The Golden Sparrow on Saturday 18/10/2014

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PUNE, OCTOBER 18, 2014 | www.goldensparrow.com

With exit polls indicating an impressive-tobrilliant performance by the BJP in the Maharashtra assembly polls, BJP’s 44-yearold state president Devendra Gangadhar Fadnavis has emerged as the front-runner for the chief ministership.

See Spotlight on P7

INSIDE

LIFE

Horse racing and haute couture

START-UP CITY

Celebrating the spirit of innovation P9

‘No move to change J&K governor’ SRINAGAR: Jammu and Kashmir Governor NN Vohra has not been asked to resign from his post, an informed source said on Friday, dismissing media reports that the central government has asked him to step down.

“No, Vohra has not been asked to put in his papers.

There is no move to change the Jammu and Kashmir governor at this stage,” an informed source told IANS. Vohra is presently running his second five-year term as the state governor.

There have been media reports in New Delhi and here that Lieutenant General Atta Hasnain (retd), who held many important assignments in the Valley, including as the GOC of the Srinagar-based 15 Corps, had been tipped to be the next state governor.

IANS

NEW DELHI: The Sup r e m e Court on Friday granted bail to former Tamil N a d u chief minister J Jayalalithaa, convicted of possessing assets disproportionate to her known sources of income.

Along with Jayalalithaa, her aide Sasikala Natarajan and two others have also been granted bail.

An apex court bench headed

by Chief Justice HL Dattu said that all four will be released on bail subject to the satisfaction of the condition by the trial court.

The court made it clear that Jayalalithaa and three others will complete their appeal with all relevant documents before the high court in a matter of two months and thereafter, it will ask the high court to expedite and complete the hearing on the appeal within three months.

The court told senior counsel Fali S Nariman, appearing for Jayalalithaa, that it will not grant a day more to his client if they don’t complete the paperwork of their appeal before the high court with all the documents within a span of two months.

Jayalalithaa is presently in a Bangalore jail after her conviction in the disproportionate assets case. The former chief minister was awarded four-year prison term and a fine of `100 crore. She had moved to the Supreme Court on October 9 seeking the bail.

Jayalalithaa, along with her aide Sasikala Natrajan, VK Sudhakaran and J Ilavarasi, on October 7 were refused bail by the Karnataka High Court which held that there were no grounds for granting bail.

Besides her health grounds, Jayalalithaa has invoked section 389 of the Code of Criminal Procedure seeking the suspension of her sentence and grant of bail till the pendency.

Contd on p 10

T&C APPLY.

CM at 44?

SC grants bail to Jayalalithaa

THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY OCTOBER 18, 2014

Make this Diwali joyous for them P4

PUNE

“The rich in India need to find their own conscience; “Every child must have a family and an opportunity to find to give a little of what they earn. We must learn the her own potential. Every mother who is unable to bring up art of giving before the art of living!” her child should be rehabilitated into the society with dignity.”

—Bindeshwar Pathak, founder, — Girish Kulkarni, director, Snehalaya adoption agency Sulabh International

Crackdown on traffic violators to continue P5

Going green and giving back to society RAHUL RAUT

Industrialist Dhananjay Shedbale has adopted trees, a village, conducts plantation drives with schoolchildren

• Shedbale has set up a rainwater harvesting system at his industrial units and harvests over 1.5 lakh litres of water during the monsoons

BY ARCHANA DAHIWAL @ArchanaDahiwal Industrialist Dhananjay Shedbale, 48, is an environmental activist at heart.

The director of Chakan-based Deeksha Exports that manufactures and exports precision components has adopted an eco-friendly lifestyle.

It was the green expanse of Durga Devi Hills near Nigdi that motivated him to settle at Nigdi-Pradhikaran 14 years ago.

He cycles around 20 km to office for environment and health reasons, and is an avid trekker. The nursery on his company premises grows saplings that are given to visitors as souvenirs.

Dhananjay has adopted over 10,000 trees on the hills of Chakan.

Roping in students of Nav Maharashtra Vidyalaya, Kharabwadi, Chakan, he has organised tree plantation drives. He has participated with other nature lover groups to plant and conserve trees on Ghoradeshwar Hill near Somatanephata on the Pune-Mumbai Expressway.

“Being connected to the environment changes one’s attitude towards life. I have learnt a lot from nature. My professional life is settled

His eco-friendly measures at workplace

• He has banned plastic use in his company. Violators are fined `100. Visitors are not allowed to enter bring in plastic bags on the company premises • For the packing of company products, biodegradable materials are used. The gifts given to employees during festivals are eco-friendly, mostly herbals and ayurvedic products • An effluent treatment plant has been set up on the plant premises. Shedbale organises organic farming camps for employees

Dhananjay Shedbale cycles around 20 km to office. He is also an avid trekker

now and I am giving back to society.

Conserving nature gives me satisfaction and positive energy,” he said.

Shedbale completed his diploma in mechanical engineering from Walchand College, Sangli, and set-up his industrial unit at Chakan in 2006. He did a course in biodiversity at Pune.

After meeting several environmentalists, he observed that the concern for the environment is not strong in Pimpri-Chinchwad as compared to Pune. He launched ‘Plastic Mukti Abhiyan’ in the twin town along with like-minded people and donated around 15,000 cloth bags. The group

resorted to a peaceful agitation to help implement plastic ban in Durga Devi Hill and in public gardens.

At a village, Kondhathar near Tamihini ghat that Dhananjay adopted, he found that the villagers face acute water shortage for four months. He helped build ‘bandhara’

(water bund) to harvest water. He plans to develop 50 villages in five years with public participation.

In July 2012, he was felicitated and received an award from Jividha Organisation for his contribution in conservation of bio-diversity. archana.dahiwal@goldensparrow.com

• The staff undergo training at ‘Chetana Vikas Sanstha’ in organic farming skills. Free inhouse organic farming camps are organised for farmers of Chakan

Mission women’s empowerment Donating clothes to the needy for 25 years

Parul Mehta, through Ishanya Foundation, helps underprivileged women earn a livelihood

BY PRACHI BARI @prachibari October is a busy month for Parul Mehta, trustee, Ishanya foundation, when more than 100 NGOs are invited to showcase their products at the annual Yellow Ribbon Festival held before Diwali. The event brings together Parul Mehta NGOs and SHGs (selfhelp groups) from Maharashtra, Gujarat and Karnataka.

Running for six years, the festival provides a platform for NGOs to showcase their work and sell products.

Ishanya Foundation, a corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative of Deepak Fertilisers and Petrochemicals Corporation Limited (DFPCL),

was founded in 2006 and is a registered trust under the Bombay Public Trust Act 1950.

The Foundation was started with the aim of conducting outreach programmes for women’s empowerment and livelihood, health and education, in Pune as well as in the villages around Taloja.

“I have always felt a need to give back to society, following the old adage – It is better to give than to receive – and Ishanya Foundation provided me the right platform where I can give back to the society and act as a catalyst in changing the lives of others,” says Parul, who looks after the CSR activities of DFPCL. “One of our first initiatives towards empowering women was to provide training in recycling old fabrics and making attractive cloth bags out of it. The basic idea was to provide an alternative source of income to these underprivileged women and protect the environment by encouraging the

use of cloth bags. Later, we added more items to our product list,” she said.

“Every project that the Foundation undertakes is very

“Through our initiatives we have been able to reach out to the lower strata of society” close to my heart. Through our initiatives we have been able to reach out to the lesser strata of society, thereby making a difference to the lives we touch, be it launching new projects like livelihood programmes (women’s empowerment) where women are taught various ways

prachibari@gmail.com

Madan Wadekar’s initiative of requesting people to give away clothes gathered speed when he introduced discount to customers

BY ANJALI SHETTY @shetty_anjali When 49-year-old Madan Wadekar started his cloth store on Tilak Road 25 years ago, it struck him that there were many out there who could not afford to buy basic clothing.

