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PUNE, JANUARY 10, 2015 | www.thegoldensparrow.com
TGS LIFE
Lessons to learn from these four idiots
PUNE’S PEOPLE WITH A PURPOSE
Hingmire is helping farmers get more value for their produce P2
SPORTS
Chitt-Patt P 16
“His only weapon was a pen...”
Pune is famed as the Queen of the Deccan, the Cultural Capital of Maharashtra and the Oxford of the East...What is that single biggest change that the influentials of Pune desire for the city in 2015? See Spotlight on p 8 & 9
Nothing can justify the cold blooded murder of 12 persons, including 10 journalists of the French satirical weekly, Charlie Hebdo, by terrorists on January 7. This single act will have far-reaching repercussions and backlash on innocent Muslims in many parts of the world, while intensifying the global war on terrorism. Such is the environment of liberal thought and free speech in Europe that a high degree of freedom is afforded to the citizens there, including journalists. While the fundamental principles of journalism are universal, journalism across the world has a cultural context. In India, journalists impose restrictions voluntarily to avoid being unnecessarily provocative, especially in the interest of communal harmony. Having said that, the spirit
of democracy demands an environment where journalists and journalism has the fullest protection. The Nobel laureate Amartya Sen famously observed that famines do not occur in countries with a free press. The significance of a free press was underscored by Thomas Jefferson more than two centuries ago when he said that he would not hesitate to choose “newspapers without a government” rather than “a government without newspapers”. Journalists themselves need to value their freedom and conduct their affairs with the highest sense of responsibility. The murder of the French journalists will lead to introspection, while once again establishing that the dissemination of thought cannot be silenced through threats and intimidation. @TGSWeekly editor_tgs@goldensparrow.com
PUNE METRO
THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY JANUARY 10, 2015
PUNE
Serving home-cooked food to music lovers P4
Hungry for a delicious meal at 2 am? Call Ishan Vaishampayan P7
“The government’s money is the people’s money. Make effective policies for the benefit of the people.” —Anna Hazare, social activist
Everything’s positive about it Manavya, started by the Late Vijaya Lawate, is a haven of hope providing succour to HIV+ve children
ANIRUDDHA RAJANDEKAR
Dr Arundhati Sardesai, president of Manavya, Urmila Gatne, programme officer and Shaikh Shamshuddin, superintendent with HIV+ve kids at ‘Gokul’, Manavya’s shelter home
If a place can be erected with sheer will power and good intentions, then Manavya at Bhugaon is one such shining example. Manavya literally means humanity. The organisation was
started by Late Vijaya Lawate in 1997, to provide succour to children infl icted with HIV/AIDS. “It is one of the fi rst non-governmental organisations (NGO) of the country to understand the ramifications of HIV,” says Arundhati Sardesai, an educationist and president of Manavya.
To alleviate their sufferings
In 1969, after completing a primary healthcare course, Lawate started working at a hospital in a red light area in the city. While commuting to work, she used to see the children of the sex workers on the streets, which struck a chord with her. Lawate initiated a programme to create awareness and
Ganesh Hingmire secured Geographical Indication (GI) for Mahabaleshwar Strawberry, which led to the home-coming of 53 families, to pursue farming ANIRUDDHA RAJANDEKAR
NGO Real Life Real People launched a van service for beggars. The volunteers bring them to YCM Hospital at Pimpri for medical treatment
Some ignore them, others detest them, and there are those who mistreat and humiliate beggars. But 37-year-old MA Hussain of Pimpri is different. He has more than a soft spot for beggars, so much so that he set up an NGO called Real Life Real People (RLRP) in 2010, with the sole purpose of providing medical facilities, food MA Hussain and aid to the beggars in Pimpri-Chinchwad area. Hussain earns his livelihood the hard way, by going door-to-door and to schools and hospitals to sell ball pens. One day while on field, he came across with the problems beggars were facing. The moment his business saw success, he decided to give back to society. Initially Hussain funded all of RLRP’s activities with his own money, but over the course of time, people responded positively to the endeavour, and now there are about 750 well-wishers who donate to the RLRP cause. Speaking to The Golden Sparrow on Saturday,
“The basic idea of these marriage camps is to help young HIV+ve people find life partners.”
Helping farmers get more value for their produce
The NGO, Real Life Real People, provides medical care and food to beggars in Pimpri Chinchwad
BY ARCHANA DAHIWAL @ArchanaDahiwal
enlighten the commercial sex workers (CSW) and their children about health and hygiene. But her real fight was against the social stigma that the AIDS-affected face constantly in society. In her quest to help them, Lawate set up ‘Sarvesham Sewasangh’ for the
Hussian said, “There are around 500 beggars in twin-town who beg at various public places with their kids in an unhygienic condition. They have no recourse to medical facilities, and they live and survive in truly pitiable and inhuman conditions that no human being should suffer. It is our aim to help and rehabilitate these beggars through RLRP.” On January 1, 2015, RLRP in collaboration with the Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation’s (PCMC) Yashwantrao Chavan Memorial Hospital, inaugurated a medical van specifically for the beggars. It is manned by a seven-member team, including a doctor from YCM Hospital. The van is used to provide medical service and also to transport ailing beggars to hospital. The NGO’s office is located at the YCM Hospital campus. Volunteers provide meals and other help to patients and their relatives in the hospital. Hussain personally checks the wards of the hospital at night to make sure no patient sleeps hungry. Over the last four years, the NGO has provided succour to countless YCMH patients, even helping out poor patients to meet their medical expenses. The RLRP volunteers are Pallavi Potdukhe, Sushma Kavalkar, Ajit Yeravedkar, Aakar Shirsat, Pankaj Adagale, Nitin Gawade and PCMC employee Mahadev Botre. RLRP also runs an education programme for orphans and poor children. archana.dahiwal@goldensparrow.com
BY GITESH SHELKE @gitesh_shelke Thanks to the unrelenting efforts of 39-yearold Ganesh Hingmire, 53 families from Mahabaleshwar, who had migrated to Pune and Mumbai to earn a livelihood, have started returning to their native place, to resume their traditional occupation of farming. Hingmire is a Pune-based lawyer who secures Geographical Indication (GI) for farm and other products. The GI ensures better farm prices and provides national and international markets to the local farmers. “The famous Mahabaleshwar strawberry is one such example of a successful GI tagged product. The hill station receives good rains and has red soil. We secured GI for strawberry of Mahabaleshwar in 2010. Farmers are now finally being rewarded with an appropriate price and a respectable income in return for their toil,” Hingmire said. GI certification is awarded exclusively to products with a unique quality owing to its geographical origin. Hingmire was born in a poor family residing near Vijayanand Theatre in Budhwar Peth. After the death of his father, Hingmire who was just a child, started working at a paan stall. “Most of my classmates were children of commercial sex workers (CSWs) from Budhwar Peth. However, this never affected me,” he remembers. Hingmire completed his BSc, acquired a degree in Law from Pune University, an LLM from London, and has recently completed his M Phil (Economics) from Pune. Hingmire gave up his job at Cardiff University, Wales, United Kingdom, in 2002 and returned to India to work for the country. He started Great Mission Group Consultancy (GMGC) at Pune, in 2006, which patented several products of city-based fi rms. The company also secured trade mark for the famous Shrimant Dagdusheth Halwai Ganpati and Lalbaugcha Raja Ganpati. Hingmire and his team of lawyers have secured GI for 28 unusual products including, Puneri Pagadi, Mahabaleshwar Strawberry, Nashik
Grapes, Paithani (Saree), Kolhapur Jaggery, Ajra Ghansal Rice, Kolhapuri Masala, Solapur Chutney, Kokum from Kokan, Mulshi Ambemohar (rice), Navapur Turdal, Waigaon Turmeric, Bhiwapur Chilli, Maldandi Jowar, Koregaon Ghevada, Beed Custard Apple, Gholwad Chikoo, Jalgaon Banana, Jalgaon Brinjal, Jalana Sweet Lime (Mosambi), Lasalgaon Onion, Marathwada Keshar Mango, Ratnagiri Alphonso Mango, Sangli Raisins, Sangli Turmeric, Purndar- Saswad Fig, Solapur Pomegranate and Vengurla Cashew. “I have always wanted to help the downtrodden. We can always equip urban poor and farmers or communities by focusing on their traditional products, which are unique,” he says. He works free of charge or at a nominal cost for farmers. Hingmire keeps updating his knowledge by participating in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) meets and Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) meets to be able to help farmers effectively. gitesh.shelke@ goldensparrow. com
ANIRUDDHA RAJANDEKAR
BARNALEE HANDIQUE @barnalee
education of the children of the CSW, art and music. in the summer of 1979. The school For medical check-ups and funded by the CSWs themselves, began antiretroviral (ART), the children are with nine children, but over time, taken to Sassoon and Kamla Nehru it saw a flood of children, who were hospitals. A mobile clinic ‘Umed’, irrevocably drawn in by the prospects caters to those suffering from sexually of free food, clothes, medicine and transmitted diseases (STDs). It attends shelter. Lawate then opened ‘Nihar’ at to sex workers thrice a week. Lohegaon, in 1989. The trust supports children till the Her continuous struggle bore fruit age of 18. After that they are free to in ‘Manavya’. earn their livelihood. Lawate was The trust even supports bestowed with the Baya a number of children Karve Award instituted who opt for higher by the Maharshi Karve education. Some of Stree Shikshan Samstha, these children are in 2004 for her tireless studying commerce, social service. engineering and some By mobilising funds, have been employed the Manavya trust fruitfully. acquired 25 gunthas of The trust conducts land at Bhugoan, some marriage camps in 40 km from the city association with the and started ‘Gokul’, an Rotary Club. “The basic orphanage for HIV+ve idea of these camps is children in 1999. to help these young Safe from the prying HIV+ve people find - Arundhati Sardesai eyes of the world, Gokul life partners. So far, the provides shelter to 53 response has been good. orphaned children. The children HIV+ve people come from different between one to 17 years are court parts of the country. If they like committed and are entitled to a meagre someone, we solemnise their marriage allowance of Rs 1,150 per month. They and help them set up their homes,” said live under one roof happily. The NGO Sardesai. is funded by private donors. Presently, Manavya is run by The great social worker died on seven trustees who come from February 11, 2005, but the volunteers different fields. They are Dr and trustees of Manavya spearheaded Arundhati Sardesai, a well-known the movement started by Lawate. educationist and writer; Sanjeev Deo; Manavya however, has faced Shireesh, son of founder president ostracisation by the villagers. The Late Vijaya and his wife Ujwala, children aren’t allowed to attend the who is a social worker; Dr Sumit village school, or draw water from Pitkar, a well-known paediatrician; the well, neither are they allowed to Dr Abhay Sontakke, member of Indian bury their dead in the cemetery. Th is Academy of Aesthetic & Cosmetic led to the opening of a school at the Dentistry and Kalpana Sancheti, a premises. “The Zilla Parishad School social worker. is in our campus. Children can attend barnalee.handique@goldensparrow.com classes up to standard VI here. After that, we send them to nearby schools and colleges to pursue their education,” GET IN TOUCH said Sardesai. Besides the inmates Manavya of Manavya, the children from the Matalwadi, Bhugaon neighbourhood also attend the school Phone: 9168842688/020-25422282 here. Teachers have been appointed for
“We can always equip urban poor and farmers or communities by focusing on their traditional products, which are unique.” Ganesh Hingmire
THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY JANUARY 10, 2015
New hope for owners of illegal buildings in red zones P5
Find your voice against gender violence: Meera Vijayan P6
PCMC Hockey Stadium is a field hockey stadium with a seating capacity of 5,000 people. It was built in 1993 with a cost of Rs 1.15 crore and was formerly known as Major Dhyanchand Hockey Stadium. — http://sussle.org/
Cosmos Bank’s project Nova to fast track loan procedure
Maharashtra industries need new investment ANIRUDDHA RAJANDEKAR
The MAHATech industrial expo 2015 is a reflection of the growing industrial sector of Maharashtra
...says Krishna Kumar Goyal, newly-elected chairman of the multi-state cooperative bank
RAHUL RAUT
BY ASHOK BHAT @ashok_bhat “The Cosmos Bank will launch a unique project called Nova, for fast track procedure for loans from Rs 10 lakh to Rs one crore,” said the newly-elected chairman of the Cosmos Bank, Krishnakumar Goyal, in an exclusive interview to The Golden Sparrow on Saturday. “In the last five years, we have provided all the services and facilities that are available in other private and nationalised banks to our valued customers. As a result, they gave us one more opportunity to serve them effectively,” said Goyal. Cosmos Bank is the only co-operative bank with a 12-storey corporate office building, called Cosmos Tower, on University Road, ICS Colony. About its achievements in the last five years, Goyal said that the bank had started Internet, mobile, tab, and SMS banking services for its 30 lakh customers. “We are a multi-state but co-operative bank, focused on providing micro loans of ` 5,000 to ` 10,000, to hawkers, vegetable vendors and women. Our interest rates for advances are much lower than those charged by nationalised and private banks. We also provide a higher rate of interest on fi xed deposits,” he said. Cosmos Bank is the second largest co-operative multi-state scheduled bank in the country. In view of its large customer base in co-operative banks,
TGS Quiz Contest
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No. 30
Achievements • 137 branches in seven states • Achieved business of ` 25,900 cr • Services available: InternetMobile banking, Tab banking (banking at door step), SMS banking, Insurance Repository, LIC and General insurance, Mutual fund facility, Foreign exchange service, E-payment of taxes, VISA debit card, Franking facility
Vinay Marathe, founder, Marathe InfoTech and Subhash Desai, industries minister of Maharashtra, have a look at the stalls at MAHATech Industrial Expo 2015
Goals for next five years
TGS NEWS SERVICE @TGSWeekly
• To enter in four new states, target to open branches in Delhi and Goa. Opening more branches and taking the number to 250 from current 137. • Targeting the business of ` 50,000 crore • Project Nova for accelerating loan procedure, targeted business loans from ` 10 lakh to ` 1 crore
maximum ‘Demat’ accounts, and for issuing RuPay debit cards, by president Pranab Mukherjee. ABOUT PROJECT NOVA The Cosmos Bank launched Project Nova to speed up the loan procedures, to keep pace with private and nationalised banks. The branch
Govt will revive HA under ‘Make-in-India’ plan: Ahir
managers who approve loans, are tied up with administrative work, leading to delays in loan approvals. Under Project Nova, loan applications will be forwarded by the branch to the concerned Nova authority for approval, and the branch manager will only be responsible for loan recoveries. ashokbhat21@gmail.com
A LOW-DOWN ON THE PROPERTY SCENE IN PUNE Trends & Tips
nswers 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 two lucky winners to receive gift coupons. 1) What is the name of the school that Late Vijaya Lawate set up for the education of the children of commercial sex workers in the summer of 1979? 2) What is the name of the unique project that Cosmos Bank will launch, for fast track procedure of loans from Rs 10 lakh to Rs one crore? 3) How many Health and Demographic Surveillance Sites does the International Network for the Demographic Evaluation of Populations and Their Health (INDEPTH) have and across how many countries in Asia and Africa is it situated? 4) Who designed the interactive game, Mera PM Kaun? and what award did the game win in the year 2014? 5) To which country, would young entrepreneur, Ishan Vaishampayan have left , had he not decided to start, ‘Aatye Huye, aur kya chahiye’ ? 6) When did DJ Avneet Sawhney start his career? 7) What book has former Union minister, Arun Shourie written? 8) What are the five Bollywood movies to watch out for in 2015? 9) Which Japanese band will play at the Entombed metal fest? 10) Which company is producing a biopic on Sachin Tendulkar?
Contest # 29 winners Sanika Surve Rishabh Surana
The industrial element in Maharashtra has historical beginnings. “Lokmanya Tilak started the ‘paisa fund’, collecting one paisa from the public to set up an industry. The Ogale Karkhana at Talegaon was built out of this money,” he said. “Every industry has been built on a foundation of struggle. Innovative products have put them in the position they are in today. However, we need to replenish our resources to keep our workforce,” he said, referring to the labourers who have migrated to Karnataka due to cheaper electricity and land availability. “I immediately offered them lands for their workshops. We cannot afford to lose our talent,” he said. This edition of the expo is very tech savvy. A QR code has been placed at the beginning of every stall, which visitors can scan on a smartphone, to access information about the product and the industry. tgs.feedback@goldensparrow.com
“We need a new investment of Rs five lakh crore to put Maharashtra’s industrial scenario to the next level. It will generate 20 lakh employments,” said Subhash Desai, industries minister of Maharashtra, at the inauguration of the 11th edition of MAHATech industrial expo. The fourday expo, with more than 300 stalls, was inaugurated on January 8 by Desai along with food and civil supplies minister of Maharashtra Girish Bapat and mayor Dattatray Dhankawade. “Pune is known as a city of education and culture. Today we can say that it is a major technological hub too,” said Dhankwade. The growth of the industrial sectors is reflected in the number of stalls present at the expo, he said. “Maharashtra has the country’s best industrial sector. We must not forfeit this position, and so we need to maintain this growth,” said Desai.
Krishnakumar Goyal, chairman, Cosmos Bank
the Cosmos Bank has appealed to the prime minister and the finance minister for opening accounts under the Prime Minister Jan-Dhan Yojana. Thanks to its outstanding track record, the Cosmos Bank has been granted permanent licence of foreign exchange. It also enjoys the currency chest and has been awarded for
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(From left) Hindustan Antibiotics Limited’s public relation officer Sumant Waikar, managing director KV Varkey, union minister Hansraj Ahir, Sena MP Shrirang Barne inspecting the Hindustan Antibiotics Limited’s Pimpri plant
The Union minister of state for chemical and fertilisers Hansraj Ahir assured HA employees of action in 10 days TGS NEWS SERVICE @TGSWeekly The efforts to revive the country’s fi rst public sector pharma company, Hindustan Antibiotics Limited (HAL) will begin in the next ten days under the prime minister’s ‘Make in India’ initiative, said union minister of state for chemical and fertilisers, Hansraj Ahir, while addressing the employees of the Pimpri-based plant, on Wednesday. Assuring that the company would start operating in next two months, Ahir said, “How long can our country depend on imports? We have to concentrate on exporting our products. If China can do that, why can’t we?” Prime minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Make-in-India’ and skill development plans are based on this belief, he said, blaming China for the downturn at the HA plant. Ahir said, “HA has all the potential to grow and cater to the future needs. The company has a skilled workforce of 1100 employees and machineries in place. Every effort will be made to revive HA,” Ahir said. “The company has already submitted a revival plan of ` 526 crore to the Union government. But it has no provision for working capital so I have instructed the officials to increase the
Fruitful efforts In December 2014, while addressing the media persons, Ahir had announced the revival of the sick public sector undertaking Hindustan Antibiotics Ltd., which is running into losses for over a decade. A meeting was held between minister Ahir and Anant Geete, minister for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises, on December 19, to discuss the issue after Hindustan Antibiotics Mazdoor Sangh’s (HAMS) president and member of Parliament from Maval, Shrirang Barne, put up the HA issue in zero hour at the parliamentary session. The Pimpri plant has a capacity for ` 300 crore turnover.
amount by ` 150 crore,” he said. Ahir is optimistic about generating more funds for HA’s revival. He said that one of the options is using publicprivate partnership (PPP) model, selling land to government agencies or raising ` 800 to ` 900 crore through land sale or taking loans from banks. Ahir said that the government’s focus is on reviving HA to its former glory. “The HA plant must run in its whole capacity. The plant is unique as it was started on the initiative of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru in 1956, years after Kasturba Gandhi died of a disease because of the unavailability of life-saving medicines in the country,” he said. tgs.feedback@goldensparrow.com
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Special Glaze Supplement
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THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY JANUARY 10, 2015
PUNE
“At many places, military establishments have closed the road for common citizens citing security reasons. These steps are causing inconvenience to Puneites.” —Saurabh Rao, Pune Collector
NEXT WEEK
RESULTS OF TGS ESSAY COMPETITION in January 17 issue of The Golden Sparrow on Saturday
Signposts Poonawalla gets Paul Harris Fellowship
Lila Poonawalla receiving the citation from Deepak Shikarpur and Vivek Aranha
Padmashri Lila Poonawalla and Firoz Poonawalla were presented with Paul Harris Fellow Citation by district governors of Rotary District 3131 (2013-14) Deepak Shikarpur and Vivek Aranha (2014-15). This citation was named after the founder of Rotary International, Paul Harris and acknowledges individuals who contribute, or who have contributions made in their name, of US $1,000 to the Rotary Foundation of Rotary International. The citation consists of a pin and a citation certificate, signed by world rotary president Ron Burton and chief trustee of Rotary Foundation, DK Lee.
