his school in the US after his mother vent her frustration against the school in a Facebook post.

Habat’s post read: “Why is it that every single day there is something new I dislike about Will’s school? Are my standards really too high or are people working in the education field really just that ignorant.” The next morning, she received a call asking her to meet the principal when she dropped off her son at Sonshine Christian Academy, a private religious school, in Florida. To her shock, the school decided to expel her son.

Generosity & communal harmony define these mandals

BY GITESH SHELKE @gitesh_shelke

With 28-years-old Asif Shaikh as its head, the Shri Shivram Tarun Mandal Trust on MG Road is truly an inspiring icon of communal harmony, as it prepares for Ganeshotsav with a range of charitable activities every year.

Describing their youth group as “a truly cosmopolitan mandal”, Shaikh and the mandal’s secretary Sheldon Fernandes spoke of what Ganeshotsav celebrations mean to them every year.

First and foremost, the trust involves everyone from the locality in the festivities.

The mandal collects vargani ( v o l u n t a r y contribution) from the neighbourhood but does not spend it entirely on decorations and the immersion procession. “Instead, we provide meals to the poor for 10 days and also undertake other charitable activities,” Shaikh said.

This includes the distribution of blankets, jackets and other such clothing to the poor, especially

students- to prepare for the winter.

The mandal also runs a small library for the neighbourhood residents and children, says Shaikh, explaining that a lot of money can be saved if spent prudently on just decorations, sound systems and other such expenses.

As a part of its activities, the mandal has rented out some space to a tea vendor and the rent is used for the Ganeshotsav celebrations.

Ni ne te e nyears-old Sheldon, a BBA student, helping others and doing something constructive for society brings lot of joy to everyone involved in the celebrations.

Associated with this youth group since childhood, he says his fellow members hail from different castes, creed and religion.

The Ashok Chakra Mitra Mandal close to Shivaji Market, Camp, is celebrating its golden jubilee this year and has a number of Muslims as its members, said Faiyaz Khan, one of the activists.

Headed by Raghuvir Vanal, this

RAHUL RAUT

Asif Shaikh (left) and Sheldon Fernandes (right) of Shri Shivram Tarun Mandal Trust preparing the decorations for Ganeshotsav

mandal runs a social organisation called Anzuman Faizane Raza and the members celebrate other prominent festivals and occasions such as Eid, Independence Day and Republic Day with equal fervor.

“We collect money and support poor patients in the hospitals.

Our members also support orphans in different orphanages in the city,” Khan said.

This members of this group include

Muslims and Christians and they are steadfast about the spirit of unity in diversity and respect for all religions that defines the nation, said Khan. shelke.gitesh@goldensparrow.com

With support from Delhi, city BJP 12 Indian firms among keen to push Pune Metro project Forbes Asia’s Fabulous 50 ASHOK BHAT @ashok_bhat In view of the forthcoming assembly elections in Maharashtra, central road transport minister Nitin Gadkari has begun giving personal attention to the proposed Pune Metro project. In a bid to counter the ruling CongressNCP government in the forthcoming polls, the BJP is chalking out its strategy to gain maximum advantage by announcing critical steps on the Metro project.

Speaking to this newspaper, BJP’s leader in the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), Ganesh Bidkar said that one of the top priorities for

WIKI COMMONS

School expels toddler over mom’s FB post

On Wednesday, when this newspaper took a review of Pune’s Zero Stone on the footpath outside the General Post Office (GPO), the sight was pathetic to say the least.

With white paint spilled over it, there was a sweeper’s broom lying next to it and rubbish all around. A tea vendor was stationed with his cart next to the stone.

In 2006, when this journalist fi rst reported on this small, yet valuable piece of Pune’s heritage, there was a watermelon seller sitting on the stone, using it as a convenient stool.

The Zero Stone is a very special milestone as it signifies the geographic location of a city and the point from where distances are established between towns and cities. As such, it ought to be restored, fenced and beautified so that the children of this city, other citizens and tourists can go back to the time when Pune was taking shape under the British, bit by bit.

There are just 80 of such special milestones that were installed in the

country as special markings for a survey by the British. India’s Zero Stone stands proudly in Nagpur, denoting the centre of the country.

The oldest and most famous of such milestones is located in Rome, the Milliarium Aureum (“Golden Milestone”) of the Roman Empire. The maxim “all roads lead to Rome” is believed to have originated from this monument.

A number of prominent cities in the world have their own “zero stones” and are proud of it, including Washington DC, Tokyo, Berlin, Buenos Aires...

The citizens of Pune and publicspirited organisations such as the MCCIA’s Janwani, INTACH, Pune International Centre and the National Society for Clean Cities, to name a few, need to lobby with the Pune Municipal Corporation’s Heritage Cell to do what is needed.

The Golden Sparrow on Saturday pledges its fullest support to such an effort. Get in touch with us at: editor_tgs@goldensparrow.com www.goldensparrow.com or Tweet us: @TGSWeekly

the BJP’s newly elected city MP Anil Shirole, was to closely follow-up on the mass transportation project. Shirole focused on updating himself on the project and seeking clarifications on the project as proposed by the Congress-NCP government.

“Mr Gadkari informed the Pune BJP leaders that he is taking charge of the Pune Metro project at the centre,” Bidkar said. In this regard, the Union minister called a meeting in Delhi of about five experts from various fields related to the project.

“We are planning to meet the Central minister with regards to this project soon,” Bidkar said, adding that an announcement on the forthcoming state assembly polls is expected in a week or two and the BJP is keen to push the Pune Metro project to a decisive stage before the Model Code of Conduct comes into force,” he said.

Continued on p 10

WASHINGTON: A dozen Indian firms figure in this year’s Forbes Asia’s Fabulous 50 list of the region’s best big publicly traded companies with HDFC Bank making the list more times than any other company.

China boasts the most companies on the list, as it has for the last three years. But the number fell to 16, down from 20 last year and 23 the year before, according to the list published in the web edition of Forbes Asia.

China’s tech companies made a strong showing, with Tencent the most valuable, having a market cap of $155.6 billion, nearly twice that of runner-up India’s Tata Consultancy Services.

Lenovo is the biggest in terms of annual revenue of $38.7 billion,

just edging out India’s Tata Motors.

India trails China with 12 companies on the Fab 50 list, the same number as last year.

HDFC Bank, the country’s second-largest private sector bank, appears on the list for the eighth year, the most times of any company on the list since Forbes began compiling this roster in 2005.

Other notable companies from India include HCL Technologies, which makes the list for the fifth time, and Sun Pharmaceutical Industries, which appears on the list for the third consecutive time.

Mahindra & Mahindra also rejoins the list after a two-year absence.

IANS

THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY AUGUST 30, 2014

“The rich in India need to find their own conscience; to give a little of what they earn. We must learn the art of giving before the art of living!”

—Bindeshwar Pathak, founder, Sulabh International

Participatory Budget plan seeks corporate and public involvement P4

Fighting Parkinson’s

WITH DANCE

ANIRUDDHA RAJANDEKAR

Keep rivers clean, urge Fergusson College students P3

PUNE

Classical and contemporary dancer Hrishikesh Pawar speaks about the Dance for Parkinson’s Disease Programme, and more

American writer Edwin Denby said, “There is a bit of insanity in dancing that does everybody a great deal of good.” And classical and contemporary dancer Hrishikesh Pawar has elevated the meaning of this notion to an exalted level.

The 31-year-old artistic director of Centre of Contemporary Dance, Kala Chhaya, has been helping people affl icted with Parkinson’s Disease gain some control, co-ordination and balance over their motor skills, through the Dance for Parkinson’s Disease programme in Mumbai and Pune since 2009.

“If you look at the main principles of dancing, it’s more of a cognitive behavioural therapy. They lay an emphasis to co-ordination; grip and control over oneself, balance, grace and expressions.

These are exactly what people suffering from Parkinson’s Disease face the complete loss of. Dance helps them in

motor-co-ordination and fight Parkinconducted a five-day fi lm festival to son’s disease (PD),” he said. celebrate the International Dance The classes have helped PD patients Day. He was deeply touched and mohave something to look forward to. tivated by a fi lm called Why Dance “It’s a kind of a social space and has for PD? screened at the festival. become more of an event “Two members of for them. The steps and Parkinson’s Mitra Manmovements have helped dal met me at the festhem gain confidence tival and said that they and inculcate a sense loved this fi lm. Durof assurance that they ing our conversation, lack. We are yet to carry we decided to form a out any test to find that dance module for PD these classes are benefitpatients,” he said. ting them medically. But Pawar undertakes their happiness is endocumentation of each couraging more to join participant who enrols us,” he said. for the programme.

The concept of a “We do a pre and post dance therapy for PD analysis of the patient’s - HRISHIKESH PAWAR patients came to Pawar’s condition. We try to mind in London in find out how, on a scale 2004. He read about the of 1 to 10, the disease afwork that New York-based Mark Morfects the patient, as the programme is ris Dance Company has been doing designed keeping in mind the intensity with PD patients since 1999. of the disease,” he said, adding that his On his return to India, Pawar group has students between the ages of

“It’s a kind of a social space and has become more of an event for them.”

Hrishikesh Pawar has been inspired by the New York-based Mark Morris Dance Company’s work

41 and 82.

A student of Kathak exponent Rohini Bhate and theatre personality Satyadev Dubey, Pawar needs challenge to get involved into.

“A project has to trigger some-

Parkinson’s Disease is a progressive disease of the nervous system marked by tremor, muscular rigidity, and slow, imprecise movement, chiefly affecting middle-aged and elderly people. It is associated with degeneration of the basal ganglia of the brain and a deficiency of the neurotransmitter dopamine. (www.oxforddictionaries.com)

“As a society we still haven’t come to terms with school and college dropouts. We are unable to deal with anti-social elements that cause the youth to go astray.”

- SHEETAL BAPAT

Job-oriented education for needy kids Formed in 2011, Shyamchi Aai, is a voluntary organisation that extends help to underprivileged students

BY ANJALI SHETTY @shetty_anjali Sheetal Bapat was rather surprised when one day her housemaid asked her to find her daughter a job, since she could not afford to pay her school fees. That was three years ago.

“As a society we still haven’t come to terms with school and college dropouts. We are unable to deal with anti-social elements that cause the youth to go astray. I felt the need to create awareness regarding education and I was on the look out for voluntary work too, and with my responsibilities at home I wanted to take up something wherein I could give my 100 per cent instead of just writing cheques to various organisations,” said Sheetal, who started www.shyamchiaai.org in 2011.

The social body has helped 350 students and 25 new girl students were inducted in the vocational scholarship section recently.

“We also launched ‘Career Mitra’, a free career counselling course on Prabhat Road for students after standard X. The idea is to curb the dropout ratio and link right education to aptitude,” said Sheetal, who has worked as a marketing branding consultant and also provides consultancy to various CSR initiatives.

Noble cause The responsibilities: • Every member will identify and assume the role of a mother to a maximum of two children of either her maid, driver, watchman or any other help who goes to school or college.

• He/she will personally go to the school and pay the fees of the child.

• The member will personally collect the report card of the child every term end.

Sheetal realised that mere donations do not work. “We observed that 80 per cent of the students that drop out have parents working as house helps, drivers etc. They are connected to us in one way or the other. You need a spirit of motherhood as you just can’t give up on them or provide money. You have to guide and counsel them throughout. Our Career Mitra counselling works towards the same,” she said, adding that there have been several students who have made careers in nursing, pattern making, dress designing etc.

“You can mentor the child of your choice.

We can hone their skills and make them

thing within me before I accept it. I have conducted dance workshops and programmes for the visually impaired, deaf-mute children, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) children, slow learners and commercial sex

The ailment

RAHUL RAUT

BY ISHANI BOSE @ishani_bose

capable. We need to recognise their potential and use them for much positive things. It’s not charity but philanthropy and what could be a more powerful tool than the Internet,” says Sheetal, founder of the organisation.

Every child has a spark, a special ability that has to be nurtured. Every child has a different aptitude and interests. It is extremely critical that both aptitude and interest are respected.

This is where Career Mitra is of help.

“At the Career Mitra Centre we provide, aptitude testing, career counselling that is sensitive, relevant and realistic, effective mentoring and sustainable financial support options,” Sheetal said.

The idea is to make them employable with education as the focus. The current extensive project undertaken by Shyamachi Aai Foundation is to get corporates to help needy students and schools through their CSR activities. “We have identified 310 primary and 28 secondary corporation schools and compiled a report on their needs. The programme analyses their needs and will provide a ‘need basket’ to corporates. It will be a transparent process where the corporate can get in touch directly with the school and transform them,” said Sheetal. anjali.shetty@goldensparrow

workers (CSWs). Three CSWs have now joined us as instructors. I believe that dance is not just a medium for entertainment, but it is an art form that never ceases to give hope,” he said.

Pawar plans to use fi lms to popularise the dance therapy. “We are soon coming out with a documentary that is directed by Tapan Pandit and called Dance for Parkinsons. The aim of the fi lm is to spread awareness about the dance programme and how it aids patients in their struggle with the disease,” he said. ishani.bose@goldensparrow.com

In harmony with nature

Environmentalist duo makes play things for children from scrap

BY ASHISH PHADNIS @phadnis_ashish

Pune’s Prerna Gupta and Yogesh Kodolikar firmly believe in and practice an environmentally friendly manner of living. They believe in using nature’s resources with caution and discretion and therefore, make useable products from recycled materials.

“We design, manufacture and install children play areas from eco-friendly materials. The existing play equipment like slides and swings that we see in parks and playgrounds offer no challenges to the kids. We utilise reusable waste and natural material like old tyres, ropes, drums, bamboo and tree trunks to make such play things. These are designed keeping in mind the area available, the user, the budget and most importantly, the safety of kids,” Prerna said.

An architect by profession and and having worked in the field of learning for the last 10 years, Prerna met Yogesh when she joined the NGO Grammangal. Yogesh, who had quit his job after doing mechanical engineering, started Ecologic in 2010.

Prerna joined him later.

“Last year, we installed play areas at Aksharnandan School in Gokhalenagar and Orange Srutshti, a housing society in Baner. We have received favourable response Prerna Gupta from Ahmednagar Zilla Parishad and have set up play areas in five zilla parishad schools in Rahata taluka. A school from Jalgaon has approached us.

We are yet to receive any positive response from Pune Zilla Parishad.”

Apart from play things, Ecologic also works in alternative resources in the form of products and literature. Their book collection includes

Prerna Gupta

The play things made by Ecologic for schools and kindergartens are safe and long-lasting

children’s literature, literature on ecology and environment, farming and agriculture techniques, education and learning, social issues and alternative thoughts. They also hold exhibitions in schools, organisations, housing societies and literary meets.

They sell solar lanterns, fully Yogesh Kodolikar cotton cloth bags, bamboo products, habitat and bird nests, natural colours for Holi and Rangpanchami and natural clay Ganesh idols.

“We believe in the concept of learning and work with various age groups besides providing learning support like media clubs in schools and organisations,” said Prerna. ashish.phadnis@goldensparrow.com

THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY AUGUST 30, 2014

PUNE

GANESHOTSAV

Showing sensitivity, a number of housing societies, Ganesh mandals and NGOs have planned the celebrations differently this year. They have given up on the polluting Plaster of Paris idols, blaring loudspeakers and have adopted other friendly measures. Team TGS reports

with a difference Nobel laureate Dr Mohd Yunus in city on Oct 8 Grameen Bank founder and Nobel laureate Dr Mohammad Yunus will be in the city on October 8, to attend a programme on World Senior Citizens’ Day. The programme has been organised by the Janaseva Foundation, informed chairman Dr Vinod Shah. Senior journalist Kumar Ketkar, Shrikant Moghe, Prof Tej Niwadikar will also be present on the occasion, where centenarians and active octogenarians will be felicitated. For details, contact Dr Shah on 9823011760. Members of the foundation along with representatives of various senior citizens’ group had a meeting with deputy Mayor Bandu Gaikwad in this regard.

Subramanian blasts media for lack of accountability The people of the country are fed up with the lack of accountability in the media, said senior journalist Chitra Subramaniam Duella at the 7th Prakash Kardaley Memorial Lecture on August 23. She said that journalists need to be wary of people trying to push and plant stories through them. It is the duty of journalists to cross-check the facts from independent sources before taking up a story, said Subramaniam who is renowned for her investigative reportage on the Bofors scandal. She was particularly critical of primetime television channels

SSVM urges mandals to adopt positive ways

BY ARCHANA DAHIWAL @ArchanaDahiwal The members of Sanskriti Sanvardhan and Vikas Mahasangh, PimpriChinchwad City (SSVM) are urging Ganesh mandals to celebrate the festival with the society’s progress and betterment in mind.

Over the last three years, SSVM members have held meetings with Ganesh mandals in Pimpri-Chinchwad, to conduct the festival in an ecofriendly way. Interestingly, the mandals also gave positive response to SSVM’s initiatives.

The 65-member SSVM has been meeting the representatives of mandals, spread across the twin town, for over three years, and the response has been positive.

SSVM vice president Surykant Muthiyan said, “Our focus this year is on the conscientious use of drinking water. We are providing banners carrying this theme to mandals and holding free lectures on water management.

“Many mandals have stopped using loudspeakers after 10 pm as per the Supreme Court ruling and avoid excessive use of lighting, gulal, plastic materials for decoration after heeding to our appeal.”

Established in 2010 at Swatantryaveer Savarkar Mandal at Nigdi, the Mahasangh meets every month to plan and organise various social events.

Most of the members of this social body belong to different political parties but unite for a common cause.

SSVM had served food to warkaris during the Sant Tukaram Palkhi procession. archana.dahiwal@goldensparrow.com

Celebrating it in a green way

ANIRUDDHA RAJANDEKAR

Signposts

TGS Quiz Contest No. 11

Answers to the following 10 questions are embedded in the stories featured in this edition. Send us the correct answers at contest.tgs@ gmail.com and be one of the three lucky winners to receive gift coupons.

1. Which disease does dancer Hrishikesh Pawar helps patients fight through dance?

6. Which college has documentary film-maker completed his MBA from?

2. How many students has Shyamchi Aai Foundation helped till today?

7. What are Hrithik Roshan’s tastes when it comes to home interior designs?

3. Which brand has entrepreneur Ishan Bhale got to Pune?

4. What is blogger Tara Nair’s motto with regards to her blog?

8. Where is the new outlet of Chickentangdi.com in Pune?

9. Who is the director of the jewellery store Lagu Bandu?

5. What is the name of the book recently launched by Sekhar 10. Which are cine buff Satish Seshan?

Jakatdar’s favourite books?

Contest # 10 winners 1) Urmilla Ramrakhiani 3) Tushar rathod

Housing societies are finding creative ways to welcome Ganesh and spreading message of protecting environment

2) Shanmugam Mudaliar

BY PRACHI BARI @prachibari

committee for Ganapati festival and is incharge of the decor.

“Our theme this year is a symbolic A number of housing societies in the city pimpalche paan (betel leaf) in gold, to are determined to celebrate Ganeshotsav represent the society’s completion of 50 this year in a conscientious and ecoyears. We have made the big leaf using friendly way. cloth (duppattas) and straps of brocade In its golden jubilee year, Swastishree pattis for embellishments,” said Medha Co-operative Hirve, a member Housing Society of the housing in Ganeshnagar, society.