He decided to request people to donate clothes for the needy.

“I realised I needed to do something for society. I started requesting people to give their used/unused clothes (in good condition), which I would donate to the underprivileged.

For the first few years I did not get any positive response but I did not give up,” said Wadekar, who runs Kalyani Sarees store on Tilak Road.

Word-of-mouth helped Wadekar’s initiative. “I cannot afford advertising for this initiative as I make no money from it. The idea is help put

“Money will keep coming but I needed to do something for society as well” a smile on the face of needy people throughout the year.

Also, during festivals, I try and convince people to donate fancy clothes for the poor,” he said.

There was a time when people enquired what they will get by taking part in this social initiative.

“So, I included the scheme of discount for donors, and the move brought in more people. I

gave discounts on cloths brought after determining the value of donated clothes. The idea is not to make money but get more donors. My son Pushpak helps me in arranging the clothes.

It is a tedious process, but the thought of giving is what keeps me going,” Madan said.

Madan sends the clothes to The International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON). He has been receiving requests to open branches across the state, but Madan wants to do this as a deed and not as a form of business. anjali.shetty@goldensparrow.com FOR DONATIONS: Visit Kalyani Sarees, near Shakti Sports, Tilak Road Contact: Madan Wadekar: 24338775

ANIRUDDHA RAJANDEKAR

RAHUL RAUT

At Ishanya foundation, more than 100 NGOs are invited to showcase their products at the annual Yellow Ribbon Festival held before Diwali

of generating livelihood, income generation programmes where women groups of 50 members from areas like Vimannagar, Yerawada, Vishrantwadi, Ahmednagar Road, Mundhwa and Wadgaonsheri get specialised training in tailoring.

This enhances their skills and helps them create various products designed as per the market needs. Today, they earn an average income of `4,000 to `5,000 per month and support their families,” Parul says.

The other project that she feels has helped women is the Muskaan Project that comes under the Income Generation Programme. Under this, they impart vocational training like marketing, communication and networking skills to school dropouts and other women. This helps them sell the garments.

Elaborating, Parul says, “This idea came to me when I was in London and had visited one of the Oxfam run stores of pre-used clothes. And I decided to try this in India for underprivileged women. For the last three years, several groups of ‘Muskaan Parees’ have been selling these goods in make-shift stalls or in a mobile van unit in areas like Tingarenagar, Sanjay Wadi and Shastrinagar.”

Besides these, Parul also takes a keen interest in horticulture. Under the Wadi projects, each marginal farmer in villages near Pune and Karjat gets special training in horticulture and is provided with mango saplings to implement their skills and earn better.

The Foundation, through its initiatives, is committed to bring about a change in the lives of the underprivileged.

“I have been exceptionally lucky to have a supporting team that helped me realise my vision for Ishanya Foundation.

The teamwork is equally important as more can be achieved through teamwork in a shorter timeframe and at a higher quality if the team works well together,” she says.

Madan sends the clothes to The International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON)

THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY OCTOBER 18, 2014

PUNE

Maha voter is smartest, say exit polls P6

A total of 194 bird species were found in the Pimpri-Chinchwad municipal limits from 2007 to September 2014 —Swastishree

Micro-level planning helped eliminate voter list errors: Rao District admn had faced criticism during the LS polls as many names had disappeared from the electoral rolls

District returning officer and collector Saurabh Rao has attributed the smooth polling in the city to ‘microlevel planning’ by the district Saurabh Rao administration that had faced criticism over mismanagement during the Lok Sabha polls six months ago.

“Micro-level planning was done to include names of the voters in the voters’ list. In 2013, an exercise was undertaken to delete names of voters who were not traceable and had caused a problem in April this year during Lok Sabha polls,” he said.

He said the district administration was all the more careful this time as they had faced heat after the Lok Sabha elections. “We wanted to avoid a repeat of what had happened during the Lok Sabha elections,” he said.

This time around, the administration welcomed complaints from citizens via SMS texts, on the website and also physically. “In this way, 3.65 lakh voters were included in the voters’ list of Pune. This number was highest in the state,” he said.

ANIRUDDHA RAJANDEKAR

BY GITESH SHELKE @gitesh_shelke

An Election Commission official helping an elderly man at the Janata Vasahat polling centre near Parvati on Thursday

Pune has a population of 1.02 crores and there are 70 lakh voters.

“We operated the entire machinery to address each complaint received and we were very tough in doing so. In the last three months, each and every complaint was verified before inclusion of the names and 100 per cent result was achieved,” he said. He said this time, there were no complaints and goof-ups in the voters’ list, thanks to the nodal officers who were appointed

by the administration.

Mahesh Society School in Kothrud, where people had protested vociferously during the Lok Sabha elections, the polling went smooth.

Voters found their names and room numbers without any hitch. Similar reports were received from other parts of the city after the polls.

Some officers at polling stations said this time ‘slip management’ was more precise and people were

contacted days before the polling to correct their names or to include their names. All the lists were verified by the citizens. During the LS polls, many citizens found their names missing from the voters’ list.

Some of them protested in front of Council Hall while others filed Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in the Bombay High Court. gitesh.shelke@goldensparrow.com

TGS Quiz Contest

No. 18

A

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 three lucky winners to receive gift coupons.

1. What prompted cloth merchant Madan Wadekar to start a donation drive 25 years ago?

2. Which topic did blogger Soham Sabnis cover in his latest blog?

3. Which fatal accident did Malvika Iyer suffer at the age of 14?

"YEH SOFA AAP HI KO NIKALNA PADEGA, ...WOH KHUD NAHI NIKLEGA"

4. Who suggested the moral science laboratory at the Dr Vijay Bhatkar’s conference held recently?

6. Which city was actor Lillete Dubey born?

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8. What are the foods enriched with B12?

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10. What are the musthave colours in moccasins?

‘Pictures have a personality of their own’ P8

THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY OCTOBER 18, 2014

Celebrating the Spirit of Innovation P9

RAMA contest on till October 31

Make this Diwali joyous for them Artefacts and other decorative and household items made by speciallyabled children, jail inmates and school students are on sale at various places in the city this Diwali

Diwali celebrations at Manas Sarovar Asian Machine Tools Corporation (AMTC) is organising Diwali Pahat, a social gathering on October 21 at 11:30 am at Manas Sarovar, Paud Road. Senior citizens from Abhalmaya old age home are invited for the same. The gathering is also open for public.

Quotes...

SAURABH GADGIL Managing Director, P N Gadgil Jewellers Pvt.ltd “During this Maha Gold Fest for every purchase of Rs 10000 customers will receive one coupon.

The customer has to tick the right answer inside the coupon and drop it in the box at the same shop. The name, address and phone number of the customer should also be written in the coupon.”

Diwali, the festival of lights, brings joy for everyone, but for the handicapped students from 65 schools in the district, it is extra special.

For the past six months they have worked hard to make decorative items like diyas, lanterns and wall hangings at Bal Kalyan Sanstha (BKS). These articles have been put on display at BKS, Ganeshkhind Road, near Rajbhawan, Aundh, till October 18, from 10 am to 8 pm.

Speaking to The Golden Sparrow on Saturday, Minita Patil, BKS director, said, “For over a decade we have been doing this practicum. BKS takes the entire responsibility of this practicum wherein students from 65 schools come here for making various decorative items.”