Exam fees paid for the underprivileged
Serving home-cooked food to music lovers
Every year, Pranita Kolhatkar’s Puranna food stall has been dishing out wholesome food at nominal prices to music buffs over four days of Sawai Gandharva Bhimsen Mahotsav BY PRACHI BARI @prachibari Pranita Ulhas Kolhatkar, a teacher at Modern Primary School, sets up her food stall called ‘Puranna, during the four-days Sawai Gandharva Bhimsen Mahotsav. Priced between Rs 10 and 40, Kolhatkar’s home-made dishes sell like hot cakes literally over the course of the prestigious Hindustani classical music festival, that draws an exceptionally large and diverse audience. Kolhatkar and her friend Medha Athavale decided to put up their food stall at Sawai, in 2007. “We used to make ‘modak’ on orders, but had never thought of setting up a business. While attending Sawai with Medha, we realised that there were food stalls offering bhel, snacks, chaat and vada pav, but none providing wholesome food. So we thought of providing home-made food to the Sawai music lovers. We approached the organisers and they welcomed our concept of providing ‘chapati bhaji’ and ‘khichadi’,” said Kolhatkar. Initially Kolhatkar and Athavale were derided by the rival stall owners, taunting them about serving ‘pithalabhakri’ and ‘mugachi khichadi’. “One of the stall holders said to us that people come here to listen to music and not to eat. But we did not pay any heed and soon our stall was crowded with people who wanted spicy ‘pithala’, ‘thecha’ and ‘bhakri’. We have never looked back since then,” Kolhatkar said. The ‘Puranna’ team included just four, but the number has gone up over the last eight years and now includes family members like Kolhatkar’s sister Shyama Parulekar and relatives. Besides ‘pithala-bhakri’ and
(From left) Kedar Kelkar and Maithali Kolhatkar serving food to customers
‘khichadi’, Puranna has a range of Maharashtrian delicacies on offer, such as vegetable pattice, broken wheat kheer, dadpe pohe, and mugachi khichadi, . The USP of Puranna is the homecooked fl avour of the food. The working members take leave from work to prepare for the festival. “After the Sawai,we go back to our routine,” says Sunil Chitale, who comes down from Chiplun to help sister Pranita. “We love food and at the Sawai we get to meet, and interact with a lot of people,” says Pranita’s daughter Maithili Kolhatkar Kelkar. Her husband Kedar Kelkar said, “I am astonished by what my mother-in-law has achieved. She has no training in hotel management or in catering but
she manages the stall and quality of food impeccably.” Kolhatkar has invested about a lakh of rupees in the stall. “Our motive is not making a profit but to serve tasty and wholesome food,” she said. They make the ‘dink ladoo’, ‘groundnut ladoo’, ‘karanji’, ‘khandvi’ at home. And they never have any leftovers. “People love our food. The four days at Sawai are special and the happiness that they bring, lasts for the whole year,” said Kolhatkar, who wants to open a dining hall serving authentic Maharashtrian food, when she retires. prachibari@gmail.com
AN ART GALORE
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Says Maharashtra education minister Vijay Tawde at the golden jubilee celebrations of the state education board BY MANASI SARAF JOSHI @GargiManasi “The State government is committed to ensure quality education and no educational institute or baron will be spared if found guilty,” said higher and technical education minister Vinod Tawde, on Thursday. He was speaking at the golden jubilee celebration of Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education (MSBSHSE), at Shivajinagar. Tawde said, “The new government has young ministers, none of whom own any educational institute, like in the earlier government, where half the ministers owned educational institutes or were closely related to them.” Targeting Nationalist Congress Party’s Aurangabad MLA Vikram Kale, Tawde said that the government will bring in change and will consider all the stake holders right from students, parents, teachers, principals while taking or implementing any decision. “The government will act as facilitator instead of just a governing body,” Tawde said. Thursday, January 8, marked the Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education’s golden jubilee. The board was established in 1949 in a bungalow near Pune station. Today, it has a wellequipped, state-of-the-art building at Bhamburda, near Balchitravani. It shifted to its Shivajinagar office on January 1, 1966. State board chairman Gangadhar Mhamane elaborated on the fivedecade-long evolution of the state board. He said, “Earlier we had only the three divisions of Pune, Aurangabad and Nagpur. Then it was a standard 11 matric examination which was conducted by the board. “In 1975, when the country adopted a 10 +2+3 pattern, the first secondary school certificate (SSC) examination
(From left) Gajendra Pawar, CMD of Pinnacle Group; city-based photographer Milind Dhere, and Ranjit Jagtap, after inaugurating a photography exhibition titled ‘Mystic Mountains, Ladakh, a cold desert journey’ by Dhere. The exhibition was organised at Monalisa Kalagram in Koregaon Park, last week
Vinod Tawde, Higher and Technical Education Minister
“The government will act as facilitator instead of just a governing body was held, and two years later in 1977, the Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) examination was held. “In 1949, we had 50,406 students appearing for the examination with 46.20 per cent results, while today it is 15,49, 784 students for SSC. The first HSC examination was conducted in 1977, with 85,857 students, with 52.75 per cent results, while today it is 11,98,879 with 90.03 per cent results. The state board has eight medium of languages to write the examination. It is the second board in the country to conduct examinations for SSC and HSC. It is also one of its kind in the country to design a curriculum for standard IX to XII and print books,” said Mhamane. Former and current board officials and staff members, including NCP MLA Vikram Kale, BJP MLA Medha Kulkarni, former education secretary Ashwini Bhide, former education commissioner S Chokalingam and others were present on the occasion. manasisaraf@gmail.com
PCMC to start yoga classes for women The Women and Child Welfare Department of Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) plans to start yoga classes for women in various localities soon. For the past couple of years, the Women and Child Welfare Department has been focusing on the health issues of women and conducting the self defence training programmes for school girls. PCMC also reserved the slabs in municipal gyms for women. Going one step ahead, the civic
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‘Govt is committed to quality education’
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Sarhad to help Kashmiri women Sarhad will start project ‘Aaashh’ (hope) in an effort to help the flood afflicted women of Jammu & Kashmir. The centre which will open at Sarhad Bhavan shortly will have Kashmiri saffron, rugs, tea and handicrafts made by Kashmiri women on display. Sanjay Nahar, president, Sarhad expects that this project will generate employment for 200 women.
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Shahir Hinge Lok-kala Parbodhini, an NGO based in Pune, helps deprived children in paying their exam fees. This year on January 3 on the occasion of Savitribai Phule’s birth anniversary, the organisation helped 41 students of Shivanand Bhim Vidyalaya, Shivajinagar pay their board exam fees. “They are paper boys or children of domestic help. Our organisation helps them attend the crucial board exams,” said Hemantraje Mavle, member of the NGO.
In Sweden, antiMuslim fervour finds a foothold
The science of pranayama
body has decided to start yoga classes for women in each and every pockets of the twin town and is inviting tenders from the yoga institutes. As per the proposal given by the department, the strength of women in each class will be 20 to 30. Classes will be held separately for different age groups between 5 and 15 years, 16 and 30 years and 31 and 45 years. Those interested will have to submit their age and address proof. The fee is ` 300 of which, each woman will have to pay ` 30 per month, while the civic body will pay the remaining cost. tgs.feedback@goldensparrow.com
editor_tgs@goldensparrow.com
Introduce KYC for purchase of gold in any form
The prime minister’s call against the craze for gold is timely. The craze for gold can and should be effectively checked by introducing ‘Know Your Customer’ (KYC) concept for all those purchasing gold in any form. It should be made mandatory for sellers to submit identity of purchasers to the concerned authorities. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) should allow only public sector and private banks to import gold to be sold at nominal margins. The Union government should impose at least some nominal amount of excise duty on gold-jewellery so that jewellers may be compelled to maintain a proper account of gold. On another front, it should be made compulsory for every citizen to have a bank account for the purpose of receiving any type of payment including salaries from private firms. Electronic bank-transfer (RTGS) should be
encouraged. The government should also discontinue higher-denomination currency-notes of ` 500 and ` 1,000. Currency-notes of higher denominations help generate black money in a big way. All sale-purchases exceeding, say ` 10,000, should be routed through banks. — Subhash Agrawal (Gets prize for best letter)
Is intolerance on the rise?
“The 21st century will belong to zealots and religiously deranged people,” uncannily predicted Sir V S Naipaul in an article that appeared in The New York Times on June 16, 1992. We seem to be living with lumpen elements who’re too touchy about all things. The recent demand to ban a thoroughly watchable
descent into obscurantism and religious non-acceptance of seemingly conflicting viewpoints. — Sumit Paul
movie like PK underlines the dangerous trends that are fast engulfing the country. Is the audience really that gullible as to be unable to watch a movie and read a book with a dispassionate approach? The famous film critic Iqbal Masud once wrote that ‘When a thought-provoking movie is interpreted as something incendiary, the interpretative flaw lies with the audience and not with the director.’ The tendency to see religion in every frame of a movie is symptomatic of an intolerant society, which is too religion-centric. This is sad as well as bad because this shows our rapid
Dr Gowarikar was a role model In the death of the eminent scientist Dr Vasant Ranchhod Gowarikar, India has lost a great scientist who made valuable contributions to the nation’s space programme, weather forecasting and population-related issues. A highly decorated scientist, he was a role model in encouraging young people to tap the potential of science. Dr Gowarikar gave India her first weather forecasting model and served as the chief of the Indian Space Research Organisation. He
was the scientific advisor to the prime minister during 1991–93. — Vijay Dattatray Patil
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Pune district population constituted 8.39 per cent of the state’s population in 2011. In the 2001 census, this figure stood at 7.47 per cent.
—www.census.co.in
Will Parrikar ‘jack’ help BJP in Cantt elections?
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Spl anti-narcotic squad in state: CM BY ASHOK BHAT @ashok_bhat Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, who holds the home portfolio, announced the formation of an anti-narcotic special squad at the winter session of the state assembly held in Nagpur recently. Mumbra NCP MLA Jitendra Awhad had raised concern over the
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Given its significance, this valuable part of the city’s heritage ought to be restored, fenced and beautified ABHAY VAIDYA @vaidya_abhay
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The children of waste pickers who are members of Kagad Kach Patra Kashtakari Panchayat (KKPKP) took part in the programme organised to celebrate the 184th birth anniversary of social reformer and educationist Savitribai Phule
City dams need additional 10 TMC water to tide over crisis BY ASHOK BHAT @ashok_bhat
VIIT holds entrepreneurial summit
Vasundhara festival to focus on zero waste
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The great village of brave soldiers Two days from today, July 28, 2014, will mark the centenary of the First World War, also known as the Great War, that ushered in a new epoch in world politics. The history of that war is intertwined with a small, remote village in Satara district. TGS Special Report p13 This medallion was presented by the Queen of England after the First World War to the next of kin of all British and Empire service personnel who were killed in the war. Sepoy Khashaba Powar’s medallion has been placed by his family at their place of worship
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Kirloskar Vasundhara International Film Festival (KVIFF) is a unique festival that combines film screenings and allied activities related to environment, said KVIFF chairman Madhav Chandrachud about the eight-day event beginning January 16. In line with their philosophy of nature conservation, this year’s theme is zero waste. The venues are Balgandharva Rangmandir, Jawaharlal Nehru Auditorium and Raja Ravi Verma Art Gallery, Ghole Road.
NEW DELHI:: The government has decided to set up four new central universities in the country, parliament was told early this week. “The ministry of human resource development (HRD) has decided to set up four new central universities, viz. one Central Tribal University each in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, one central university in Andhra Pradesh and Mahatma Gandhi Central University in Bihar,” HRD Minister Smriti Irani said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha. At present, there are 40 central universities under the purview of the ministry.
Army chief pays tributes to Kargil War martyrs SRINAGAR: Indian Army chief after the wreath laying ceremony at the General Bikram Singh on Friday paid Kargil War Memorial in Drass town of tributes to the martyrs of 1999 Kargil Kargil district. War in Jammu and Kashmir’s Ladakh The chief of the Indian Army said region on the occasion of 15th Vijay ceasefire violations by Pakistan have Diwas. been taking place regularly on the He said the army is alert and Line of Control (LoC) in the state, but has been deployed effectively on the assured that the army has been effectively borders to defend the integrity and the responding to those violations. sovereignty of the country. “They violate the ceasefire every “Let me assure you, the army is week and every month, but the army has deployed on the borders to defend the been taking effective steps to respond to PUNE, AUGUST 30, 2014 www.goldensparrow.com integrity and the sovereignty of the those,” he said. country,” General Singh told reporters Contd on p 10 I've always been a movie guy, movies have been my thing. I love movies, all kinds of movies. — Christopher Nolan
IANS
The Students of Vishwakarma Institute of Information Technology (VIIT) organised an entrepreneurial summit ‘Vishwapreneur ‘15’ from January 2 to January 4. The event is an effort to provide a platform to students who want to become entrepreneur and give a push to their aspiration and thought. Renowned entrepreneurs Varun Agarwal, Hanmant Gaikwad and Mahesh Manjrekar were invited to honour the occasion.
`2,200 cr project for water augmentation
The Zero Stone monument in Nagpur and other parts of the world
Rainfall in July has brought some reThe PMC’s Water Supply lief to the citizens of Pune and the civic Department has proposed a administration. However, to be able to `2,200 crore project to replace ensure regular water supply without the network of old, leaking and cuts in the coming weeks and months, and drainage Modiwater tweets the dams supplying water to Pune willPMdamaged BY GITESH SHELKE lines. A Draft Project Report (DPR) need to build up an additional 10 TMCin Japanese @gitesh_shelke is scheduled to be placed before (thousand million cubic feet of water) the City Improvement Committee storage. Primenext minister Narendra With 28-years-old Asif Shaikh as its week, BJP’s groupModi leaderon While the Khadakwasla dam hasThursday putGanesh out a series of told tweets in head, the Shri Shivram Tarun Mandal in PMC, Bidkar TGS. reached its storage capacity of 1.98Japanese and said that be as his friends Trust on MG Road is truly an inspiring project would financed TMC, the situation in the Panshet,from The Japan had him to talk to icon of communal harmony, as it through theasked Jawaharlal Nehru Varasgaon and Temghar dams wouldthe people of Urban JapanRenewal directly, Mission. he had prepares for Ganeshotsav with a range be crucial not just for Pune city butdoneNational so. Modi is scheduled to visit Jaof charitable activities every year. The project will drastically curtail also for smaller towns downstream likepan from 30 to September 3. Describing their youth group as “a waterAugust wastage. Daund and Indapur, which depend onIn a tweet in Japanese, he said he was truly cosmopolitan mandal”, Shaikh these dams for their water supply. Tovery “excited” about the visit that will and the mandal’s secretary Sheldon fulfi l this demand, a total of 20 TMCstrengthen the relationship between Fernandes spoke of water will be required, of which storagethe ministration tookIna another review oftweet the rain-what Ganeshotsav two countries. of 10 TMC has been achieved. fall andtowater storage status at thecelebrations mean addressed his Japanese counterThis was underlined by the officialspartKhadakwasla, Panshet, Shinzo Abe, Modi said Varasgaon he deeply andto them every year. of the Irrigation Department duringrespected Temghar dams which supply water to Abe’s leadership. First and a meeting convened at the civic headthe city. foremost, the trust quarters by mayor Chanchala Kodre The Khadakwasla dam has waterinvolves everyone on Thursday. Those present at this storage to itsHerald full capacity of 1.98 TMC.from the locality in case: meeting included municipal commis-National The irrigation department thereforethe festivities. sioner Vilas Deshmukh, city engineerCourt hearing decideddefers to release some water from this The mandal Prashant Waghmare, water supply dam into the Mutha river. The PMCcollects vargani chief V. G. Kulkarni, standing comalso decided to withdraw the alternate( v o l u n t a r y on Thursday fixed December mittee chairman Bapusaheb Karne andA court day water supply plan and release water contribution) from 9 as the next date of hearing in a case top party representatives. once a day from this dam. the neighbourhood and During the meeting the civic ad-against Congress chief Sonia Gandhi Contd on p 10but does not spend her son and party vice president Rahul it entirely on decorations and the Gandhi and others over acquisition of immersion procession. “Instead, we the National Herald newspaper. provide meals to the poor for 10 days Metropolitan Magistrate Gomati and also undertake other charitable Manocha deferred the hearing after it activities,” Shaikh said. was apprised that the Delhi High Court This includes the distribution
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$250,000 fine. Shah was the president and CEO of SOHM and Costas, both based out of California. He was accused of paying kickbacks to an investment fund representative in exchange for buying stock in the two companies. The fund representative was, in fact, an undercover FBI agent working on an investigation into fraud in the market for penny stocks, the report said. Penny stocks are less heavily regulated than stocks that trade on major exchanges such as the Nasdaq or the New York Stock Exchange.