Children Kothrud is only using are also taking eco-friendly materials part in putting up for its Ganeshotsav decoration. decorations. It has The members previously been of Nav Pinnac awarded over its Kanchanganga conduct of the festival Society in Aundh celebrations and are busy with their this year will be no own decorations. exception.

“We are using eco“We have been friendly products spreading the message after realising the - SUNIL CHONDHE of nature conservation problems that and keeping the thermocol and surroundings clean way since 1997. plastics cause,” said Pradeep Dhume, Our society has a lot of greenery and incharge of Ganesh festival committee. open spaces. We began in a small way “It is not a good sight to see idols by making a tiny shadu (clay) idol and made of Plaster of Paris floating in drawing rangoli using pulses and cereals. rivers. We have made a foldable makhar We used earthen pots for decoration and (decoration) in shadu and homemade corn cobs as a symbol of prosperity,” said materials,” said Sunil Chondhe, the Rujuta Oak, one of the members of the chairman of the society. society. She is on the art and creative prachibari@gmail.com

“It is not a good sight to see idols made of Plaster of Paris floating in rivers.”

eCoexist initiative is now nine years old!

BY PRACHI BARI @prachibari

With even children now demanding that idols should be eco-friendly, NGO eCoexist has been reaching out to create awareness on nature conservation since 2006.

Supported by Cummins, the biodegradable shadu (clay) idols of eCoexist are made by traditional sculptors from Pen village, painted with natural colours using turmeric, multani mitti and geroo.

“Plaster of Paris (POP) that is used to make Ganesh idols is not a naturally occurring material and leads to water pollution when the idols are immersed,” said Lolita Gupta, partner in eCoexist. The NGO is founded by Manisha Gutman.

“We started making idols with the help of Pen sculptors. Initially, they were sceptical but now they come here to work on idols. We started with less than 40 idols in 2007 and now the demand has touched 2,000,” Gupta said.

The special children of Bal Kalyan and Dillasa Karyashala also make articles for eCoexist.

The NGO makes cloth temples, sholapith garlands, wheat grass decorations and seed laddoos. Shola is a plant whose stems are used for exquisite craft in West Bengal and has properties like thermocol. eCoexist has developed three designs too for cloth torans along with the team at Bal Kalyan Sanstha. Ecologic is another enterprise which is helping create awareness and offering an alternative by prachibari@gmail.com

Keep rivers clean, urge Fergusson College students

BY YASH DAIV @yash009 Fergusson College’s social outreach group, guided by faculty Sunita Gupta, along with SWaCH has been organising an ecoimmersion drive for four years. It is urging mandals to follow their example.

The volunteers are at the immersion spots with placards carrying the message. “Devotees do not prefer the tanks made by the municipal corporation for sentimental reason,” said Vivek Singh, a third year arts student.

The group’s coordinator Hrishikesh Patil said, “We tell people about river pollution. But as it is

The Fergusson College group has been urging people to not immerse idols in rivers for four years

a touchy issue, I train the team into ‘What they are not supposed to talk.’”

The group has been successful in segregation of organic materials from idols. Nirmalya, garlands and other degradable materials are collected by

SWaCH to be recycled and reused for making fertilisers, natural colour etc.

“Last year, we collected about 110 tonnes of nirmalya,” said Hrishikesh. yashdaiv@gmail.com

The Ganeshotsav theme of Swastishree Co-operative Housing Society in Ganeshnagar (Kothrud) this year is a leaf that represents the society’s 50th anniversary

A TGS MARKETING INITIATIVE

Making a difference through social message creatives Dear Readers, The Golden Sparrow on Saturday has invited Pune’s immensely talented advertising and cre-

ative fraternity to participate in a Social Message Creatives initiative.

The campaign by Surekha

Communication Pvt Ltd on vehicle pollution is prepared by the team under the leadership of Sachin S Patil and Ajay K More.

THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY AUGUST 30, 2014

Is your blog helpful to readers in some way?

P6

Entries invited for Baya Karve Award Maharishi Karve Stree Shikshan Sanstha has invited entries for the Baya Karve Award. This year the award will be given to a woman for her outstanding contribution in the social domain (the prize is awarded to educationist or social activists alternately).

The organisation has asked candidates to submit details before September 15. Late Gangutai Patwardhan (eminent educationist) and Dr Manda Amte (doctor-activist) were among those who have previously been conferred this award. The awardee will be felicitated at a special programme planned by the organisation. For more details, contact 020-15313000 or 020-25313300.

Lectures on meditation techniques Chinmaya Mission, Pune, has organised a five-day lecture series on meditation techniques from September 6 to 10, at Chnimaya Mauli Ashram, Lohegaon. Swami Brahmandaji, known for his serene and thoughtful explanations of the scriptures, will deliver the lectures. The mission has also organised to and fro transport for the devotees from all parts of the city. For details contact: 9975596394, email: cmpune@ gmail.com

Participatory Budget plan seeks corporate and public involvement It’s a platform for corporates to share their views for better utilisation of their money under the Corporate Social Responsibility

BY PRACHI BARI @prachibari

and shaping the whole process of participatory budgeting.”

“Participatory Budget (PB) is a democratic process in which the citizens directly decide on how to spend a part of the public budget, and Pune is the only city with a fully functional PB in the country,” said Naim Keruwala, assistant director, Janwani, Pune. He was speaking at the seminar on Participatory Budget – a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) perspective, organised by the Mahratta Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Agriculture, in association with Janwani.

The seminar titled ‘My Money My City’, was attended by corporates, residents and representatives of education institutes, who had volunteered to be part of the Participatory Budget.

“This idea was turned into a reality with the support of the then municipal commissioner Dr Nitin Kareer and civil society organisations in 2006, and since then, Janwani has been facilitating the process,” added Naim.

The aim of the project was to increase public participation by creating awareness among citizens and to compile data regarding

PARTICIPATORY BUDGETING: A SYSTEMIC PROCESS There are 76 ‘Prabhags’ in Pune with two electoral wards in each ‘Prabhag’. Rs 50 lakh is the upper limit of allocation towards each Participatory Budget for each ‘Prabhag’, while each work suggested should not exceed Rs 5 lakh.

Anyone can make a suggestion for any electoral ward of the city.

You need not be a resident of that electoral ward to make the suggestion.

To understand the system, the ward engineer can help estimate the cost of the suggested work.

Janwani, along with CEE, has designed a menu card for corporates to help. Centre for Environment Education (CEE) has been involved in the PB processes right from its beginning. This involvement has included orienting community mobilisers, facilitating volunteering by students from engineering colleges for assistance in costing of works, facilitating data entry volunteers and other such work.

The menu card states what is important for the city and so is

Draft DP gets many weak objections The Pune Municipal Corporation receives a total of 87,000 suggestions and objections

BY ASHOK BHAT @ashok_bhat A record-breaking 87,000 suggestions and objections (S&O) have been registered by citizens with regard to the draft Development Plan (DP) proposed for the city by the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC).

The seven-member committee, that will scrutinise these suggestions, had urged citizens to voice their suggestions and objections. Of the 87,000 S&O, about 10,000 are genuine, said Bapusaheb Karne, member of the committee and chairman of the Standing Committee.

Karne said that there were thousands of objections to reservations proposed in the DP. The committee has decided to hold the hearings at the Ganesh Kala Krida Manch over six days. “The committee sent the notices to all but on the day of hearing only 100 to 150 complainants turned up.

Th is revealed the shallowness of the

“I believe sunshine is for recharging and channelising our energies and not discharging them. Those of us who live this belief remains a source of sustained energy for humankind.”

—Dr Kiran Bedi

China calling!

P8

objections raised,” he said. The S&O, which were genuine, were related to road widening issues, reservationsrelated issues, with documentary evidence and the new policy for hawkers under which roads cannot be cleared without marking reservations for them.

The committee will get adequate time to prepare its final report and present it to the general body after the elections.

The decision of the general body will be conveyed to the state government, which will then approve the new DP of Pune. City engineer Prashant Waghmare, Standing committee chairperson Bapusaheb Karne, representatives of the local body Abhay Chhajed and Chetan Tupe and deputy city engineer were appointed by the PMC’s General Body to attend the hearings. enews.mediasurvices@gmail.com

Naim Keruwala, assistant director, Janwani, Pune, addressing the audience at the seminar on Participatory Budget

various projects carried out under Participatory Budgeting.

Naim added, “Corporates are magnets of the city, where people and money, both flow in and this is why a well-managed city is imperative for their existence. Also, there has to be a feedback mechanism. Participatory Budgeting is a platform through which

the corporates get the opportunity to make suggestions for appropriate utilisation of their money. It also serves as a tool to add on to the existing CSR activities.”

Avinash Madhale of the Centre of Environment Education (CEE) said, “Citizens’ organisations have played an important role in initiating

Our newspaper is interactive and you are welcome to write in to our various segments:

TGS NEWS SERVICE @TGSWeekly The Odisha Tourism Department will be organising Konark Festival (December 1-5), International Sand Art Festival (December 1-5), Parab Tribal Festival (November 16-18), Dhanu Yatra Festival (Dec-Jan) in the state, informed MR Patnaik, director, tourism, government of Odisha and managing director, OTDC at a programme, Odisha Road Show 2014, held recently in the city. The programme showcased the colourful heritage of Odisha.

Ashok Chandra Panda, minister of state for tourism and culture, Odisha and MR Patnaik, were in the city to promote tourism in the state. The state has an increased allocated budget for tourism this year and hopes to use it for the betterment of the state.

“Pune plays an important role when it comes to promoting Odisha tourism.

We want more Puneites to visit the state and explore its rich heritage,” said MR Patnaik.

To attract domestic tourists from various parts of the country, Odisha Tourism is holding road shows in different cities. It has conducted five

divided into various categories where in citizens can offer their suggestions.

The categories are footpaths/cycle tracks, roads, street lights, traffic lights, bus stops, public parking, public toilets, solid waste management, water (supply), storm water, gardens, public buildings, signage etc. prachibari@gmail.com

Students of Kalinga Dance Institute perform at the Odisha Road Show 2014

road shows last year and has planned to organise eight more this year.

“Discovering Odisha is truly an amazing experience. The state attracts people from all parts of the world for its sculptural and artistic heritage. We have over 600

temples which are popular and worth a visit. We have something for everyone here right from red crabs to scenic beaches. We are also looking at inviting the hospitality industry to come here and invest,” Ashok Chandra Panda said.

“Odisha has successfully nurtured three great religions like Buddhism, Jainism and Hinduism. We will be organising a number of festivals in the coming year,” said MR Patnaik. editor_tgs@goldensparrow.com

editor_tgs@goldensparrow.com

There should be zero tolerance to ‘chalta hai’ attitude bring about a change . Only then can we really have hope for the future.

- Kalika Abhyankar (Gets prize for best letter)

TGS is fresh and appealing I am a second year student, pursuing my Bachelor’s in Mass Media at Lala Lajpatrai College, Worli, Mumbai. I travel to Pune frequently. During my recent visit to Pune, I went to the local newspaper vendor and came across The Golden Sparrow on Saturday. It seemed fresh and appealing to me. As the media strives on negativity, I found the positive journalism of TGS different. I request The Golden Sparrow team to start the newspaper’s subscription in Mumbai as well. Wishing you luck in your future endeavours.

- Shlomoh Divekar

Yerawada Jail inmates turn over a new leaf

Crime does not mean an end to Yerawada Central Prison sets an example useful living. The initiative at the Yerawada Prison of providing useful employment to prisoners is A friend in aneed...positive step.

A street act named love: Youth shows your true self Most of us accept ‘sorry’ as a standard form of reply. Sorry is meaningless in the broad context, but if a prisoner is making an attempt at redemption, then we as citizens need to laud and support him. I purchased the products made by the prisoners at the Farmers Market about a month ago and they were of good quality. There was no prejudice when I bought the products and that a person THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY JULY 19 , 2014

The call of Sindh: A vanished homeland P4

Choose food carefully during the monsoon P5

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“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

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.

Meeran Borwankar

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.

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. 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

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

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 ANJALI SHETTY @shetty_anjali

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

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

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

A feelgood speech with doses of optimism delivered by prime minister Narendra Modi was definitely music to our ears. Is patriotism restricted to a couple of such days and forgotten otherwise in our daily struggle with other issues? Isn’t it our duty as citizens to meet the government half way to make a success of these initiatives?

Respecting the girl child, restoring dignity to women, living in a clean environment, driving out corruption, diluting communal differences are all issues that need to be addressed socially as well as politically. The “sab chalta hai” attitude has to be done away with. There should be a zero tolerance policy if any of these issues are violated.

They have to be ingrained in a child’s mind since birth as a social behavioural pattern. I firmly believe that more than the government, people themselves can

ANIRUDDHA RAJANDEKAR

• Letters to the Editor email: editor_tgs@goldensparrow.com; editor_tgs@gmail.com By post: The Editor, The Golden Sparrow on Saturday, 1641 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 • Want to become an entrepreneur? For mentoring advice, write to our associates: mentoring@pune.tie.org • Get weekly events listed: listings.tgslife@gmail.com

Participatory Budgeting (PB) originated in Porto Alegre, Brazil in the late 1980s. This significant innovation in Latin America has been much written about (for example, Souza, 2001; Cabannes, 2004; Selee, 2005; Shah, 2007).

It has emerged as a form of deliberation and citizens’ engagement in budget-related decision-making; it can help enhance participation, propoor expenditures and local government accountability. In Brazil, citizens’ assemblies in each city determine priorities for the use of a part of the city’s revenues.

Road show promotes Odisha tourism festival

Letters to the Editor

TGS is interactive

The origins

ANIRUDDHA RAJANDEKAR

Signposts

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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

that had strayed into crime was trying to make at honest effort at redemption is praiseworthy. We as citizens must appreciate the efforts of such repentant criminal. We can do our bit and buy these products. Everyone deserves a second chance if he wants to change for the better.

- Sunil Melwani

Vehicle users should discipline themselves

Read this article ‘As politicos spin metro...’ on the August 15 issue of TGS. The traffic congestion used to be there even before the plan for flyover/ metro dreams were in the offing. There is also parking indiscipline and other such issues. All these lead to traffic congestion. Apart from politicos it is the vehicle users who are the real culprits.

Once they discipline themselves, then the blame can be attributed at the higher - C V Narayanan level.

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.

TGS Marketing Initiative

THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY AUGUST 30, 2014

PUNE

Pune realty sector shows marked improvement

With state elections round the corner, the government is changing its view on stalled projects

BY BARNALEE HANDIQUE @barnalee With a stable government at the Centre, Pune’s real estate market is showing an upward trend. With the State elections just round the corner even the incumbent government has changed

its view on suspended ventures and is showing positive changes.

Rohit Gera, Vice President of CREDAI, Pune Metro says “We have gauged the market in terms of supply and unsold stock based on the category of housing. The categories

we have created are Budget, Value, Premium, Premium Plus and Luxury.

These parameters have helped us to understand that the maximum stress is on the luxury segment (where current quoted prices are in excess of Rs 7500 psf) which has seen a 61% rise in unsold stock in the last 12 months.”

Lalit Kumar Jain, Chairman and Managing Director of Kumar Urban Development Limited (KUL) said,

“There is a visible change in the real estate market scenario. It augurs well for the market. This positivity can be attributed to the stock market doing well and the economy stabilizing. The market dynamics will turn post the state polls slated for September, October this year.”

Architect Rishikiesh Kulkarni said, “New projects are getting launched in the city.”

Atul Chordia, Chairman, Panchshil Realty said, “In the next two years i.e. by 2015 we expect the economy to grow at the rate of seven per cent. But for this particular sector to progress, certain factors should be considered like VAT, direct and indirect taxes, stamp duties and so on. These factors have been hindering the sale of properties in the middle class segment. Moreover the Pune’s Municipal Corporation’s move

to increase the taxes in the premium level segment is a huge drawback for the real estate community.” Another factor that is influencing the real estate market scenario in the city is the Navi Mumbai International Airport. To complete the projects certain grey areas such as speedy approvals of process, single-window clearance, infrastructure development, BRTS, flyovers should also be taken care of.

THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY AUGUST 30, 2014

Sharing passwords with your spouse P 10

Trusting in his own instincts P9

The first spam email was sent in 1978 over ARPNET by a guy named Gary Thuerk. He was selling computers.

Is your blog helpful to readers in some way?

TECH GURU

BY SORAB GHASWALLA This is an interactive column. Like today, every week, we will be replying to technology and internet related queries sent in by readers. You may email your questions with the subject line ‘Tech Guru query’ to tgstechguru@gmail.com

Creative lifestyle blogger and interior stylist Tara Nair believes in serving the needs of readers, says Ishani Bose

RAHUL RAUT

TGS NEWS SERVICE @ishani_bose Renowned blogger, Brian Clark once said: “Don’t focus on having a great blog. Focus on producing a blog that’s great for your readers.”

Creative lifestyle blogger and interior stylist, Tara Nair, took to blogging in 2011, with the sole intention of reaching out to people with her ideas for creative living.

After completing her BE from Indore, Nair decided to pursue a career in interior designing and worked with several design and décor companies. But soon she found blogging and styling up homes more interesting and took to blogging about home makeovers, interior styling and home related product photography.

“I started blogging in 2011 and received a good response from across the globe. Th is encouraged me to take a step towards designing my own blog-site (crimsonapril.com) with a proper domain name and hosting. I blog once or twice a week, depending on the experience based information, which is worth sharing with my readers. I also keep in mind whether the information on my blog will truly help my audience.

I share ideas for a creative living and give my readers enough time

to implement them,” she says.

Blogging has helped her career in many ways and Tara has been approached by many for home makeovers, apart from writing blogs for some reputed companies about their products.

“My motto of home styling is related to purpose-based and personality-based work. I like to give a unique identity to a house as it holds you close, in even and odd times. That is why feeling proud of the house we live in matters the most to all of us. Through blogging, I share ideas and experiences which

are not only for home-owners but also for tenants, because shelter is a shelter; it doesn’t matter if it is permanent or temporary,” she says.

People frequently call her for suggestions, consultations and for styling their homes, sometimes even for special occasions.

A major section of her blog is dedicated to home-makeover ideas, be it online shopping (so that anyone across India can purchase the same thing). Or ‘Do It Yourself ’ projects or startups who want to showcase their talent in home décor products.

“I also share some personal life moments via blogging, to let my readers know that they are an important part of my life,” she says.

Nair agrees that blogging has helped her be more creative and push her potential to a greater level. Since her blog has many followers, she feels a certain ‘responsibility’ to provide more information.

“For me, blogging is that strong link between people across the planet and I. The comments, likes and support I get from my readers, give me the confidence to carry on. It fi lls me with a sense of gratitude that there is someone out there who feels connected to my blog,” she says.

Nair’s plans involve continuing to share the best of her knowledge with her readers and help them in making creative homes. She also wants to give a platform for start-ups striving to show their talent to society. ishani.bose@goldensparrow.com

Indian online market set to explode: Google study MUMBAI: With the Indian online market set to explode, telecom companies stand to generate an additional revenue of $8 billion and EBITDA of $2.9 billion over the next three years, a joint study by Google and AT Kearney has forecast.