“We generally earn a lakh of rupees from this workshop,” she said, adding, “Mentally challenged, physically handicapped, deaf and mute and blind students participate in it. The

Colourful Diwali lanterns on display at Jeevandhara School for Special Children, Somwar Peth

mentally and physically challenged students make the diyas, while deaf and mute pour in the wax in these diyas while the blind strings the beads to decorate it.” Twenty-five types of diyas are on display, she said, with price ranging from Rs 15 to Rs 150. For more details contact 020-25565953, 25665953, 25675953.

Jeevan Jyot Shelter Home, Karve Road

Kamayani, Ghokhale Nagar

TGS NEWS SERVICE @TGSWeekly

About 50 children of at Jeevandhara School for Special Children, at Daruwala Bridge, have made lanterns and decoration. Such activities keep

prestigious awards such as Jamnalal Bajaj Award, Rajvanshi has more than 160 publications and seven patents to his credit. His digital book presents a brief story of renewable energy work carried out since 1981 at NARI which has done pioneering work in agriculture, renewable energy and sustainable development areas specially those affecting rural population.

My friend woke up at 8am on October 6, something he would not do even if the house was on fire. But this day was no ordinary day. This was the ‘Big billion Day’ on Flipkart!

This was the day you could buy a smart phone or a 16GB pen drive for one rupee. After battling for about two hours he finally reached the payment step when the site could not cope with the load and flashed a ‘transaction declined’ message.

His world came crashing down and for the next two days he was in depression.

Now he could not boast of having bought

Letters to the Editor

TGS is interactive Our newspaper is interactive and you are welcome to write in to our various segments: • Letters to the Editor email: editor_tgs@goldensparrow.com; editor_tgs@gmail.com By post: The Editor, The Golden Sparrow on Saturday, 1641 Madhav Heritage, Tilak Road, Pune-411030, (Best letter gets a weekly prize) • Articles for the Relationships page: relationships@goldensparrow.com, relationships.tgs@gmail.com • The Way Forward with Compassion & Hope: wayforward@goldensparrow.com • Want to become an entrepreneur? For mentoring advice, write to our associates: mentoring@pune.tie.org • Get weekly events listed: listings.tgslife@gmail.com

The Orbis School, Mundhwa

Yerawada Central Prison, Airport Road The Yerawada Central Prison has put up exhibition of 500 articles made by inmates from waste paper, teak wood and fabrication material and others. The exhibition was inaugurated on Tuesday at the jail shop on Airport Road. Additional Director General of Police (Prisons) Meeran Chaddha Borwankar and Deputy Inspector General (Prisons) Rajendra Dhamneinitiated this programme for Diwali.

Dhamne told this newspaper that over 500 articles are on display including wooden furniture, textile, leather belts, bags, chappals; lanterns, diyas, tables, chairs, garden equipment etc. “We aim to raise Rs 10 lakh from the sale,” Dhamne added. editor_tgs@goldensparrow.com

The great Flipkart sale: Are we buying unnecessary stuff ?

Reader Milind Somalwar reflects on the side-effects of e-commerce

Dr R A Mashelkar

The special students and inmates of Jeevan Jyot Shelter Home, at Tarte Colony, Karve Road, have made diyas, lanterns and Diwali faral such as chakali, chivada and laddus. The shelter home has organised an exhibition of these products which will continue till stocks last. “Such activities help students to enhance their concentration and it mends behavioural issues of students in a good way,” said Meena Inamdar, president of the home.

Jeevandhara School for Special Children, Somwar Peth

Kamayani Prashikshan and Sanshodhan Society’s speciallyabled children have made various handicrafts. On the occasion of the society’s golden jubilee, an exhibition of Diwali handicrafts (lamps, lanterns, tea, candles etc) will be held between October 18 and 24 from11:30 am to 6 pm, at Kamayani Sabhagriha (Munot Hall). Appasaheb Parchure, who has helped Kamayani arrange the exhibition

Mashelkar to release book on innovation on Oct 20 ‘Romance of Innovation, A human interest story of R & D in rural setting’

by Anil K Rajvanshi, director, Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute (NARI), Phaltan, will be released by eminent scientist R A Mashelkar on October 20, at the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) in the Savitribai Phule Pune University campus.

The event, to be presided over

by C-DAC’s director-general Rajat Moona, will be held at 11am.

An alumnus of IIT (Kanpur) and University of Florida, Rajvanshi has more than 30 years of experience in renewable energy R&D and rural development. A recipient of several

at Acharya Atre Hall, previously, will inaugurate the exhibition.

these children occupied.Karuna Gaikwad said that some banks have bought these lanterns.

The Orbis School, Mundhwa, in association with Hope for Children Foundation (HFCF) and Peepal Foundation, NGO that works for underprivileged children, have organised a Diwali fair in the school.

It is being conceived as an endeavor ‘of the children for the children’ where students join hands with the support of the school staff. Diyas, lanterns, tote bags, chocolates, hand painted bags, small pouches, bread basket, digital print cushions and so on will be put up for sale. The proceeds from the fair will go to the poor children. The fair will open on Saturday, October 18. For details, call: 020 65608888

BY TGS NEWS SERVICE @TGSWeekly On the occasion of Diwali, city organisations have put up exhibitions of handicrafts, decorations, furniture, etc. These articles have been made by specially-abled children; jail inmates of Yerawada Central Prison, and school students. Team TGS covers some organisations.

Bal Kalyan Sanstha, Aundh can spread awareness. The impact of visual communication is always better,” he said. The winning entries will be displayed at an exhibition planned for November and promoted through the social media.

RAMA has also planned workshops and felicitation events. “We have organised creative workshops, including logo designing and campaign designing, for students and professionals,” said Satalkar.

These workshops are designed to suit the market needs. Copywriting and social media workshops give students the necessary exposure when they apply for jobs.

ANIRUDDHA RAJANDEKAR

The Federation of Advertising and Marketing (FAME) and Regional Advertising and Marketing Association (RAMA) are holding a poster-making competition to celebrate the National Advertising Day that falls on October 14.

The entries for the contest that began on October 14 will be accepted till October 31. The topics for the competition are Bharat Swachata Abhiyan and Bharatachi Mangalawar Swari (India’s Mars mission). RAMA president Sanjay Satalkar said that entries are coming from all over the state.

“Poster-mak ing is a creative medium through which we

“Stopping defecation in the open will not only mean better health for people but will also be an important factor in curtailing rapes in rural India.”

—Bindeshwar Pathak, founder, Sulabh International

‘Playing piano soothes my nerves’ P15

ANIRUDDHA RAJANDEKAR

Signposts

PUNE

a smart phone for one rupee on the big day sale. Buying stuff on the e-commerce sites has now become ‘cool’ especially amongst younger population. If you haven’t bought some fancy apparel, that jazzy wrist watch or those hip shoes, “you ain’t there” yet.

The e-commerce companies have created a huge market by playing with the psyche of the consumer, catering to the base human desire to have more. As per a report in Business Standard, the e-commerce sector is pegged at Rs 18,000 crore and is expected to grow up to Rs 50,000 crore by 2016.

Except for a new car, a boat or a house you can buy anything online. Just look at the obscene profit Flipkart made on the “Big billion Day” sale. This is consumerism at its best. People sometimes end up buying stuff that they really do not

need. Whenever new deals or offers are unleashed, people just flock to these sites to buy things that are heavily discounted or dirt cheap if you are lucky. I know colleagues who buy one apparel or a pair of shoes every alternate week.

Buying online is definitely a lucrative option considering the facts that you do not have to travel to the shop, jostle with the crowd, get a chance to evaluate lots of products, pay online and have it delivered to your doorstep in a relatively short time.