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 enyears-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 Headed by Raghuvir Vanal, this
(IIM)-Shillong to emerge as creative leaders to bring about the required change in the country. “I want to see all of you as creative leaders to bring about the required change,” Kalam said, while delivering a lecture “Dimensions of National Development” at the prestigious B-school on Thursday. The “missile man”, as Kalam is also known due to his background in aerospace engineering and his role in India’s
indigenous missile development, is one of the visiting faculty members in IIMShillong. Kalam spoke about the challenges that India and the world were facing and emphasised the role of leadership to tackle these issues and develop possible solutions to ensure socio-economic development. He said the key requirement for achieving a distinctive profi le for the nation was by creating sustainable enterprise-driven models at the rural level. Kalam urged the students to emulate a development model to bring
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BY PRIYANKA NEW DELHI: India not only has the dubious distinction of having one of the worst road accident records in the world, but these are taking more and more young lives, particularly of school children. Road accidents have left nearly 70 children dead and many injured since the start of 2013, a NGO has said.
dents were killed and some 20 injured when their school bus was rammed by a speeding train at an unmanned rail-road crossing in Telangana Thursday. The dead included the school bus driver. Although the number of school children is a minuscule part of the total number of Indians dying daily on the roads, activists say most accidents are avoidable. I dislike about Will’s school? Are my and my efforts in both on an excursion in these Maharashtra on Piyush Tewari, founder and presistandards really too high or are people crafts are unfolding. December 7, 2013. dent of Save Life Foundation, said —Priyanka working in Chopra the education field really In an accident in Tamil Nadu’s holding an adult “accountable for safetyjust that ignorant.” The next morning, Pudukottai district in June 2013, a of children while on the move” andshe received a call asking her to meet mini van collided with a bus, killing having child safety laws would act as the principal when she dropped off seven school children. deterrents. her son at Sonshine Christian AcadAnother seven children died when Two accidents this year injured 12emy, a private religious school, in Flortheir bus fell into a gorge in Jammu and school students. The first took placeida. To her shock, the school decided Kashmir’s Anantnag district in April May 12 in Greater Noida in Uttarto expel her son. 2013. In July last year, 11 students were Pradesh, injuring two students. Ten killed and 20 injured when their bus hit students were injured in adjoining Noia truck in Rajasthan’s Hanumangarh da April 29 when their school bus was district. hit by a state-run bus. Contd on p 10 Three children died when their
‘Chayan’ promises to offer shelter, legal support and counselling to couples in case of outburst from families BY YASH DAIV @yash009
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“Providing Urban amenities in Rural Areas (PURA) is one such system which I suggest will help in providing opportunities through cooperative working of resource and social entrepreneur in the rural areas,” he said. “PURA is the creation of physical, electronic, knowledge connectivities leading to electronic connectivity of rural regions. With this combined and planned intervention of infrastructure, digital technology, information and enterprise, we can select a cluster of about 20 to 50 villages, which share core
“We collect money and support poor patients in the hospitals. Our members also support orphans in different orphanages in the city,”
from 20 last year and 23 the year Central minister with regards to this before, according to the list published project soon,” Bidkar said, adding that in the web edition of Forbes Asia. an announcement on the forthcoming China’s tech companies made a state assembly polls is expected in PUNE, OCTOBER 11, 2014 www.goldensparrow.com strong showing, with Tencent the most a week or two and the BJP is keen valuable, having a market cap of $155.6 to push the Pune Metro project to a billion, nearly twice that of runner-up decisive stage before the Model Code India’s Tata Consultancy Services. of Conduct comes into force,” he said. Lenovo is the biggest in terms of annual revenue of $38.7 billion, Continued on p 10
Pune’s hottest start-up, 2014 get top prize today
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.
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you take care of your supporting this event and includes the roster in 2005. family. Association of Software and Other notable National companies from —Julia Roberts Service Companies (NASSCOM), India include HCL Technologies, Indus (Tie, Pune), which makes the listTh fore the fifthEntrepreneurs time, SoftwareIndustries, Technologies Parks of and Sun Pharmaceutical (STPI), Mahratta Chamber Of which appears on theIndia list for the third consecutive time. Commerce Industries & Agriculture (MCCIA), PuneTech, iSpirit, IIM Mahindra & Mahindra also rejoins Ahmedabad’s the list after a two-year absence. Centre for Innovation Incubation IANS and Entrepreneurship, SME Joinup, Hinjewadi Industries Association (HIA), IACC, and Pune Open Coffee Club. The four finalists for the top prize are: Scandid- a shopping technology start-up that enables shoppers to compare prices by scanning the product barcodes with one’s mobile phones; Framebench- a cloud based online collaboration, communication and feedback platform; Ecozen Solutions, started in September 2009 to promote awareness against poor energy management practices and elevate the Indian industry to the standards and expectations of a developed nation, and The Green Raddiwala which focuses on providing door-to-door services in collecting raddi or recyclable waste such as plastic, newspapers and the like. Founded by Sushil Chaudhari and Madhur Khandelwal in 2012, Scandid also helps consumers find latest online and offline deals. The company previously won the regional round of the Seedstars World- a global start-up competition.
3 ECOZEN SOLUTIONS Framebench, founded by Rohit Agarwal, is a cloud-based online collaboration, communication and feedback platform. Framebench is a central workplace where one can store and share one’s creative assets. The company can help remote teams and
THE GREEN RADDIWALA clients to review, mark changes required on the assets and even host discussions on them in real time, which automatically gets documented for viewing later. This visual communication workflow allows for crisp & quick feedback. Ecozen Solutions run by Devendra
Gupta, Prateek Singhal and Vivek Pande was started in 2009 to promote awareness against poor energy management practices and elevate the Indian industry to the standards and expectations of a developed nation. It is with this view that this designed a pioneering and innovative micro Cold Storage- a solar powered cold storage system, which was primarily designed for the rural segment to serve their needs ideally. This innovative product can be suitably adapted for local conditions Great across thethings world. can happen when have the The you fourth finalist, The Green courage to yourself. Raddiwala hasbebeen established by Michael Sam Nikhil Pagare—and Saurav Pasalkar to provide door-to-door services in collecting raddi or recyclable waste such as plastic, newspapers and the like. Green Raddiwala purchases the recyclable waste from households at market rates and sells it directly to recycling industries. This drastically reduces environmental pollution. ishani.bose@goldensparrow.com
(Left to right) MANS state secretary Milind Deshmukh, president Deepak Girme and Dhanak secretary Asif Iqbal at SM Joshi Hall in Navi Peth on November 4
After several brainstorming sessions that probed into legal, religious and humanitarian aspects of marriage, the group devised the concept of Chayan (choice). These organisations aspire to make Chayan a national movement. The conference began with an “oath of humanity” to promote the principle of non-discrimination based on caste, religion, language or gender. Madhav Bhavge, secretary, MANS said Chayan is the need of the hour. “It could be a national level movement which would give shape to the ideas and suggestions that we have
“People blindly follow the vedic rituals. A person should be able to justify all his or her activities rather than following a tradition. If we are able to instil this attitude in the masses we will be able to eradicate class politics and in turn the problems of mixed marriages,” he said. Subhash Bhave, secretary, SM Joshi Socialist Foundation emphasised on the need for mass awareness. “People have a tendency to hide their marriages until the legal documents are ready. This attitude must be changed,” he said. It was suggested during the deliberations that there should be a group of five to ten people in every district who will promote and provide assistance if required, for inter-caste and inter-religious marriages. yashdaiv@gmail.com
City takes lead over Delhi, Mumbai in the journey of product start-ups TGS NEWS SERVICE @TGSWeeKLY Pune has emerged as the nation’s second-fastest product start-up hub in the country. A close second to Bangalore, Pune has taken a lead over mega-metros like Delhi and Mumbai. This has been stated in the latest report by iSPIRIT, (Indian Software Product Industry Roundtable), a company mainly focussed towards the product industry. “Pune is significantly ahead of Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Hyderabad,” the report said while
noting the product start-ups activity in Bangalore at 33% of India, Pune (21 %), Delhi and Mumbai (about 1112% each) and Hyderabad at 9%. “Pune is definitely No. 2, which is excellent,” said Amit Paranjape, co-founder of Pune-Tech, an online tech portal for the tech and startup community in Pune. Addressing a recent press conference Paranjape spoke about Pune’s viable ecosystem, which has been developing tremendously to enable entrepreneurs to launch an enterprise.
Others who shared this thought were Gaurav Mehra, past president SEAP and managing director, Saba Softwares; Maneesh Bhandari, director, Pune Division, Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) at IIM Ahmedabad; Ashutosh Parasnis, president of SEAP and managing director of Qlogic; Ramaswamy Narayanan, vice president, SEAP; Vishwas Mahajan, president of TIEPune chapter and Navin Kabra, cofounder of Pune Tech. tgs.feedback@goldensparrow.com
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CHILD LABOUR IN INDIA Mention your name, age, standard, school’s name and contact number in your entry. Last Date for Receiving Entries: Saturday, 22nd November Prize Winning Entries will be announced in this newspaper Entries may be sent to: The Golden Sparrow on Saturday, 1641, Madhav Heritage, Tilak Road, Pune - 411030. Tel: 020-24324332/33
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the Special Marriage Act, 1954, which is complicated, different in every state and plagued with controversies. “A platform like Chayan can help modify such a law,” he said. Iqbal suggested that under the national platform one can create a secure place for couples who have mixed marriages. “We can offer them shelter, legal procedures and counselling in case there is an outburst from the families,” he said. Chayan would ensure the smooth functioning of the legal structure pertaining to marriage. Deepak Girme, president, MANS said society’s mindset have deep religious roots. Having worked with the late anti-superstition crusader Narendra Dabolkar for 25 years, he said any religious text should be questioned.
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.
competencies and empower those using local enterprise. This would enable our country to grow by shared efforts and overcome the challenges faced by the society,” he said. Charting out a link between creative leadership and economic development, the former president emphasised the importance of the role that change in leadership would play for ensuring success. He also accentuated on the role of integrity among leaders for sustained success and development of the society. (IANS)
Horse,s
Prominent social workers from different parts of the country who promote intercaste and inter-religious marriages have decided to establish a national movement called Chayan (Choice). This was decided at a meeting in the city on November 4-5 during a conference on ‘Right to Choice of Partner in Inter-caste and Interreligious Marriages’. Activists from the Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti (MANS), SM Joshi Socialist Foundation, Rashtriya Seva Dal and Muslim Satyashodhak Mandal along with the voluntary organisation, Dhanak from Delhi, were present at this meet.
Six out of eight subways in the city are in a sad state of neglect and are closed to the public. Some are used as convenient urinating spots or as gambling dens. They are dirty, poorly lit and unsafe. Why can’t city subways be restored and made user-friendly for pedestrians? Also related is the complete avoidance of foot over-bridges by pedestrians. Why waste public exchequer and construct them if they are so very unpopular with the public? See Spotlight on p8-9
THE FINALISTS ARE...
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.
Pune FC enter Durand Cup final P 16
Nat’l movement to promote marriages of choice gets going
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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
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City subways are
Emerge as creative leaders: Kalam to IIM students SHILLONG: Former president APJ Abdul Kalam has urged students of the Indian Institute of Management
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
Telangana school bus accident resulting in the death of 19 students is part of a larger tragedy that demands immediate attention
Chief of Army Staff General Bikram Singh paying homage to martyrs at the Infantry War Memorial during his farewell visit to the Infantry School, Mhow in Indore recently
Boston Globe reported.
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
Generosity & communal harmony define these mandals
What is going wrong with road safety in India?
convicted in stock scheme
IGNOU last date for admission extended to January 15 The Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) has extended the last date for submission of application forms to January 15, 2015. Students can now seek admission to various academic programmes of the University, offered through the Common Prospectus for January 2015 session, with a late fee of Rs 300. The earlier date was December 31, 2014.
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The eighth international conference of the Indian Subcontinent Region Decision Sciences Institute, organised in collaboration with the Association of Management of MBA/MMS Institutes, Maharashtra Management Association and Dr DY Patil School of Management, was held at Hyatt Regency in Pune. About 154 research papers were presented over three days, which put forth the application of decision sciences in management. Around 300 senior academic delegates from 16 countries participated in the conference.
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City MLAs, including BJP’s Jagdish Mulik and Yogesh Tilekar, drew the attention of the House towards the issues of lack of funds facing Sassoon Hospital’s super specialty project and the housing plan for Pune police and traffic department staff. Health minister Dr Deepak Sawant assured release of funds for Sassoon Hospital project. ashok.bhat21@gmail.com
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Waste pickers remember their hero The members of Kagad Kach Patra Kashtakari Panchayat (KKPKP), an association of waste pickers in Pune, and their children organised a programme to celebrate Savitribai Phule’s 184th birth anniversary and remember the social reformer’s contribution to society. The event ‘Jyoti Savitrichi Lekre’ was held at Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Sanskrutik Bhavan. As part of KKPKP’s ‘Shiksha ki Shikshan’ project, 11 daughters of waste pickers and their parents were felicitated for keeping a promise to ensure that they would break away from the age-old social tradition of child marriage and get them educated. State commissioner for social justice and special assistance Ranjit Sinh Deol addressed the programme as the chief guest.
increasing drug trafficking-related crime and the widespread use of drugs in the state. Pune’s MLAs also pointed out the increasing habit of drug use among the youth and students in Pune. The CM said that the squad will have special rights like the state anti-terrorism squad (ATS). Presently, the city police have a wing to check the crime.
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13 issues involving civilian-defence issues in Pune district. “All issues will be addressed systematically. I have asked the district collector to make separate files on each of these issues in coordination with the public representatives and send those files to the Defence Ministry within the next eight days,” he said.
A total of 101 artists, including hobby painters and art students, will be exhibiting their works at the second edition of the exhibition of Venus Traders to be held in the city. In tune with their love for art, the ‘Passion for Art’ initiative by the stationery superstore, with four branches in the city, has helped many budding artists. The exhibition, that received an overwhelming response last year, has been divided into two
RAHUL RAUT
In The
TGS NEWS SERVICE @TGSWeekly
From left: Union minister of state (independent charge) for environment, forests and climate change Prakash Javadekar, Union defence minister Manohar Parrikar and Maval MP Shrirang Barne at the press conference held at Van Bhavan on Senapati Bapat Road on Thursday
the prohibited land. The minister also held an extensive joint meeting with defence officials, public representatives, the district collector Saurabh Rao and other top officials. The meeting was organised by Union environment minister Prakash Javadekar to help resolve the problems related to encroachment of defence lands. Parrikar said there were a total of
categories — for students of art colleges and hobby artists. The exhibit includes 51 paintings of hobby artists and 50 of art students. The event is organised in association with Kokuyo Camlin Ltd, Marathe Jewellers, Monaa Strategy and Design and Writing Wonders. A total of 20 prizes will be given with 10 prizes for each category. Remaining 81 artists will get consolation prizes and certificates. Child prodigies Eshaan Ranka and Haris Imtiyaz Khan from Pune will be felicitated at the event. The first solo exhibition of nine-year-old Eshaan, a standard III student of St Mary’s School, showcased his 150 artworks. Haris Imtiyaz Khan, 16, surprised everyone by making a live portrait of anyone in just 25 minutes when he was just 10. tgs.feedback@ goldensparrow.com
Where: Darpan Art Gallery, Kalachhaya Campus When: January 15-20
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Defence minister Manohar Parrikar’s visit to Pune and his many announcements come at a time when campaigning for the Cantonment Board elections is at its peak in Pune, Khadki and Dehu Road. The elections to these cantonments are due on January 11 with a total of 24 seats at stake. The Congress party has always dominated the three Cantonment Boards that fall in the jurisdiction of the Pune metropolitan area. Parrikar made a number of important announcements relating to the long-pending Ghorpadi flyover issue and the hundreds of unauthorised constructions in the Red Zone area around the Dehu Road Magazine Depot. Bringing fresh hope to thousands of residents in unauthorised constructions in the Defence Red Zone, he said an amicable solution to this long-pending issue would be worked out at the earliest. Speaking at a press conference in the city on Thursday, Parrikar said that the Defence Ministry was looking at various options such as the use of technology to enhance safety of the magazine depot, and acquisition of
Parag Mankeekar helps ‘pick’ a prime minister P6
City Art Exhibition
Congress have always dominated the 24 seats of Pune, Khadki and Dehu Road cantonment boards whose elections are due on January 11 BY Ashok Bhat @ashok_bhat
PUNE
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Talented, hard-working and a big league movie star, They are independent and opinionated and Deepika Padukone can also these 20-year-olds are going it solo when everyone around them is getting hitched. take a tough stand when Ishani Bose tells us more push comes to shove. Anjali Shetty gauges public opinion See P10-11
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The future of English journalism in India P 10
Picking a prime minister on virtual platform
Listed companies launder money P 14 Mera PM Kaun is an interactive game designed by Dr Parag Mankeekar based on India’s 2014 Lok Sabha election. TGS NewsService brings you the story
Election in itself is a game of perception. We can test the majority opinion through virtual games
Mark Zuckerberg begins book club on Facebook
Parag Mankeekar (left) receiving the Social Media for Empowerment Award 2014 from Digital Empowerment Foundation
show up on the screen. Players throw a burning fireball of an issue at the candidate of their choice, who will douse it. The game was played by over a lakh people. Even the BJP and Congress were interested in the game. Neeti Solutions were even called by the US embassy, regarding using it for the US elections. NGOs from Nigeria and Sri Lanka have asked
for an independent game. “It also garnered votes from the floating audience which had not decided whom to vote for,” he said. Mankeekar added that the game was hacked and votes against one party increased radically in one night. Mankeekar plans to create a game for the US elections and by 2019 he wants to make a more effective version of ‘Mera PM Kaun?’. He is also keen on the corporate recruitment scenario, with solution and behaviour-based games. He hopes to see real life simulation games integrated into the Indian school curriculum. “A decade ago, we had launched a life simulation game called Real Lives. It has been integrated by 4,000 schools in their curriculum. We sell the game at $30 even today and we plan to introduce an upgraded version soon,” he said. yashdaiv@gmail.com
Government decides to unblock four websites out of 32 The government has decided to unblock four websites after they said they will not allow pasting of jihadi propaganda and also work with the government to remove such material as per laws of the land, the government said on Wednesday. “These websites have undertaken not to allow pasting of such propaganda information on their website and also work with the government to remove such material as per the compliance with the laws of land. “The action has been initiated to unblock
the following sites -- weebly.com, vimeo. com, dailymotion.com and gist.github.com,” said a statement from the communications and information technology ministry. The government had earlier ordered to block 32 websites. “Similar approach could be considered for other involved websites on getting assurance that law of the land would be complied with,” it added. The statement said the additional director general of police of the Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS), Mumbai, had on November 15
requested the blocking of 32 websites which were being used for jihadi propaganda. It was said that anti-national groups are using social media for mentoring Indian youths to join jihadi activities. These websites work on page hosting concept. Many of these websites do not require any authentication for pasting any material on them. Others upload articles, videos or photos or download the contents which helps to hide the identities. “These websites were being used frequently for pasting, communicating such
content by just changing page name even blocking the earlier one,” the statement said. An additional chief metropolitan magistrate also issued an order on Nov 10 for blocking these 32 websites on an urgent basis. Blocking of the websites was ordered in compliance with the court order. Meanwhile, BJP IT cell head Arvind Gupta tweeted: “The websites that have been blocked were based on an advisory by Anti Terrorism Squad, and were carrying anti India content from ISIS. The sites that have removed objectionable content.” — IANS
Find your voice against gender violence Citizen journalist Meera Vijayann’s response to gender discrimination in India has a large audience on social media. She realised her voice mattered as she recorded blogs as a response to such events 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 YASH DAIV @yash009 “Stories are the most powerful tool to talk about empowerment. So I want to begin with an everyday story. What is it really like to be a young woman in India?,” said Meera Vijayann, citizen journalist at TEDxHousesOfParliament, an independent event in June 2014. She began her talk by telling about the sexual assaults that she and people around have been subjected too in the 27 years that she has lived in India. “Life in India is not easy. But today I’m not going to talk to you about this fear. I’m going to talk to you about an interesting path of learning that this fear took me on,” she said. She recalled the Nirbhaya incident, when a Delhi girl was ruthlessly raped in a moving bus in December 2013. The incident was a reflection on the horrific truth about the true state of women in the country. The news was filled with all sorts of perspectives and comments. “As a writer and gender activist, I have written extensively on women, and I decided I wanted to change this. So I did something spontaneous, hasty. I logged on to a citizen journalism platform called iReport, and I recorded a video talking about what the scene was like in Bangalore. I talked about how I felt, I talked about the ground realities, and I talked about the frustrations of living in India,” she said. In a few hours, the blog was shared widely, and comments and thoughts poured in from across the world.