India will witness a major mobile explosion with over 155 million mobile Internet users today, which will more than double to 480 million by 2017, the study, released here on Thursday said.

During that period, the

smartphone penetration will grow six times to touch 385 million, users making online transactions will grow to 160 million, data consumption on mobile phones will triple and consumers would buy five times more content, the study said.

“Indian telcos are poised to leap from directly into a digital play since the shift from data to digital will happen much faster in India, as more digital content and services are adopted by users. Within three years, Indian telcos revenue is

expected to reach USD35 billion, with data revenues growing at over 70 per cent annually till then, and new digital VAS streams emerging and growing exponentially,” said Nikolai Dobberstein, of AT Kearney, one of the authors of the study.

The four top priority areas that could unlock huge revenues for the Indian telcos are E-store and E-care, with online recharges for prepaid mobile phones accounting for more than one-third of all recharge value, Media Content

and Services to create more than $6 billion in additional data and content revenues.

There is also mobile business apps for SMEs with a potential of $1 billion revenues and M-Payments enabled e-stores, paid content and app transactions which would create additional revenue streams for the Indian telcos.

Google India vice-president and MD for sales and operations Rajan Anandan said that according to their market research, 73 per cent

of mobile data consumers would be willing to spend more time online if more entertainment content like online music and videos were available in an engaging format.

Besides, 70 per cent Internet users were willing to try out online recharges if they were convenient compared to the traditional channels.

According to the study, by 2017, data and paid content consumption will double organically to 470 MB data per user per month and $1.6 in content revenue per year. IANS

The action-oriented ‘Incredible Edible’ project British community leader, activist and environment worker, Pam Warhurst, speaks about her pet project — Incredible Edible and how it infused a spirit of inclusiveness within the Tormorden community 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.

BY ISHANI BOSE @ishani_bose The will to live life differently can start in some of the most unusual places. One such is the Incredible Edible project started

by British community leader, activist and environment worker, Pam Warhurst, along with a group of like-minded individuals, in a small town called Tormorden, in North of England. At the TED Talk Global Conference in May 2012, Warhurst spoke about the humble beginnings of the project in 2007 and of how it has now grown to become a real embodiment of its underlying ethos ‘the power of small ideas’.

The Incredible Edible programme was started by the inhabitants of Tormorden with the objective of finding an inclusive way of enriching the world directly around them.

“We didn’t do it because we were bored. We

did it because we wanted to start a revolution.

Can you find a unifying language that cuts across age; a language or culture that will help people themselves find a new way of living? The answer would appear to be yes and the answer would appear to be food,” Warhurst said.

Beginning with miniature herb gardens and community plots, the group has since discovered a food knowledge hub and fishery at the local high school, as well as a market garden in order to allow young people to grow and sell their own produce. It has also supported campaigns such as encouraging the keeping of free range chickens and bees.

“This (Incredible Edible) is about sharing and investing in kindness. It is about community, learning and business. It is not about asking for permission. This is a movement for everyone. ‘If you eat, you’re in’,” she said.

Warhurst added that the Incredible

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Edible initiative was not about waiting for handouts and getting stuck in long and arduous bureaucratic procedures, but about taking the responsibility and essentially get going. “The focus of our attention has been food. Everyone understands food. Food could get people talking; even better, it could inspire people to take action,” she said.

On a larger platform, Incredible Edible Todmorden has backed local businesses

and worked in tandem with the council and the police to enrich the town and seek its sustainability. This initiative has been a perfect example of resilience which has led people to get going and fight together for a common interest. It reflects the movement’s drive to provide access to good local food for all by working together, learning from field to classroom to kitchen and supporting local business. Taking inspiration, others have taken charge of their respective communities.

The UK network alone comprises more than 50 independent groups and it has its presence from Canada till New Zealand.

“I have seen the power of small actions and they are awesome. We are starting at last to believe in ourselves again. And to believe in our capacity, to build a different and a kinder future. And in my opinion, that’s incredible,” she said. ishani.bose@goldensparrow.com

Beware: Smartphones can be hacked too!

Last week, I had taken a hard look at the issue of computer hacking. Today, I do the same for smartphones.

Today’s smartphone is a “mini” computer in your hands, and some deliver even more powerful performances than your average desktop, so why did you think they cannot be hacked? In fact, hacking into a phone is far easier than breaking into a PC. All you need is one of those “white-listed” security apps meant for official use, many available for free, others costing barely about US$30 (about `1,500) to break into any “unguarded” phone.

So, how to establish whether your phone’s been hacked? The minute your phone starts behaving erratically, it’s almost always a sign that it’s been hacked. If a text message appears all of a sudden, and you cannot trace it later, someone’s got control of your phone.

Remember this though – sometimes there are tell-tale signs you’ve been hacked, while at other times, nothing warns you of a back-door entry. An example is of an app that silently works in the background, and starts transmitting the details available on your phone to hackers somewhere in Russia or China, while you blissfully continue to use your device.

For example, if you find an SMS that has been sent which you know nothing of, or if your mobile bill’s shooting up, it’s a sign your phone’s been hacked. If suddenly, you find your phone’s battery life draining out in mere hours, maybe, just maybe, there’s an app working silently in the background that’s also drinking power.

One of the popular methods of inserting malicious software on your phone is called “re-packaging”. Hackers download an app, deconstruct it, then add the malicious code, recompile it, and then ask others to upload the app, often offering “freebies”. So, an app that is cloned from a popular g a m i n g app may seem legit enough but when you d o w n load it, you also download the hidden malware in the gaming app. Once you do that, might as well kiss your personal data goodbye.

So here’s the first lesson in prevention: Do not download apps from outside of official shops like Google play. (Not that the apps listed in official stores are 100 per cent secure).

The thumb rule to be applied is: do not download apps you don’t need in the first place.

Your phone comes with a host of in-built security features. Use them. Keep your mobile device password protected. Do not use Bluetooth and always keep in turned off when not in use. Avoid connecting your smartphone over a public WiFi system like at the airport, etc. Regularly, delete your browser history, remove cookies and clear the cache. Use a security app like Mobile Security for Android (http://bit.ly/1t5rx3o) or App Notifier (http://bit.ly/1okloIY). The paid version of the latter will even alert you if any software or app is downloaded on your phone without you knowing about it.

Like your PC, install a robust anti-virus programme on your phone like the one by Norton called Norton Mobile Security (http://bit.ly/1vD4NWy), available for `234. AVG Mobile offers a security app for Android for `799/ which you may download from this link http://bit. ly/1wqnIrY. If you were to go to any of the e-commerce sites such as Flipkart, there are a host of well-known mobile security apps available, from Kaspersky to Bitdefender, averaging at `300 (http://bit.ly/1qF2RbO).

(Sorab Ghaswalla is a former old-world journalist who now wears many hats, entrepreneur, Internet consultant, Online Marketer, new media and technology journalist, and the Editor/publisher of four sites of his own, all related to the Internet, smartphones, start-ups and the Internet of things. You may find him at www.newagecontentservices.com) (Disclaimer: The Tech Guru column is more in the nature of a reader-initiated, advisory feature. Readers are urged to check or confirm for themselves the features of all hardware/software mentioned here before making a purchase. Prices quoted are indicative and not final, and subject to availability of product/service. This newspaper nor this column shall, in any way, be liable for any physical, personal or monetary damage/losses arising out of advice given herein).

THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY AUGUST 30, 2014

PUNE

commons.wikimedia.org

the convenience of using public transport day in and day out to commute in the city. Pune will need a robust bus service, irrespective of the Metro. Why have the politicians denied you this right? Ashok Bhat reports Rahul Raut

The ever-growing traffic congestion, as seen here on Karve Road, is a regular sight on major city roads

Bus transport: The neglected tale of the lifeline of two cities

By ASHOK BHAT @ashok_bhat

Even in the ‘highly disappointing’ state, the Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Mahamandal Ltd (PMPML) gets about 12 lakh people using the public bus facility daily in Pune and the neighbouring industrial township of Pimpri-Chinchwad, bringing in a revenue of Rs 1.3 crore every day.

Unfortunately, neither politicians nor bureaucrats have paid enough attention to improve the transport utility, the

lifeline for countless people in the city, leaving the firm to run into heavy losses and the citizens to suffer.

As per the Central Institute of Road Transport (CIRT) norms, there should be 40 buses for every lakh of population. With the population of two cities crossing 50 lakh, the institute has estimated the requirement of at least 4,000 buses. PMPML has just 1,300 buses, 550 on rental basis and 200 leased from Prasanna Services. Of these, only 1,350 buses are seen on the roads.

Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad municipal corporations had their own transport services as Pune Municipal

Transport (PMT) and Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Transport (PCMT) before the state government amalgamated the two to form PMPML in 2007.

The new body has Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) and Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) as stakeholders with 60 per cent and 40 per cent shares respectively.

The company’s board of directors includes municipal commissioners, mayors, standing committee chairpersons of both corporations, Road Transport Officer (RTO) of Pune and CIRT director. The state government was to appoint IAS officers as chairman and managing director, and three experts from finance, human resources and transport fields, but these posts are lying vacant since the new body was formed seven years ago.

To study the public transport facility and Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) in Bogota (Colombia), Quito (Equador) and Los Angeles (US), a delegation of municipal commissioners Nitin Kareer (Pune), Dilip Band (Pimpri-Chinchwad) and IN Gautam (Ahmedabad), senior officials from Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh had visited these cities in February 2007. Kareer and Gautam launched the BRTS projects in their cities.

Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) designed the pilot BRTS

By ASHOK BHAT Three IAS officers, three Class I or Class II officers, two mayors and two chairpersons are at the helm of PMPML. Why is it still in shambles?

Are there insiders who have a ‘hideous agenda’ to turn the transport utility into a loss-making, inefficient bus service?

The company’s top panel of civic chiefs Vikas Deshmukh (Pune) and Rajeev Jadhav (Pimpri-Chinchwad) and chairman and managing director RN Joshi are IAS officers. Mayors Chanchala Kodre (Pune) and Mohini Lande (Pimpri-Chinchwad), standing committee chairmen Bapusaheb Karne (Pune) and Mahesh Landge (PimpriChinchwad) and additional public representative director Prashant Jagtap are the other heads of the company. The state government has deputed Mayura Shindekar as chief executive officer, Pankaj Giri as internal auditor and

It is the responsibility of state government to strengthen the public transport. What PMPML needs is good governance. The state government and municipal corporations should take immediate steps to increase the number of buses, induct dedicated officers for better administration and provide spare parts. A complete overhaul is needed to strengthen the firm.

Deepak Pardeshi, PRO, PMPML PMPML needs good infrastructure, mainly depots.

At least eight new depots, new terminals in fringe areas and fund for daily expenses are required. The rate of bus breakdown will reduce resulting in efficient service if these essentials are put in place. Strengthening the public bus facility will lower the pollution level, besides reducing road traffic and parking issues. Lack of finance is the root cause of poor service of transport utility and its daily sustenance.

To say that PMPML is neglected is incorrect.

The transport utility needs fund and the stakeholders have failed to arrange the finance. Civic bodies have been providing financial assistance to PMPML in case of emergency. The Centre has provided buses through JNNURM. The firm is running at the mercy of corporations.

With the state government deciding that civic bodies should allocate 2 per cent of its budget for the transport utility, PMPML will be financially sound.

editor_tgs@goldensparrow.com

editor_tgs@goldensparrow.com

The proposed Metro is the joint project of PCMC and PMC. The Centre had asked the civic body to submit a revised project report that includes feeder service plans like bus service, auto facility for commuters to reach Metro stations, a parking facility at Metro stations and infrastructure for physically-challenged to board the trains. The state government has given the principal approval for two routes — from Pimpri to Swargate (16.5 km) and Vanaz to Ramwadi (14.92 km) — and in-principle approval for additional 15 km of Metro Rail route from Swargate to Katraj and Pimpri to Nigdi.

Abhay Chhajed, president, City Congress

project for the 17 km Katraj– Swargate–Hadapsar track. The unplanned manner in which the project was laid out was exposed when BRTS was inaugurated in a hurry for political reasons leading to accidents and evoking criticism.

Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) launched the BRTS project under JNNURM in 2006.

The civic body has completed 80-90 per cent work on the two routes — Nigdi-Dapodi and RavetSangvi. These routes are expected to start by the end of monsoon.

Maruti Mulye as chief accounts – finance officer for the public limited firm.

Nearly 400-600 buses are under repairs for the past three years. With buses been sourced only from Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) funds, and top officials not making any attempt to attract any other benefactor, the firm has been facing a shortfall of 50 per cent from day one.

The poor record of disciplinary the staff has left the firm with poor efficiency. No fresh appointment of depot managers, no vacancy filled in administration department and no promotion of checkers and starters for the last five years are some of the issues facing PMPML. These ‘intentional’ failures remain unattended to by the higher-ups and lays bare the inefficiency of the company and the inability of its stakeholders to put the house in order.

Anil Shirole, MP and City BJP president

Neither PMT – PCMT nor the present PMPML has a dedicated official at the helm.

The transport utility has been neglected as the official appointed to manage the public firm had either additional charge or there were independent officers for a very short period.

There is no uniform policy for procurement of buses. With the Centre providing 32,000 buses to different local authorities, PMPML will also get new buses. Apart from new buses, a dedicated official is needed to lead PMPML. Deputy CM Ajit Pawar’s proposal to appoint an IAS officer as an independent official to manage PMPML is still pending.

preference to PMPML Daily travel of 20-40 km on a bike or in a four-wheeler is unsafe, irritating and costly, while the PMPML bus facility is affordable and safe. Hence, people always give priority to the transport utility.

An effective bus service will reduce the vehicle traffic as the BRTS Ahmedabad has brought down two-wheeler traffic by 22 per cent and four-wheeler by 4 per cent. With ignorance of the stakeholders dragging PMPML to insolvency, the facility that has become the lifeline for Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad citizens could soon be facing its ‘fag end’. editor_tgs@goldensparrow.com

Is PMPML facing sabotage?

Rajiv Jadhav, municipal commissioner, PCMC

Vandana Chavan, MP and city NCP president

Whither BRTS? Tgs news service

Why is PMPML in a state of neglect?

Ramesh Bodake, Shiv Sena The state government has not provided financial aid to PMPML in the past seven years other than appointing officers on key posts. At one time, PMPML was bearing a loss of Rs 40 cr per annum before it started getting funds for buses from JNNURM. The transport utility is suffering from corruption and malpractices.

Sujit Patwardhan, social activist and environmentalist The state government is responsible for the poor state of PMPML. It is a registered company, but the state government decides to be at the helm of affairs. The transport utility can provide efficient service overnight if the chief minister and his deputy, who is also the guardian minister of Pune, take some hard decisions. PMPML needs a dedicated official to run the show. The key posts in the board of directors like HR, finance and traffic are yet to be filled.

Anita Benninger-Gokhale, social activist and urban planner Citizens ignore PMPML. Punekars believe that travelling in public transport buses is below their status.

And the result is rise in number of two wheelers and four wheelers, and traffic chaos. The government has never taken any step to promote the public transport. If citizens of developed countries prefer to use the public transport, then we can also do so.

Suryakant Pathak, Akhil Bhartiya Grahak Panchayat The merger of PMT and PCMT was the first mistake, and PMPML is whose offspring?

The management of transport utility is only serving their personal interests.

Our suggestion to ply mini buses in congested area of the city has not yet been followed.

‘Strengthening PMPML is the only remedy’ PMP Pravasi Manch convenor Vivek Velankar said that PMPML can make a huge difference to commuting in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad in just one year by using a fraction of the funds earmarked for Pune Metro.

“Given the snail’s pace at which the Metro project is progressing, it will take an astronomical amount and at least another 10 years for the plan to really make a difference to Pune city,” he said.

“The solution to Pune’s traffic problem is to strengthen the public transport through PMPML and not the Metro. The public transport utility has lost reliability, affordability and convenience in the past 10 years leading to increase in number of private vehicles on roads. PMPML urgently needs at least 1,000 new

passenger run. Till buses, more dethen, we have to depots, spare parts pend on these busmanagement and es as the main pubqualified and exlic transport and perienced workeven after the Metro force. And all operations start, the this is possible if PMPML service will it gets Rs 1,000 continue. crore,” he said.

Velankar said PMPML cathat the passenger ters to 12 lakh carrying capacpassengers daily. ity of PMPML buses If the transport will always be more utility can prothan the Metro as vide service as the former can run per passengers’ through every corexpectations, priVIVEK VELANKAR ner of the city. Acvate vehicles will cording to the DPR automatically reof Metro, its passenduce. The Metro ger carrying capacity will be 3.5 lakh will take at least 10 years for the first

“The Metro will take at least 10 years for the first passenger run. Till then, we have to depend on these buses. ”

per day.

“The central government is collects Rs one lakh crore per year from Pune city in the form of income tax, excise and custom duties, and service tax. The state government collects Rs 12,000 crore in the form of VAT, professional tax and stamp duty. Both these governments should give one per cent of their collection to the local body or the civic authority for development.

Then there will be no need for the corporation to raise separate funds for PMPML,” Velankar said.

Velankar said that the Centre should apply this allocation all over the country by making it a law to help the local self-government.

editor_tgs@goldensparrow.com

ED UCATION “For the batch of 2015-2017, I want to train 100 underprivileged students instead of 30.”

— Anand Kumar, Founder of Super 30 Programme for cracking IIT JEE

Signposts Azim Premji Fellowship Programme

SAM invites applications for music courses Swarnabhoomi Academy of Music (SAM), India’s professional music college located at MARG Swarnabhoomi near Chennai, has invited applications for fall semester 2014 courses. It offers diplomas in Music Performance (in voice and various instruments), Music Production, and also a Bachelor of Music degree from one of the USA’s top institutes for music education, McNally Smith College of Music, Minnesota.

For details, visit to www.sam.org.in/ admissions/application/ or call +91 87544 89805, +91 97109 47363.

AUGUST 30, 2014

PUNE

“Learn to be ‘diligent’ and ‘disciplined’. There is always a temptation to take life easy as you enter college, but at no stage should you compromise on hard work and self-discipline.”

— Indu Shahani, Principal, H R College of Commerce and Economics, Mumbai

China calling!

Learning Chinese is a new and growing trend in the city

BY PRACHI BARI @prachibari MBA student Aditya Kulkarni is practicing Chinese calligraphy, the Chinese script being based on characters called ‘hanz’. “As part of my global MBA, I have to attend a college in Shanghai for a year, and so I thought of learning some basics.”

The study of written and spoken Chinese (or Mandarin) has mushroomed in Pune city in recent times. There are over 400 studying Chinese currently, including students, working professionals and others inPune. The Chinese language is said to be among the most intricate and difficult languages to learn.

“There is definitely good number of students opting for Chinese,” said Colonel (Retd) Kiran Kanade, professor of Chinese at Symbiosis Institute

of Foreign and Indian Languages (SIFIL). Kanade learnt this language at the Army Language School, 23 years ago. “With China opening up for the global economic trade, many people are opting to work or do business with China. If you are armed with basics of the language, it can help seal the deal better,” Kanade says.

Mandarin is a Chinese dialect and 95 per cent of people in China speak this.