Also, you get the required warranty/ guarantee in addition to a fairly robust replacement policy. Hmm... not bad if you exercise adequate precaution while making online payments and manage to avoid the trap of mouth watering deals and the resultant burgeoning credit card bills. After all “Ye dil maange more!”

editor_tgs@goldensparrow.com

Beauty of RTI Act realised by Union Minister It is heartening to note Union Minister for Information & Broadcasting Prakash Javadekar’s honest confession that ordinary people get much more detailed information under RTI Act than Parliamentarians get through Parliamentary questions and otherwise! Th is evidently means that the RTI Act has made ordinary people more informative and powerful than Parliamentarians at least in getting information from public-authorities. Th is is the reason why many Parliamentarians including MPs have used RTI to get information.

The RTI Act has done wonders in exposing scams, scandals and irregularities in the system, and has even become an eye-opener for the government to reform the system. It also remains a bitter fact that

like all other legislations (including like Dowry Act), the RTI Act is also being misused. But it does not mean that all Acts may be put aside to make country lawless.

Reforms in the RTI Act were made by imposing a 500 words limit as some petitioners started sending long multi-page petitions with hundreds of queries.

Necessary reforms must be made in the RTI Act to strengthen it, and to impose checks to avoid misuse. One such reform can be to raise RTI fees to Rs 50 and providing the fi rst 20 copied pages free-of-cost. Th is fee should be uniform for all unlike in some states where RTI fees are as high as Rs 500 by misusing provisions under section 27 and 28 of RTI Act. Subhash Chandra Agrawal

Why can’t nations sharing Peace prize co-exist peacefully?

The conferring of the Nobel Prize on child rights activists Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai, (17) is a welcome development in the backdrop of the 67-year-old enmity between India and Pakistan. Both the winners, the old and the young, are still struggling hard against the suppression of

children’s education and child labour in their respective countries. Kailash Satyarthi followed the tradition of the father of the nation, Mahatma Gandhi and headed various forms of peaceful protests,focusing on the grave exploitation of children for financial gains. The young Malala Yousafzai, in spite of repeated threats to her life

by Taliban, relentlessly championed for the cause of female education. The announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize was made at a time when India, in the irony of fate, was giving a fitting reply, in retaliation at the Line of Control to Pakistan over repeated violation of cease fire agreement and unprovoked shelling. This led to the killing and injuring of many civilians which also forced the displacement of more than 30,000 people. The question that arises is when both countries can very well

share a Peace prize jointly why can’t they maintain peace at the borders?

— Vijay Dattatray Patil

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CITY

THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY OCTOBER 18, 2014

PUNE

Vetal Tekdi, a prominent hill, is the highest point within the city limits with an elevation of 2600 ft.

‘Love jihad’ propaganda is anti-humanity

Green hospitals benefit patients, reduce costs

P 10

On BDB book club’s fourth anniversary, October 18, Amit Chatterjee, managing director, Sartorious India will launch his books “Ascent – A Practicing Manager’s Growth Mantra.’ The event will be held at Sumant Moolgaokar Auditorium, ICC complex, SB Road from 10:30 onwards. The book talks about how managers have to innovate under work pressure and will elaborate on maintaining work and life balance.

Dharia’s book launched posthumously

Crackdown on traffic violators to continue Measures boosted by Pune traffic police is focussing on pedestrian safety

BY GITESH SHELKE @gitesh_shelke

Tethe Kar Maze Julti a book by Dr Mohan Dharia was posthumously launched on his first death anniversary on October 14. The book is an account of Dr Dharia’s conversations with people from social, political, sports and various other domains.

Notable academician Dr Shankar Abhayankar released the book.

Quotes...

Sangeeta Lalwani, MD, Goldmart

“The 25-day festival is a golden opportunity for customers to buy jewellery they like. All jewellery pieces will carry hallmark. The customers will not be charged.”

The rope system was implemented by the traffic police to ensure that motorists do not enchroach on zebra crossings

BY GITESH SHELKE @gitesh_shelke The city traffic police have put in place steps to ensure that pedestrians get time to cross the roads at signals and footpaths are encroachment free.

Over the past two weeks, apart from surveying pedestrian crossing signals, the authorities have implemented zebra crossing and stop line rules, and fined two and four-wheeler users who parked on footpaths.

A two-wheeler showroom on Paud Road was fined `30,000 and a shopkeeper on Ganapati Road in Kasba

Peth was fined `20,000 for parking new vehicles on footpaths. The police levied fines of `1,000 for two-wheelers and `2,000 for four-wheelers.

“Motorists have no right to park their vehicles on footpaths and we are fining those who use the facility that is exclusively meant for pedestrians,” deputy commissioner of police (traffic) Sarang Avad said.

Vehicles are parked on footpaths at Kothrud, Deccan, Law College Road, Aundh, Baner, Shivajinagar areas and in the old parts of the city. Avad said that 13,000 motorists have been fined for encroaching zebra crossings.

“We have implemented a rope system to stop vehicles from crossing the stop line before zebra crossings after the signal turns orange. The system has been put in place at five chowks where the pedestrian movement is heavy,” he said.

Avad said that they are checking timings at different signals so that pedestrians get adequate time to cross the roads.

The Pune Railway Station and state transport (ST) bus stand areas will be monitored to ensure that commuters do not face problem while commuting, he said. gitesh.shelke@goldensparrow.com

Teaching students to transcend

barriers of caste, religion ANIRUDDHA RAJANDEKAR

A number of theoretical and practical solutions including introduction of new subjects such as IT were discussed at an inter-disciplinary seminar in the city recently

Eminent computer scientist Vijay Bhatkar addressing the conference on October 11 at Punyadham Ashram, Kondhwa.

BY YASH DAIV @Yash009 How can society help children transcend the bias of race, religion and caste in school education? This issue was discussed in depth by scholars and experts from various fields at an interactive session on ‘Evolving an Enlightened Framework for Transcending Race, Religion and Caste in School Education’. The seminar was held at Punyadham Ashram, Kondhwa on October 11 on the occasion of Dr Vijay Bhatkar’s 68th birthday.

Suggestions were put forth by the speakers included the need for an enlightened syllabus to introducing subjects like Information Technology. Theoretical and practical solutions that included introducing new subjects, inculcating values in the curriculum, improvising teaching and devising new concepts.

Renowned computer scientist Dr Vijay Bhatkar mentioned a recent trend wherein students had stopped using their surname.

“They have dropped their religion, stating that it is not their identity,” he said.

He also spoke of the position of an individual or a concept with respect to the entire universe. “We exist on earth,

Customs seized gold worth `3 crore since January 14

Smugglers have come up with innovative ways to bring in the metal illegally to the country

ANIRUDDHA RAJANDEKAR

BDB Book Club’s fourth anniv today

P 11

the earth in the solar system, the solar system in the galaxy and galaxy in the universe. Things come in an order and there are larger things created for smaller to exist. Education is one such concept that survives in a universe of thought, religion, unity and it evolves continuously,” said Bhatkar.

Edison Samraj, director, Adventist Media Centre, spoke of an existential crisis faced by a kindergarten student when asked about his religion and given no choice but to accept it. “I think the Indian discovery of the digit zero is not only a mathematical solution but also a cultural conclusion. Zero signifies oneness.

Nobody has understood the power of oneness,” said Samraj.

Continuing on the multicultural strain DT Bhosale, educationist, talked about the diversity in his school despite it not receiving any kind of grant. “A change has to come from people. It cannot be achieved by simply contemplating over. At my school, I have seen blind students enjoy holi, even when they do not know colours, but they understand the joy of holi. They have celebrated Eid, Navaratri, Diwali and Christmas together,” said Bhosale.

“Theology as a subject must be

introduced at the school level. Students must be taught of the common thread that runs through all the religions,” said Dr AL Deshmukh, founder, Himmat Shala.