Cyber crimes in India may double in 2015: Study The number of cyber crimes in India may touch 3,00,000 in 2015, almost double the level of the previous year, resulting in devastation in the financial space, security establishment and social fabric, a study said. Presently, the number of cyber crimes in India is almost about 1,49,254 and is expected to surpass 3,00,000 by 2015 developing at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of about 107 per cent. According to the study, 12,456 cases are registered in India. During 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014, the total number of cyber crimes registered were 13,301, 22,060, 71,780 and 62,189 (till May) respectively, it said. Phishing attacks of online banking accounts or cloning of ATM/debit cards are common occurrences. The increasing use of mobile/smartphones/tablets for online banking/ financial transactions has also increased the vulnerabilities to a great extent. The maximum offenders came from the 18-30 age group, the report said.
BY YASH DAIV @yash009
“Interactive games are a virtual reality. They are an effective thought stimulating tool,” says Dr Parag Mankeekar, the founder of Neeti Solutions. He has designed a free online interactive game called ‘Mera PM Kaun’, based on the 2014 Indian Lok Sabha elections. The game has received the Social Media for Empowerment Award in 2014. Dr Mankeekar who has worked in the disaster management and public health sectors, has designed games based on the themes of disaster management, climate change, global warming and environmental issues. These virtual games conjure up real life situations, that the player can relate to in their own lives. Mera PM Kaun allows participants to allocate a national issue to the prime minister of their choice, who they think will be able to find a feasible solution Mankeekar has designed programmes for the London police, the German and the Dutch governments, since Neeti Solutions was set up in 2001. In 2008, he received the prestigious Ashoka Fellowship, for creating the games on climate change and global warming. In 2012, Neeti Solutions metamorphosed into a social gaming company, producing games based on livelihood, agriculture, governance and Right to Information (RTI). They also produced ‘Chakraview’, a game relating to farmers’ suicides, in collaboration with Sir Dorabji Tata Trust. About the adverse reaction to the game, Mankeekar said, “People thought we were trying to find a fun element in such a serious topic.” “Election in itself is a game of perception. We can test the majority opinion through virtual games,” he said. ‘Mera PM Kaun’ hosted on merapmkaun2014.in projects a prime ministerial candidate on screen. Relevant and current issues
In The TECH WORLD
After following up this event for over a month she covered a trail of events in Bangalore which had no space in the mainstream news. In Cubbon Park, which is a big park in Bangalore, she gathered with over 100 others when groups of young men came forward to wear skirts to prove that clothing
does not invite rape. “When I reported about these events, I felt I had some power, I felt like I had a channel to release all the emotions I had inside me,” she said. In the August of 2013, she logged on to Facebook and was taken aback by a link that was being shared there. The link had a report titled ‘India: The story you never wanted to hear’ uploaded by an American girl called Michaela Cross where she had recounted her firsthand account of facing sexual harassment in India. It said, “There is no way to prepare for the eyes, the eyes that every day stared with such entitlement at my body, with no change of expression whether I met their gaze or not.” She called India a traveller’s heaven and a woman’s hell. Vijayann recorded a video blog in response to the report where she expressed my regret for what she had faced and conveyed her different side of India. And a few days later, she was invited to talk on air with her. “I reached out to this girl who I had never met, who was so far away, but yet I felt so close to,” she said. Since this report came to light, more young people than ever were discussing sexual harassment on the campus, and the university of Chicago, which Michaela belonged to gave her the assistance she needed. The university even took measures to train its students to equip them with the skills that they need to confront challenges such as harassment. “For the first the time, I felt I wasn’t alone,” she said. yashdaiv@gmail.com
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has decided to read a book every two weeks as part of his new year resolution and has created a page called “A Year of Books” on the social media website, inviting 30 million users to like the page. It is because of his belief that books are ‘intellectually fulfi lling, that Zuckerberg started this page on the social networking site. He further added that books enable people to delve deeper into a topic in order to explore it, as compared to most other form of media today.
Twitter operating on native video player to dare YouTube Twitter has come up with additional features with respect to its native video service as part of its strategy to place itself as a media platform. The Twitter Video Player will anchor videos of up to 10 minutes with no cap on fi le size, formerly corroborating MP4 and mov fi les. One will not be able to edit videos or schedule them within the player at least in the fi rst iteration and will support only those videos that are hosted in its own service and not those that are hosted on Youtube or any other source. While the Twitter Video Player may be used by advertisers or other commercial partners, for example, Twitter will not allow third parties to sell access to the Video Player.
Microsoft launches its cheapest internet phone Microsoft has launched its cheapest hand till date, Nokia 215, with an internet processor. The company hopes to increase its market in Asia, Middle East and Africa. The phone is priced at $29 (` 1,833) and provides an Opera Mini Browser and Facebook Messenger, which is inbuilt in the phone. The phone can also run Twitter along with some other applications. Nokia 215 is a low-spec phone that has a 320 x 240 pixels display, 0.3 megapixel camera, a torch and a radio as its main features. The built in apps can work with a 3G connection and is designed for more difficult terrains while the battery can last up to 29 days on standby.
Facebook acquires Wit.ai, a voice recognition firm Facebook acquired Wit.ai, a company that makes voice recognition technology for wearable devices and Internetconnected appliances. It is the recent symbol of the fi rm’s plans to expand its reach beyond computers and smartphones. The 18-month old company, based in Palo Alto, California, makes software that can understand spoken words as well as written text phrased in ‘natural language’. The deal comes as technology companies are racing to bring Internet connectivity to a new crop of devices, from watches to washing machines. Voice recognition, the technology that helps power services such as Apple’s (AAPL.O) Siri, is considered a key building block for the new devices to earn mainstream consumer appeal.
THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY JANUARY 10, 2015
“It is important to have a purpose.We realised that to motivate team members, just survival or growth wouldn’t suffice. Our end goal is to do something meaningful for others.” — Kunal Bahl, co-founder, Snapdeal.com
“As an entrepreneur, I have learnt that any business requires identifying, accepting and overcoming challenges. If you outperform, keep raising the bar or you will soon be overtaken.” — Anil Agarwal, founder, Vedanta Group
Hungry for a delicious meal at 2 am?
Signposts
According to NASSCOM, with more than 3,000 tech startups, India is the fourth largest base for young businesses in the world and is likely to increase to 11,500 tech startups by 2020. A joint study ‘Tech Start-up in India: A Bright Future’ by NASSCOM and Zinnov suggests that the Indian start-ups with their unique solutions are witnessing increased traction in global whitespace opportunities. According to NASSCOM, the 10,000 start-ups programme has paved way for three trends that are shaping the Indian economy with the potential to shake things up: Digitalisation, faster innovation cycles, and the rise of young, ambitious talent.
Make-in-India is a platform to promote innovation “Indians world wide have been in the forefront of innovation. One third of NASA scientists are Indians, all they require is an enabling environment to work”, said Union Minister for Science and Technology, Dr. Harsh Vardhan at a recent event in Gandhinagar. Quoting a report published by a leading American society, Dr. Vardhan said innovation and research was slowing down in the developed world, while witnessing a spurt in developing countries. “Come back and innovate in India. Have faith in our capabilities and ability to support” he said. The minister said the Make In India initiative provided a major platform to promote innovation.
Engineer-turnedentrepreneur Ishan Vaishampayan is delivering freshly cooked food to hungry Punekars all night long
RAHUL RAUT
India will be home to 11,500 tech start-ups by 2020: NASSCOM
START-UP MENTOR
PUNE
BY PRACHI BARI @prachibari Twent y-f ive-year-old,Pune-based Ishan Vaishampayan has taken a wide detour from his previous profession as civil engineer, to set up his own innovative food delivery service in Pune, that is equally innovative, named Aatye Huye, aur kya chahiye. Launched just six months ago, Vaishampayan’s concept of delivering piping hot food in the middle of the night, to his customers’ doorsteps has struck a right and instantly popular chord with his clientele, that is growing by the day... er night. With its working hours from 9 pm to 4.30 am, Aatye Huye, aur kya chahiye is a one-of-a-kind service in the city, that works along the simplest of formats: Call them, place your order for food, beverages and even chocolate, and it will be delivered at your doorstep in quick time. Besides a means to earn a livelihood, Vaishampayan believes that his home delivery food service is helping him make new friends, night after night, as well as catering to what has become his regular list of clients. The night time food delivery service concept took root in Vaishampayan’s mind during his college days. “I used to live in a hostel and we used to stay awake till the wee hours, studying for
Ishan Vaishampayan, busy cooking delicious food for his patrons in the wee hours of night
engineering exams, and completing projects and journals. Our big problem every night was having piping hot food delivered at our doorstep,” he said. Unlike Mumbai, where street food is available at all hours of the night, Pune has limited options such as a few bhurji pav vendors, pohe at Nal Stop, or the Comesum restaurant at the railway station. “Leaving aside our studies and going out in the night to search for food was a real hassle. So now with Aatye Huye, I can cater to students who study late in the night, and deliver them hot food that is just a phone call away,” he says. While working for a civil engineering company, Vaishampayan realised that there was no restaurant
or service providing fresh food late in the night. “I found out that single men, students and IT employees wanted burgers or sandwiches, every time they felt hungry at night” Vaishampayan said. Taking the leap of faith, Vaishampayan dumped his plan to take up a lucrative job in Muscat and started looking for a place to do business from, which he found in Pandavnagar, off Senapati Bapat Road. His parents pitched in to pay the deposit for a room, and the investment of ` 4 lakh for the equipment and raw material. The fi rst dish Vaishampayan made was pasta in white sauce, which his friends raved about. Ten days before he started his kitchen, he set up a
Facebook page and created a Whatsapp group. All this paid dividends and soon he started getting orders for burgers, sandwiches and pasta. D-Day was June 12, 2014, bang in the middle of the football World Cup season, Aatye Huye’s fi rst clients were from Aundh and Pashan, for shawarma and pasta. “There were no menu cards but we had generated enough curiosity about Aatye Huye, with teasers about homecooked food, that would be delivered at customers’ doorsteps. “In the fi rst week we had only two orders, but as the football fever picked up, we had seven to eight orders every night,” he said. Delivering food was hectic though, Ishan agrees. “Our staff consisted of chefs Amar Phadtare and Ahad
HOW TO ORDER Go onto their facebook page : https://www.facebook.com/ AateHuye.in?fref=ts Or call Ishan Vaishampayan: 9960499986
Sheikh, who also did the deliveries. I would be on a friend’s bike taking orders and rushing in to the kitchen to prepare them,” Vaishampayan said. The big challenge was human resource management. “The chef or the delivery boy wouldn’t show up on time, but I could always rely on my friends, who were willing to help me out. We used to make deliveries in a luxury car, at 2 am, parking 50 metres away and then walk to the society to deliver the food. Friends came in to help with the deliveries, after their night shifts,” he said. Aatye Huye’s extensive menu has taken shape from the feedback from clients. From the initial sandwiches and burgers, the menu has expanded to popular dishes like butter chicken, dal khichdi, tandoori kebabs, and novel creations like crunchy penne or sausage tamasha. Besides food, Aatye Huye also delivers over the counter medicines like pain relievers, antacids or Vicks, soft drinks, Red Bull, chocolates, and cigarettes. Vaishampayan has an e-commerce license and runs the kitchen/ service on proprietorship. He delivers across Pune city. “I even get calls from guests at luxury hotels like JW Marriott, and Le Meridien. I am happy that my concept of delivering food late at night has caught on,” Vaishampayan said. prachibari@gmail.com
The jewel in the crown Tips for starting and building a consulting business
Vishwas Mahajan
RAHUL RAUT
From procuring jewellery for colleagues, Sheetal Biyani has evolved into a businesswoman who owns a chain of stores in Pune Camp
This feature is a collaboration between The Golden Sparrow on Saturday and The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), the world’s largest non-profit network of entrepreneurs. For additional questions about your entrepreneurial challenges, write to mentoring@pune.tie.org
After being in corporate jobs for over 20 years I would like to start an independent consulting practice of my own to advise clients in the areas of my expertise and experience. How do I go about starting and building a consulting business? -Dr Ashish Trivedi For someone like you who longs to be independent in your work and make the most of your time, independent consulting may be the ideal career. Not everyone is cut out to be an independent consultant, and it is important to do the research regarding the economic realities of the selfemployed. The most important part of building a consulting business is the business plan. A business model is a framework from which a business operates. There are several different business models for independent consultants. Let me describe a few for you. 1. Time-Based Model : Consultants charge clients for the time they put in, and are paid for each actual hour of work. Th is is a good model for new consultants who are unsure about the amount to charge their clients. 2. Project-Based Model : Independent consultants perform specific project functions for a set amount of money. Th is model requires the consultant to predict the amount of effort a job may take, in advance. 3. Retainer-Based Model: Consultants charge clients a set amount of money for a set time of ongoing services, such as a lawyer or accountant ‘on call’. Some clients, however, may expect more work than retainer covers. 4. Results-Based Model : The consultant’s fee is based on the results achieved. Consultants using this model can charge more, but they will not make money if they do not succeed. 5. Annuity Service Model : Consultants provide ongoing services, paid on a regular basis. The danger in this model is that clients may cease to need this particular service at some point. 6. Consulting Firm Model : Consultants sell the services of others, typically their employees. The consultant must be prepared for the cost and effort of managing employees. 7. Outsourcer Service Model: Consultants provide outsourced services to companies, typically in long-term agreements. Consultants are more like employees under this model. 8. Product Sales Model : Consultants develop, market, and sell products for a fee. Many consultants use this
model to supplement other income. 9. Razor Blade Consulting Sales Model : Consultants develop a product and sell it at a very cheap rate, but also develop and sell a contributing product at a higher markup price. (Razor handles are sold cheap, but razor blades are very expensive.) 10. Subscription Model: Consultants publish valuable information and sell subscriptions. Th is model is particularly lucrative for experts who have knowledge that other people do not have. There are several other models that you can craft for your consulting business. However, the fact is that information is now widely available. Internet proliferation has disrupted the knowledge barrier that existed earlier between the consultants and clients. Considering that you can look at Freemium Model—a model where consultants give away basic information for free, but charge clients for premium services. Th is model capitalises on viral marketing on the Web. You can also start professional associations. Th is allows you to be perceived as an authority in your field. You can market and prepare public seminars for other consultants or clients. Th is is a good way to generate leads for your business Customer Acquisition Plan : The most important factor in growing a consulting business is being able to sell, and the fi rst rule of sales is to listen to the client. Prospects do not want their consultants to understand; they want to be understood by their consultants. Consultants must also be sure to speak with decision-makers. It is a waste of time to try and sell consulting services to someone who is unable to make the decision whether or not to purchase them. When discussing consulting services, be sure to ask a lot of questions about what the client needs, and be sure to listen to the answers. Marketing Plan of your Consulting Business: You need to make a marketing plan for your business. Consider the following criteria: a)Cost : Is there a start-up budget to support marketing efforts? b) Time Commitment : Is there time in the schedule to devote to marketing? c) Time Horizon : How long until the marketing efforts provide a dividend? d)Ease of Delegating :Can the marketing activities be delegated to employees or subcontractors? e) Skills : Do the marketing activities require strong writing, presentation and interpersonal communication skills? Hope some of these tips will help you get started. Vishwas Mahajan, president of TiE Pune Chapter, answers real life questions of entrepreneurs.
ADVERSITIES MAKE A MAN: Sheetal Biyani, tackled life’s challenges bravely, and today runs a chain of stores in Camp
BY BARNALEE HANDIQUE @barnalee
imitation jewellery in her spare time. That was not all. The enterprising Biyani even began to host and conduct “I started my jewellery business from craft shows on prominent TV channels scratch. For me it is everything. I live Shyam TV and Mee Marathi. As put my business above everything a television hostess, the jewellery else,” says Sheetal Biyani. The 42-yearBiyani wore, caught the eye of old entrepreneur’s business saga began other TV presenters, who voiced an 20 years ago, when her husband interest in acquiring them. That was suffered a setback in his business. To her cue to venture into the jewellery keep her home fi re burning, Biyani business full time. took up a teaching job at Dastur School Biyani took up a small store on rent in Pune Camp. at the Raheja Midas premises in Camp About her teaching experience, area, and initially invested `15,000. Biyani says, “I love However, it wasn’t teaching. I love all smooth going. spending time with “The store was small, OF children. I made but being short of SUBSTANCE it a point to dress money to invest in the nicely for school. My business, my jewellery colleagues who noticed the jewellery stock was sparse. Whatever I earned, I I used to wear to school, asked me to invested in the business. But over time, get various items of jewellery.” And I could afford and offer a larger variety that was the beginning of Biyani’s and my jewellery store acquired a foray into the jewellery trade. She good reputation and customers started started bringing in jewellery for her coming in,” said Biyani. co-teachers, which allowed her a small Over the two intervening decades, margin of profit. Realising that it was Biyani’s business flourished, but she the perfect means to supplement her is as hard-working and enthusiastic income, Biyani also began selling as she was on day one. Of course, she
WOMAN
can now rely on her daughter Kanchan, who is as passionate and involved as her mother in the jewellery business. Biyani’s store called Sheetal Creations, at Wonderland on MG Road, stocks a wide variety of jewellery, including Indian, Indo-western and Western. The prices of jewellery range from ` 1000 to ` 30,000. Biyani also offers the option of rented jewellery for weddings, festivals and special occasions. The rent she charges amounts to 10 to 15 per cent of the cost of the jewellery set. Biyani is also involved in the manufacture of copper articles used in religious ceremonies and for household use. Two years ago, Biyani also ventured into the apparel business, by launching a store selling western outfits at Wonderland. Then she opened a designer store, selling pure silk, tussar silk, georgette and chiffon saris. Biyani is now coming up with a store for customised saris. From selling jewellery to colleagues, Biyani has come a long, long way indeed; she owns no less than seven stores on M G Road. barnalee.handique@goldenaprrow.com
THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY JANUARY 10, 2015
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“A government school teacher gets `40,000 per month and a private school teacher gets only `10,000, but teachers of government schools don’t come on time and leave before time.” —Bihar chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi
When Lebanon’s fortune tellers talk, people listen P 13
The future of English journalism in India
Aniruddha Rajandekar
Journalism is one of the essential pillars of democracy because it is on behalf of the people of the country that journalists question the government, expose irregularities, applaud positive developments, report on failures and tragedies, and in general, hold a mirror to society By Abhay Vaidya @vaidya_abhay In January 2014, Frederic Pages, a senior journalist from the iconic French newspaper Le Canard Enchaine addressed a gathering at the Patrakar Bhavan, Pune. The event was a rather unusual exposure for all present, be it journalism students, working journalists or the lay public. Le Canard Enchaine is a 90-yearold weekly newspaper published by a public trust in Paris. It is extremely popular with a circulation of about 3.5 lakh and week after week the French public looks forward to this newspaper. Investigative journalism, cartoons and biting satire are the forte of this publication. What’s most interesting about this paper is that it does not accept a single Euro worth of advertisement as a policy because it does not wish to be influenced by advertisers and their interests of any kind. In spite of this, this newspaper manages to run its operations smoothly, print week after week and pay its journalists well. The newspaper has just eight pages, it is printed on cheap newsprint and to control costs, carries only black-andwhite pictures. There is no heavy design and layout, no glossy supplements and no halfnaked, bikini-clad stars to boost circulation. It’s hard to believe in this day and age, but here’s a newspaper that is driven purely by the strength of its content. This newspaper, in a sense, has not been affected by change.
smartphones and gets entertaining news and gossip at the speed of light from social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter; from Internet news sites and from TV- which will soon become available on our mobile phones via 4G connectivity. Many people today don’t necessarily begin their day with a newspaper in hand, unlike in the past.
focusing heavily on local content and community issues- areas which cannot be covered adequately by the big papers. How about combining a limited print edition along with an Internet edition? A number of small, community newspapers in the United States have been able to break big, national stories and win the prestigious Pulitzer prize for excellence in journalism on the strength of their local, community coverage. Le Can This is a very viable ard Enc haine is a 90-ye ar-old model to follow for Indian weekly newspa per pu journalism. blished public
Difficult times One of the grim realities of the newspaper industry is the high costs and stiff competition for trust in Paris advertising revenues. Consequently, newspapers in India have not hesitated to embrace unethical and professionally reprehensible practices like ‘paid news’. Even this tainted revenue has been inadequate to ensure the survival of newspapers. What is most unfortunate is that even leading publications flush with advertising and circulation revenues, have been unabashedly indulging in ‘paid news’. There is absolutely no doubt that these are challenging times for Indian journalism.