“In SIFIL, in a year I have around 300 students keen on learning Chinese. We offer them different levels from basic to level 4,” says Kanade.

“Study material is not easily available. There are only two places in India, Shanti Niketan and Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), where ample study material is available,” said Kanade.

“This language is one of South East Asia’s most challenging and difficult languages,” says Kapil Anil Kapadia,

RAHUL RAUT

Azim Premji Foundation has announced its Fellowship Programme for 2014-16. Applications are invited from post graduates or professional degree holders who have a passion for social change. Applicants should have 2-6 years of work experience in any sector. The fellowship carries a monthly stipend of Rs 27,000.

It is a 2-year full-time programme.

For further details, contact toll free helpline: 1800 419 0201. Email: fellowship@azimpremjifoundation. org, or visit www.azimpremjifoundation.org/fellowship.

THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY

CARE ER

Kapil Kapadia explaining Chinese script to students

Test your proficiency The Hanyu Shuping Kaoshi (HSK), translated as ‘Chinese Proficiency Test’ or ‘Chinese Standard Exam’, is China’s only standardised test of Standard Chinese language proficiency for non-native speakers such as foreign students, and overseas Chinese.

Development began in 1984 at Beijing Language and Culture University and in 1992 the HSK was officially made a national standardised test. By 2005, over 120 countries had participated as regular host sites and the

When learning Chinese...

When we learn a new language, we start with the alphabet. But Chinese is not an alphabet-based language. An extremely well-educated Chinese scholar has a knowledge of about 6,000 to 7,000 characters. However, an average educated person possesses knowledge of about 2,000 characters — sufficient to read a Chinese newspaper and communicate effectively. A proficient foreign student with a career in mind should understand anywhere between 1,500 and 2,000 characters. This study requires about 3 years of dedication and passion.

Chinese teacher and interpreter, who teaches at Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapeeth. “I studied the language for two years with Dr N S Talekar, who had lived in Taiwan for 40 years. I started

tests had been taken around 100 million times.

The general count outside China is said to be around 1.9 million. In 2011 Beijing International Chinese College became the first HSK testing centre to conduct online HSK test.

The HSK test approximates the English TOEFL, and an HSK certificate is valid without any limitation in China.

The test aims to be a certificate of language proficiency for higher educational and professional purposes.

teaching others who are interested in learning Chinese,” he said. Kapadia says that a teacher should excel at all aspects of the language, reading, writing, comprehension and listening.

Ila Mahajan is pursuing her MCA and is also learning Chinese. “I am learning Chinese as I want to visit China and work there in the IT sector,” says Ila. prachibari@gmail.com

Young city scholar gets to work on US Space project Selected under an Indo-US scholarship, Prachi Bedekar visited the US to work on the Venus Mission project at the University of Wisconsin

BY MANASI SARAF JOSHI @gargimansi Determination and self confidence are the hallmarks of success.

This is what Prachi Bedekar, a student of Master in Technology (MTech) in the Mathematics Department at the Savitribai Phule University of Pune (UoP) believes in strongly. Especially, after her work was appreciated during her internship at the University of Wisconsin, USA. Prachi attended a two-month internship programme through the SN Bose Scholarship, jointly instituted by the Indo-US Science

and Technology Forum, Delhi and the University of Wisconsin. She was the only student from the UoP to be selected for the scholarship.

“The United States is planning a mission to planet Venus in 2019. They have developed software to study the weather and atmosphere on the planet and the weather-related changes that the planet underwent,” Prachi said. As a part of the scholarship, she was required to maintain the data collected through this software relating to the weather and atmosphere.

“The task was difficult initially as I was given complete independence

Prachi Bedekar

Pursuing My Career

Turn your passion into profession

My love for cooking inspired me to study at the IHM, Aurangabad

BY BILAAL SHARIFF “Happy is the man who can make his hobby his profession” -George Bernard Shaw These are the words of one of my favourite authors in his play, ‘Pygmalion’. Today, I am happy because I have turned my hobby, my passion into my profession. Th is is my journey from wanting to become a cook to getting admission in one of the best culinary institutes in India, Institute of Hotel Management, Aurangabad, completing my course and now landing a management training stint in one of the legendary hotel chains of India, the Taj Group, Aurangabad.

Th is couldn’t have been possible without the support of my mother and my uncle, who is also my mentor. I remember him saying once, “Son, you should follow your passion – even if it is painting sign boards on the road. But just remember two things; you have to strive to be the best and you have to be educated, at least a graduate.”

At school, I was an average student. But I scored 90 per cent in my ICSE and shocked everyone. All expectations sky rocketed suddenly. I opted for science with bio, in Bishops’ Junior College, but dropped out within three months.

Then I went for engineering. Again, I realised it was not my cup of tea.

Since childhood, I have been interested in food. Cooking, eating and feeding others and hosting dinners have been a family trait. I joined one of the most coveted colleges, IHM Aurangabad for my BA (hons) in Culinary Arts, and loved every minute. Four years at this place taught me a

lot. Like our principal Jayaram said, we joined as boys but left as men.

Many believe that chefs don’t have any social life or family time but this is not true. We work hard, but we party harder. It’s about striking the right balance between work and personal life.

The rewards are great.

Cooking is an art which can be appreciated by all. The other advantage is is the instant feedback, appreciation, seeing that smile from the guest when he tastes your food is exhilarating. I believe that the heat of the kitchen, specially that peak time is like an adrenaline rush, which very few professions provide you with.

For any further clarifications on how it is being a chef, go watch the movie ‘Chef ’.

(As told to Anjali Shetty)

to handle the project from day one itself. I was not provided with any documentation and also did not have access to any system there,” she said.

Her mentor Sanjay Limaye and his team were extremely helpful, although they would step in only when she needed help. “Otherwise I had to do the project on my own, correct the errors and then proceed,” she said.

Hailing from Pen (famous for Ganapti idols) in Raigad district, Prachi has not been away from home for long periods. A student of computer engineering from AISSMS College of Engineering, Pune, Prachi worked at Persistent Systems even as she continued to plan for advanced studies.

Her goal is to pursue the master’s degree and she cleared the entrance exam at the UoP. Applicants from different university departments had been invited

for the scholarship, and Prachi was shortlisted in the first round itself.

“In the second round we had to give specific areas of interest and had to choose a mentor from three different US universities. I gave the details, mailed to the mentors and was selected by two of them. Ten students from different parts of the country went to US under the scholarship programme,” Prachi said.

Prachi has been invited back to the US to work on the same project for another four months. There is also the possibility of IUSSTF funding her entire expenses if she gets a chance to do her PhD in an American university. “As of now, I have my fingers crossed and will decide only after discussing the opportunities with my parents,” she said. manasisaraf@gmail.com

Life’s Lessons

To become a leader...

The best way to become an effective leader is “to disregard it as a goal,” says Alex Malley, Chief executive at CPA Australia, one of the world’s largest accounting bodies.

It is better, he says to focus on a “learning journey” that combines formal work experiences and other, nonformal experiences.

He found the experiences of volunteering in different environments and unfamiliar circumstances more enriching than his regular job.

“I began to realise and continue to believe that we can all be borderless in our mindset if we keep testing our own capacity in different circumstances,” he says.

His five priorities for young people interested in becoming effective leaders are as follows:

Listen and Observe: 2 Become “a champion” at listening and observing,

Pursue Your Passion: 1importance We’ve touched upon the of this point

effective leader. A colleague facing a difficult time needs empathy and kindness. When a leader understands this and shows this understanding, he

repeatedly in our previous columns.

says Alex. Every day, he says, people around you are expressing themselves through their words, body language and actions.

However, many are blind to the loud signals emitted by all of this.

To become an effective leader, it is important to understand the personalities of the people you work with; their strengths, weaknesses and motivations. “Invest in them through conversations,” says Alex; learn about their life experiences and fine-tune your approach to different people “in a manner consistent with their character”.

Empathy: This is a 3 great strength to posses if you wish to become an

has made a true difference in the lives of people around him.

Personal Identity: 4 Good, effective leaders do not define themselves by

their success or titles they hold. As another leader put it, “Do not be a prisoner of your status, your title or your position.” Always ensure that you do not align your identity to your title, he says, pointing out that if the title is taken away, “it will shatter you”.

Self-awareness: Become 5 increasingly conscious of the impact you have on others

around you. In his words: “I have seen many hard working and well meaning people miss out on their earned opportunity for promotion simply because they continued to have negative impacts on others without ever recognising it.” editor_tgs@goldensparrow.com

THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY PUNE

“We started Akosha in October 2010 with an intention of building India’s largest customer service platform. Starting with 10 customer service issues a day, today we get more than 2,500 issues.”

— Ankur Singla, founder and CEO of Akosha

Effort to promote Indian researchers

START-UP MENTOR

A group of scientists and academicians have started the Right to Research (R2R) Foundation to support foreign-educated and trained Indian researchers to help them find jobs upon their return to the country. “Despite their enriched education and training, many of them do not find jobs or get engaged in research,” Foundation head Dr Jayant Khandare told PTI.

Vishwas Mahajan

Young entrepreneur Ishan Bhale brings blueFROG to city

BY ANJALI SHETTY @shetty_anjali

right from workshop to marketing,” he said.

Ishan believes that India provides Ishan Bhale, 26, has always been great entrepreneurship opportunities clear of what he wanted in life. Be and never had any doubts about it his completing BBA from Brihan returning to the country.

Maharashtra College of Commerce, In 2013, Ishan heard of a popular MSc in international management brand looking for the right channel to and marketing from launch in Pune. “A close Universal Life Church friend told me that a (ULC), UK, for bringing popular club that holds blueFROG, a popular live music performance c lub -c u m-re s t au r a nt and other events is brand of Mumbai, to interested in opening the city. their branch in the city.

The club is Ishan’s On a whim, I decided to first venture under the go to Mumbai and meet Dice Hospitality, the the person. And the rest firm that he has launched is history. The enterprise - ISHAN BHALE along with his brotherwas a great opportunity in-law Govind Thakkar. for me to come out of my Born into a business family, the young comfort zone and experiment,” he said. entrepreneur says that the journey has “Even though opening the club never been smooth. was an impulsive decision, my father “I had to start from scratch even supported me in my endeavour. The while starting my own business. After brand too was cooperative,” he said. completing my study in the UK, I Ishan’s father Rajiv Bhale said, “As started with washing bikes at our Hero his father, I can’t be more blessed. He Honda dealership in Pune. It was a puts his heart in whatever he is doing.” gradual progression up the business Being the youngest in the family ladder, and I have had first-hand with two older sisters, opening the club experience of all aspects of the business, in the city was a learning experience for

“One should be prepared to do a lot of hard work.”

Changing your existing brand is a very critical decision

This feature is a collaboration between The Golden Sparrow on Saturday and The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), the world’s largest nonprofit network of entrepreneurs. For additional questions about your entrepreneurial challenges, write to mentoring@pune.tie.org

I am consumer B2C business and my product is in the market for last three and half years. I would now like to change the brand name. Please advise.

- Alfred ( Al ) D’Souza want to change: This is an 1afterWhy important question entrepreneurs face they have been in business for a bit.

When your business started, the brand name you kept for your business or your product/ service had no relevance to others. But as your business has taken shape and grown, it has acquired its own personality. Now there are many stakeholders who have a perception of what your business or product is and it is associated with your brand.

Importance of the brand name 2 / logos: A brand is the essence of one’s own unique story. This is as true

for personal branding as it is for business branding. The power of a strong logo in brand identity is that a simple visual can instantaneously communicate a brand and what it is about. Some large brands are able to do this by symbol only, without words, that is the ‘Holy Grail’ that brands dream about. For example, when you see logo of Apple, IBM the visual itself communicates.

This is the very essence of communication at its most primitive roots. Logos are vitally important, but are just one component of what creates a strong brand. Logos should support the broader brand strategy that supports an even bigger brand story.

Choosing the appropriate brand name - importance: Thinking through about what your business plans to do is important as this is an input to choosing your product brand name. Consumer product companies understand this, and tie their brand names directly to their brand strategies.

Most B2B companies take a more haphazard approach. Those that don’t put any effort into branding simply choose a name, charge forward and end up being “branded” by the market. Or worse yet, they’re simply ignored.

3

Changing brand name: It’s a big 4 undertaking to change your brand name. When is it worth it? Consider changing your name if you’re redefining or repositioning your brand. Here are few reasons to do it:

ANIRUDDHA RAJANDEKAR

The Mahratta Chamber of Commerce Industries and Agriculture (MCCIA), and SL Kirloskar centre for executive education will organise a seminar ‘Doing Business with China – Imperatives for Indian Manufacturing Companies’ on September 4 and 5. The seminar will focus on essentiality of dealing with a country that will offer a trade of USD 100 billion by 2015.

The seminar will be addressed by Shrikanth Gokhale, who has 10 years of experience in dealing with China.

Having set up 500 million worth operations in China, he will talk about his experience and will objectively approach the attendees with tackling the problems arising from the trade.

Trusting in his own instincts

a. To distance yourself from a negative sentiment or event. b. To clarify a confusing or nondescript brand. c. To better represent an upgraded product/service that’s outgrown the existing brand. d. Geographic considerations to address sensitivities of new markets when you are entering these. (Many Chinese companies do this when they enter global markets.)

If you’ve significantly changed your product or are trying to distance yourself from a negative brand, this decision is easy. The tough decision comes when you’re attempting to jump-start a weak brand. Many times, a weak name and indistinguishable brand cause the above problems. A fresh name and well thought-out brand strategy might open new avenues for growth that far outweigh even substantial rebranding costs.

Case studies: We have seen 5 several brand name changes in past. International Tobacco Company

changed itself to ITC because being associated with Tobacco was not very positive and their business had grown into several other areas including hospitality and the older brand did not do justice to that.

I have had a personal experience with my business with regard to brand change. Our product was initially named ‘ProjectByNet’ – a very easy to understand and functional name based on what the product did when we came out with it. However, the functionality was substantially enhanced over a period of time and we named the product based on the ‘benefit’ it offered which was visibility across the enterprise. We renamed it ‘Whizible’.

I can tell you that it was extremely hard and it took us a lot of time and work to get that name into the customer vocabulary.

Summary: I suggest that you 6 carefully evaluate the reason why you wish to change the brand name. It can be a painful and costly exercise. But if you have good reasons to do it, the sooner, the better.

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

Ishan believes that India provides great entrepreneurship opportunities

Ishan. “It is a completely different world here where you meet new people. The journey has been mad and there were times when I was left alone but I have no regrets,” he said.

He plans to promote the venue as

a platform for young and enterprising talent. “This is not only a stage for music but we are looking at creating a platform for theatre, arts and other cultural performers.”

Ishan believes that one should trust

their instincts and take the plunge when it comes to becoming an entrepreneur. “Yes, but one should be prepared to do a lot of hard work as there is no substitute for it.” anjali.shetty@goldensparrow.com

‘There’s plenty of opportunity for start-ups’

BY RITU GOYAL HARISH @ritugh No Holy Cows in Business, 9 Principles of Entrepreneurship, a book by Kiran Bhat and Sekhar Seshan, was launched in the city recently. The Golden Sparrow on Saturday (TGS) caught up with Seshan over fi lter coffee in a noisy city café. In a chat laced with humour and anecdotes from a seasoned journalist who worked with Business India magazine for twenty-five years, TGS learned more about the book (that he couldn’t stop emphasising he has ‘co-authored’), his wide experience in covering the stories of entrepreneurs from across the country and his future plans.

Tell us about the book The book was entirely Kiran Bhat’s idea.

She wrote the ‘9 Principles of Entrepreneurship’ and I contributed the case studies and interviews to support those principles.

Our collaboration started in October 2012 after I retired from the magazine.

We would write bits and pieces and go

back and forth. The book was launched What is the one sector that is poised formally last week. to become the entrepreneurial idea of Do you think India is ready to become the coming years? a nation of employers from a nation of It has to be e-commerce. Every employees? one is now moving to online Yes! Aspirations are purchasing and even though going up, the market is in the Indian context people open. We always had still like to touch and feel a initiative but lacked product before buying, they opportunity. Now we have now touch and feel it in a opportunity – there is more (brick and mortar) store, money available, and the negotiate a discount and go global market is open. I have home and order it online! interviewed entrepreneurs from across the country. I What made Bhat and have seen many successes – Sekhar Seshan you choose Vishwakarma individuals who started with Publications (VP)? their life’s savings, individuals with no VP has a distributorship chain savings or education, individuals with that was attractive for us in terms of financial backing, manufacturers, direct marketing. We hope this book will be selling marketers, traders etc. – and I used as a reference book at colleges.VP feel that the spirit of entrepreneurship is has access to educational institutions. here to stay.

I don’t know how much sense that I remember a time when I wanted makes in terms of sale of the book but some furniture in white paint and the we do hope students read it. local carpenter said it was impossible.

Eventually I did it myself. But today I What’s next? Another book? don’t think we will make excuses.

“Every journalist thinks they have a book in them, I’m no different! I have

The nine principles The 9 Principles of Entrepreneurship include ‘Love what you are doing’, the importance of focus, being literate financially, and keeping costs down.

The book has interviewed some of the most successful entrepreneurs of the country and presents several case studies– ranging from the will power, tolerance and perseverance of R K Behera, chairman of the `2,000 crore RSB Group in Jamshedpur, the inspiring tale of E Sudhir Reddy, chairman and MD of IVRCL who turned a disadvantage and into an advantage and many more.

a few ideas as of now. The books will be about entrepreneurship. As SV Joshi – Founder Chairman of Nichrome India Ltd. - had remarked at the launch of this book, we need to talk about entrepreneurial failures and I intend putting that into a book too. ritugoyalharish@gmail.com

Discussion on ways to raise funds for start-ups TGS NEWS SERVICE @TGSWeekly The Mahratta Chamber of Commerce Industries and Agriculture (MCCIA) has

organised a discussion on ‘Startups, Finding, Funding’ on September 5, from 5 pm onwards, at Hall no 7, MCCIA Trade Tower, ICC, 5 Floor, A Wing on Senapati Bapat Road.

Vikas Kumar, co-founder and chief technology officer, smejoinup.com will address participants on practical and possible ways of raising funds during a start-up venture.

The speaker will also present anecdotes from his latest book ‘Start-ups, Finding, Funding’.

Finding Funding is a topic close to every start-up’s heart and business. The topic covers practical ways to raise funds to start a business.

It covers unique yet obvious ways of funds raised by 20 entrepreneurs at the start-up level which was essential to get them to the next level. Each type of funding will cover pros and cons

and whether it is suitable for all types of entrepreneurs.

This topic is also covered in the speakers’ latest book “Startups, Finding Funding” that launched in June this year.

The speaker will quote interesting sources, known brands like Quick Heal, Chumbak, Knowlarity, IRock India etc. Debt funding will cover some basic facts on secured and unsecured bank funding and will focus on debtor receivable financing.

The programme is open for MDs, directors, vice presidents, AVP - finance, treasurers, finance controllers, assistant treasurers, assistant finance controllers and directors and managers of treasury operations. The participation fee is `500 per person (for members) and `700 per person (for non-members).