Samraj talked of introducing a moral science laboratory, a project that he has been working on since 2005. “This laboratory will be a dais where the right material will be injected within students to make them better human beings. It will be platform for exercising values like honesty, loyalty, truthfulness etc,” he said.

“A teacher is the solution to the noneducated state of the masses. He/she can uplift anyone from illiteracy and make him a person who will propagate the same values,” said Prasad Bhosale, educationist.

Sagar Deshpande, journalist, proposed redoing of the textbooks by deleting religious messages or texts that have such interpretive qualities. “We need teachers to bring in this kind of perfection. They should be able to drive a text to its desired destination without letting anyone digress into unnecessary debates, he said. He also stressed that change must be integrated at the family level. Parents must educate their children about religion and its relevance to current issues,” he said. yashdaiv@gmail.com

The Central Customs department has seized gold worth `2,99,81,943 since January 2014. Passengers of Sharjah and Dubai to Pune flights were arrested for smuggling gold into the country.

There are seven flights a week from both these Gulf countries to Pune. No incident has yet been recorded in any Frankfurt to Pune flight.

Deputy commissioner of customs, Pune, KR Ramarao said that the arrested suspects who hail from Mumbai, Kerala and Bhatkal also include women passengers. Gold ornaments, biscuits, bars or wires are illegally shipped into India to avoid duty and taxes.

“We have registered 14 cases, against eight male and six women passengers,” a customs officer said.

The smuggled gold ranges between 110 grams and 2,000 grams. The smallest seized was of 116.64 grams worth `3,55,752, and the biggest haul was of 2,000 grams worth `55,52,000.

According to the Gems and Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC), a Mumbai-based body of the Indian Commerce Ministry, gold smuggling rose by almost 300 per cent between March 2013 and April 2014. An estimated 700kg of gold is smuggled into India every day.

Smugglers use various methods to ship the gold illegally into India. Gold is melted into seed-shaped chips and hidden

An estimated 700kg of gold is smuggled into India every day

in dates from Dubai, or ground into granules and mixed with other metals to look like ore. The metal is also smuggled in as gold belt buckles and torch batteries.

One Ismail Mohammed Faisal (21), who was held at the Pune airport earlier this year, had filled gold beads in dates, detected when his bag was scanned. A woman had replaced electronic chips from a laptop battery charger with gold.

A man had put gold bars in a condom and concealed it in his rectum.

Involvement of a crime syndicate is not ruled out. Customs officers said that not only people from the lower strata of society (economically poor) but even the well-off families are involved in the racket. gitesh.shelke@goldensparrow.com

We support euthanasia Doctors, advocates and activists support active euthanasia

BY YASH DAIV @Yash009 Doctors, advocates and activists associated with the Pune chapter of the Indian Society of Critical Care Medicine (ISCCM), at a press conference last week, expressed support for euthanasia.

They felt that the debate on euthanasia needs to be revived with practical and philosophical arguments to attract more people to the cause.

“There is nothing new about the euthanasia dispute. But bringing together a team of great doctors and activists and by nailing this issue at right Vidya Bal points we will get to a mutual conclusion,” said author and social activist, Vidya Bal, who has worked extensively with euthanasia in theory and practice.

“Death is the only thing we are sure about in our entire life. A person must be given the right to decide to end his/her life if there is severe physical pain involved,” she said.

Besides the moral arguments,

doctors associated with ISCCM raised the issue of expenditure incurred during critical care.

“A brain-dead patient is kept on ventilator for an uncertain period of time. Recovery chances borders from none to slight. If the patient’s f a m i l y understands t h e sit uation, we are able to withdraw the machine suppor t,” said Dr Sh i r ish Dr Shirish Prayag P r a y a g managing director, ISCCM. However, this has been contested. Its legal status, although, is cleared, is questioned by the people. “It becomes tough for the doctors to break the news of the patient’s comatose state.

The family cannot decide whether or not to pull the plug on the patient resulting into difficult circumstances,” said Dr Prayag.

Talking on a similar strain, Adv Asim Sarode said that the country has to an extent rejected the decision of passive euthanasia.

The legal decision on active euthanasia is yet to be initiated formally. To accelerate the process

Sarode along with other advocates h a v e proposed the concept of living will.

“By devising such a will, the patient will be able Adv Asim Sarode to decline the consent over his/her treatment to which the doctor will have to oblige,” said Sarode.

Earlier, euthanasia was associated with the article 21 ‘the right to life’, prescribed under fundamental rights of the Indian constitution. It had acquired a negative connotation with its several interpretations pertaining to suicides and euthanasia, before it was cleared by the Supreme Court. Similarly, there has been a plea for the inclusion of right to die as a part of the fundamental rights. “Such a right should be seen as a space for expression.

Countries like Netherlands and Belgium have legalised a similar law. USA has given autonomy to its states to decide the legality of this law. We could incorporate such a change,” said Sarode. yashdaiv@gmail.com

Understanding the types of euthanasia and its legal status in India WHAT IS EUTHANASIA? Euthanasia refers to the practice of intentionally ending a life in order to relieve pain and suffering. It is classified into three types: voluntary (active euthanasia), non-voluntary and involuntary (the latter two categories are clubbed as passive euthanasia). The non-voluntary and involuntary (withdrawing ventilator support of a brain dead patient) is legal in India. On March 7, 2011 the Supreme Court legalised passive euthanasia CITY PEOPLE SUPPORT THE CAUSE • Dr Shirsh Prayag, managing director, Prayag Hospital, has been active with the

•

•

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cause since eight years. He is known for having treated playwright Vijay Tendulkar for neuromuscular diseases, Tendulkar had asked him for a ‘peaceful death’ Dr Mangala Athlekar, a writer has been supporting this cause through her works like Jagaychihi Sakti Ahe (literally translated as forced to live) Asim Sarode, advocate and human rights activist, Sahyog Trust, has been active in this field since 2009 Kiran Yadnyopavit has supported the cause by writing the script for first ever feature film on euthanasia ‘Sukhant’

MAHA POLLS 2014

SAARC observers for Maharashtra polls Observers from six SAARC countries witnessned the Maharashtra elections on Wednesday, as part of their efforts to study the election process in India. At least 15 delegates from Afghanistan, Bhutan, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka were in in Maharashtra on Wednesday and Sunday when the votes will be counted.

The only South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation country not sending any observer is Bangladesh.

“They will also participate in a daylong experience sharing workshop in Delhi on October 20,” an official in the Election Commission told IANS. The observers will visit counting stations in Pune and Mumbai.

Bollywood stars exercise franchise

OCTOBER 18, 2014

PUNE

Maha voter is smartest, say exit polls

ANIRUDDHA RAJANDEKAR

Signposts

THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY

There was a continuous flow of voters at different polling stations on Wednesday. A large number of voters suddenly turned up for voting at Gokhalenagar school late in the afternoon resulting in the ‘last minute rush’

Nearly 64 per cent vote in state After remaining sluggish for the most part of the day, voting gathered pace in Maharashtra in the afternoon, with the polling percentage crossing 63.4 per cent by 6 pm. Voters in Mumbai came out to exercise their right in the afternoon taking the polling percentage in the capital to 48 per cent till 5pm, according to reports.

ANIRUDDHA RAJANDEKAR

The Election Commission of India authorities covered the portrait of Maratha warrior king Chhatrapati Shivaji on the polling day at a government school in Janata Vasahat

Will Chanakya’s predictions prove right this time?

The voter’s message to political parties is focus on doing your job - which is to create growth, jobs and security

BY R JAGANNATHAN Whichever way you look at it, you have to doff your Gandhi cap to the canniest voter of them all: the humble Maharashtrian.