Readers today have a variety of options to get their news from
Which newspaper do you read? And why? It’s instructive to ask strangers, “Which newspaper do you read?” Often, the replies are unexpected and thought-provoking. For example, one city professor said that he subscribed to Maharashtra Herald, a small, English local daily from Pune and not any national daily because “it gave ample space to municipal news such as ‘No water today’.” This piece of news was important for his wife, he said, and therefore he subscribed to that newspaper which had a staunchly loyal base of readers even in the 1980s. There is no mathematical formula, or a set of ingredients, that can guarantee the success of a newspaper, unlike a restaurant where the quality of food is the driving force. “We don’t read newspapers” The Internet is one of the biggest forces that is re-shaping the world- not just the world of journalism. It is now very common to expect at least 80% of students in a class to say that they don’t get their news from newspapers. The young generation is hooked on to
Will new newspapers survive in the market? Readers today have a variety of options to get their news from; they also have a variety of distractions in the form of social media which is interactive. There is no pressing reason for readers to pick up and read newspapers, some of which begin with four full pages of advertisements, putting off many readers and making them angry in the process. Producing a newspaper is an expensive proposition today when one considers the cost of newsprint and printing; the cost of distribution, advertising and marketing, the long gestation period and the cost of personnel and staff salaries. Reader preferences are very difficult to change unless something very different and original is put on the table. Because of these factors, one does not find too many new newspapers entering the market. In sharp contrast to print publications, a dozen or more Internetdriven news portals have made an impact in the last 10 years. Community newspapers with print + Internet version New publications will need new approaches to win readership, and thereby advertising revenue. New publications can score by
by a
Control costs, give high quality content High, unsustainable costs are the primary reason for the failure of most new publications. What is needed to succeed is passion and commitment on a continuing basis- especially when the going is tough. A fundamental principle to follow is to control costs while providing good, high quality content that fills a valuable community need. ‘Positive news’ has a future Early this year, the writerphilosopher Alain de Botton in his book The News: A User’s Manual questioned the state of journalism today. In his view, the media around the world continues to focus on negativity and sensationalism. Everything that is sensational and negative is prime time news for the media. Instead of this, says Botton, the media as a powerful and highly influential vehicle of mass communication should play a role in helping shape the future that we desire. This is possible if the media gives up its focus on negativity and instead highlights what is positive, extraordinary, inspiring and insightful. This is not to say that the media should not perform its role as a watchdog on the government and as a mirror to society; but at the same time, shouldn’t the media promote the values of kindness, tolerance, harmony and cooperation among the people? Shouldn’t the media be constructive instead of destructive? There is an opportunity waiting to be tapped in the pursuit of positive news. (Excerpted from an article written for the Pune Union of Working Journalists (PUWJ) on the occasion of its 75th anniversary. Abhay Vaidya, editor, The Golden Sparrow on Saturday, has worked from Pune, Delhi and Washington previously for The Indian Post, The Times of India, Asia Pacific Communication Associates and DNA. He has served previously as vice-president of the PUWJ)
PAYING HOMAGE: Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and (from left) PUWJ secretary Sunit Bhave, Pune mayor Dattatray Dhankawade, PUWJ president Mahendra Badade, guardian minister Girish Bapat, minister of state for social justice and special assistance Dilip Kamble and MP Anil Shirole paid homage to the journalists of French magazine Charlie Hebdo who were killed by gunmen in Paris in a terrorist attack. The CM attended PUWJ’s platinum jubilee year celebration in the city on Thursday
Help enrich democracy, CM tells city journalists
Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis spoke at the platinum jubilee celebration of the Pune Union of Working Journalists (PUWJ) on Thursday Ashok Bhat and Ishani Bose @ashok_bhat & @ishani_bose It is high time that journalists start taking their responsibilities seriously, engage in self-introspection and help enrich Indian democracy, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis said in the city on Thursday. Speaking at the platinum jubilee celebrations of the Pune Union of Working Journalists (PUWJ), he said that the credibility of the profession was under threat in an environment where values had eroded in politics and other areas of social life. However, given the rich history of journalism, it was necessary that journalists engage in self-introspection and help enrich democracy. Fadnavis said that in this era of globalisation, ‘corporate culture’ has seeped into every sector of the economy, including the media. “In this new culture, we are losing in touch with the values that once defined journalism.” He urged journalists to stop running after sensationalism and find ‘find value in the news they cover’.
The pioneering role The Pune Union of Working Journalists (PUWJ) was founded on December 17, 1941. Veteran journalists such as S Karandikar, the then editor of Kesari, Acharya SD Javadekar (editor, Lokshakti), KG alias Kakasaheb Limaye (editor, Dnyanprakash) and DV Gokhale were among those who played an integral role in the formation of PUWJ. During the pre-independence era, newspapers played an important role in the freedom struggle by waging a war against the British government that had issued policies for suppressing the freedom of speech. In 1950, Indian Federation of Working Journalists was formed at the central level with a motive to protect the interests of journalists. Under the leadership of MV Sane, PUWJ played a very important role in the formation of the Federation. In 1978, PUWJ brought about necessary alterations in its constitution only to attain the status of a registered trade union. Today, it is the only official union representing journalists from Pune with over 600 members.
He expressed confidence in the print media in the country, saying that it had withstood the challenge of changing technologies, including the dawn of social media. Print media will continue to be relevant in India, he said. “Social media is a very important tool today and thanks to it, everyone has become a journalist of sorts. However, given that it can be misused very easily, it is the responsibility of
every media organisation to put in place a set of rules and adhere to them,” he said, adding that media is a mirror and journalists should work to bring moral values, ethics in front to show the true face of the society. PUWJ president Mahendra Badade, secretary Sunit Bhave were among those who spoke at the event. ashok.bhat21@gmail.com & ishani.bose@goldensparrow.com
Charlie Hebdo draws bids post attack Within hours of a terrorist attack that decimated the staff at Charlie Hebdo, copies of the latest issue of the satirical French weekly were drawing bids of more than 70,000 euros ($82,400) online. The 60,000 print run of issue number 1177 sold out nearly instantly following the assault on the magazine’s headquarters that killed 12 people, including some of its top journalists. By midday Wednesday, scores of the three-euro magazine bearing a cartoon likeness of controversial French author Michel Houellebecq on its cover were popping up online at astronomical prices. Of over 80 ads offering the issue on eBay, some were available for immediate purchase at up to 50,000 euros. Charlie Hebdo has already announced it will be back next week with a one million-copy memorial edition in response to the global outrage over the massacre. Bids on some editions had gone over 70,000 euros, but as winners of eBay’s auctions can back out, there is no guarantee the money will come through. In addition to the recent copies, people were offering some of the satirical paper’s other notorious issues, including the November 2011 edition that prompted a firebombing of its offices. That issue titled “Charia Hebdo”, with
A man lights up a candle and mourns for victims of the January 7 attack against French magazine ‘Charlie Hebdo’ in front of the French embassy in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, on January. 8, 2015. At least 12 people were killed when two masked and armed men on Wednesday stormed into the headquarters of the satirical magazine ‘Charlie Hebdo’ in Paris. (IANS)
an image lampooning the Prophet Mohammed on the cover, had at one point received bids that topped 14,000 euros, which the seller promised to donate to helping victims of the attack. When contacted by AFP, eBay said it can’t stop people from being interested in a certain type of item. “It’s a tragic event and it’s drawing
lots of media attention, which encourages curiosity. The more people are interested in something the higher auctions go,” an eBay spokesperson told AFP. “It’s this curiosity effect that we can’t do anything against.” However, the company reserves the right to pull ads that violate its terms of use. Firstpost.com
THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY JANUARY 10, 2015
“But now that the country is economically better, particularly for some middle class families, there is really an emerging need for (investments in) non-communicable diseases.” —Inder Verma, Indian-origin US cancer biologist
“If we are creating ourselves all the time, then it is never too late to begin creating the bodies we want instead of the ones we mistakenly assume we are stuck with.” —Deepak Chopra, alternate medicine advocate and author
The science of
pranayama We breathe without giving it a second thought and take this particular bodily function for granted. Yet, scientists are now telling us that giving each breath a thought might actually lead us to deep and lasting happiness and health. According to neuroscience, the act of breathing consciously paves the way to enhanced immunity, inhibits fightor-flight response to stress, induces a state of relaxation, creates emotional stability, improves cardiovascular and respiratory health, is the perfect antidote to depression even when drugs have not worked out entirely and helps in the drug-free management of pain. This list of effects is by no means comprehensive; it is just the tip of the iceberg. Pranayama is a technique in yoga that puts control over breathing back into your hands. Literally, the word means ‘extension of life force’, and the practice engages you with the nuances of breathing. This special and ancient yogic technique switches the light back in the dark spaces—the places in your body and mind that may have otherwise remained inaccessible. Pranayama vastly improves the mechanics of the nervous system because it affects what we always thought was beyond our influence.
Conscious breathing stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system through the vagus nerve which runs from the base of the brain all the way to the abdomen. This nerve is responsible for managing the nervous system responses and reducing the heart rate, to name only two of its most important functions. The neurotransmitter acetylcholine is released by the vagus nerve and plays a pivotal role in increasing calmness and focus. Therefore, the more you stimulate the vagus nerve, the more acetylcholine it releases, directly lowering anxiety levels. Adults who experience higher levels of vagal tone (activity in the vagal nerve), also experience enhanced feelings of connectedness and positive emotions which further amplifies the vagal tone. Consistent practice of conscious breathing can reduce bloodpressure and calm the heart. This, in turn, scientists say, increases the life span of the blood vessels. Regular and long-term practice of pranayama can, therefore, preventdiseases of the nervous system such as stroke, migraines and Parkinson’s. Another benefit of pranayama is that it stops grey cells from diminishing with age; your ability to perform at your best remains relatively intact as you grow older. Your memory and focus also improve in the process. An interesting scientific finding on the benefits of pranayama is that the expression of genes involved in stress response can be changed in a way that can potentially slow down the bodymind’s reactivity to stress. This improves immune functions, metabolic activity and insulin secretion. Pranayama is a great example of how matter can be influenced through the subtle act of awareness or objective observation. Your entire
Monitoring health of migratory population A meeting held at KEM, Pune deemed monitoring the health of migratory rural population a difficult task TGS NEWS SERVICE @TGSWeekly “The problem of seasonal migration needs to be addressed seriously. It is one of the major hurdles of data collection. In tribal lands the people travel to rich disRupam Banerjee tricts where the sowing season is prosperous,” said Rupam Banerjee, deputy health secretary, West Bengal. He was speaking at the Indian HDSS meeting on policy relevant public health research initiatives, at KEM Hospital, on January 6. The International Network for the Demographic Evaluation of Populations and Their Health (INDEPTH) has 52 Health and Demographic Surveillance Sites (HDSS) set across 20 countries in Asia and Africa. Members from three Indian sites from Ballabhgarh (Delhi), Birbhum (West Bengal) and Vadu (Pune) along with eminent doctors from the country were present for the event. The panelists identified rural migration as the major hurdle in HDSS research data collection. According to INDEPTH, a lack of reliable health and population data has made it difficult for policy-makers in
low and middle income countries to meet the real needs of their people. Births, deaths and causes of death are not registered in some countries, and data from Dr TP Ahluwalia health facilities omit those who do not use health centres. Even though the central government has come up with schemes for migratory labour, their health data cannot be recorded easily. In Maharashtra, there is interregion migration as well as from Bihar. “Under the Unorganised Workers Social Security Act, 2008, every worker must have a smart card with national validity. It will be applicable from April 1, 2015 under the Bharatiya Mazdoor Swasthya Yojana,” said Madhukar Pawar, additional director of Vital Statistics of Maharashtra. He informed that in Maharashtra if a person is under
a particular programme, the surveillance is carried out by the local authority. Smartphone tracking was suggested as a solution to the prevailing problem of migration tracking. Whenever a team is sent into the field, they could take out pictures of the person or the problem and send it directly to INDEPTH. “Besides this, active participation and execution of the planned policies will bring a complete data collection for the HDSS,” said Dr TP Ahluwalia, head, division of health systems research, Indian Council of Medical Research. Along with surveying the migration issues, validating existing policies and research by improving the methods of data collection in HDSS was touted to be a solution to monitor the circulation of medicine. For instance, a vaccine’s direct impact on the change in hospitalisation is never measured. HDSS can help measure that. Medicines are not categorised; there must be a linkage between data collection and availability of medicine. tgs.feedback@goldensparrow.com
What is INDEPTH INDEPTH is a pioneer in health and population research. Through its global network of health and demographic surveillance system (HDSS) field sites in Africa, Asia and Oceania, it is capable of producing reliable longitudinal data not only about the lives of people in low and middle-income countries, but about the impact on those lives of development policies and programmes.
PUNE INITIATIVE ENSURES ACTIVE SURVEILLANCE Vadu Health and Demographic Surveillance System (Vadu HDSS) is an independent surveillance system initiated in 2002. Every six months, it monitors the pregnancies, births, marriages, migrations, deaths and their causes. They survey a population of 1,25,000 in 25 villages under the rural health programme. Its longitudinal data production acquired the INDEPTH membership. Dr Sanjay Juvekar leads the centre.
The Way Forward With Compassion & Hope
Reach out to lonely people BY C RAVINDRANATH
T
Decoding the science of breath for modern times BY PROF DR BM HEGDE
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biology can be influenced by simply becoming aware of your breath and then manipulating it to move the controls from the primitive brain to the pre-frontal cortex—a direct effect of infusing the breath with your conscious attention. For example, emotions come under the authority of the pre-frontal cortex, as do many other mental and emotional aspects of being. Therefore, when you focus your consciousness around your breath, your consciousness is able to alter your body-mind for optimum wellness. Meditation has been shown to sustain the health of our telomeres, the caps on the ends of chromosomes which determine longevity, to a certain extent. “Telomeres sit on the end of chromosomes (like the plastic tips on the end of shoelaces), stopping them from fraying and scrambling the genetic codes they contain. In healthy people, telomeres shorten progressively throughout life, more than halving in length from infancy to adulthood, and halving again in the very elderly,” writes the BMJ editorial. Latest research in the field of ‘epigenetics’ seems to suggest that genes have the capacity for both, normal and abnormal, responses to an environment. If one wants to derive maximum benefit from these practices, one has to be consistent and practise these with dedication and sincerity. As in all such practices, what matters most are lifestyle changes in keeping with the eight core principles of Patanjali’s yoga. (Professor Dr BM Hegde, a Padma Bhushan awardee in 2010, is an MD, PhD, FRCP (London, Edinburgh, Glasgow & Dublin), FACC and FAMS.) @moneylife.in
he greatest poverty is loneliness,” said Mother Teresa. I daresay she knew more about poverty than most of us ever will. Though it is said that no man is an island, I see more and more islands of loneliness dotting the ocean of humanity. It makes me sad, for loneliness sprouts depression and brings on a host of problems for the lonely person and others. In extreme cases, lonely and depressed persons commit suicide, which is both, a waste and a shame on the society we are part of. There is a difference between loneliness and solitude. The former has been described as the poverty of being alone while the latter, the richness. Solitude is chosen. Loneliness is forced. Nobody really wants to be lonely, though they may prefer solitude. While loneliness is associated with a feeling of rejection, frustration and melancholy, solitude is associated with quiet reflection, meditation and introspection. To me, the only way to counter loneliness is to reach out and share. The lonely person can reach out, seek help (a difficult task) and benefit from others. We can reach out, empathise with the person who is lonely and bring some cheer. The least we can do is listen – another difficult proposition. It is sad that there are organisations like ‘Connecting’ in Pune and Institute of Psychological Health (IPH) in Thane that run telephone helplines for persons in distress. I say it is sad, though both organisations (and I’m sure, many others like them) are doing excellent work. I say it is sad because it is what you and I should be doing. It is easier for us to reach out to a lonely person
than for him or her to reach out to us. Alas, most of us shelter under the excuse of lack of time when it is actually a case of lack of inclination. We couldn’t care less and consider our duty done by clucking our tongues in sympathy when we read of a suicide in the newspaper. “Most of the times, all that is required is active listening,” said Bobby Zacharia of Connecting. “Active listening is focusing on the person’s words, empathising and listening without counselling, advising or even interrupting,” he added. This alien to many of us who labour under the compulsion to speak and seldom give the other person an opportunity to talk and unburden himself. Let us ask ourselves how often we listen and how often we talk. Let us answer this question honestly. When we listen without judgement, we not only accept the other person’s feelings but the person as well. There is comfort in being accepted and included. More often than not, whenever I have listened to someone’s woes or problems without bias, it has ended in the person either finding his own solutions or at least gaining some relief. It is the least I can do for him. It is also a lot. It is a win-win situation with both feeling good at the end. Why are we denying ourselves the pleasure of a good deed? Can we therefore listen without interruption? Can we listen without opining or judging? Can we listen actively and empathize? Above all, can we reach out to someone in need of an attentive ear? (The writer is a multi-faceted personality who believes in responding with compassion and hope to the difficult situations in life.)
(PS: This column was run with a wrong headline in the issue of January 3, 2015. The error is regretted.)
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 GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY
JANUARY 10, 2015
PUNE
TH E EDIT PAGE
Editor’s pick
Everyone’s worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there’s really an easy way: Stop participating in it.” - Noam Chomsky
Your emerging megacity is under threat Pune has been identified as one of the world’s fastest growing megacities. Th is growth could become chaotic at a faster pace if due attention is not paid to the demands of better planning and infrastructure. Th is newspaper, on the occasion of the New Year, asked the city influentials to identify that one change that they desired for Pune in 2015. Inevitably, the single biggest demand was for better traffic management, transportation infrastructure and related issues. Along with the demand for more buses on the roads, Union environment minister Prakash Javadekar and others wanted the high-speed BRTS buses to become operational on the pending routes, a ring road for traffic diversion and greater momentum on the mass transportation front. While the mayor of Pune, Datta Dhankawade, wanted more housing societies to process their kitchen waste through ver m i-compost ing systems, former fi nance secretary Vijay Kelkar also hoped that Pune would move decisively towards a “zero garbage” regime. P i m p r i Chinchwad’s municipal commissioner Rajiv Jadhav promised that he would get the BRTS (Bus Rapid Transportation System) routes operational in the areas under his jurisdiction. Indeed, much work has already been done in creating lengthy passages for the BRTS and commuters are looking forward to seeing an Ahmedabadstyle BRTS in the city. There was hope that Punekars would cooperate with the civic authorities and assist in the efforts for better garbage management. As our special coverage in the Spotlight section shows, there was also a strong desire for “behavioural change” in Pune. Th ings can happen faster and Pune can indeed become one of the “model cities” of India if only the people take pride in the city and care for its welfare. All they need to do is show a sense of ownership and participate in the efforts to keep the city clean and orderly. Matters need to be brought under control before it is too late. As reported by the media almost a decade ago, an analysis of the satellite imagery of the city has shown a
disturbing trend. It has indicated that “Pune is experiencing ‘haphazard growth’ with a high intensity of urban sprawl, leading to increasing pressure on urban infrastructure.” Research has shown that the continuing growth of the city on the existing pattern could lead to unsustainable development unless proper management systems are introduced on priority, Data collected with the help of `remote sensing and geographical information systems (GIS) has indicated that the growth in Pune’s periphery is happening in a haphazard manner and even hill slopes are beginning to be occupied. Such a pattern would, most clearly, not be sustainable for the city. Of the 23 villages that have been merged into the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), Balewadi, Baner, Bavdhan-Khurd, Kalas, Dhanori, Mohammedwadi, Undri and Katraj are showing a high degree of sprawl. At the ward level, Aundh, Sangamwadi and Yerawada are experiencing high sprawl while a “ribbonlike” development has occurred along the national highways passing through or skirting the city- the Pune-Bangalore NH4, Katraj bypass, PuneAhmednagar and Pune-Solapur (NH-9) highways. Another pattern of development is the “leapfrog pattern” resulting from the physical barriers such as hills and rivers. With growing economic activity in the city, the urban sprawl is set to intensify, putting greater pressure on the PMC’s resources to provide roads, water and transport. The prominent citizens of Pune whom this newspaper spoke to have tried to articulate the high expectations of the people. We walk the streets of Pune, commute on its roads and breathe its air. Shouldn’t the city we live in be clean, well laid out and dynamic in spirit? Significantly, fi ngers were not pointed entirely at the civic authorities and the planning agencies. It was hoped that the people of Pune too would do their bit to make a difference. There is the spirit of change in the air; let’s not let it go waste.