Contact Kiran Joshi on 25709182/ kiranj@mcciapune.com, and Ashok Budhkar 25709171/ ashokb@mcciapune.com editor_tgs@goldensparrow.com

With this issue

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In the issue ON TH EI N

Seminar on trading with China

ON TH ER E

Signposts

“Together, Zomato, Lunchtime, and Obedovat will be able to build the largest resource of restaurant information in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.”

— Deepinder Goyal, founder and CEO of Zomato

ON T HE TO

AUGUST 30, 2014

Tulip’s turbulence

PAGE GE UL D

Piece de resistance

RE LATIONSHIPS “...it’s always been about prioritising and focusing on what you can commit to. That’s been my approach to every aspect of my life, be it my relationships or my professional commitments.”

— Aishwarya Rai Bachchan

PUNE

The Way Forward With Compassion & Hope

Each one of us can inspire others

For some, the refusal to share passwords has nothing to do with privacy but it’s all about trust

“To share, or not to share, that is the question.”

If Shakespeare had lived in these perilous times he would have perhaps begun the famous soliloquy in Hamlet thus.

‘Share’ is the rallying cry of the social media of the day; everything you do, (or forget to do) is shared with the rest of the world.

But increasingly the ‘share’ sentiment has become restricted to the clicking of a selfnamed button on a social medium. And increasingly, share is also beginning to have another bearing on humans, in their relationships.

Social media has turned people’s lives around. Suddenly it is easier to get in touch and remain in touch, over geographical distances, and time zones. People long believed to have been separated by six degrees, now collide with each other in the cyber world and create liaisons inconceivable until a few years ago. To add to this, these interactions can be kept sole, exclusive and totally private. Closeted in office cubicles, on their commutes and just about anywhere, people can have unbridled and unmonitored interactions.

While most couples who grew up in

AUGUST 30, 2014

“Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what it was, nor forward to what it might be, but living in the present and accepting it as it is now.”

—Anne Morrow Lindbergh, American Author

Sharing passwords with your spouse RITU GOYAL HARISH @ritugh

THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY

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

the times of Hotmail and Yahoo (in the early 90s) were astounded by the level of privacy an email interaction could afford, the new generation, the one that grew up playing on smartphones, takes it for granted.

THEREIN LIES THE PROBLEM Those who don’t like to share their passwords with their partners or spouses say this is their private space. “I won’t share my passwords with a girlfriend or spouse,” says Neeraj Thakur, who is a social media addict.

In addition, Thakur feels that a partner may not understand the context of a conversation and there might be a tendency to misunderstand an interaction. The thought is echoed by Shefali Patel*, a PR professional, who admits, “I don’t think my husband will understand my interactions with people which may border on being flirtatious, but are harmless.”

To others, the refusal to share passwords has nothing to do with privacy but everything to do with ‘trust’, a word that has come to define the depth of a man-woman relationship. In 2010, a New York Times article stated, “Sharing passwords to e-mail accounts, bank accounts and photo-sharing sites is the new currency of intimacy.”

Sajjani Nair says she has no

“Sharing passwords to e-mail, bank accounts and photosharing sites is the new currency of intimacy.”

problem sharing her password if she’s asked. “I feel infidelity surfaces the moment you have to hide a password or a text message,” she says.

Over the years, the emphasis on trust in intimate relationships has increased to accommodate the feelings of insecurity and uncertainty that are perpetuated by the very nature of social media interactions turning it into a

FOR A SOCIAL CAUSE

device to protect a relationship. In an age when the young generation abhors sharing their social media passwords with parents or other significant adults, it is clear that the line between trust and privacy is very fine and every relationship must walk the tightrope to find their own balance and order. (*Name changed to protect privacy) ritugoyalharish@gmail.com

During the course of my life, I have been inspired on many occasions – by a movie, a story, an extraordinary person or even by a simple gesture of goodness. It made a difference to me, however small, however fleeting. It touched me, moved me and motivated me to change myself. I’m grateful to all these numerous people, incidents and experiences that came my way.

What did it take to inspire? It was not something that was designed to inspire. The author who wrote the book did not do so with the intention to inspire. Nevertheless, it did inspire.

I’m still moved when I read Oscar Wilde’s The Happy Prince or watch Guru Dutt’s Pyasa.

It is not necessary to write an epic or do something great in order to inspire. Any small deed, done with genuine good intention, can be an inspiration. I have been inspired by a college girl helping a blind man cross the road. I’m inspired by the little boys and girls picking plastic and other trash on hillsides or watering the saplings planted there with small one-litre bottles. The magnitude of the deed lay in the intent.

One of my friends confided years later that a small incident had not only inspired him but also endeared me to him. It seems we were in a queue to fi ll petrol in our 2-wheelers.

Someone had tried to jump the queue by cutting in front of my scooter. “I was stunned,” my friend told me,

“when you told the guy he could go ahead if he was in a hurry and that you could wait a little longer.”

It was a lesson in tolerance for him. He also felt that a nasty fight or at least an argument had been avoided. At least to some extent, it changed him. It must have had some effect, if he mentioned it to me years later. I had inadvertently inspired someone.

Are we missing out on such opportunities? For many years, Dr Indutai Patwardhan, founder of the Anandgram Leprosy Rehabilitation Centre was a close friend and inspiration to me. I was a frequent visitor at their establishment near Alandi and did a few odd jobs for the organization. Not once did she ever ask me to do anything. She and her work were enough to motivate me.

I believe each one of us can inspire others. One god deed, one selfless gesture, one act of altruism, however small, will have its effect.

There are people observing us all the time and what we do influences their thought, speech and action. Can we be conscious of this and be a source of inspiration to others?

Well, even if you think we cannot inspire, can we at least set an example?

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

RAHUL RAUT

Check this before updating Facebook status NEW YORK: Has your ex-partner conveyed all personal details of your break-up to common friends on Facebook, leaving you embarrassed?

Well, you are not alone.

According to new research, not just romance but break-up updates going viral among common friends are complicating relationships among teenagers.

“We tend to talk about how Facebook, Twitter and social media create relationships, but how about when you need to get rid of someone,”

asked study researcher Anabel QuanHaase, a sociologist at University of Western Ontario in Canada.

To understand how social media impacts break-ups, Quan-Haase and

her team spoke to 107 young people who had broken up with their partners.

They found that those who initiated a break-up tended to be less troubled by social media issues than those who were dumped.

Nearly 62 per cent of them said they spent a lot of time re-analysing wall posts and messages from their ex.

According to them, updating their relationship on Facebook caused a flurry of reactions from family and friends.

Such messages often reopened

breakup wounds.

“Most say they do not want to go to their ex’s profi le, but at the end of the day, the temptation is so high that they are constantly going back,” QuanHaase noted.

Some felt that the ex was flaunting his or her newly single status whereas the observer was trying to keep a low profi le. She shared her findings at the 109th annual American Sociological Association meeting in Chicago recently.

IANS

Why do good people have to suffer...

Kathak dancer Sharvari Jemenis performing a dance drama on ‘female foeticide’ at a programme organised by USK Foundation at the Ganesh Kala Krida Manch

The most persistent and still unanswered question in the history of human civilisation and intelligence has been - Why do good people have to suffer and the evil-doers live in comfort? Whenever there’s a tragedy or a calamity, especially in a holy place, we question God’s intentions?

We must look at this world from a rationalist’s perspective which doesn’t include the belief in the presence or existence of a higher power. Th is is not atheism, but even beyond that.

We need to evolve, ourselves to accept that whatever happens to anyone has nothing to do with any divine will or one’s so-called karma. God and karma are plausible alibis to explain the sufferings that have been integral to the mankind right from the beginning.

The moment we realise that our sufferings are random occurrences that are independent of any god and what we did in our imaginary past lives, we feel relieved and emancipated from a nagging sense of anger.

We require to free ourselves of all types of conditioning to be at

ANIRUDDHA RAJANDEKAR

BY SUMIT PAUL

The devastated Malin village where landslide claimed 151 lives

peace with ourselves and the nature that surrounds us. Nature’s ways are inexplicable to us.

Why certain things happen to certain individuals cannot be answered with the help of any divine theory and karmik explanation. These things just happen at random. The way there’s a method in madness in some individuals, there’s also a method in nature’s randomness.

To believe that God has been kind or unkind to a certain individual is to deny his/her individuality. Here the point is not to get into the foolish argument of whether or not does the God exist. The point is the assertion of an individual’s existence that begins and ends with him.

The very question, ‘Why has this happened to me’, implies that this ought to have happened to someone

else and I should have been spared.

There’s no question of good or evil that may be the reason of good luck or ill-fate. These are concoctions of limited minds. If a good person suffers, it’s his life and if a bad human being enjoys all comforts, it’s also his life. In a lighter vein, “The best of men cannot suspend their fate The good die early and the bad die late.”

—Daniel Dafoe

THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY AUGUST 30, 2014

PUNE

Can bacteria control our behaviour?

P 13

“What I see in Bangalore is that India’s prowess in aerospace and hi-tech is growing fast. This is a fertile ground for British and Indian firms to do business, as evident from the deals by our firms to set up their shop here.”

— British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, after opening a tech hub in Bangalore

BJP, RSS on the wrong track...

They must pipe down about ‘Love Jihad’, which is actually an organised system to rope in converts

BY R JAGANNATHAN The BJP and the Sangh Parivar are kicking up a big fuss over “Love Jihad”. They should pipe down. Not only will they be heating up an already communal atmosphere, they are also on the wrong track.

Leaving aside some anecdotal incidents of intercommunal love and conversions to Islam resulting from these liaisons, the fact is if ‘Love Jihad’ is actually an organised system to obtain converts, it is a sign of desperation in those seeking to use this route to change demography. I propose to explain why through some hypotheses.

First, ‘Love Jihad’ is a very inefficient and costly way to seek conversions. To make it viable, you need a sufficient number of youth willing to sacrifice their time and energies to wooing members from another community - not just for a sexual fl ing, something men are always willing to expend energies on, but a long-term investment like marriage.

Even if one assumes that the wooer is going to desert or contract another marriage of his choice post-conversion, such things cannot remain covert. They will excite community reaction - which then slows down the process of further

conversions.

‘Love Jihad’ will thus ultimately be self-defeating. Worse, it is an indirect acknowledgement by the community seeking converts that normal methods of conversion - marketing propaganda, popularisation of good practices, and promises of spiritual and economic inducements - cannot work anymore.

It is interesting to note that the phrase Love Jihad originated in Kerala, where communal demography is moving towards a balance where conversions are both more difficult and costlier for all communities.

The Kerala religious demography is roughly 55:45, with Hindus at 55 per cent and Muslims and Christians together accounting for the balance (roughly 25:20 between Muslims and Christians).

At 55:45, Hindus would have lost sufficient numbers over the centuries and will now be close to acquiring “herd immunity” to further conversions.

“Herd immunity” is a term the medical community uses in the context of epidemics. New diseases (ebola, swine flu) have a tendency to spread faster in the initial stages than later, when significant numbers have already contracted the disease. When the bug or virus initially infects individuals, the

‘Love Jihad’ is a very inefficient and costly way to seek conversions

number of potential additional people to infect is larger, and so the chances of transmitting the disease are greater.

Once many people contract it, the number of potential targets falls, as the weaker members die, the stronger ones survive, and the balance population becomes resistant to it or is less likely to come in contact with an infected person.

Herd immunity is lowest for small and homogenous communities, and higher for very large, but diverse, populations with genetic variations.

Herd immunity is also lower for very large, but monocultural, communities (as in China and Japan). In India, despite diversity, herd immunity among Hindus has reduced of late due to the homogenising effects of urbanisation, globalisation, and the reduction of casteism. However, herd immunity has not been achieved is large swathes of the diverse Hindu population in

With support from Delhi...

Contd from p1

The authorities in the state are now working towards establishing a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) for implementing the Pune Metro project.

A proposal for the SPV was sent by the Law Department to the Union Urban Development Department headed by the chief minister. Once he signs the proposal, the way will be clear for the formation of the SPV.

BJP MLAs from the city Girish Bapat, Bhimrao Tapkir and corporators Ashok Yenpure, Medha Kulkarni and party leaders Ujwal Keskar and Yogesh Gogawale met the Union Urban Development minister Venkaiah Naidu in Mumbai early this week when they were informed by Naidu that a modified proposal of Pune Metro had been received from the state government on August 22.

A scrutiny of the proposal was in the final stage after which it would be sent to the Finance Ministry. Once approved it would then proceed for cabinet approval.

Bapat said that even as the approval of the PMC’s general body has not been taken to increase the cost of the project, Naidu has called for a meeting of the concerned officials in Delhi next week.

various parts of the country, and this is why Islamic and Christian evangelical groups are more successful in gaining faster conversions outside Kerala - in Tamil Nadu and parts of Andhra Pradesh, for example.

It is interesting to note that both Hindu groups and the church have raised concerns about Love Jihad in Kerala. So one cannot dismiss the idea altogether. But Love jihad as a purely male appropriation of women from other communities into theirs cannot work over the long term unless there is a reverse process also at work: Muslim women enticing men (the so-called “honey trap”) from other communities into marriage and conversion. If too many Muslim men marry outside their existing patriarchal hunting grounds within the community, the result will be a shortage of Muslim grooms - even assuming some amount of bigamy is

IANS

Could Raj Thackeray contest from Dadar, the Assembly seat that’s home to the iconic Sena Bhavan, a bastion of the Shiv Sen,a and also headquarters of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena?

The question sent Sena supporters into a tizzy, especially ever since speculation began that MNS MLA Nitin Sardesai, who currently holds the seat, may offer it to his party boss instead.

Following the poor performance by the MNS in the Lok Sabha elections, Raj Thackeray had announced that he and his party would contest the Assembly elections in Maharashtra.

Expectedly, speculation had immediately arisen about whether Raj could be chief minister if his party posts a surprising performance.

However, the MNS chief did a U-turn this weekend, ruling out a run in the state Assembly elections, saying he does not want to be limited to one constituency.

“The entire state of Maharashtra is my constituency and I do not want to limit myself to just one constituency,” Raj told reporters in Nagpur recently.

The MNS head, who was in the city to finalise candidates from Vidarbha for the state Assembly elections in October, said his party will field about 40-45 candidates for the 62 seats in the region.

Nobody in the Thackeray family has ever contested an election or held any government post, but this coming Assembly election almost overturned

Raj Thackeray has announced that he will not contest the Maharashtra Assembly polls

that convention.

For, even as Raj announced in the aftermath of the LS results that he would contest a seat, Shiv Sainiks were also simultaneously pitching Uddhav as the NDA’s chief ministerial candidate.

Uddhav was noncommittal about whether he would contest, but he did not rule it out outright.

Raj’s decision not to contest will rob Mumbai of a possible unprecedented Thackeray Vs Thackeray faceoff in central Mumbai’s Dadar area.

For both Senas, Dadar is more than an Assembly seat. In his last public

rally before his death, Bal Thackeray exhorted Sainiks to win Dadar back for him. After all, until this Lok Sabha election in which Mumbai South Central rode the Modi wave to elect senior Sena corporator Rahul Shewale to the Lok sabha, the Sena’s recent performance in the region has been dismal -- the Dadar Vidhan Sabha seat had been lost to the MNS in 2009, and all seven corporator seats in Dadar were lost to the MNS in 2012.

Uddhav Thackeray later vowed to win back Dadar. The Sena and the MNS have been recently locked in a bizarre war to give free Wi Fi to visitors to Shivaji Park, home turf for both parties.

Needless to say, for estranged cousins Uddhav and Raj, winning Dadar is crucial -- for Uddhav, regaining this former bastion will be a sign than he can take Balasaheb’s legacy forward; for Raj, keeping Dadar is a signal to Shiv Sainiks that it’s time to cross over. For now, however, Raj has ruled himself out, citing his “genes”.

According to a report in The Times of India, he said, “Nobody in my family ever contested an election. After some introspection I realized that contesting elections was not my cup of tea.”

MNS, which had declared support to Modi for the Prime Minister’s post and fielded only nine candidates in total for the LS polls and most of these against the Shiv Sena, suffered a complete wash-out with many of its candidates also losing their deposits.

(Copyright: Firstpost.com)

(By special arrangement with Firstpost.com)

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No Thackeray Vs Thackeray face-off in Maharashtra

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permitted in Islam.

In fact, the reverse Love jihad, where females entrap males from other communities, is actually more feasible for the simple reason that men are less choosy - and actually make patriarchal gains if they marry Muslim women (as this blog in Reality Check India argues). This is because we know that women are more careful in picking male partners than men for biological and evolutionary reasons. Acecdotally, too, I have heard of more Hindu men willing to convert to marry Muslim women or even to marry twice. I know of one senior editor who converted to Islam to marry a second time when the earlier spouse would not offer an easy exit. But honey traps too suffer from the same limitations of men entrapping women: it demands too high a personal price from the women concerned, and moreover will ultimately be opposed by

conservative Muslim society if carried out on a scale where demographics are altered significantly.

Net-net, I believe that Love Jihad - apart from being a contradiction in terms, is improbable except at the margin. It is a possibility - but not a probability - in states like Kerala and Assam, where demographic realities have reduced the Hindu proportions, enabling them to be more resistant to conversions. They may be close to achieving herd immunity.

The reasons why conversions are a big issue with Hindu groups are two-fold. One, since Hinduism does not believe in conversion and has, therefore, not developed a wellorganised, institutionalised system for expansion of the faith like Islam and Christianity, some Hindus want conversions banned. But this is antifreedom and not acceptable in our pluralistic society. Two, there is a sense of greater vulnerability since herd immunity has not been achieved in large parts of India.

Remember, just as Hindus don’t have herd immunity in India, Christians don’t have herd immunity in the areas they dominate. They are as vulnerable as Hindus in India to conversion. The communities most vulnerable to Hinduism and Buddhism are the Islamic world - which has no herd immunity whatsoever even though there are more than 50 countries professing Islam as a religion. Banning conversions and apostasy is a sign of extreme herd vulnerability.

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TH E EDIT PAGE Located in Rome, the most famous of the zero milestones is the Milliarium Aureum (“Golden Milestone”) of the Roman Empire. The maxim “all roads lead to Rome” is believed to have originated from this monument.

THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY AUGUST 30, 2014

PUNE

Editor’s pick

It’s easy to win the hearts of Punekars

Restoring Pune’s Zero Stone Pune’s Zero Stone is no Taj Mahal or the MIT Institute of Design draw that it should be declared a World a beautification plan for the restoration Heritage site. At the same time, it is of this small yet beautiful piece of also not just another piece of stone, or history? Can’t the Pune Municipal even a milestone that does not deserve Corporation’s Heritage Cell take a lead a second glance. in this project?

Allowing this historic milestone to After all, this is the same city go to seed reflects on the lack of culture where the civic authorities, NGOs in this great city which and corporate groups calls itself the “Cultural came forward to Capital of Maharashtra” restore Shaniwarwada.

Allowing and “Oxford of the East”.

Restoration of the Zero Are such high sobriquets Stone will cost less than this historic appropriate when this a fraction of that. city of intellectuals, milestone to go As reported on our artistes, industrialists front page, Nagpur and activists cannot pay to seed reflects is among the cities in attention to a small part where the Zero on the lack of India of its heritage?