For, if the exit pollsters haven’t goofed up, the results of the assembly elections - due this Sunday - will be the most extraordinary of them all.

Consider what the voter was presented with at the start of the election process: two acrimonious divorces and a bewildering array of singletons with no particular claim to attractiveness. She could have chosen NOTA in sheer frustration, but she turned out to be smarter: she celebrated one divorce, dissed the other and gave scant attention to the mere spoilers.

Thus we have two divorces and three funerals - the last being that of Congress, NCP and the MNS. First, look at the Shiv SenaBJP last-minute divorce just before a potential honeymoon with the voter.

Despite name-calling and bad blood the family court saw that this was just one of those unexpected things and told them, don’t be silly. The voter, far from rejecting one for the other or even both, gave her support to both of them. This is the only reading possible when both the BJP and Sena gained vote share even though the vagaries of vote-to-seat conversion favours the BJP for now. The voter effectively celebrated this divorce.

She gave the same verdict separately what she would have given them had they been together - around 200-odd seats combined.

Second, see the mauling dished out to the Congress and NCP, another unhappy marriage that ended in a onesitting triple talaaq. Once again, the voter saw this divorce differently, as one driven purely by opportunism and the lust for power. She turfed both of them out with a curse: may you rot separately in hell. They are now No 3 and No 4,

and will probably sink further.

Third, look at how the Maharashtrian voter treated the voyeurs in the game. The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, despite its loud Marathi manoos rhetoric, has been left exactly where it was before - but defanged and without the ability to distort the voter’s message. The voter shrewdly chose the saner version of Maharashtrian pride - the Sena - and refused to split this vote.

In the process, see the ultimate message coming from the voter.

1 The voter wanted nothing to do with the Congress-NCP (together or separate) after 15 years of misrule, facilitated largely by Raj Thackeray’s vote division play. This time she said nothing doing. These guys should go.

2 The electorate did not want to choose between BJP and Sena - and thus voted to strengthen both - one, possibly to lead the government and the other to head the opposition.

3 The voter has not abandoned regional issues, but does not set great store by divisive manoos rhetoric. She has bought the Narendra Modi idea that you can be a proud Maharashtrian and a proud Indian without being xenophobic. Both the Senas had brought in the anti-Gujarati theme into play, but the voter refused to cock an attentive ear to this rhetoric.

She will not be distracted by nonissues.

Maharashtra may be about to send a powerful and positive message with this vote to all parties: don’t mess with the voter by throwing red herrings across her path. Focus on doing your job - which is to create growth, jobs and security. The rest is crap.

Maybe, Modi gets this better than the rest. This, more than his ability to connect with speeches, is what is working for him.

(By special arrangement with Firstpost.com)

Swept by the Modi wave?

Raj Thackeray, who was once charismatic, is on the verge of losing his political bearings. Exit polls suggest a poor performance by the MNS in the state assembly polls

BY ASHOK BHAT @ashok_bhat Such has been the impact of the Modi wave in the Maharashtra polls that the voters seem to have ignored the charisma of Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) leader Raj Thackeray, and instead, voted for the promise of development coupled with a strong track record.

With all political parties contesting on their own, the 2014 state Assembly polls were a test of Thackeray’s appeal to voters. Claiming to be the real political heir of the Sena founder Bal Thackeray, Raj had launched the MNS at the Shivaji Park grounds in 2006 and had said in his speech that his goal was to come to power in the 2014 elections.

The MNS, in its brief history, has contested the civic polls in 2007 and 2012, the general elections in 2009 and 2014, and the assembly elections in

2009 and 2014. Soon after the party’s launch, the MNS performed well in the Mumbai, Pune and some other civic polls in the state.

In the 2009 polls, the MNS targeted the Shiv Sena and secured votes, a large share of the winning 13 seats in the state assembly and managed to play spoiler in a number of seats contested by the Sena. In 2012, the MNS got their fi rst mayor in the Nashik Municipal Corporation and secured second position in the Pune Municipal Corporation with 29 seats. The party also played the role of kingmaker in the Kalyan-Dombivali Municipal Corporation.

The MNS was thus on a high during the run-up to the 2014 Lok Sabha polls but suffered a serious setback in the Lok Sabha polls, when MNS candidates were unable to repeat the performance of the last general elections. All MNS candidates lost their deposits.

In the current polls, Thackeray had nominated as many as 252 candidates all over the state. Exit polls show that their performance will be poorer as compared to 2009. ashok.bhat21@gmail.com

VIDHAN SABHA

59.60%

ELECTION POLL

2009

LOK SABHA

65%

60.36%

2014

2014

ABP Nelson

Axis

Times Now

News X

India News

India TV

News Nation

News 24 Chanakya

BJP

144

103

129

105

103

124-134

142-148

151

SHIVSENA

77

88

56

45

88

51-61

58-62

71

NCP

29

35

36

37

35

31-41

30-33

28

CONGRESS

30

45

43

52

45

38-48

32-37

27

MNS

3

3

12

21

3

9-15

4-8

11

OTHERS

5

14

12

18

14

9-15

60-12

---

TGS NEWS SERVICE @TGSWeekly Six months ago, the only exit poll that correctly proved a majority for the Narendra Modi-led BJP was the prominent public opinion polling company, Today’s Chanakya.

This time round, the News 24 – Chanakya exit poll has predicted a full majority to the BJP at 151 seats, followed by the Shiv Sena. All other exit polls have predicted the same order although less than numbers predicted by Chanakya. Will Chanakya’s predictions for the Maharashtra polls prove correct?

The exit polls suggest that voters continued to be under the spell of Narendra Modi. The BJP made a spirited attempt to wrest control in Maharashtra from the Congress-NCP. Thus, Modi himself addressed 26 rallies

Exit polls suggest that voters continued to be under the spell of Modi in the state while Union minister Nitin Gadakari held as many as 104 rallies.

Party president Devendra Fadnavis also toured extensively and addressed close to 65 rallies. Uddhav Thackeray was the only star campaigner for the Shiv Sena and he addressed 50 rallies in the state.

In the Congress, it was just Prithviraj Chavan who addressed as many rallies.

For the NCP, it was Ajit Pawar who

was in the forefront with his uncle and NCP president Sharad Pawar playing a supporting role.

In sharp contrast, the BJP had a wide range of leaders such as Modi, Nitin Gadkari, Amit Shah, Prakash Javadekar, Piyush Goyal and a number of state leaders to campaign for them.

During the Lok Sabha polls, the Chanakya exit poll survey predicted that the BJP would cross the magic figure of 272, thus, attracting attention to their survey. This time too, it is Chanakya alone which has predicted 151 seats for the BJP and 71 for the Sena.

Chanakya has predicted 11 seats for the MNS while other surveys have predicted seats ranging from 3 to 21. The picture will become clear in an instant on the day of results on October 19. editor_tgs@goldensparrow.com

REWARDING YOUNG VOTERS ANIRUDDHA RAJANDEKAR

‘Go vote’ and ‘Get inked’ is the mantra that Bollywood stars like Salman Khan and Abhishek Bachchan spread among their fans via Twitter on Wednesday, the day of the assembly elections in Maharashtra.

The stars themselves cast their vote and posted selfies of their inked fingers. Actors like Jaya Bachchan, Hema Malini, Rekha and Gulshan Grover also cast their votes. Here’s what the stars tweeted on election day: Salman Khan: Go Vote. Abhishek Bachchan: Guys…#GoVote!

Go for it! #GoVote #GetInked. Madhur Bhandarkar: Voted. Plz vote. Every vote counts!!!