Pune is experiencing ‘haphazard growth’ with a high intensity of urban sprawl
@TGSWeekly editor_tgs@goldensparrow.com
Cartoon by: Sandeep Adhwaryu, The Sunday Guardian
Make in India but Make it Green
By turning Make in India into Make in India with Green Power, we can create a win-win situation BY RAJENDRA SHENDE A century back, on January 9, Mahatma Gandhi made his determined journey to India with a singular goal to Make in India. He wanted to make in India a movement of freedom from foreign oppression, discrimination, and social apartheid. The capital needed for this was in the form of bold assets of nonviolence and civil disobedience. Speaking on Independence Day August 15, 2014 from the ramparts of New Delhi’s historic Red Fort, prime minister Narendra Modi launched his equally historic and rousing ‘Make in India’ campaign. His venture capital in launching this movement is in the form of India’s unique demographic dividend - the youth that constitute 65 percent of its population. The timing of the campaign is the most promising and opportune. The last time India arrived on the world scene with its technological supremacy was in late 1990s when software engineering crews of India created their backoffice hives to help digitally managed businesses of the West. That was a Make from India campaign! Those hives and their verticals and scale-ups are now over-dripping into the national treasury a stream of honey of $125 billion, of which exports are nearing $100 billion. The role of the Indian diaspora in India’s transformation into a digital world had been crucial. Their vast networks with corporate houses, their elite image, well groomed experts and their financial muscle-power helped Indian companies make inroads in the US and in European markets. Once again India has a unique opportunity for yet another transformation. India reminded the
world of its brain-power by taking lead in resolving Y2K bug at the dawn of this millennium. We now can remind the world of our belief in nature-power to address the defining challenge of this century - climate change. By turning Make in India into Make in India with Green Power, we can create a win-win situation. The renewable energy revolution is literally round the corner. For last more than five years renewable energy has been part of an amazing story all over the world. It is the only energy sector where investment and installed capacity have consistently grown with surprisingly steep rates even during the global financial crisis that began in 2008 and is still casting gloom. From 2008 to 2013, as per United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), electricity produced from solar PV cells has grown at an average roaring 39 percent. Investment in clean energy is $275 billion, at least 10 percent better than in 2013. A whooping 44 GW of solar PV added in installed capacity worldwide in 2014 is 10 percent more than in 2013. Nearly 50 GW of wind turbines have been installed, up from 32 GW added in 2013. Sales of electric vehicles have increased by 50 percent. The International Energy Agency chief has shown that solar energy could become the first source of electricity in the world before 2050. Going by its report, the World Energy Outlook 2014, renewable sources should in 2040 dethrone coal as a primary source of electricity, the cost and variability in availability of solar and wind energy is no longer considered an insurmountable obstacle. Decoupling fossil fuel based energy generation from the present growth
model would bring inclusive, fair, equitable and the sustainable growth that recognizes the value of ecosystems and respect for the Sun and Mother Earth. That indeed was the foundation on which our ancient Vedic science and technologies were built on. Labeling the products Made in India with Green Power would once again demonstrate India’s scientific legacy that values the ecosystems. Indians can create unique model for addressing freedom from poverty, inequality, and impacts of climate change. Will the use of green energy, generated from renewable sources, be really sufficient enough for the Make in India campaign? Abundant availability of solar and wind energy coupled with India’s proven soft power is poised to ensure that it green energy is not a distant dream. The ability of communities in India to take bold initiatives has not been fully harnessed. Communities of residents, farmers, self-help groups, SMEs and corporate houses can come together to build solar PV electricity generation plants on rooftops of every building, on the arid land around villages, unused land of farmers, on the long routes of irrigation water canals (as is done in Gujarat), on railway and bus stations, on factory shades, corporate houses, government buildings and even parking places. These micro-power plants could then be ‘wired’ to develop the community grids - an energy internet - that would provide electricity for selfuse, with the surplus being sold to the grid for commercial purposes. Deploying an affordable and efficient storage technology to enable the stocking of electricity can resolve the problem related to cloudy days when solar energy is inadequate and quiet days
To thine own self be true
BY SHIVRANJAN
Vol-1* lssue No.: 30 Printed and Published by: PRI – Media Services Private Limited CIN: U22222MH2012PTC232006 on behalf of Golden Sparrow Publishing Pvt. Ltd. CIN:U22200PN2014PTC151382 Printed at Diligent Media Corporation Ltd., Plot No. EL-201, TTC Industrial Area, MIDC, Mahape, Navi Mumbai. Published at Golden Sparrow Publishing Pvt. Ltd. 1641, Madhav Heritage, Tilak Road, Pune-411 030, Tel: 020-2432 4332/33. Editor: Abhay Vaidya (Responsible for the selection of news under the PRB Act, 1867)
misfi res, I call it a slip of tongue. I may not genuinely feel sorry for being rash, If a person says he never lied, that’s but I expect others to treat my bad a plain lie. Perhaps lying is seen as a mouthing lightly. privilege to shake off the burden of Man’s greatest incapacity is about truth. So a child delights to bluff to defining who he is and why he does parents and teachers; couples dare to what he does. Th is human foible is be mutually secretive; a subordinate famously captured by Kahlil Gibran: feels okay to dilute or distort facts to “ Only once have I been made mute; cover up a deviation; politicians it was when a man asked me circumvent, as suits their ‘who are you’? “ The trick is in convenience. the alphabet ‘ I ‘. When the self Only Gandhiji took cue projects ‘ I ‘, my shadow-self from Polonius (Hamlet) who substitutes the true I-self. uttered the words, “to thine own We are forever lost in the self be true.” He experimented maze of appearances which are with truth, the whole truth and deceptive. People are wary about nothing but the truth. The rest hidden agenda which makes the of the mortals hung Gandhiji’s THINK comfort level in a relationship pledge as a catchy slogan on the messed up. It is ideal to be wall, seldom allowing truth to touch simple, natural and demonstrative: a the ground on which we stand. truism easier preached than practiced. Can I check my habit to insist Prof. Higgins in Bernard Shaw’s that a thing ‘is’ when truly it ‘is not’, Pygmalion talks about love but and I know it is not. For most of us, doesn’t do anything loving to Eliza and truth is a penciled version which she sings “ don’t talk of stars burning can be rubbed off. Unwittingly I above; if you are in love, do show me.” am swayed by my whims and mood We are bugged by the concern that swings. Consequently, even when I others should view us as righteous, but am in the know, I am into denial mode. we cannot accept that often we may Sometimes I hasten to do a thing and be just the opposite inwardly. Since wonder why I did so, and then hide we do not sense the impact we are behind an excuse. When my word making on others, we are unaware that
our weakness may let us down. The war time British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill was enamored of his powerful hold as a public figure; but his wife Clementine had to persuade him to mend his brash manner. We all have idiosyncrasies; but to make ourselves acceptable, we tend not to admit. Th is makes us run with the rabbit and hunt with the hound. We never realize that we are constantly running away from what we truly are, and therefore, we must come up with masks to suit different occasions. Each of my emotions needs a façade. There is a sea between what my word denotes and what my word connotes. I always say a thing and defend ‘I did not mean that‘. I may live without idealism, but I cannot survive without euphemism. When I am in disagreeable company, my smile hides my repulsion. I keep nodding my head, but my pause or reticence speaks more about my true self than the words I uttered. Once a person’s stand gets revealed, he is at a risk of getting nailed; so he plays safe, leaving things unsaid. An adage in wisdom literature counsels, “People don’t listen to what you speak; people watch your feet, if or not your feet walk your talk.”
when wind energy is not generated. Such storages could be based on the present technology of using nano-technologies or storing hydrogen produced by water electrolysis using solar energy. Is this a utopian road map? Jeremy Rifkin, political scientist and technology forecaster who is a promoter of the lateral energy-network concept, is already assisting Germany to implement similar plans. Twenty million Germans (25 percent of the population) have chosen to be off-grid and generate their own electricity. Half of the electricity in Germany, a country known for its cloudy weather, is by solar energy. Nearly 10,000 farms in the US also harvest renewable energy along with maze and wheat in their farms. Many of the 25 million Indian diaspora, spread over 180 countries have the potential to contribute to the Make in India with Green Power campaign by providing their expertise. Venture capitalists like Vinod Khosla and Kanwar Rekhi could promote manufacture of efficient solar cells and storage technology; software honchos like Satya Nadella and Sabeer Bhatia could develop the energy-internet and finance experts like Vikram Pandit could provide a financial road map. The last diaspora-driven transformation was seen when the European diaspora in America helped Europe rise from ashes after World War II. India has chance to be the first in using the diaspora’s potential to fight the global war against the climate change through the energyinternet. (Rajendra Shende, an IIT alumnus, is chairman of the TERRE Policy Centre and a former director of the UNEP. The views expressed are personal. Tweets at @ rajendrashende)
Limericks of the week BY C RAVINDRANATH
In the TV media noise Nobody else has a choice Shout and yell Raise decibel And call it people’s voice
Selectors have their scheme In choosing India’s team The question is Simply this: Can they realise our dream?
Slapgate in West Bengal Kashmir yet to take its call Helicopter scam Terror on the lam Happy New Year to all!
THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY JANUARY 10, 2015
PUNE
With selections from The New York Times
Pune team clinch MBL title P 15
“What has happened in Paris is an appalling terrorist outrage and I know that everyone in Britain will want to stand with the French government and with the French people at this time. We must never allow the values that we hold dear, of democracy, of freedom of speech to be damaged by these terrorists.”— British Prime Minister David Cameron
In Sweden, anti-Muslim fervour finds a foothold ESKILSTUNA, SWEDEN: - As Khalif Samantar knelt for afternoon prayers at the Eskilstuna Islamic Dawa Center on Christmas Day, he sensed a growing heat and a low, rushing sound coming from a nearby hallway. He focused his mind on the ritual, only to realize seconds later that someone was shouting, “The mosque is on fire!” Samantar sprang through an open window and rushed through the snow in his stocking feet for help. Although about 70 people were inside the mosque at the time, no one was injured. The fire, which gutted the Dawa center, was the worst of three recent suspected arson attacks on mosques in Sweden. In the same period, two freighters bearing hundreds of asylum seekers were abandoned by their crew off the coast of Italy, adding to a surge of more than 200,000 migrants to Europe in 2014. “We left our country as refugees. We were not looking for food or benefits. We were looking for somewhere to feel safe,” said Abdirahman Farah Warsame, the imam at the mosque where the fire occurred. He is originally from Somalia. “Now that is gone. We have a feeling that society is turning against us.” Indeed, the relentless stream of migrants to Europe - propelled by the war in Syria and turmoil across the Middle East and the Horn of Africa - has combined with economic troubles and a rising fear of Islamic radicalism to fuel a backlash against immigrants, directed most viciously at Muslims. The simmering resentments and suspicions have driven debates across Europe about tighter controls on immigration. Worries about immigration have helped buoy right-wing parties in Britain, Denmark, France and Hungary. German officials recorded more than 70 attacks against mosques from 2012 to 2014, including an arson, and the police in Britain have recorded an increase in hate crimes against Muslims. Even so, there are few places where the turn against immigrants is more surprising than Sweden, where a solid core of citizens still supports the 65-year-old open door policy toward immigrants facing hardship that has long earned international respect for the country. On January 2, hundreds of Swedes gathered outside the royal palace in Stockholm and in other cities to show solidarity with the Muslim population a day after an unknown assailant threw a bottle filled with flammable liquid at a mosque in the northern city of Uppsala and sprayed racist slogans on the building. The firebomb caused no injuries and did not damage the building. But as each day brings more reports of immigrants who have boarded ships and sneaked across European borders, the famous tolerance of the Swedes is being tested as never before. Despite a lackluster economy, Sweden was third behind only Germany and France in the number of people registering for asylum in 2012, according to the Migration Policy Institute in Washington. Relative to its population, Sweden received the second-highest share of asylum applications in the European Union after Malta, the institute says.
Even though divination is deemed a sin in Islam, Abdel Latif calls herself a devout Muslim BY BEN HUBBARD
Fatima Haddi looks at paper hearts left as gestures of solidarity outside the mosque where her family worshiped, which was burned on Christmas day in a suspected arson attack, in Eskilstuna, Sweden, on January 2, 2015
The Syrian conflict has boosted the number of asylum seekers. Of 81,000 people seeking asylum in Sweden in 2014, roughly half were from Syria, the Swedish Migration Board said. Adrian Groglopo, a professor of social science at the University of Gothenburg, has studied discrimination in Sweden over the past decade. He said that Sweden has long been a racially segregated country where many immigrants live in ghettos and struggle to find jobs but that the success of the Sweden Democrats has made racism more socially acceptable. In December, the Sweden Democrats threatened to bring down Prime Minister Stefan Lofven’s minority government. Early elections were averted only through a last-minute deal that observers say granted the antiimmigrant party even more power by pulling it from the sidelines and making it the primary opposition. The party’s growth has occurred even though roughly a fifth of Sweden’s 9.6 million people were born abroad or to immigrant parents in Sweden. Most immigrants here have access to education, but government figures show a disproportionate unemployment rate for them, more than twice the national rate of about 8 percent. The disparity helped fuel riots in immigrant neighborhoods outside Stockholm in 2013. In Germany, another anti-immigrant movement is underway. In recent weeks, a group calling itself the Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West has attracted as many as 17,500 people to rallies that demand stifling of immigration. Omar Mustafa, president of the Islamic Association of Sweden, which represents about 40 communities across the country, said the recent fires at mosques were the culmination of a year of rising anti-Islamic attacks, from women having their hijabs, or head coverings, pulled off in the streets to the vandalism of 14 mosques, as well as
racist or anti-Muslim vitriol spread through social media. “It is a scary development in Swedish society,” Mustafa said in a telephone interview. “It is a big movement that is moving from the Internet to the real world.” Vandals broke windows in the mosque in Eskilstuna twice last year and twice in 2013. But Warsame, the imam, said the mosque - located in a ground-floor storefront in a residential area of largely immigrants - had good relationships with its neighbors and the city officials. When people nearby complained about the disturbance of comings and goings for late-night prayers during Ramadan, Warsame and the leaders of two other mosques with similar problems sought out a remote location for their holiday ritual. No arrests have been made in the Christmas Day blaze that gutted the mosque in Eskilstuna, or the December 29 fire at a mosque in Eskov or the attack in Uppsala. In response, the national police have tightened security at mosques and other religious buildings across the country. The fire in Eskilstuna prompted an outpouring of support for the congregation, including an event in which dozens of people pasted handmade, heart-shaped notes to the boarded-up windows of the mosque in what they called a “love bomb.’’ The event was organisd by an activist group known as Tillsammans for Eskilstuna, or Together for Eskilstuna. Samantar, who is originally from Somalia, said he struggles to get through his prayers without smelling smoke or hearing the rush of a fire. After he escaped that day, he said, he feared that women and children were trapped in other rooms of the burning building, and anxiety haunts him still, even in his sleep. “We would always take our families with us to the mosque,” said Samantar, a father of three. “The mosque was always our safe place. It’s not anymore.” © 2015 New York Times News Service
ADMA, LEBANON: Wearing a black pantsuit and a diamond necklace, Leila Abdel Latif, a Lebanese fortuneteller, peered through reading glasses and read from a 5-centimeter-thick stack of cards, stating her predictions for 2015. Chaos would rock Beirut. Bloodshed would roil Iraq. Blacks and whites would clash in the United States. A band would win international fame for reviving the hits of Michael Jackson. Such predictions have put Abdel Latif among the most prominent of the self-declared soothsayers who appear on competing Lebanese television channels in what has become a widely watched New Year’s Eve tradition in the Arab world. Besides entertaining, they often give private consultations to powerful
Lebanese fortuneteller, Leila Abdel Latif’s predictions have made her among the most prominent of the self-declared soothsayers who appear on competing Lebanese television channels
officials. Abdel Latif says her clients have included ministers, parliament members, kings and presidents, although she refuses to discuss names. During an interview, Abdel Latif, a short, chatty, 55-year-old mother of two, was dismissive of other divination efforts. “I don’t believe in horoscopes, tarot, coffee cups or palm reading,” she said. “Every person has the sixth sense, but some people are stronger than others.” Even though divination is deemed a sin in Islam, Abdel Latif calls herself
Postwar Sri Lanka’s awkward peace For many Tamils in the north the relief of peacetime is mixed with darker feelings of defeat and humiliation BY ELLEN BARRY KILINOCHCHI, SRI LANKA: Two men were riding the train known as the Queen of Jaffna as it rattled through the haunted battlegrounds of Sri Lanka’s civil war. One of them, Nisal Kavinda, a 20-yearold man from the Sinhalese ethnic group, was jubilant. He had wanted to ride this train since 2009, when President Mahinda Rajapaksa declared victory over separatist rebels in the Tamil north, an event he called “the most happiest thing in our lifetime.” As the train approached Elephant Pass, the site of three pivotal battles, Kavinda jumped down onto the platform with his camera. A burned-out rebel tank stands as a memorial to a government soldier who, famously, carried out a suicide mission by clambering up its side and throwing grenades into it. “Terrorism memories,” Kavinda said happily, as he scrambled back onto the train. Not far away from him sat the other man, Saravananuttu Subramanian, a 78-year-old retired accountant in wire-rimmed glasses who watched the tourists from the south out of the corner of his eye. “They want to know how their soldiers defeated Tamil separatists, put it that way,” said Subramanian, a Tamil. “That’s what it is, though they don’t say so.” Outside the window, the roofless ruins of houses slid by, pitted and gouged and blown apart by explosions. Thousands of civilians had died there, trapped between the government and the rebels during the last, flattening assaults of the war, but there is no memorial for them. Subramanian
stared out, his expression unreadable. “The saddest thing,” he said, “is to start a war and be defeated.” In October, after a 24-year suspension, the Queen of Jaffna resumed its regular service along the 402-kilometre route linking Colombo, Sri Lanka’s Sinhalese-dominated capital, and the Tamil north of the country. The train was blanketed in flowers and banana trees as it pulled out of Colombo Fort, celebrated as a sign that the bloody wedge between the country’s two largest ethnic groups was now gone. But conversations on board the train made it clear that a psychological gulf still separates Sri Lanka’s northerners from its southerners. Visitors from the south, in many cases, are full of sincere pride about what the government has brought to the north - peace, they say, and economic development. For many Tamils in the north, though, the relief of peacetime is mixed with darker feelings of defeat and humiliation. And the restoration of train service does not ensure that these groups are speaking to each other. “As soon as the war ended, the feedback we got in Jaffna was that buses and buses of Singhalese are going to Jaffna out of curiosity,” said Silan Kadirgamar, 80, a Tamil historian who lives in Colombo. “They came with their own cooking utensils and food, and they sat on the ground and ate. They didn’t go there to meet Tamils.” Twenty-six years of civil war physically devoured this train, known in Tamil as the Yal Devi. Tamil rebels pulled up steel rails and wooden ties to build bunkers, and the Sri Lankan air force blew the roof off Jaffna’s train station. But even before that, people riding this train knew they could be attacked by militants from either
side. If a bus was ambushed, the driver could brake and throw the vehicle in reverse. A train loaded with people had nowhere to go. Five years into the peace, a ride on the Yal Devi is stunningly normal. Passengers line up at dawn with pillows and sleeping children, and there is the slapping sound of people in sandals running to catch the train. The landscape of Colombo’s postwar boom flies by, including one of Rajapaksa’s pet projects - the Chinese-financed “Lotus Tower,” which, at its final height of 350 meters, will be South Asia’s tallest structure. After that come slums, a mudcolored river and abandoned rail cars, their metal sides so corroded that sunlight shines through in patches. After that signs of human life are swallowed by the jungle. “There are no words, that much I am happy,” said Kavinda, whose T-shirt read #SELFIE, as the train moved toward the north, a territory long closed to him. As a southerner he grew up far from the front line of the civil war, but the fear of terrorist bombings was present from his earliest memory, when his parents nervously whisked him away from school the minute class was dismissed. Visiting Jaffna was a way of proving that the fear was gone forever. “I am not scared,” he said. “My parents are also not scared.” Sinhalese vacationers sprawl out in the course of the journey, beating drums and singing bayila, the folk songs left behind by Portuguese settlers. The train, restored with the help of an $800 million line of credit from India, has made the journey a comfortable and safe one, just six hours on the fastest train. Government employees receive free passes for reserved seats, and many
a devout Muslim and considers her revelations a gift. “God gives the blessings of wealth, intelligence and health,” she said. “This is the blessing of vision.” Abdel Latif’s holiday show is the yearly highlight of her monthly programme, “History Sees,” on Lebanon’s LBC network. The show kicked off this year with a slick mashup of cherry-picked predictions from recent years followed by news clips appearing to show them coming true. In the video, Abdel Latif said Lebanon’s parliamentary elections would be delayed, as indeed they were. She said that Prime Minister Najib Mikati would leave power, as indeed he did. And she predicted an important role for Tammam Salam, now the prime minister. Lina Khatib, the director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in
ANDREW MCCONNELL/THE NEW YORK TIMES
BY MELISSA EDDY
ALEXANDER MAHMOUD/THE NEW YORK TIMES
Sweden has long been a racially segregated country where many immigrants live in ghettos and struggle to find jobs
When Lebanon’s fortune tellers talk, people listen
stay in hotels operated by the army, making a circuit of Buddhist temples and notable civil war sites before returning home. The Tamil passengers are not singing. They are edgy, perhaps because the train is packed with government soldiers, returning to their posts after home leave. Officials have said that the number of government troops in the northern province has been steeply reduced, offering estimates of as low as 12,000, but CV Vigneswaran, the province’s chief minister, said he believed that the true number was far higher, closer to 100,000. After years of counterinsurgency, many Tamils are wary of questions from strangers, lest they turn out to be informants. “Life in Jaffna, I would not call it normal,” said Subramanian, the retired Tamil accountant whose own days are delineated by the sound of morning and evening patrols from a nearby army camp. “Normal is a word that, I would say, doesn’t come to mind. It is not normal. But it is peaceful. People are afraid to speak their minds.” The last kilometres of battleground stretch out beyond Kilinochchi. Single bullet-pocked walls stand alone, fingers of steel reinforcing bars twisting into the air. By the time the train pulls into Jaffna, which was in government hands at the end of the war, a kind of normalcy has returned to the landscape - fruit trees, verandas - and passengers stream off into a city adjusting, awkwardly, to postwar tourism. Siva Padmanathan, 44, who offers auto-rickshaw rides from the station, said his conversations with southern customers were strange ones, even when they managed to find a common language. “They ask me, ‘Now are things good here?’ And I tell them no,” he said.