Stone stands celebrated.

Is it so very difficult in other great culture in this Likewise for city organisations like cities of the world the MCCIA’s Janwani, such as Washington great city INTACH, Pune DC, Berlin, Tokyo, International Centre Budapest, and Buenos or the National Society for Clean Aires.

Cities (NSCC) to take up the cause The Golden Sparrow on Saturday of restoring Pune’s Zero Stone? Can’t pledges its fullest support to citizens the Symbiosis Institute of Design, and organisations who wish to come the Maharshi Karve Stree Shikshan forward for the restoration of Pune’s Sanstha’s Dr Bhanuben Nanavati Zero Stone. Get in touch with the College of Architecture for Women, editor or write to us at DSK International School of Design editor_tgs@goldensparrow.com

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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)

Cartoon by: Surendra in The Hindu

Task of finding friends, foes in W Asia

By Saeed Naqvi It is widely known that New Delhi tilts towards Israel in its dealings with West Asia, particularly since the 1999 Kargil war when the Jewish state provided the ammunition required for India’s field guns. Other mutual interests have since multiplied. It therefore made practical sense that external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj restored the balance somewhat when she dwelt at length on traditional ties with the Arab world while opening an India-Arab media conference organised by her ministry and attended by media managers from the Arab world.

The media link is a tenuous one because an independent media is not the Arab world’s strongest feature, Al Jazeera’s inexplicable credibility notwithstanding. It is an enigma: an independent channel owned by a Sheikhdom which hosts the US Central Command. Even during India’s nonaligned phase, there were groups and individuals who saw Israel as a model for the wrong reasons. The late ML Sondhi, for instance, sketched a grand design in my presence in the conference room of Jerusalem’s King David hotel: two non-Muslim countries surrounded by problematic Muslim neighbours.

Both also had “problematic” Muslims within.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990, it seemed a dream scenario for these “two” countries to clasp the hand of the world’s sole superpower and live happily ever after.

It would be useful for Sushma Swaraj to recall the goings-on in Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s cabinet. LK Advani and Jaswant Singh had agreed to send Indian troops to govern the Kurdish North of Iraq, exactly the region the Americans have now returned to in

IANS

The state assembly elections are round Understandably, the civic the corner and once again, political authorities have been unable to departies will go all out to woo the voters congest the traffic. While they continue of Maharashtra. The Congress-NCP to widen roads, construct more flyovers has been in power for a full 15 years and and allow parking on the roads, the was blessed with not just power at the fact is that none of this will help: Centre but also with the control of the What is needed most is an efficient city civic bodies in both Pune and Pimpribus service criss-crossing Pune and Chinchwad.

Pimpri-Chinchwad so that we can keep What does this coalition have to our vehicles at home and commute by show in terms of its achievements in the city buses. the state? Specifically, what does the The Metro, when it comes, is coalition have to show to welcome but cannot be voters when it comes to a standalone solution to issues relating to Pune the woes of the citizens.

The absence A good transportation and Pimpri-Chinchwad?

It is now a matter of less infrastructure for a city of robust than two months when we has to have all modes the citizens will draw an of public transport public assessment for ourselves complementing one and head to the polling transport is another seamlessly: stations to elect the next the bus service, Metro what hurts state government. and autorickshaws or If you ask yourself public each one of personalised what is it that bothers transport. you most in the city, the The statistical us the most answer will undoubtedly projections for the be unanimous: The worsening traffic absence of robust public situation of Pune have transport is what hurts each one of us been presented by the civic authorities the most. Since the city bus service- the year after year since the 1980s and PMPML- is in a shambles, each one none of this has come as a surprise. of us- rich or poor; a student, young The politicians and bureaucrats of professional, working executive or a the day however, failed to plan and mother with school-going childrenimplement effectively as a result of is forced to own our own scooter, which we Punekars have paid a heavy motorcycle or car. Unlike in Mumbai price. There’s stress, frustration, loss of which is just 200km away, we cannot life and crippling injuries resulting from step out to the nearest bus stop and road accidents and the situation worsens catch a bus for commuting in the year after year because of the absence of city. This is what has led to an mass transport. exponential rise in the vehicular Any political party or a coalition population of Pune with disastrous that delivers a good BRTS and a city consequences for us citizens. bus service to Punekars is certain to win Last year, the Regional Transport the heart of this city and be rewarded Authority reported that Pune’s with the votes of the citizens. The sweet vehicular population had crossed carrot of the Metro can wait. What the 35-lakh mark with nearly 14 Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad need lakh vehicles added to the city roads here and now is a good bus service. in the last 10 years. More than 700 There’s no rocket science involved in vehicles were being registered in the this and Punekars should ensure that city every day, most of them motorised their votes go only to those who can two-wheelers. deliver on this front.

External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj tried to restore the balance somewhat when she talked of traditional ties with the Arab world while opening a media conference

military formation. Why was India willing to subserve US occupation of a friendly country? In fact possibly the friendliest country India ever had. In every UN debate, Iraq was the only Muslim country that stood with India on Kashmir.

In 2003, there was great faith in the durability of the sole superpower.

After Saddam Hussain’s fall, the Indian ambassador to Baghdad was not asked to return to New Delhi. He was asked to mark time in a three-star hotel in neighbouring Amman and wait for Americans to take charge in Baghdad whence he would rush to present his credentials.

The person who read the future right was Vajpayee. On April 9, Saddam Hussain’s statue was pulled down at Baghdad’s Firdous Square by US Marines. The global media gave it a different spin. Angry Iraqis had pulled down the statue, the world was told. Vajpayee described the US as an “awesome” power on the move. From Srinagar he called off the eyeball to eyeball confrontation with Pakistan.

I have inserted this piece of history the world knows little about, deliberately at a time when a handful of Arab media representatives are present in New Delhi. The Arab media itself had been pushed beyond the margins during the occupation of Iraq. The show was being largely controlled by BBC and CNN. It is worth mentioning that Doordarshan was the only non-Western media to have comprehensively covered that piece of history. Sushma Swaraj was the information and broadcasting minister then.

US Vice President Dick Cheyney, even more than Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, was keen to declare victory on global TV. Obstructing celebrations was a singular problem.

There was no demonstrable public enthusiasm for Saddam’s ouster. The entire choreography of the war had been designed for TV. How could the US declare victory if there were no street celebrations?

The only people willing to celebrate Saddam’s downfall were Shias in the south and east of the country. They

The purpose of life

By Anil K Rajvanshi

even in old age and they are the most interesting people and a joy to be with. As The whole purpose of life is to have the brain becomes bigger, as is the case of happiness. All of us strive for it, work humans, more experience is required and towards it and deep inside feel that it is acquired. This mind-expanding exercise the ultimate goal. Different people have is the genesis of wisdom since it gives a different definitions of happiness but sense of perspective in life. ultimately we all want it. Happiness is Also the gaining of experience a state of mind and hence the purpose is very enjoyable and this mindof life is to make mind happy. And expanding exercise brings happiness. mind becomes happy by maximizing The maximization of experience is also its experience which is facilitated by the achieved by travel since the scenery body since body provides inputs through changes and hence provides tremendous the senses. inputs to the brain. This is the Maximization of experience reason why travel and especially is affected when the brain absorbs travel to new places is enjoyable. information from the senses Experience gaining is also and creates neural pathways to enhanced by curiosity. An active form memories. This process and supple mind is also a curious takes place at the maximum mind. The suppleness can be rate during childhood. Thus the cultivated by being mentally brain is a sucker of experience! active and can be enhanced by And we are what we think. THINK Yoga and meditation since it Since the information absorption allows the expansion of neural capacity of the brain is the highest pathways. during the childhood, proper education Another reason why we feel happy and guidance to children is important. when absorbing experience is because Educating kids in the art of deep thinking a furiously absorbing mind keeps the and contemplation can enable them to psychological knots to a minimum. produce minds which will remain supple These knots are formed when in the and ever-expanding all their life. absence of external experience, the Those brains which do not have mind goes in an ever increasing internal the ability to gain new experiences, get spiral. The mind which gets enmeshed in petrified and signal the start of senile psychological knots cannot expand itself death which is normally a sign of old age. and get happiness. The old saying of Nevertheless there are quite a number of “small and petty- mindedness” probably individuals who are active and curious came from this. A supple mind which

maximises experience intake is also able to focus on a single thought for a long time. This is called Sanyam in Patanjali Yoga darshan. During this process of tremendous concentration the sense of time vanishes. Time itself does not go away but the sense of time reduces or nearly vanishes.

It is this losing of sense of time that gives contentment and peace since anxiety is reduced. Anxiety emotion is about perceived fears and hence has time embedded in it. It may also produce a fear of losing something or missing out.

A powerful mind which can analyze and process the information very effectively makes the time-sense disappear and hence reduces the sense of anxiety.

Why are our brains wired for maximum experience? A part of the reason is the large number of neurons in the human brain – about 100 billion, which forces the intake of information and hence the experience. Another reason could be that the universal consciousness can only experience through bodies of living beings and hence the proliferation of species and the need for maximization of experience through them. So let us all live a happy, fruitful and energetic life by maximising our experience. That is the whole purpose of life! © Anil K Rajvanshi The writer is Director, Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute, Phaltan, Maharashtra. He may be reached at anilrajvanshi@gmail.com

could not be magically produced in Baghdad. In any case Shias would be ultra cautious coming out on an American invitation because after Operation Desert Storm in 1992 they had mounted an uprising in the South against Saddam Hussain. They mistakenly thought they had US protection. But Washington looked the other way. Saddam Hussain brutally crushed the uprising.

Cheyney’s men did some quick thinking. After the 1992 uprising, Saddam Hussain had settled rebellious Shias from the south in a ghetto outside Baghdad called Saddam city. These Shias could be commandeered if their leaders, Ayatullah Baqar al Hakeem and Muqtada Sadr, could be persuaded.

They agreed. That is when Shias came out of their ghetto slapping Saddam Hussain’s photographs with heir sandals. Saddam city was overnight renamed Sadr city by an American edict.

Only after operation Desert Storm did Saddam Hussain place “Allah O Akbar” on the Iraqi flag. His message was simple: the “agnostic” and “atheistic” Baath Sunnis would from now on not be averse to the easier, more emotional, religious mobilization.

Abu Bakr al Baghdadi is a subsequent creature of this duality. Baathist education with a religious edge.

An ability to organise, administer, hold territory, derives from his Baathist training. Macabre actions like James Foley’s beheading and suicide bombing are a specialisation of recent Sunni Jehadism. The two can be alternately stoked against the American infidel in Iraq and the Shia exclusivism of Baghdad. Now the US, Baghdad and Iran are laying traps to catch this animal.

--Indo-Asian News Service

Limericks of the week

BY C Ravindranath

Once again, the news is back Coal is creating a lot of flak All that’s fine But the bottom line Is that more than coal - is black Something’s wrong in the wiring And to unravel it is tiring Are there other ways Besides parleys When the other side is firing?

The crowds flock, the roads they block For ten days - all round the clock The play of money And cacophony Do they our good sense mock?

THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY AUGUST 30, 2014

PUNE

City to witness racing gala this weekend P 15

“Such cold-blooded, systematic and intentional killings of civilians, after singling them out for their religious affiliation, may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

—UN human rights chief Navi Pillay, on killing of prisoners in Iraq

Some experiments suggest that bacteria can influence the way their hosts eat

BY CARL ZIMMER Your body is home to about 100 trillion bacteria and other microbes, collectively known as your microbiome. Naturalists first became aware of our invisible lodgers in the 1600s, but it wasn’t until the past few years that we’ve become really familiar with them.

This recent research has given the microbiome a cuddly kind of fame. We’ve come to appreciate how beneficial our microbes are, breaking down our food, fighting off infections and nurturing our immune system. It’s a lovely, invisible garden we should be tending for our own well-being.

But in the journal BioEssays, a team of scientists has raised a creepier possibility.

Perhaps our menagerie of germs is also influencing our behavior in order to advance its own evolutionary success - giving us cravings for certain foods, for example.

Maybe the microbiome is our puppet master. “One of the ways we started thinking about this was in a crime-novel perspective,” said Carlo C. Maley, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California, San Francisco, and a co-author of the new paper. “What are the means, motives and opportunity for the microbes to manipulate us? They have all three.”

The idea that a simple organism could control a complex animal may sound like science fiction. In fact, there are many well-documented examples of

parasites controlling their hosts.

Some species of fungi, for example, infiltrate the brains of ants and coax them to climb plants and clamp onto the underside of leaves. The fungi then sprout out of the ants and send spores showering onto uninfected ants below.

How parasites control their hosts remains mysterious. But it looks as if they release molecules that can directly or indirectly influence their host’s brain.

Our microbiome has the biochemical potential to do the same thing. In our guts, bacteria make some of the same chemicals that our neurons use to communicate with one another, such as dopamine and serotonin.

And the microbes can deliver these neurological molecules to the dense web of nerve endings that line the gastrointestinal tract. A number of recent studies have shown that gut bacteria can use these signals to alter the biochemistry of the brain. Compared with ordinary mice, those raised free of germs behave differently in a number of ways. They are more anxious, for example, and have impaired memory.

Adding certain species of bacteria to a normal mouse’s microbiome reveals other ways in which they can influence behavior. Some bacteria lower stress levels in the mouse. When scientists sever the nerve relaying signals from the gut to the brain, this stress-reducing effect disappears. Some experiments suggest that bacteria also can influence

Jonathon Rosen/The New York Times

Can bacteria control our behaviour?

There are many welldocumented examples of parasites controlling their hosts

In our guts, bacteria make some of the same chemicals that our neurons use to communicate with one another, such as dopamine and serotonin

the way their hosts eat. Germ-free mice develop more receptors for sweet flavors in their intestines, for example. They also prefer to drink sweeter fluids than normal mice do.

Scientists have also found that bacteria can alter levels of hormones that govern appetite in mice. Maley and his colleagues argue that our eating habits create a strong motive for microbes to

manipulate us. “From the microbe’s perspective, what we eat is a matter of life and death,” Maley said.

Different species of microbes thrive on different kinds of food. If they can prompt us to eat more of the food they depend on, they can multiply. Microbial manipulations might fill in some of the puzzling holes in our understanding of food cravings, Maley said. Scientists

China promotes myths of social cohesion

Surviving Ebola, but returning with a stigma

bY ADAM NOSSITER

Tourists dress up like conquering Qing dynasty soldiers and get clicked in front of the historic Islamic shrines in Xinjiang Credit Gilles Sabrie/The New York Times

By ANDREW JACOBS

A man poses for a picture with a woman dressed as the Fragrant Concubine, left, at the Afaq Khoja Mausoleum

machine is especially single-minded in its effort to promote story lines that portray Uighurs, Mongolians, Tibetans and other groups as contented members of an extended family whose traditional homelands have long been part of the Chinese nation.

James A. Millward, a professor at Georgetown University, who studies China’s ethnically diverse borderlands, said the drive to shape history, while not unique to China, was zealously practiced by each succeeding dynasty in an effort to malign an emperor’s predecessors and glorify his own rule.

But the Communists have also sought to use history as a tool against separatist aspirations and to legitimise their efforts to govern potentially restive populations.

“The ability to control historical

narratives and airbrush out problematic truths is a powerful tool but it also reveals the party’s insecurity over certain aspects of the past it would rather the world forget,” Millward said.

In Xinjiang, as Uighur resentment over Chinese rule boils over into increasing bloodshed, this propagandistic approach to history has taken on greater urgency. Over the past year, at least 200 people have been killed here, some of them Han murdered by what the government calls “terrorists,” but many of them Uighurs shot by security forces under murky circumstances.

Earlier versions of the story cast Xiangfei as a defiant beauty, captured by the Qing during battle, who kept daggers in her sleeve and remained chaste to the end, when she was either

killed by palace eunuchs or forced to commit suicide. But that narrative has been supplanted by a happy-ending tale of romance that celebrates the emperor’s efforts to win her affections by building a miniature Kashgari village outside her window in Beijing and showering her with the sweet melons and oleaster of her homeland. Rian Thum, a professor of Uighur history at Loyola University New Orleans, said that in addition to suggesting longstanding affections between Han and Uighur, the mythicized Xiangfei served to reinforce the image of Uighur women as exotic, strong-willed and slightly dangerous. “The fact that Uighurs are sexualized and exoticized by so many Han Chinese makes the Xiangfei story very appealing,” he said. © 2014 New York Times News Service

DARU, Sierra Leone: The neighbours lined up, smiling and mouthing soft congratulations when the van pulled in bearing Jattu Lahai and her 2-year-old daughter. No one moved to embrace them. Nobody stepped out of the line of 30-odd people as Lahai, an Ebola survivor, walked to the room she shares with her husband. A conspicuous space formed around the smooth-faced 26-year-old woman and her baby, also a survivor, as she sat on a bench.

“When I fell sick, everybody abandoned me,” said Lahai, in her darkened room for the first time since the ambulance had whisked her away on a trip most do not return from. Crying softly, she wiped her tears with the hem of her dress and spoke a quiet prayer. “I didn’t think I was going to come home again,” she said, cradling her daughter, Rosalie. Here in the Ebola zone, the world is divided in three: the living, the dead, and those caught somewhere in between. For those lucky enough to survive, coming home is another struggle entirely.

Lahai’s homecoming experience, muted and cool, has been shared by many of the survivors of the Ebola epidemic spreading across West Africa.

In August, Doctors Without Borders said only 61 of the 337 Ebola patients

that had been treated at its tent-camp treatment centre in nearby Kailahun have survived. When they go home, some are greeted warmly. But others, like Lahai, feel a chill of wariness, or worse. In some places, health workers said, the neighbours flee.

“How long does the virus live?” a young man asked the health workers who brought Lahai home. The worries are hardly confined to Sierra Leone, the country with the highest number of Ebola cases. Some in the US objected to the decision to take two infected US aid workers to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta for treatment, fearful the disease would be spread further.

For the last 10 years, MacQueen Farley has been living in a refugee camp in Ghana, a country untouched by the epidemic so far, where she makes a living by braiding hair for about $3 a person. But because she is originally from Liberia, she has had to deal with people’s fears, and has found it hard to find customers or even a bus ride to town since the outbreak in her home country.

Lahai went into her room, sat on the edge of her bed in front of a jumble of possessions toys, pots and pans, clothing clasped her hands and bent her head.

“Now I have come back, and I can start life again,” she said quietly. “Now, yes, I can go back to normal life. I am free.” © 2014 New York Times News Service

Samuel/The New York Times

KASHGAR, China: They come for the camel rides, the chance to dress up like conquering Qing dynasty soldiers or to take selfies in front of one of the most historic Islamic shrines in Xinjiang, the sprawling region in China’s far northwest. But the busloads of Chinese tourists who converge on the Afaq Khoja Mausoleum each day are mostly interested in a single raised crypt amid the dozens of tombs ensconced under the shrine’s soaring 17th-century dome.

It is the one said to belong to Iparhan, a Uighur imperial consort, who, according to legend, was so sweetly fragrant that she caught the attention of a Chinese emperor 4,345 kilometres away in Beijing - and was either invited to live with him or dragooned into the palace as a trophy of war.