Youngsters enjoying Misal-pav at a discounted rate after voting. A hotelier at Mayur Colony in Kothrud had offered the discount to voters between 18 and 25 years of age as an encouragement. About 500 first and second time voters, availed the offer.

MAHA POLLS 2014

THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY OCTOBER 18, 2014

PUNE

UDDHAV THACKERAY NITIN GADKARI Following the demise of Gopinath Munde, Nitin Gadkari is BJP’s senior-most, experienced leader from Maharashtra, which propels his name right to the top for the post of CM. He is certainly a candidate fit for the post and could be considered seriously at some point. He is credited with executing the Pune-Mumbai Expressway and 55 flyovers in Mumbai when he was minister of PWD in the Shiv Sena – BJP government. Then he gave the detailed project report of connecting Del h i-Mumba i-Ba nga loreChennai- Kolkatta as ‘Golden quadrilateral’ to the then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

He brings the new concept of “If you want development you have to pay”and it is applied to nationwide projects.

He started his career from winning elections of Nagpur University Council for ABVP. From ABVP he switched to BJP and in 1990 the party nominated him for graduate constituency of Nagpur and he entered politics. He retained his seat thrice in 1996, 2002 and 2008. While working as member of Legislative Council (MLC), he planted BJP in all districts of Vidarbha by uprooting the Congress.

He also held the responsibility of leader of opposition as MLC. Then he was BJP state president and became the national president of the party. In his first attempt to face an election, Gadkari got a high-margin victory from the Nagpur Lok Sabha seat. In the Modi government, he is the minister of surface transport and rural development.

In the state BJP, he made his own position and his name was jointly taken with Munde. While he was the president of state unit president he cornered Munde within the party. He entered national politics before Munde as party’s national president.

Strengths: Qualified and successful as minister in state, cordial relationship with RSS leaders, own sugar factory, cooperative institutes under the Purti Group Weakness: Loose talk got him in trouble many times Controversies: The Purti controversy, about his statement about relations with Sharad Pawar Likelihood of becoming CM: If the BJP high command decides

CM at

44? ?

EKNATH KHADSE Another senior leader of the party, Eknath Khadse (62) would have been a top choice.

However, he has serious health issues, does not mix easily with others and he is also linked to a bank scam, all of which go against his chances of making it to the top.

His political journey began from being a gram panchayat member from Jalgaon district in north Maharashtra.

The commerce graduate is fondly called ‘Nathbhau’. He was elected a member of Muktainagar panchayat in 1982 after becoming a member of Kothali gram panchayat. He was the sarpanch of his hometown Kothali Nathabhau for three years and contested his fi rst assembly election from Muktainagar in 1990.

He handled diverse portfolios like higher and technical education,

VINOD TAWDE He is the last choice of the party for this top post.

An active member of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) since college days, Vinod Tawde, 51, is a native of Kunkwan, Devgad (Sindhudurg district). Born and brought up in Lalbaug area of Mumbai, Vinod completed his engineering degree and later became a general secretary of ABVP. Under late Pramod Mahajan’s patronage, he became the youngest president of Mumbai BJP. An able

finance and irrigation in the Sena-BJP government. A popular farmer leader, Khadse also enjoys the support of co-operative sugar factories, spinning mills, district banks, educational and other institutions.

He was instrumental in taking the party to grassroots level in all the districts of north Maharashtra. As a leader of opposition in the Assembly since 2009, he could not make an impact like Munde.

His political achievement was wresting the Nandurbar tribal seat from Congress for the fi rst time in 1951. Known to be the main factor for breaking the 25-year-old alliance with Shiv Sena, Uddhav Thackeray concluded his campaign rally in Muktainagar criticising Khadse by name.

Strengths: Senior and experienced leader in the party. A grassroots OBC leader, he is a favourite among the rural voters.

Weakness: Blamed for breaking alliance with Shiv Sena. He has been suffering from health issues

orator, Tawde was called a ‘neighbour of Balasaheb Thackeray’ as he was residing near to the latter’s house during the BJP-Sena alliance days.

Despite being an efficient organiser, he never contested any election. A patron of educational institutions at his Vaibhavwadi tehsil, he was nominated by the party as a member of legislative council (MLC). Since December 2011, Tawde is the leader of opposition of MLC. Strengths: Leader of the opposition in council for three years and the only leader of this stature from Maratha community Weakness: Generally associated with the urban voters, he is out of touch with rural Maharashtra. As a leader of the opposition in the Council for three years, he failed to impress with his organisational skills

PANKAJA GOPINATH MUNDE A remote possibility for this promising daughter of the late BJP leader Gopinath Munde.

She stands a chance only if there is a lack of consensus in the BJP’s parliamentary board on the choice of a candidate for the CMship.

Senior BJP leader’s statement at Pankaja Gopinath Munde’s

With exit polls indicating an impressive to brilliant performance by the BJP in the Maharashtra Assembly polls, BJP’s 44-year-old state president Devendra Gangadhar Fadnavis has emerged as the front-runner for the chief ministership in the state. If that happens, he would be the second-youngest chief minister in the state’s history, after Sharad Pawar who became CM at 38. What about the other hopefuls in the state?

Ashok Bhat reports

DEVENDRA FADNAVIS Soon after Narendra Modi singlehandedly led the party to victory in the 16th Lok Sabha elections in May, the slogan that emanated from the BJP camp was: “Dilli Narendra, Maharashtra Devendra”.

Th is clearly captured the BJP’s plans for Maharashtra.

A law graduate and post-graduate in business management, 44-yearold Devendra Gangadhar Fadnavis also has a diploma in methods and techniques of project management from DES Berlin. Politics is in his blood as his father was a member of the state legislative council.

Devendra began his political career from the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha and rose from civic ward level to the national level.

He was fi rst elected to the Nagpur Municipal Corporation in 1992 and from there on, never looked back.

He became the youngest mayor of Nagpur at the age of 26 years in 1997.

He is a member of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly since 1999.

Fadnavis is respected in the BJP for being well-informed. His speeches and interventions in the state assembly are well-studied and based on facts. He is active socially and academically and is invited to international seminars.

Within a month of Modi’s elevation in the BJP, Fadnavis was nominated as president of Maharashtra BJP unit.

The boyish-looking Fadnavis is known

‘Sangharsh Yatra’ that ‘Pankaja Munde will be the CM of Maharashtra’ has put the daughter of Gopinath Munde as CM contender. However, the 35-year-old BJP Yuva Morcha state president and member of Maharashtra Legislative Assembly from Parali in Beed district said,

as a very aggressive leader in the state next to the late Gopinath Munde. He is in sync with Modi’s agenda for d e v e lopme nt .

Firstpost adds: Prime minister Narendra Modi has reportedly informed party chief Amit Shah that he wants Fadnavis to be the next CM of the state if BJP wins its desired majority.

Th is report in dna newspaper quotes a party source as saying: “Earlier, many leaders, including Vinod Tawde and Eknath Khadse, were vying to be projected as the face for the coveted post. However, Modiji is very clear that he wants to give an opportunity to a young and studious face and Fadnavis fits in that role.” Considered to be a fierce critic of the Congress-NCP government that ruled the state for three consecutive terms, Fadnavis, who was made state party chief in April last year, is also close to the RSS, which is another plus in his favour.

“I would like to lead the state but not this time, I am not in the race for CM.” Gopinath Munde, who was the deputy chief minister in the only Sena-BJP government which has ruled Maharashtra, died in an accident in Delhi on June 5, 2014, within 10 days of taking oath as Union

The picture has changed completely for Uddhav Thackeray after the elections with exit polls suggesting that the BJP is the party with the largest number of seats. Anticipating a better performance than the BJP in the polls, he had even announced his willingness to become the chief minister. That is not a possibility now.