Beirut, said that a combination of Lebanon’s relative social openness and the uncertainty of life there has helped make it the capital of fortunetelling in a region where many countries jail accused sorcerers and Saudi Arabia sometimes beheads them. While maintaining that her success rate is between 75 and 90 percent, she admitted that she sometimes misses. “We are all human in the end,” she said. © 2015 New York Times News Service
INDIA
Jaffna
Approximate area of rebel control in 2009
ELEPHANT PASS
Kilinochchi
Train route
LOTUS TOWER
Colombo
SRI LANKA
100 Miles
INDIA
Arabian Sea
Bay of Bengal DETAIL
“They look at us as if we are exhibits in a museum. They think we are funny people. They think they won and we lost. Though they don’t say it directly.” But little of that came across to Kavinda, the Sinhalese passenger who returned south again on the Yal Devi, thoroughly elated by his tour of the north. He said he wished that the Tamils he met had spoken better Sinhala, since, as he said, “Sri Lanka is a Sinhalese country.” But he was sure they were glad to see him. “The war is over, so they like to see Sinhalese,” he said. “When we went back to Jaffna, they were smiling, so I think they like Sinhalese.” © 2015 New York Times News Service
THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY JANUARY 10, 2015
PUNE
MONEY MATT ER S
“The auction route on the basis of mineralisation will lead to distortions. Given the wild fluctuations in global prices, auction will be labelled a scam like 2G and coal.” - RK Sharma, secretary general of FIMI
Signpost Sensex closes 79 points down A day after plummeting to its biggest loss in recent times, a benchmark index of Indian equities markets closed Wednesday’s trade down 79 points or 0.29 per cent.The benchmark index Wednesday fell for the third consecutive trade session. On Tuesday, the equities market barometer plunged 855 points - its biggest fall since Sep 3, 2013, when it declined by 651 points. The 30-scrip Sensitive Index (Sensex) of the S&P Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), which opened at 26,983.43 points, closed at 26,908.82 points, down 78.64 points or 0.29 percent from the previous day’s close at 26,987.46 points.
Ashok Leyland’s confident plans Commercial vehicles major Ashok Leyland is confident of outperforming the industry this fiscal in terms of sales volumes. He also said the company is also hoping to close the year with a debt:equity ratio of 1:1 reducing the overall debt and also looking at cheaper debt options.The company will maintain its market share of 26-27 per cent in the medium and heavy commercial vehicle (M&HCV) segment.
Unions to resolve Coal India strike On the second day of Coal India workers’ five-day strike, the industry urged the government and the unions to urgently settle issues confronting them as power plants are facing severe shortages of coal. The PHD chamber said the unions’ fears about restructuring of the state miner were exaggerated. According to ASSOCHAM, the strike would lead to loss of production of over one million tonnes .
How consumers are exploited at banks
There is a growing sense of frustration among bank customers about the constant, stealthy increase in service charges. Strangely, RBI is siding with the bank cartel. Will PM Modi and FM Jaitley pay any heed to helpless bank customers? MONEYLIFE DIGITAL TEAM This weekend, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley along with Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Dr Raghuram Rajan, will meet bankers in Pune at a two-day banker’s retreat. PM Modi is scheduled to interact with bankers on January 3. The Retreat would try to achieve a broad consensus on what has gone wrong and what should be done both by banks as well as by the government, among other issues. As usual, in such kinds of meetings, the customer or customer services side of the equation does not feature. It is important for PM Modi and FM Jaitley as well senior officials from Finance Ministry to understand and ask bankers present in the retreat, about the treatment meted out to customers and unfair charges levied by them for banking services. Banks are ripping off customers in a variety of ways: charges on automatic teller machine (ATM) transactions, higher debit charges, SMS alerts (that was a security feature initially), minimum balance requirements, ATM and debit card charges, cheque leaf charges, account closure charges, money transfer charges and so on. However, so far the government has maintained a stoic silence. The regulator, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has ignored all appeals and memoranda by consumer organisations, unions and non-governmental organisation (NGOs). Finally, two lawyers have taken the lead in fi ling litigation — one in Madurai (Madras High Court bench in Madurai and another at Delhi. The High Courts have taken prima facie cognisance of the issue and issued notices to the RBI and the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA). Meanwhile,
Listed companies launder money
The unaccounted money is converted into tax-free long term capital gains by the listed companies
MONEYLIFE DIGITAL TEAM The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has set anti-money laundering guidelines to put in place stronger checks against possible laundering of funds through capital markets. Despite the regulations in place, SEBI recently sought help from various investigative agencies under the finance ministry on alleged money laundering in listed companies. According to reports, the markets regulator had written to the finance ministry, highlighting the method used by certain low-value companies to evade taxes. The quantum of the alleged tax evasion is said to be pegged at Rs20,000 crore. Moneylife has published several articles in the past on how money launders operate and the need for proper regulations. Low-risk bank customer accounts can be a conduit for money laundering, Football and cricket most susceptible to money laundering, Why financial institutions should comply with anti-money laundering laws are the few issues touched by Moneylife. How exactly does the laundering
“India does benefit from a fall in oil prices but it would suffer, if there is a collapse in the oil market of a kind which destroys global wealth. The Indian currency will be impacted in the world markets.” - MK Venu, executive editor, Amar Ujala Publications Group
take place, using the exchange platform to convert black money into white. Here’s how.Ambareesh Baliga, managing partner, Global Wealth Management, Edelweiss Financial Services, explained this at a Moneylife Foundation event. He described the modus operandi of money laundering through listed companies. Mr Baliga, who has about 25 years of experience in the stock market, explains how a person reroutes his money through foreign investments in illiquid stocks which are manipulated by operators. Such manipulative trades involves an entity seeking long-term capital gains exemption by approaching an operator, who finds out an illiquid stock on the exchange platform and gets an allotment of shares done to the entity. Over a one year at least period the operator rigs the stock price up to a pre-determined level. This is when the foreign entity gets in, and gullible investors get in taking the stock higher as the earlier entity gets out. This enables conversion of unaccounted money into tax-free long term capital gains. @moneylife.in
activist Nutan Thakur and ML Sharma have moved the Allahabad High Court on sale of insurance products by Punjab National Bank. This is also an issue that Moneylife has taken up in the past. The RBI has decided to back banks’ move to charge for ATM transactions beyond a threshold limit despite protests by consumer organisations and depositors. The RBI has ignored all our memorandums including the one sent jointly with trade unions and other consumer groups. Will Prime Minister Narendra Modi or Finance Minister Arun Jaitley ask bankers about this? Even on the single point that was accepted out of Moneylife’s memorandum to the RBI, which was regarding the reporting system for nonworking ATMs — the RBI has breezily entrusted it to the IBA, which will have minimal interest in setting up a system
Wednesdays for resolving all tax related grievances?
that will expose their own warts. An official, writing on behalf of the Governor, said that RBI would ask IBA to “incorporate ways and means through which customers are enabled to report about ATMs which are not in working condition to the banks.” Is RBI so naïve as to believe that banks do not know which of its ATMs are not functioning or have not bothered to load adequate cash? When the regulator supports a bank cartel by readily accepting their claims about transaction costs without exploring ways to reduce them, what option do depositors have? First, the stricter limit on ATM transactions applies to six metros, when in fact, the higher number of transactions should lead to lower costs. Secondly, in-bank transactions, which are much more expensive are not being
charged—unless RBI plans to permit those too in the near future. Interestingly, ATM charges were a subject of hot debate at an Open House session by Moneylife Foundation on November 22, 2014, with its new trustees—TS Krishnamurthy (former chief election commissioner of India), Dr KC Chakrabarty (former deputy governor, RBI) and Siddharth Das, COO of payment systems at Flipkart. Dr Chakrabarty, well known for his brutal outspokenness, had said, “I don’t agree with the institutional view of the RBI… on allowing banks to charge for withdrawals from their own banks.” He demolished the claim that customers must pay for services saying, “If banks want to move to a system of transaction fees to be paid by customers, then they must also be prepared to work at very low interest spread. They cannot pay 4
per cent on savings accounts but charge 12 per cent or more on advances and also charge customers for transactions.” Contrary to RBI’s belief that service quality drives the customer’s choice of banks, most often people are tied to a bank because of salary accounts, scarce lockers, electronic payments for utility bills, credit cards or loans. It is not easy to cut these strings frequently. As it is, the decision to charge for services that were free till now, like mobile text alerts and higher charges and increase in debit cards fees, has become a source of irritation and discouraged people from maintaining multiple bank accounts. Angry and suspicious customers want to know why nationalised banks continue to expand their ATM networks so rapidly if transactions are unviable. Moneylife Foundation had pointed out that there is no system in our country to report non-functioning and ‘out of order’ ATMs that we as customers see almost every time we want to use it. This makes it necessary for people to hop around and use other bank’s ATM that are working. Another crucial issue is the restriction on money withdrawal. If someone needs, let’s say ` 25,000 but the ATM has withdrawal limit of ` 10,000. In this case, the person would end up making all three permitted transactions in one go. The decision to permit banks to levy charges on ATM transactions is not, in itself, a move that should shatter consumer confidence. But, by choosing to issue a diktat on what should have been a decision by individual a reciprocal service obligation on banks, RBI has ended up signalling that it does not particularly care about the consumer. Will PM Modi, rein in the financial regulator and the bank cartel from punishing customers by levying variety of charges while enjoying one of the highest spreads on interest anywhere in the world? @moneylife.in
Demand for small cars rises
Increased demand from booming rental services is reshaping the car sales scenario
MONEYLIFE DIGITAL TEAM
VEERESH MALIK
According to reports, the Finance Ministry would observe Wednesday as the dedicated day for resolving taxpayer’s issues The finance ministry is proposing to reserve one day in a week to redress grievances of taxpayers. An official from the ministry, who is aware of the development told Economic Times, “It has been decided to observe Wednesday as dedicated day for interaction with taxpayers... Heads of the local tax office would interact with taxpayers”. According to the report, Revenue secretary Shaktikanta Das held meetings with senior officials of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) and Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) to review measures being undertaken as part of better governance by both. Taxpayers will be able to approach the chief commissioner or commissioner-level officers for any delay in issuance of permanent account number (PAN) or any other grievance on what would be an open day allowing walk-ins. Dedicated camps would be set up off and on to take the tax department close to people as part of taxpayerfriendly initiatives, the report says. @moneylife.in
The introduction of smaller cars in the Hyundai Santro and Maruti Eeco/Omni size range, coupled with app-based taxi services which offer fares lower than auto-rickshaws, has transformed the public transport scenario in Delhi and the National Capital Region. How this will impact the sales of new cars is yet to be seen; but friends in the dealership trade are expecting a shakeout and change in the business model, where fewer outlets in prime areas are anticipated. One of Delhi’s oldest car dealership showrooms, British Motor Car Company in Connaught Place, appears to be re-inventing itself as a mall of sorts. Likewise, many car dealerships and automobile garages in the Scindia House complex, that occupies much of the space between Connaught Place, Janpath and Kasturba Gandhi Marg, are rapidly giving way to other businesses. Even the Delhi Transport Corporation office at Scindia House has been pushed back into a by-lane and can just about be reached by foot now. There is certainly a big change in the offing, with the way automobiles, especially cars and two-wheelers, will be sold. Expect many of these changes to creep in with the huge volumes of 2014 manufactured cars and bikes lying unsold as we move into the new year—2015. Barring a couple of models that have a waiting list, the rest will, eventually, need to be sold cheap and probably not through dealerships, as we know them. A SIMPLER BABUDOM The cars which have a genuine waiting list largely include the subfour-metre sedans like the Maruti D’Zire, Tata Zest and Hyundai XCent. One reason for this is the increased demand from government buyers, with
the new rule that the total cost of a new replacement car should not exceed ` 4.75 lakh and fuel consumption per month should be within 200 litres. This also applies to cars that are rented for official purposes. A friend of mine who is secretary to the Central government, was spotted in a Maruti D’Zire, a few days ago, considering that it does not get higher than that in the IAS, I hope the message—that large cars are little more than vanity—fi lters down to the rest of us car-buyers too. A CHECKLIST FOR CAR SERVICING With service intervals for cars now reaching 15,000 kilometres or a year, some simple maintenance chores have to be performed by owners without waiting for the service, even if it means heading for a workshop. Here’s a shortlist: • Get the air fi lter or fi lters cleaned at least every four months. Dust is no longer the only culprit; simple air pollution and smog is playing havoc with air fi lters in many Indian cities. Many car-owners cannot do this on their own. I write on automobiles,
but hesitate to mess up the air fi lter in our new car, because I simply do not have the correct tools. And blowing a pressure hose through the fi lter can ruin the fi lter! • Check the engine oil levels. While modern cars and engines do not lose engine oil like older cars and engines would, trouble is that stopgo driving as well as the over-use of air-conditioners, at low engine speeds, is also playing havoc with engine oil consumption. • Tyre rotation is another problem. Typically, I would like to see tyre positions rotated every 5,000km at least; but, if that is not possible, they should be inter-changed at least once between services. • Finally, blow through or clean-out air-conditioner units. Again, don’t wait till the annual service for this; since, along with the others, this impacts fuel consumption too. (Veeresh Malik started and sold a couple of companies, is now back to his first love—writing. He is also involved in helping small and midsize familyrun businesses re-invent themselves.) @moneylife.in
SPORTS “I am more relieved than being proud of myself. I kept telling that the only way from here is up and I had to calm myself down. Definitely batting up the order gave me a little more time to myself ” — India batsman Lokesh Rahul
PLAYER’S CORNER BY ASHISH PHADNIS @phadnis_ashish
RAHUL RAUT
India number three Subhankar Dey was a key player for the Pune team, that won the Maharashtra Badminton League, at the Pune District Metropolitan Badminton Association (PDMBA) complex in Shivajinagar recently. The 22-year-old Dey, while ensuring the team title, also grabbed the limelight by receiving the player of the tournament award. “Overall it was a good tournament. I am happy with my performance, especially the win over Kaushal Dharmamer in the final. I had lost to him in the All India Ranking tournament semifinals held in Gandhidham two months back. So it was a sweet revenge,” said Dey. “In the first set, I was patient. But then I changed my strategy and reduced my pace and it worked,” he said. About his performances in 2014, Dey said, “The year was good overall. I had not thought that I would be among the top three in India. Last year, I played plenty of international tournaments. I was a finalist in Bangladesh and Bahrain Series, and I won tournaments held in Kenya and Nigeria. The Kenya success was my first international win. Even my world ranking has improved and now I am in the top 100,”he said. Dey was also a member of Hyderabad Hotshots,
Subhankar Dey
which won the inaugural Indian Badminton League under the leadership of Saina Nehwal. Dey, who hails from a small town in West Bengal, was brought up by his mother and brother. He started his training with Laltu Guha, but left Kolkata and joined Srikanth Vad at Thane, in 2010. This move paid off, and soon Dey was rated amongst the most talented youngsters in the country. He claimed all three Maharashtra state titles that year. Thereafter, he had the opportunity to train in Indonesia. He has been a beneficiary of the HPCL scholarship since 2010. He was part of the bronze medal-winning junior Indian team at the Asian Badminton Championships. But not one to rest on his laurels, Dey shifted to Bangalore, to obtain training from seasoned coach Tom John. “Since I moved to Bangalore, I have improved a lot. I have won a few medals and won’t be looking for another coach in near future. In our academy, we have elite shuttlers like Ajay Jayaram, Anup Sridhar and Ashwini Ponnappa. We have a great time together and I get valuable tips from them,” said Dey. About the future, he said, “In 2015, my focus will continue on the international tournaments. I have to carve my niche space in the next 2-3 years. The season will start with the Malaysian Grand Prix later this month. ashish.phadnis@goldensparrow.com
JANUARY 10, 2015
PUNE
“Though Rohit Sharma seems casual, I don’t think he is casual about his cricket. He has got talent, but building a big innings is a talent too and he needs to work on that” — Former India skipper Rahul Dravid. PUNE: Flashy mat wrestling is popular over the world, however in India, pit or mud wrestling is still considered as the pure form of the game. Therefore even in this era of modern wrestling, the traditional form always get huge response from the enthusiasts. Such response was witnessed during the district-level competition organised jointly by Hindu Garjana Pratishthan and Sane Guruji Tarun Mandal at New English School ground, Tilak Road recently. About 300 wrestlers, right from 28kg to open category tested their skills. Rahul Khanekar of Bhugaon won the championship while Bhalchandra Chougule of Hanuman Vyayam Mandal, Shanivar Peth, emerged winner in the junior segment. Our lensman Aniruddha Rajandekar captured the muscle power during the event.