“The love between her and the Qianlong emperor was so strong, after she died, he sent 120 men to escort her body back here for burial,” one guide explained, eliciting nods and knowing smiles from the crowd. “It was a journey that took three years.” But with the group out of earshot, a local resident offered up a starkly different version, describing Iparhan as a tragic figure, little more than a sex slave who was murdered by the emperor’s mother after she repeatedly rejected Qianlong’s advances.

“The story that most Chinese know is completely made up,” said the man, an ethnic Uighur, who asked that his name be withheld for fear of angering the authorities. “The truth is she isn’t even buried here.” In the six decades since coming to power, China’s Communist Party has devoted enormous resources to crafting historical narratives that seek to legitimise its rule and obfuscate its failures. When it comes to China’s ethnic minorities, the party-run history

have tried to explain food cravings as the body’s way to build up a supply of nutrients after deprivation, or as addictions, much like those for drugs like tobacco and cocaine.

But both explanations fall short.

Take chocolate: Many people crave it fiercely, but it isn’t an essential nutrient.

And chocolate doesn’t drive people to increase the dose to get the same high.

“You don’t need more chocolate at every sitting to enjoy it,” Maley said.

Perhaps, he suggests, the certain kinds of bacteria that thrive on chocolate are coaxing us to feed them.

John F. Cryan, a neuroscientist at University College Cork in Ireland who was not involved in the new study, suggested that microbes might also manipulate us in ways that benefit both them and us. “It’s probably not a simple parasitic scenario,” he said. Research

by Cryan and others suggests that a healthy microbiome helps mammals develop socially. Germ-free mice, for example, tend to avoid contact with other mice. That social bonding, good for the mammals, may also be good for the bacteria.

“When mammals are in social groups, they’re more likely to pass on microbes from one to the other,” Cryan said. “I think it’s a very interesting and compelling idea,” said Rob Knight, a microbiologist at the University of Colorado, who was also not involved in the new study. If microbes do in fact manipulate us, Knight said, we might be able to manipulate them for our own benefit - for example, by eating yogurt laced with bacteria that would make us crave healthy foods.

“It would obviously be of tremendous practical importance,” Knight said.

But he warned that research on the microbiome’s effects on behavior was “still in its early stages.”

Mark Lyte, a microbiologist at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center who pioneered this line of research in the 1990s, is conducting some of those experiments. He’s investigating whether particular species of bacteria can change the preferences mice have for certain foods. “This is not a for-sure thing,” Lyte said. “It needs scientific, hard-core demonstration.” © 2014 New York Times News Service

Dattu Lahai and her daughter Rosalie, both Ebola survivors, ride in a Doctors Without Borders vehicle that is returning them to their home in Daru, Sierra Leone

MONEY MATT ER S “The present government’s effort to expedite major reforms and its successful implementation should push India’s GDP to more than $4.5 trillion by FY20.”

— Arun Singh, senior economist

Signposts Indian staff feel they save less for post-retirement life A large proportion of Indian non-government employees recognise the need to save more for their post-retirement life but they admit they are saving less than what is ideal, says a new survey.

Seventy-eight per cent of Indian employees recognise they will need to save more for retirement, according to the Global Benefits Attitudes Survey conducted by global professional services company Towers Watson.

Amongst members of retirement plans, housing and saving for retirement are the top two priorities in the below-40 age group, while saving for retirement is the top priority for those above 40.

The survey was conducted across 12 countries, covering 22,347 employees working for large, nongovernment employers.

According to the survey, Indian employees prefer to save more than extending their retirement age.

RBI issues guidelines for NBFCs lending against shares The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has introduced a minimum set of guidelines on lending against shares, especially for non-banking finance companies (NBFCs). This will help reduce volatility in the capital markets, arising from NBFCs offloading shares pledged by borrowers who have defaulted on loans, the central bank said. According to the guidelines which are only applicable to NBFCs with assets of `100 crore and above, NBFCs have to maintain a loan-to-value-LTV (of shares pledged) of 50 per cent and accept only Group-1 securities as collateral, for loans valued at more than `5 lakh. The guidelines come into effect immediately.

Is it a good time to buy debt schemes? Which are the better ones? How to deal with the recent changes in taxation

BY JASON MONTEIRO Mutual fund houses and distributors were actively promoting debt schemes as a better alternative to bank fixed deposits (FDs) when interest rates were flat and debt schemes were taxed at a lower rate.

However, what many agents failed to explain is the risk these schemes carry.

Moneylife has pointed out several times that debt schemes are market-linked instruments, like equity mutual fund schemes, and the returns from these schemes can vary considerably depending on when you buy and sell. This calls for research and expertise which distributors and advisors sadly lack and fund companies do not promote.

On top of this, the finance minister has queered the pitch since July 10 by changing the taxability of debt schemes.

So, are debt schemes still worth considering? Which ones? What kind of returns can you expect, if you buy them now? How to handle the taxation aspect?

First of all, bank FDs and debt schemes are as different from each other as chalk is from cheese. Bank FDs offer a secure income and protection of principal but are taxable. On the other hand, debt schemes are market-linked and carry interest rate risk; therefore, at times, returns could be really low or even negative. Until now, debt schemes offered a big tax benefit; but after this year’s Budget, the tax treatment of income from debt schemes, for a holding

period less than three years, would be the same as that on bank FDs. How do you still take advantage of investing in these schemes? You need to do two things: one, invest in top performing schemes; and, two, have some understanding of interest rate cycles. Doing both is tough for an average saver; however, the latter is tough for even an experienced investor.

Even reputed investment experts can’t predict interest rates Even highly qualified professionals can make serious investment mistakes by not being cautious.

An average retail investor may not make a leveraged investment; but investments in debt schemes, especially, long duration schemes, should not be taken as a lowrisk investment. Even if the schemes are among the best in the category, if invested at the wrong time, you may end up with a loss.

Choose from debt schemes according to their investment horizon

New rules under the Companies Act 2013 are forcing corporate jewellers to stop such schemes

Reliance Retail Ltd said it has decided to discontinue its ‘Golden Steps Jewellery Purchase Scheme’ and ‘Diamond Dream Jewellery Purchase Scheme’ with immediate effect. The company will not accept fresh or further subscription or instalments for these schemes, Reliance Retail said in an advertisement.

“Subscribers to the jewellery purchase schemes are requested to visit the Reliance Jewels store where they have opened their account, along with their ID proof, address proof and Scheme related documents in original, for redemption and closure of accounts with jewellery purchases before October 31, 2014,” the advertisement reads.

AUGUST 30, 2014

PUNE

“Deficiency in rainfall during the 2014 monsoon season so far poses some downside risks, but overall growth in 2014-15 is likely to be better than previous year.”

— Reserve Bank of India

How to get the best from debt schemes and reduce taxes

Reliance winds up its gold savings scheme

By MONEYLIFE DIGITAL TEAm

THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY

Under Rule 3(6) of Companies (Acceptance of Deposits) Rules, 2014, no company can accept deposit, which carries a rate of interest more than what has been prescribed by Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for deposit accepting nonbanking financial companies (NBFCs).

In other words, jewellers’ gold savings schemes needs to be on par with public-deposit schemes. The rules limit the return companies can offer to deposit holders to 12 per cent and caps the total amount of deposits to 25 per cent of their net-worth.

The way to comply with new rules is to return the deposits to the public before April 1, 2015. If not, they will be penalised in accordance with the provisions of the Act. @moneylife

of 9.24 per cent on August 19, 2013, as foreign investors sold over `50,000 crore of Indian debt on hearing that the US Fed may begin tapering of the quantitative easing programme. Foreign investors did not stop there and went on to sell an additional `30,000 crore worth of Indian debt by November 2013.

Since then, bond yields have been directionless and have stayed above 8.50 per cent for most of the time. Due to this high volatility, debt schemes investing in long-term securities were affected the most. Long-term debt is more sensitive to interest rate movements. Therefore, short-term schemes and dynamic schemes, which keep a bulk of their investments in short maturity securities, were not affected much by the volatile yield movement and fared better.

For the average saver, whose investment horizon may exceed three years, shortterm open-ended debt schemes may be the best bet, thanks to the indexation benefit.

People can invest

Option for retail investors You should choose from debt schemes according to their performance and your investment horizon. Over the past three years, the bond yields have been highly volatile.

Last year, bond yields jumped from a low of 7.20 per cent on June 4, 2013 to a high

When to buy and sell bonds?

9.50%

10 Year Benchmark Yield

9.00% Buy Zone 8.50% 8.00% 7.50% Sell Zone 7.00% July-12

regularly via a systematic investment plan (SIP); they can also withdraw whenever they need to, without being subject to a lock-in period. Exit-loads are usually charged for investments for less than a year. Capital gains will be taxed with the indexation benefit for investments greater than three years.

Avoid dividend plans at all costs Many investors put money in dividend plans of debt schemes, which pay a monthly or quarterly dividend, to get regular income. Unfortunately, most of them are not aware of the tax impact.

Even though investors do not have to pay tax on the dividend earned, the scheme deducts a dividend distribution tax (DDT), at the time of pay-out.

DDT was earlier calculated on the net amount paid. But, as per the Finance Bill 2014, tax needs to be deducted on the gross amount. Therefore, the effective tax deduction on the dividends paid, from 1 October 2014, will go up to 39.52 per cent, from 28.33 per cent at present.

If you have opted for t h e

July-13

July-14

dividend plan of a debt scheme, or nonequity scheme, it is advisable to transfer your investments to growth schemes and opt for a systematic withdrawal plan (to compensate for the dividend pay-out) at the earliest.

Dividend plans were never the best option for investors due to taxation. It would be more tax-efficient to opt for a systematic withdrawal plan (SWP) and pay tax on capital gains.

Top debt schemes If interest rates are headed down, debt schemes would do very well. But we don’t think interest rates would decline soon. Debt schemes may be safe for the long term, but fund performance can vary significantly. You need to choose wisely. It is important to look at the quality of the security present in the portfolio of debt schemes. Along with the portfolio, keeping an eye on the expense ratio is also critical.

We have held that investing in debt schemes is not easy for the average saver. One needs to track interest rate movements. Just like in equities, where timing is crucial, in debt schemes too, one needs to time the buying and selling, to get optimal returns. Apart from timing, one needs to choose the right scheme. Nearly 150 debt schemes are available. Choose wisely. @moneylife

In Sahara’s murky business orbit

Review of ‘Sahara: The Untold Story’

BY YOGESH SAPKALE Sahara: The Untold Story by Tamal Bandyopadhyay is a unique book. It starts and ends (on the back cover) with a strongly worded statement from the Sahara group. Perhaps this is also the first book published in India where both, the author and the subject, agree on ‘limited information’ part in the book. Bandyopadhyay’s use of a term like ‘India’s most secretive’ for the Sahara group explains why this book contains ‘limited information’.

The Sahara group had approached the court to stop publication of the book.

However, later it withdrew the case on the condition that it should be allowed to print its own disclaimer in the book.

The book depicts the 37-year journey of India’s most ‘secretive’ and unlisted ‘conglomerate’, the Sahara India Pariwar and its chief Subrata Roy, through the eyes of a journalist. However, the book is not merely about the Sahara group or

its chief Subrata Roy. It tells us about the financial world’s dark secret — shadow banking. It shows how an all-powerful group can easily open a new door when an old one closes.

When it comes to raising money from the public, one cannot ignore the phenomenon called Peerless and residuary non-banking company (RNBC). Both Peerless and Sahara (in the initial stages) acceded to the demands of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

Peerless fell in line and restructured its board and refunded money to investors. Sahara, on the other hand, while making amends with RBI’s ‘instructions’, was raising money through its optionally fully convertible debentures (OFCDs).

And then, one fine day, Sahara

decided to enter the capital market with the strange OFCD offering and thus dug its own grave.

According to Bandyopadhyay, the Sahara group chief had under his belt 4,799 establishments, almost equal to the universe of listed companies in India. “This might have gone unnoticed but for Roy’s plan to list one of his group companies, Sahara Prime City Ltd. There was a certain tax-related issue in regard to OFCDs, which Sahara India Commercial Corp Ltd (SICCL) was fighting with the income tax authority.

This was related to a `35.57 crore disputed income tax that was imposed on the company for accepting OFCDs worth `20,000 crore or more from investors through cash and not account payee cheques or demand drafts, as required under the Income Tax Act, 1961.

SEBI sought clarification from

Sahara about the OFCDs; Sahara defied it. This started a chain of reactions that finally led to the detention of Roy on the orders of the Supreme Court.

But Sahara is not just about finance.

Subrata Roy was, after all, sponsoring the Indian cricket team and counted among his friends the who’s who of India. During his visit to Sahara Shahar in Lucknow for an interview with the group chief, Bandyopadhyay got a firsthand account of Roy’s penchant for glamour and his association with film stars, cricketers and politicians. Asked why he chose the company of actors and cricketers, Roy told Bandyopadhyay, “We have to take care of human psychology in every aspect—whenever the performance is strong, the faith is more. Renowned people give them security. Glamour plays a positive role.

People jump on to film actors, they go mad. We believe in glamour.”

Overall, the book is a good read.

The book, which was finalised before Roy was jailed, also tries to predict the future growth and the possible route that @moneylife Sahara group may take.

Weekly market report: Nifty, Sensex headed higher subject to dips Nifty has to stay above 7,850 for the rally to continue

BY MONEYLIFE DIGITAL TEAM The S&P BSE Sensex closed the week that ended on August 22 at 26,420 (up 316 points or 1.21 per cent), while the S&P CNX Nifty ended at 7,913 (up 122 points or 1.56 per cent).

Last week, the Nifty closes below 7,700 then the indices may find it difficult to rise higher.

The trading session after the optimistic speech of the prime minister, which emphasised better governance, making India a manufacturing and

export powerhouse, coupled with employment generation, helped boost the market sentiment. The positivity of the European indices also helped the domestic indices. European stocks rallied on expectations of easing measures by the European Central Bank (ECB). Nifty closed Monday at 7,874 (up 82.55 points or 1.06 per cent).

Positive data from the US and the UK helped the positive momentum on the benchmark indices to continue.

US homebuilders’ sentiment improved in August to its highest

since January, the National Association of Home Builders said on Monday, marking a third straight monthly gain.

UK inflation cooled more than forecast in July, giving the Bank of England room to keep its key interest rates at a record-low. The rate of price growth fell to 1.6 per cent from 1.9 per cent in June.

After six days of consecutive positive trading, the market closed in the negative last Wednesday.

Nifty closed at 7,875 (down 22 points or 0.28 per cent). The Bank of England, in its minutes from August’s policy meeting published in London, said the policy makers were split on rate increases.

On Thursday, Nifty edged towards recovering the previous day’s loss and managed to close higher at 7,891 (up 16 points or 0.20 per cent). The market move was because of the news that the government was

Positive data from US and UK helped the market remain upbeat.

working to tighten up risk management in the banking sector and with the reports mentioning that oil secretary Saurabh Chandra said that the underrecoveries of oil companies will come down substantially in the current fiscal.

On Friday, the Nifty surged near its life time high and closed at 7,913 (up 22 points or 0.28 per cent). Market moved higher with the on-going efforts of the government to strengthen the banking sector and the positive economic data coming from the US. The draft Cabinet note which proposes to create a holding company structure for state-run banks, aimed towards meeting their long-term

capital needs, has been approved by finance minister Arun Jaitley.

Fewer than expected Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week and the existing home sales rose last month to the most since September. The Markit Economics preliminary index of US manufacturing in August jumped to the highest level since April 2010.

For the past week, among the other indices on the NSE, the top two performers were PSU Bank (7 per cent) and Pharma (6 per cent) while the only worst performer was FMCG (1 per cent).

@moneylife

SPORTS

THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY AUGUST 30, 2014

PUNE

“England tour is important from India’s perspective as well for the individual players to stake a claim for a place and establish themselves in the World Cup squad” – Former India cricket captain Rahul Dravid

“ The one-day series against India will be a good test for England where they stand in 50-over cricket ahead of the World Cup next year.”

– Former England batsman Kevin Pietersen

What India need to set right The ongoing five-ODI series is crucial for India ahead of the World Cup to be held in Australia next year

T

IANS

he mental scars of the Test series debacle will take time to heal but the Indian Team needs to get its act together and recuperate quickly. There have been clamours that a good performance in the ODI series will camouflage the Test series humiliation but in reality, the five ODIs are crucial for India’s preparation for World Cup 2015.

Cricket’s biggest extravaganza is under 200 days away and in the next couple of weeks, six top-ranked sides go head-to-head with eyes firmly set on the coveted trophy.

After the England tour, India will play a five-match ODI series against West Indies at home and then a tri-series featuring Australia and England in Australia. In all, they will play 14 ODIs (15 in case they reach the final of the Tri-series) before the World Cup co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand.

Considering the fact that five of the 14 ODIs will be played at home, India will be left with just nine matches to adapt to overseas conditions. India hasn’t had the best of times in ODIs lately.

Although they won their last series against Bangladesh where they sent their secondstring side, their performance was far from convincing. Before that, they had a poor outing in the Asia Cup where they couldn’t make it to the finals and prior to that they lost the series in New Zealand and South Africa, where they couldn’t even garner a single win (they lost 4-0 (Five-match series) to the Kiwis and 2-0 (Three-match series) against the Proteas).

The England series will be important for preparation as well as to gauge the performance.

In order to get back on track, there are certain

Considering the fact that five of the 14 ODIs will be played at home, India will be left with just nine matches to adapt to overseas conditions.

India hasn’t had the best of times in ODIs lately

Signposts

CHENNAI: Switzerland’s World No 4 tennis player Stan Wawrinka Tuesday confirmed his participation for the 20th edition of the Chennai Open to be held at the SDAT Stadium here Jan 5-11, next year. The 2008 Beijing Olympics doubles gold medallist, with Roger Federer, is the defending singles champion of the ATP World Tour 250 points event. He had also clinched the title in 2011, having reached the final in 2010. The 29-year-old had also won the doubles title here in 2013, partnering Frenchman Benoit Paire.

Bolt in India for charity cricket

AIFF to pay for team’s foreign trip BANGALORE: All India Football Federation (AIFF) may have to shell out a whopping Rs 1.15 crore to send the U-23 men’s and women’s team to the Asian Games in the South Korean city of Incheon, Sep 19-Oct 4, as the government is unlikely to clear the trips.

The Indian Olympic Association (IOA) is planning to send a 900-strong contingent, including players and officials for the Asian Games. But the sports ministry, apparently unhappy with the men’s football team’s performance, is unlikely to clear the two squads. The ministry, however, had cleared Rs 50 lakh for the men team’s exposure trip to the Czech Republic. But the AIFF may have to shell out the Rs 40 lakh for the men’s and the women teams trip in China. The men’s team is already in China and the women’s team is also expected to join them soon.

ODIs of late.

After consistent poor performances, he was dropped for the Asia Cup earlier this year but following a decent performance in the IPL, he clawed his way back into the team as captain for the Bangladesh ODI series. However, his form is still a big concern. In the last 27 innings in ODIs, he averaged 27.04, scoring 595 runs with just a single half-century. His record outside Asia isn’t good either - he averaged just 28.24 (with three fifties) compared to his career average of 35.32.

His weakness against short deliveries only adds to the woes. Yuvraj Singh’s ouster has meant that India’s middle order is relatively inexperienced. Raina has played 192 ODIs now and is one of the most experienced batsmen in the middle order after Dhoni. He will be a vital cog in this batting wheel. It won’t be just about finishing, he will need to have the patience and skills to bide his time in the middle and learn the art of building an innings in case of a poor start. He needs to step up a gear. This is the best chance to silence his critics.

Last but not the least, the death bowling needs to improve: This has been a perennial problem hurting India badly. After almost every match or series, we hear MS Dhoni saying “our death bowling needs to improve”. It’s still the same old story though. Bhuvneshwar Kumar is the one bowler who seems to have taken a step towards improving his death bowling but the others need to learn the art of bowling yorkers and slower deliveries on a consistent basis.

(Copyright: Firstpost)

City to witness racing gala this weekend Indian and foreign horses will contest for three prestigious trophies at The Pune Race Course

BY BARNALEE HANDIQUE @barnalee PUNE: The Pune Race Course will host a racing gala with three trophies up for grabs.

The competition will begin Saturday, August 30 with The Akkasaheb Maharaj Trophy – named after the ‘maharaj’ of Kolhapur’s royal family. Instituted in 1977, the race has been traditionally conducted over the first August weekend, with an exception this year. The race was originally run for 1200 meters, later, was converted to a term race for horses aged 4-years and over.

The winner will be awarded with a trophy amount of Rs. 35000 and above as decreed by the sponsor. Besides the IANS

BANGALORE: It’s cricket, not athletics that will be bringing sprint sensation and multiple Olympic gold medallist Usain Bolt on his maiden trip to India next month. The Jamaican star will be in Bangalore, Sep 2, to play a charity cricket match, organised by Puma, with India discard Yuvraj Singh here at the Chinnaswamy Stadium.

Both Bolt and Yuvraj are brand ambassadors of Puma.

improvements needed and these ought to be implemented in the England ODIs. The opening pair needs to fire: We witnessed in the Tests how the opening-stand failure affected the likes of Cheteshwar Pujara and Virat Kohli, who had to come in early and face the new ball. India have been struggling with the opening-stand in ODIs too.

After a very good start to their partnership, the Rohit Sharma-Shikhar Dhawan pair has fizzled out. In the last 12 innings the pair averages 25.08 with just two 50-run stands.

Overall, they have amassed 1481 runs at an average of 49.36 from 31 innings.

There are not many options available for the opening slot. Robin Uthappa was in contention but he had an average series against Bangladesh and then a disastrous Australia A tour which led to his axing from the England ODIs. There is just one more option in Ajinkya Rahane but if he flops, India will be in big trouble — hence the current Rohit-Dhawan pair has to fire.

On the bouncy pitches and seaming conditions in Australia and New Zealand, a good start and a better platform will be the need of the hour. It was in England that Sharma and Dhawan kicked off their campaign as an opening pair in the 2013 Champions Trophy and they can take inspiration from the fact that they ended the tournament with an average of 76.40, amassing 382 runs from five innings helping India clinch the trophy.

It is high time Suresh Raina plays a responsible role: Once termed as the future of India, Suresh Raina hasn’t done justice to his talent. The 27-year-old has been an integral part of the limited overs setup for nine years now but he has had a roller-coaster ride in

A couple of seasons ago, fans were complaining about whether Ramsey would realise his potential — whether his year-long injury made him another Eduardo

award, there are sweepstakes of Rs. 6,000 plus along with an additional amount of Rs. 6, 00, 000 from the fund.

The following day will witness a special race ordained in the memory of General Maharaja Rajendrasinhji.

The cup named after the ‘maharaja’, endowed in 1967, received the graded status in 1986. This 1800 meters race is open for 3-year-old Indian and foreign horses.

The trophy’s value is deemed to be about Rs. 35,000 along with sweepstakes worth Rs. 15,000 in which Rs. 5, 00,000 will be added from the fund. Besides that, The Royal Western India Turf Club Ltd. (RWITC) will guarantee total stakes of rupees one million. The entry fee to this race is Rs. 7,500. Registration was closed on

ANIRUDDHA RAJANDEKAR

Wawrinka confirms participation

BY JIGAR MEHTA

RWITC will guarantee total stakes worth rupees two million this weekend

August 1.

‘The Threptin Fillie’s and Mare’s Stakes’ will take place in the later part of the day. The Fillies’ and Mares’ Stakes was first run on September 10, 1972 as ‘The Natural Gas Fillies’ and Mares’ Nomination Stakes’. It is a mile-long race conducted for Indian as well as foreign horses aged 3-5.

The race holds the reputation of being the only graded race in the country which is reserved for fi llies and also open to older horses, making it a unique event in the Indian racing calendar.

For this contest, M/s Raptakos Brett & Co. Ltd. will present a trophy of Rs. 1, 00,000 and will contribute Rs. 9, 00,000 towards the stakes.

RWITC will guarantee total stakes worth rupees two million. The entry fee is Rs. 20,000. Registration was closed on August 1. barnalee.handique@goldensparrow.com

Ramsey still rules at Arsenal

Midfielder’s return from injury has highlighted his importance to the side this season

A

BY PULASTA DHAR

rsenal can sign whoever they want — Alexis Sanchez or Mesut Ozil; or as recently speculated by the media — Radamel Falcao. The truth doesn’t change — just like last season, Aaron Ramsey is the guy they need the most.

The Gunners were cruising last season in the title race before their Welsh box-to-box midfielder got injured in December and was out for 97 days — missing 14 league matches for Arsenal. In that time, Arsenal went from top to fourth and were ousted from the Champions League by Bayern Munich.

His return from injury is what highlighted his importance to the side — he played five league games between gameweek 33 and 38, scoring two goals and setting up three.

He also scored the winner

against Hull in the 93rd minute in the FA Cup final, in which Arsenal came from two goals down to beat The Tigers 3-2 and lift their fi rst trophy in almost a decade.

At the start of this season, it’s Ramsey who’s still doing it for Arsenal again. In a hard fought London derby, he popped up with the winner in the 91st minute before scoring the fi rst goal in Arsenal’s fightback against Everton to draw 2-2 after being 0-2 down with 45 minutes left to play.

In two matches so far, he has outshone every Arsenal attacker you can think of — scoring, creating, passing and shooting better than all of them. Ramsey has two goals in two games, the most number of shots (7 — two from inside the area and five from outside) and an accuracy of 75 per cent (Jack Wilshere has a 100 per cent shot accuracy, hitting one shot on target out of one attempted), the most number of passes (173, 85 per cent finding their mark) and the most number of total duels attempted with 13 (six tackles, one take on, four aerial duels).

Names like Toni Kroos and Arturo Vidal and Paul Pogba come to mind when you talk about complete midfielders in today’s

Arsenal’s next 5 matches Aug 31: vs Leicester City (A) Sept 13: vs Manchester City (H) Sept 20: vs Aston Villa (A) Sept 27: vs Tottenham Hotspur (H) Oct 5: vs Chelsea (A)

game, but Ramsey is also right up there.

Arsenal have been linked to another ‘creative’ player as Arsene Wenger recently said — but what they need is a quality player up front to link with the immense talent they already have in midfield.

A couple of seasons ago, fans were complaining about whether Ramsey would realise his potential — whether his year-long injury made him another Eduardo — whether he really had it in him to replace the absence of Cesc Fabregas. As of now, the 23-year-old has put every doubt to bed — in fact, he has been their best player for a long time now, their midfield maestro — he’s the king at Arsenal and he can rule for a long time.

(Copyright: Firstpost)

SPORTS “ I am putting an end to a glorious era for the Spanish national team, which started 11 years ago after forming part of a historic generation which has helped fulfil the dreams of millions of fans.”

— Real Madrid midfielder Xabi Alonso

THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY AUGUST 30, 2014

PUNE

“It has been a long and hard fight and today, I stand vindicated. I have always believed in our legal system and finally justice has prevailed.”

— Former IPL chairman Lalit Modi ANIRUDDHA RAJANDEKAR

Signposts

CHINA

Pune FC signs up Matthew Gonsalves PUNE: Pune FC has completed the signing of Sporting Clube de Goa captain and defender Matthew Gonsalves for the upcoming season.

The experienced Goan star joins Pune FC after spending ten years with Sporting, and will be a valuable addition to Karim Bencherifa’s squad.

Matthew is now the sixth new player to join Pune FC this season after Ryuji Sueoka, Luciano Sabrosa, Snehashis Chakraborty, Raju Yumnam and Jessel Carneiro. During his long stint at Sporting, Matthew represented Goa in the 2008 Santosh Trophy, and was also a part of the India team at the Special Olympics Asia Pacific.

connection Training in a Chinese school sets city paddler Karan Kukreja on a winning spree

Veeresh ’tricks as TCS thrash Cybage PUNE: Tata Consultancy Services bounced back to winning ways, thanks to Veeresh Kamble’s hat-trick in the 12th Inter IT Soccer Championship Cup at the Range Hills Ground recently. Against under-performing Cybage, Veeresh struck thrice to power TCS to a first win in two weeks on a low scoring game. In the other super league matches, Capgemini and HSBC played out a goalless draw while Cognizant and Accenture shared two goals between them.

Meanwhile, KPIT and Atos logged wins in the knockout cup, to progress to the next round.

Purva Barve is top ranked in sub-juniors PUNE: City shuttler Purva Barve has been accoladed the top rank in the recently declared All India sub junior badminton ranking list. The 14-year-old won her maiden national sub-junior title in Cuddappa, Andhra Pradesh in February. After finishing runner-up in Bihar, Purva bagged her second national title in Karnataka. She trains with Olympian Nikhil Kanetkar in Balewadi. She is now preparing for the national championship to be held in Haryana from September 1.

BY ASHISH PHADNIS @phadnis_ashish PUNE: City’s Karan Kukreja, a familiar figure on the table tennis circuit for the past three years, wasn’t able to claim the podium.

But, in the 2014 season, the 11-yearold has won three district ranking titles and a recent district championship at Deccan Gymkhana. The secret of this success is the intensive training that he completed in Beijing, China, during the summer holidays when his friends were enjoying the yearly vacation.

The young paddler’s father, Girish Kukreja, enrolled him for a three-week course at Shijiazhuang Training School in Beijing, following the suggestion of a friend staying in the US.

“The school is one of the best training centres in China. The national team, that has won 38 world championships and 15 Olympic gold medals, besides other medals trains at this school . The centre is known as the cradle of world champions. The school also holds training camps for foreign players and 30 countries are its beneficiaries,” said Girish.

“Though many European countries send youngsters for training to China, except for top national players, hardly any from India visit this country for training. In fact, the coaches told us that we were the fi rst from India to have approached them on an individual level,” he said.

The standard V student of Loyola School, trains with Neeraj

Honap at Sharda Centre in Kothrud.

About his experience at the Chinese school, he said, “It was a five-hour training programme and match practice every day. The coaches helped me in improving the posture and taught me many techniques and skills. I also changed my grip. Now I can use my forehand and backhand combination effectively.”

About sending his son to the school for further training, proud dad Girish said, “I am planning to send Karan for another 2-3 sessions of higher level training. Th is course will definitely help him in mastering the sport in future.”

The champions that ruled the podium

Results (all finals) Boys (junior): Manthan Shah bt Adwait Brahme 11-6, 1012, 11-6, 11-5, 7-11, 11-13, 12-10; (youth) Anurag Gote bt Anuj Bhave 9-11, 7-11, 11-6, 11-4, 11-9, 15-13; men: Chinmay Datar bt Atul Bapat 11-6, 11-6, 11-8, 11-8; veteran: Ronny Todiwala bt Amit Gangal 11-7, 8-11, 13-11, 11-5; Girls (junior): Vaibhavi Kher bt Eesha Joshi 10-12, 12-10, 14-12, 12-10, 11-9; (youth) Yamini Meherally bt Mansi Chhajed 11-6, 7-11, 9-11, 11-7, 11-9, 12-10; women: Devika Bhide bt Fauzia Meherally 11-5, 11-4, 11-5, 7-11, 7-11, 11-7.

ashish.phadnis@goldensparrow.com

Howzzat! in Hindi Indian keepers helped by overseas stint Bored while watching one-day series? Jump channel.. to Hindi MALAY DESAI Kapil paaji: ‘Bowlerson ko ballsein daalni, batsmanon ko batein pakadni aur fielderson ko catchein pakadni nahi aati!’

Astute diagnosis of Team India’s ailments after the test series by Kapil Dev, the only catch being that it wasn’t really him, but the often hilarious tweeter, @ coolfunnytshirt. He wasn’t too far off the mark from what the 55-yearold has been saying though, in the hindi commentary box.

Premchand’s and Dwivedi’s muse and the mother tongue of Bollywood, far from lending itself to the gentleman’s game, unfortunately tries to fit awkwardly like a kaju katri among cupcakes in a sweet hamper. Many cricketing phrases are untranslatable or too cumbersome to explain.

For instance, ‘knicked it’ becomes ‘balle ka kinara laga’ and ‘outswing’ becomes ‘bahar ki taraf lehrati hui gend.’ Of course, there are no equivalents for most playing terms such as fine leg and follow-on. In my stint with a Hindi sports show, it took me weeks of practice and assistance from Google translate to be able to ruthlessly chop off verbose scripts so they could fit in to the gold dust that was airtime.

Hindi cricket commentary, our telecaster’s recent opus to reach out to the heartland and endear the viewership, makes for clever business sense, but for many of us who’ve grown up listening to Tony Greig’s energy and Ritchie Benaud’s style, it may seem like noise. Not because we snigger at Hindi, but because sometimes it’s not Hindi at all.

Take for example some commentary box gems from the rain-hit second ODI at Cardiff last Wednesday: “Raina ne gamechanging pari kheli hai,” - Wasim Akram; “England iss vakhat big-time under pressure hai,”- Wasim again and “Unko gend football ki tarah nazar aa rahi hai,” – Ganguly. In fact, if we ban the word ‘behtareen’ from our Bengali ex-captain’s commentary repertoire, he’d combust out of helplessness. The tests also witnessed Vijay Dahiya, a relative nobody compared to the two legends, delivering repetitive ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’, much like one would exclaim at your gully tournament.

Telecasters, in their self-infl icted norms of bringing star power, bank on recognised personas for the job but many of them only give eye-witness accounts (‘Aur yeh chauka!’) while some like Saqlain Mushtaq sound brain-dead. Notable exceptions here are Harsha Bhogle (no surprises, the man’s on top of his Hindi game too) and snigger as you may, Navjot Singh Sidhu (he brings much value to the commentary mic but suffers from the ‘too much of a good thing’ syndrome.)

Yes, the release from agony is just a channel jump away, and the English team of Alan Wilkins, Bhogle again, Dravid, Ganguly and co. make even the most comatose of contests a viewing experience with their insights and banter. The British viewers have it better, for we’re told Sir Geoff rey Boycott and David ‘Bumble’ Lloyd still charm them with irreverent wit and dollops of bluntness.

And if the Kanpur-slicker is happy watching cricket in his language (graphics and scorecards included), nobody’s complaining. But with multi-lingual, custom-made programming set to define India’s future television landscape, the ’casters will have to jettison the stars who think in one language and speak in another, for the truelinguists.

BY ABHISHEK ROY

NEW DELHI: Indian football goalkeepers Subrata Paul and Gurpreet Singh Sandhu are hoping to bank on their Scandinavian experiences - but aren’t building castles in the air.

Paul has a clearer picture of the goalkeeping world after his six-month stint with Danish Superliga side FC Vikings and says Indian goalkeepers are as good as any. Gurpreet has now been roped by Norwegian side Stabaek FC and he wants to use the three-year contract as the stepping stone towards more bigger leagues in Europe.

Unlike their predecessors, Paul and Sandhu refused to build castles in the air; they were realistic in not looking to play in the glamorous football leagues and instead chose Scandinavian leagues to make a mark.

Paul’s Danish hosts Superliga side FC Vikings might have been thoroughly impressed with the video of his work in the 2009 Nehru Cup final against Syria wherein he showed his remarkable approach, anticipation and reflexes diving left and right and tipping the ball over to save three shots to win the game for India.

Sandhu, 22, last week landed himself a three-year contract from Norwegian club Stabaek FC. Paul, 28, however, didn’t get to play in the Superliga, but managed seven games with the reserve side in the Denmark Reserves League.

Paul, who will be playing for Mumbai City FC in the inaugural season of the Indian Super League (ISL), said his brief stint was a big eye opener for him and he is happy that Sandhu has gone out at the right age.

“I feel very happy for him. It was the right age for him to go aboard.

Subrata Paul (centre) with his teammates at FC Vikings

The best part is that he has been given a three-year contract. Even if he doesn’t make it to the first team in the first two years, I am sure he will have a good chance by the third year,” Paul told IANS. Going by his own experience, Paul, who was nicknamed ‘Spiderman’ by the South Korean media for his exploits in the 2011 Asian Cup, said the six months that he had spent with the Vikings has been an experience that made him tough.

“In countries like Denmark, Norway and Sweden the game is fast and physical. To survive there you have to be very tough and always on top of your game,” said Paul.

Sandhu, a former East Bengal goalkeeper, on his part wants to use his stint with Norwegian club Stabaek FC as a stepping stone towards better European leagues.

“I want to see myself as a better goalkeeper after this stint. But I don’t want to settle with this, I want to use this as a platform to take a step higher and get noticed by bigger leagues in Europe,” Sandhu told IANS from Baerum, the club’s base in Oslo’s suburb.

Sandhu, who is among the probables for next month’s Asian Games, thanked former Sheffield United goalkeeper John Burridge, who had helped him get his break in European football. It was Burridge who had spotted Sandhu and facilitated his trial at Wigan Athletic.

Though Sandhu couldn’t impress Wigan, Burridge developed a liking for the Indian youngster.

“It was Burrdige, who requested Stabaek’s football coach Espen Granli to have a look at me. I spent two-and-a half months in Norway

before they gave me a three-year contract,” said Gurpreet.

Both Paul and Sandhu feel it is very difficult for Asian goalkeepers to make the cut in European clubs.

“Golkeeper is a position that a coach doesn’t want to tinker with. It is a fi xed position. So for any Asian goalkeeper it is very difficult to break in the big league,” said Sandhu.

Paul himself had a long stint as the No.1 goalkeeper under former India coach Bob Houghton.

“The right age to get into Europe is in your teens. That’s when clubs are more interested. If you start early there are more chances of breaking into the leagues quickly. And being a goalkeeper I know that coaches don’t prefer to experiment too much with keepers. So the second and third goalkeepers have to mostly warm the bench,” said Paul.

Sandhu was shocked when Granali told him that he was the oldest overseas goalkeeper he had ever signed for the club.

“The goalkeeping coach said I was the oldest keeper he signed from a foreign country. But again there is a perception that it is very difficult for Asian keepers to make it to Europe,” he said.

Sandhu was mighty impressed with the training system in Norway.

“There is a huge difference.

The main focus on goalkeepers is on distribution. They also simulate different match situations and for us to react in different situations. The football here is fast and players are not afraid of taking risks. We have to think on your feet and fast. You bat an eyelid and you are lost,” he said.

Paul added that the scouting system is comprehensive and something that is not possible in India.

— IANS