‘We have to streamline our efforts’ Former chief national coach Vimal Kumar wants former international players to train promising youngsters
badminton and we expect similar performance this year too. In the men’s singles, we have plenty of options, such as K Srikanth, P Kashyap and HS Prannoy, but in the women’s singles, there is a big void after Saina and Sindhu. I have high hopes from PC Thulasi, Rituparna Das and Ruthvika Shivani,” he said. Kumar, who coaches Indian ace Saina Nehwal, stresses the importance of personal coaching. “Currently, we have 5-6 world class players. It’s fine when they are sparring partners for each other at national camps. However, this is not an ideal scenario. It’s not possible for a coach to support all the players simultaneously. Top tennis players like Roger Federar and Rafael Nadal do not train in national camps. They have their own hitting partners and Vimal Kumar personal coaches.
BY ASHISH PHADNIS @phadnis_ashish PUNE: Former chief national badminton coach Vimal Kumar believes that the current crop of Indian shuttlers are doing well. Youngsters like P Sindhu and K Srikanth have notched up impressive performances at international tournaments. At the same time, he feels greater focus is needed on India’s medal prospects at international level and all efforts for that should be streamlined for the same. “We must invest in former players who have a passion for coaching. We should offer them adequate financial support which will motivate them for coaching the best among the youngsters. This will lift the overall level of badminton in India,” he said. “Last year was good for Indian
If we do the same, we could dominate the game,” he said. About Nehwal, Kumar said, “She is one of the best players in the world. She has a great opportunity to win a gold at the Rio Olympics in 2016. Her uncompromising work ethic gives her a realistic chance against the elite shuttlers of China and Korea.” He refused to comment on the recent Padma Bhushan row. “She (Nehwal) deserves the award. She has made a statement and she is ready to accept the panel’s decision,” he said. ashish. phadnis@
Pune team clinch MBL title Beat mighty Mumbai Suburban team in the final with a 3-1 verdict
RAHUL RAUT
Chitt-Patt
THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY
TGS NEWS SERVICE @TGSWeekly PUNE: Pune team emerged winner in the 3rd Cello Maharashtra Badminton League (MBL) held at Shivajinagar recently. In the final, they defeated mighty Mumbai Suburban 3-1. In the men’s single, India number 3, Subhankar Dey of Pune smashed Mumbai’s Kaushal Dharmamer 16-21, 21-11, 11-9. In the women’s section, Neha Pandit doubled the lead by beating India number 2 Saili Rane with a decent score of 21-16, 21-14. Though, Pune’s Varun Khanwalkar and Sudhanshu Medsikar lost to Mumbai’s Shlok Ramachandran and Chirag Shetty
The victorious Pune team with their coach and officials
by 12-21, 10-21 in men’s doubles’, Nishad Dravid and Manasi Gadgil battled hard to defeat Prasad Shetty and Riya Pillai by 2116, 15-21, 11-5 to bag the win for Pune. The
winning team received a trophy and prize of Rs 1,25,000, while the runner-up team got Rs 75,000. tgs.feedback@goldensparrow.com
THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY JANUARY 10, 2015
PUNE
SPORTS
“I still feel like a player. I still feel like I can perform for a number of years, so I want to go to a club with a winning mentality and also to a team that’s got people that want to win in the future.” — England football player Steven Gerrard
Pune FC youngsters win Maharashtra Derby tie Arif Shaikh strikes three in PFC’s 6-1 win over Mumbai FC in U-19 I-league
Pune FC striker Arif Shaikh (in red) in action against Mumbai FC during U-19 I-league encounter at the Cooperage Ground in Mumbai
TGS NEWS SERVICE @TGSWeekly PUNE: Pune FC cruised to a massive 6-1 win over arch rivals Mumbai FC in a U-19 I-League at the Cooperage Ground in Mumbai recently. The big win was powered by a hattrick from striker Arif Shaikh (21st, 62nd and 83rd minute) and strikes from attacker Sannik Murmu (41’), Asheer Akhtar (71’) and wing-back Dimple Bhagat (90+2’). Meanwhile, Nachiket Palav’s goal for Mumbai FC in the 81st minute only proved to be a consolation goal. The win was Pune FC’s first away from home and also helped the
youngsters to a Maha-Derby double over their counterparts having already beaten them 3-0 in the first leg. Furthermore, the hattrick from Arif was second instance of a Pune FC player bagging three in a game this season. Strike-partner Farukh Choudhary’s triple in the 7-1 win against PIFA Colaba FC was the first. Having dominated proceedings in the opening quarter, Pune FC finally broke the deadlock in the 21st minute. Winger Chesterpaul Lyngdoh cut back from the right to find Asheer Akthar in the clear. The defender cross was met by Arif who sent his header home past the keeper at the second post. Pune FC doubled their lead in
the 41st minute. Attacker Sannik combined with Farukh Chowdhury whose good release enabled Sannik to let go a stiff left footer past the keeper to give Pune FC a two goal lead at the break. The second half was a similar story as Pune FC continued to dominate proceedings. In the 58th minute, Pune FC earned a penalty after Chesterpaul was brought down by Janaminlen Khongsai. However, defender Myron Mendes who stepped up missed the attempt from the spot. The miss didn’t deter Pune FC who got their third in the 62nd minute. After Farukh missed in a one-on-one situation, Arif controlled and scored on the rebound to get his second. Ten minutes later, Pune FC struck once again. Defender Asheer hammered home a loose ball that came off a defender’s poor clearance leaving the keeper stunned to make it 4-0 in the 71st minute. As Pune FC continued to camp in the rival half, the hosts pulled one back in the 81st minute through Nachiket Palav who scored against the run of play. In the final ten minutes of the game, Pune FC struck two more times. First, Altamash sent Arif in the clear and the striker controlled and slid the ball into the net to complete his treble. Deep into injury time, left-back Dimple set on a great solo run down the left flank before scoring with a great angular finish to the second post from inside the box to complete the rout. tgs.feedback@goldensparrow.com
THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY JANUARY 10, 2015
THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY
PUNE
JANUARY 10, 2015
PICS BY ANIRUDDHA RAJANDEKAR & RAHUL RAUT | FOR REPRESENTATIONAL PURPOSE ONLY
CITIZENS SHOULD RESPECT TRAFFIC RULES
QUEEN’S WATERSHED UNION BUDGET; PUNE, A ZERO GARBAGE CITY Dr Vijay Kelkar, economist and academician I have high hopes from the annual budget this year. A watershed budget will help reignite the growth process. In Maharashtra, the government should scrutinise the recommendations made by Kelkar Committee through the October 2013 report on the balanced regional development. Efforts should be taken to make Pune a zero garbage city. All the stakeholders must pay due attention to this objective.
Garbage is a major cause for environmental pollution that poses a serious threat to health and surroundings
MORE VERMI PROJECTS IN HOUSING SOCIETIES
Pune is famed as the Queen of the Deccan, the Cultural Capital of Maharashtra and the Oxford of the East...What is that single biggest change that the influentials of Pune desire for the city in 2015?
Keeping all issues facing the education sector under one ministry will check red tapism
Pune ranks fourth as the country’s best business destinations in terms of infrastructure, human capital, city culture and basic quality of living, according to a survey conducted by Global Initiative for Restructuring Environment and Management (GIREM) and real estate consultancy fi rm DTZ. The ranking covered factors such as human capital, energy, water, transport, housing, healthcare, climate, office space availability and city culture, which constitute the basic eco-socioeconomic parameters critical in determining the growth of the city. The report scored Pune on a marginally good human capital, energy, water, environment, health and safety (EHS), schools and colleges, ability to attract talent, climate, office space availability, malls and multiplexes, helping hand availability, city culture and getaways within reach. The
city is one of India’s most important automotive hubs, with domestic and international auto giants manufacturing here The population of the cities of Pune (municipal corporation) and Pimpri-Chinchwad (municipal corporation) is 48 lakh as per the Census 2011. The Regional Transport Office (RTO) claims that the city’s vehicle population has reached beyond 25 lakh. Large corporations, including Infosys and IBM, have their largest or second largest centres in Pune, which reports $10 billion of sofware exports. A study of leading globalisation advisory fi rm Zinnov Management Consulting and Software Exporters’ Association of Pune (SEAP) states that Pune holds enormous potential in becoming the next innovation hub of Asia. The analysis covered the historical evolution and rise of Pune as the engineering, R&D and IT services powerhouse of India. According to the study, Pune city has seen
several inflection points over the last two centuries that have today resulted in a mature engineering ecosystem with many MNC and indigenous companies, word class universities, a large installed talent pool and thriving start-ups. The city boasts of 112 MNC R&D centres, MNC talent pool of 24k, 17 SEZs and IT parks, 15 of the top global 40 R&D service providers and more than 40 engineering colleges. The city produces over 12,000 engineering graduates every year. The study states that 85 per cent of India’s software product companies’ R&D centre is headquartered in Pune, and the city employs 61 per cent of India’s R&D employee base for software product companies. Pune houses close to 125 indigenous start-ups with business and productivity software accounting for 50 per cent of it. The stakeholders are working towards propelling the city to the global league and creating a more vibrant Brand Pune. tgs.feedback@goldensparrow.com
BRTS ROUTES WILL BECOME OPERATIONAL
ELIMINATE RED TAPE IN HIGHER EDUCATION
Pune is a developing city. To accelerate the development, citizens should bring self-discipline. The problem of garbage is serious and Pune Municipal Corporation is trying to process garbage in an effective manner. But garbage should be segregated at the source only. Big housing societies should have their vermiculture projects on their premises and process garbage generated in their societies. To cater to city’s traffic problems, flyovers and subways will be constructed but citizens should follow traffic discipline. They should also use water judiciously. As mayor and citizen of Pune, in 2015, my efforts will be to create awareness on public selfdiscipline.
Datta Dhankawade, mayor, Pune
SB Mujumdar, Founder, director, Symbiosis Society
Your city at a glance
TGS NEWS SERVICE @TGSWeekly
By the end of this year, there should be ‘cultured’ motorists on the city roads and I should not have to depute constables to fine the motorists. Pune should be the best city in terms of traffic rule compliance. The city is known for its progressive thoughts and it should reflect on the roads. I look forward to citizens following traffic rules and motorists respecting pedestrians.
Sarang Awad, Deputy Commissioner of Police (traffic)
wishlist 2015
BETTER TRAFFIC DISCIPLINE
India got freedom in 1947, while the country gained its financial freedom in 1991 when we opened the doors to globalisation. But unfortunately in this country with largest democracy in the world, the freedom for education remained a distant dream. The universities are also criticised for not being in the first 100 top universities in the world, but no thought had been given to this aspect where we have to run from this department to that department obtaining permission. The educational institutes/universities have to take so many permissions from so many sources that half the time is wasted on it. If one ministry governs the universities for its academic quality, we have go to another ministry to take permission for sanctioning of the syllabus. I hope the new government will have one ministry that will solve all matters regarding education and its administration under one roof.
CITIZENS SHOULD SUPPORT PMPML The single biggest challenge that I have for Pune city for 2015 is to increase people’s faith on public transport system, by providing better quality transport service. The systematic and prompt action plans and its implementation for making Dr Shrikar Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Mahamandal Limited Pardeshi, chairman (PMPML) effective in 2015 is my goal. The fastest and MD, PMPML growing city needs better and self-reliant public transport system for future.
BETTER ROAD SAFETY IN PCMC
Neha Pandit International badminton player Shakuntala Dharade, mayor, PimpriChinchwad
The single biggest change I want to see in Pune is traffic discipline. Signal violations; wrong overtaking; no respect for pedestrian crossing, both by vehicles and pedestrians; cars parked at bus stops, and people boarding halfway on the road are a common sight. Steps should be taken to check the violators. I believe self-discipline is the key. Those jumping a traffic signal or violating no-entry rule do not realise that they are risking their lives and others. And in our society, if one breaks the rule, others follow the wrongdoer without hesitation. One should not expect the authorities to do everything. We need a campaign like ‘Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan’ to instil discipline on the streets.
A BEHAVIOURAL CHANGE IN PUNE
Anita Benninger, urban planner
MORE BUSES ON THE ROADS
I want a cleaner city. We have so many world-class educational institutes, colleges, hospitals and sports facilities. But we are way behind any city in Europe or America in terms of cleanliness standards. We are used to seeing piles of garbage on streets, gardens and playgrounds littered with filth. We need strong GM Abhijit Kunte, measures to clean our city and form citizen groups with power to impose fine and use the collected International money for city’s development. Steps should be taken chess player to dispose of the garbage in a systematic way as overflowing garbage containers is a common sight in the city. Even the hospital and industry waste should be treated in an eco-friendly manner. I would love to see a clean city in future.
Prakash Javadekar, Union minister of state (independent charge) for environment, forests and climate change
COMPREHENSIVE TRAFFIC SYSTEM FOR PUNE For 2015, I have put in place plans to start all the four bus rapid transit system (BRTS) routes of Pimpri-Chinchwad with the motif to provide better transport system to city. The PCMC has developed four BRTS routes in the municipal limits in the first phase of Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). These are Nigdi-Dapodi on Pune-Mumbai highway, Aundh-Ravet Road, Kalewadi Phata-Dehu Alandi Road and Wakad-Nashik Phata. My target is to make these four routes operational in 2015.
FELLOW CITIZENS, TAKE CARE OF YOUR HEALTH
Dr KH Sancheti
City needs good public transport systems
In 2015, I have planned better road safety and promotion of public transport. I have already started the ‘Tring Tring Day’ is to promote the use of public transport and cycling aiming at enhancing health consciousness among citizens. The civic body had developed very good quality of road network in the twin town but the stretch belongs to all citizens. At least once in month every citizen can enjoy a walk or cycle on roads is my resolution for 2015. My efforts will be maximum public participation in these campaigns.
I WANT A CLEANER CITY
Traffic indiscipline is a common sight on city roads
Rajiv Jadhav, Pimpri-Chinchwad municipal commissioner
Citizens of Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad should be considered as a twin city from the traffic point of view. For efficient service it needs more buses and the successful model of public-private partnership (PPP) implemented by other cities should be followed. We need Metro, Monorail, more routes and stations, first, second and third ring roads, elevated roads and roads in river beds. And such measures need the support of everyone. Puneties should have a positive attitude and say ‘Yes’ to all kinds of developmental projects as opposition to such plans delays its completion and increases the outlay. I am sure that citizens of Pune will have a positive agenda in 2015.
PUNE
Eminent orthopaedic surgeon
With the advancement and development of Pune in all fields, the only wish and change that I desire is that all my beloved Punekars find peace, satisfaction and happiness that they well deserve and we all work towards the optimisation and restoration of our health which we are losing when we are running behind success.
The BRTS system in PCMC will improve public transport
CITIZENS SHOULD COLLECTIVELY WORK ON GOALS Pune has everything. The city has a vast cultural milieu, with every facility for educational and philosophical growth. However, the city lacks in order, of traffic, basic infrastructure management and waste management. This lack of order can be dismissed if we as citizens determine to accomplish these goals together. We need to tap the Vijay Bhatkar visionary leader within us to improve the situation in city. I am not saying we should aspire for some utopia but work eminent scientist towards enhancing the city as the cultural capital of India.
I do not know which change the ‘influentials’ desire for Pune city in 2015. However, I feel that the single biggest influential change for Pune city would be a behavioural change. A convergence of prudence and discipline and its reflection in the behaviour of both the citizens and the people’s representatives and officials entrusted with governance is what I would desire. How do we benchmark prudence and discipline? By understanding what the words mean and then by internalising them so that they are reflected in our behaviour. Prudence is the condition or quality of being ‘prudent’. A person who is ‘prudent’ is careful and wise in handling practical matters; exercises good judgement and common sense in practical matters and planning for the future. Discipline is the ability to control
Citizens should follow the rules and ensure that others do not break them
yourself or other people even in difficult situations. A person who is disciplined is able to follow the rules and regulations and also able to ensure that other people do not break them. However, the rules and regulations or law are but benchmarks against which we compare our behaviour and ensure that we are not trespassing. I think the decision-making by the governance machinery, about various civic matters, including the DP, the BDP, the Metro, the SRA, the SWM, traffic and transportation related decisions and construction in
the river lack both prudence and discipline. What is the role of the governance machinery in a city? It is to enforce rule of law and ensure safety and health, promote civility and civic pride, security, enhancement and sustainability of livelihoods and creation of spaces which are appropriate for the required use for all citizens. In short, ensuring that the city that they govern is liveable and the liveability is enhanced continuously in a manner which is inclusive of the vulnerable and is sustainable. Unfortunately, not all the citizens see themselves as citizens.
Many are mere ‘occupants’ and their only interest is to earn a living. Livelihood incorporates the word ‘ethical way’ in it. If governance is good it will enable sustainable livelihood security. It is important to have ‘citizens’ who are proud of their city and who will exercise both prudence and discipline in their daily behaviour and also work to ensure that the governance machinery also works with prudence and discipline. Let us pray that we begin an era of prudence and discipline in our behaviour in Pune starting now.
What the city needs is a comprehensive traffic system. There should be more buses for the public. These buses should ply at regular intervals, so that it doesn’t cause inconvenience to the public. To control the traffic chaos in the city, there is an urgent need of the ring Sujit Patwardhan, road around Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad to be constructed. The Metro project should activist also expedite to support needs of the local population. Trucks should be barred from using the city roads. They should use the roads outside the city. It will help reduce traffic congestion on the city roads.
UPGRADE YOUR SKILLS, STUDENTS
Dr Chandrakant Rawal, Principal BMCC
I wish that students should learn an additional skill and an additional language, Indian or Foreign language, while pursuing their degree courses or college along with their regular syllabus. Also, skill and language programmes must be part of the syllabus. These skills will help students in their career. The future is of multi-culture and multilinguist approaches.