The 54-year-old is the son of Sena supremo late Balasaheb Thackeray. A wildlife photographer, he and his cousin Raj Thackeray were close to Balasaheb, before Balasaheb asked Uddhav to enter politics. When the time came to choose a leader who will represent the party after Balasaheb, Uddhav was instrumental in expelling Raj from Sena. He slowly replaced senior and old leaders with young politicians and became the leader of the party after Balasaheb’s demise. Facing the first state polls without Balasaheb, Uddhav had addressed over 50 rallies in the state. Anticipating a break-up with the BJP, he had already prepared his team to face the assembly polls solo and gave a target of 150 seats. His vision

document that lacked substance was exposed in a media interview.

He kept his campaign tones against BJP on historical figures like Afzal Khan and Adil Shah.

After the alliance was officially broken, in replying to Raj Thackeray’s allegation about Union minister Anant Gite, Uddhav declared that Sena will quit the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), but till today neither Gite has resigned nor Sena has left NDA. Strengths: Soft spoken, his style of functioning is in contrast to Balasaheb’s.

A learned politician, he favours the use of technology for rural sector Weakness: Lack of experience of politics and administration. Cannot stick to his decisions

AJIT PAWAR Man in a hurry to become the chief minister of Maharashtra, Ajit Pawar’s dreams could well bite the dust. He had emerged as the most assertive leader of the NCP, not hesitating to even confront his uncle, Sharad Pawar, at times. The poor performance of the NCP as per the exit polls suggest that Ajit Pawar could suffer a major political setback.

Fondly called ‘dada’ among supporters and political rivals alike, Ajit Pawar runs the party. The 55-year-old leader started his political career as a member of Parliament (MP) from his home constituency Baramati in 1991.

He could not adjust to the political life in Delhi at a time when his uncle’s political life was in full flow. Ajit later became a MLA and minister in Maharashtra for the fi rst time. He held various portfolios, including water resources, energy, finance and planning in the cabinet, when the NCP-Congress alliance was ruling the state. After the entry of Prithviraj Chavan in state politics, Ajit was elected leader of NCP in the assembly and became the deputy chief minister.

A straightforward politician, Ajit is also famous for his unparliamentary comments. He has been eyeing the chief minister’s post for long. Facing corruption charges and known to be rash to party members, his public image has taken a beating besides denting the popularity of his uncle.

PRITHVIRAJ CHAVAN Being a staunch loyalist of The Family, the only role left for him now is to help build the Congress in Maharashtra. However, he has never been seen working as a member of the opposition party.

The 68-year-old leader is active in the national politics since 1991, having served on various panels of Parliament, state minister of Prime Minister Office (PMO) and the chief minister of Maharashtra from 2010. He is known as a technocrat with a clean, non-controversial image and is a low-profi le leader. Hailing from Karad in Satara district, his father was a Union minister in the cabinet of late Indira Gandhi. His mother late Premilakaki was the

rural development minister.

Soon after, Pankaja was made a member of the core group of the state BJP, in place of her father.She announced the ‘Sangharsh yatra’ in 80 assembly constituencies and covered it in 15 days giving a strong ground for the party in the rural areas. Preferring to

Strengths: Popular within the party and the nephew of Sharad Pawar. He enjoys the support of young MLAs and is a good administrator.

Weakness: Faces corruption charges, known for rash behaviour with senior leaders, vindictive nature, and using abusive language

president of state Congress unit.

He completed his higher education from University of California, Berkeley US. As the CM, he dissolved the director board of state co-operative bank for corruption charges and gave a blow to Sharad Pawar.

He also announced the a white paper on publication of irrigation. His statement ‘I signed only legal fi les’ silenced his detractors within his party and rivals.

Strengths: Highly qualified, he is a seasoned politician, non-corrupt, transparent, and close to the Gandhi family.

Weakness: Lacks support within the party and is not a mass leader

keep a low profi le, she obeys the responsibility given to her by the seniors. The MBA graduate, who became MLA for the fi rst time in 2009, is considered the ‘Bahujan’ face of BJP in the state. She is a promising politician to take the place of her late father as a mass OBC leader.

Strengths: Learned the ropes of politics under her father and seasoned politician Gopinath Munde.

Having a MBA degree, she keeps a low profile and obeys her seniors.

Has direct access to Narendra Modi and Amit Shah Weakness: Family members belong to different parties

THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY OCTOBER 18, 2014

Is e-reading to your toddler story time or just screen time?

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Yoga is more than just ‘asanas’ P 12

Spam generates 33bn KWt-hours of energy every year, enough to power 2.4 million homes, producing 17 million tons of CO2.

— www.powersolution.com

‘Pictures have a personality of their own’

TECH GURU

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

says Pune-based photo-blogger, Soham Sabnis who speaks about his interest in photography, blogging and how the combination of the two have helped him connect with people at large ANIRUDDHA RAJANDEKAR

BY ISHANI BOSE @ishani_bose

For Pune-based photo blogger, Soham Sabnis, photography is an art of observation and about finding something interesting in an ordinary place. Perhaps that is why, it isn’t surprising to find simple yet beautiful pictures about ordinary, everyday objects and events Pictures Personified.

“Pictures have a personality of their own and every picture tells a story. These pictures could be anything----a butterfly, postman, computer bhangarwala, birds, etc but you’ll notice that each photo will have a story to narrate. My blog essentially comprises these photos and a little write-up about them. These pictures are nothing extraordinary but they surely bring a smile on your face,” Soham said.

Head of Sales and Strategy at Digiwale, a digital marketing agency, Soham has also been freelancing as a food/candid wedding/ product photographer. “I began photography around 2003-2004 and have no formal training in it. I love experimenting and have taught myself the techniques of photography,” he said.

Soham started blogging in 2006, through his earlier blog, Thursday Tagline. “Every Thursday,I would post a picture and ask people to comment on it in terms of what they feel about the particular picture. Every person perceives a given picture in his/her own way and this varied perception gave birth to different kinds of taglines. I continued this practice religiously for 54 weeks but now the blog is somewhat dormant,” he said, adding that he would give out certificates to those whose tags/captions he felt were engaging.

In his recent blog, Pictures Personified, Soham has given details of obscure places or things that people don’t know much about.

One such blog post is about Kale pens, one of the oldest pen manufactures from Pune. “I used Kale pens in school and had heard several stories about them from my grandfather. One day, I was on Shivaji Road, Budhwar Peth for some work when I came across the pen shop. It was quite a neglected shop and not many people knew about it. So just out of goodwill I did a blogpost about them,” he said.

Some interesting blog posts 1. Auroville a village for souls 2. Bioscope a lost memory 3. Spread the wings 4. They need you this summer 5. Boy you need to focus 6. Computer Bhangarwala 7 World Post Day

What followed that post, surprised Soham. “A guy from Chennai, who collects fountain pens read the post and got in touch with me.

He wanted the pens, so I bought two pens and sent them across to him.

That blog post was a testimony to the fact that blogs are a perfect way of connecting with people all over the world. It also made me realise that I was free to express myself and touch people’s lives,” he said. ishani.bose@goldensparrow.com

Facebook teeming with lonely hearts, finds study The feeling of loneliness is bringing more people in search of friends to Facebook, in stark contrast to the view that the social networking site makes people feel isolated, revealed a research.

According to researchers, Facebook does not cause loneliness and people use the social network in an effort to feel more connected.

“Compared to non-lonely people, lonely

people spend more time on Facebook.

Lonely individuals who are shy or have low social support may turn to Facebook to compensate for their lack of social skills and/ or social networks in face-to-face settings,” explained Hayeon Song, assistant professor of communication at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee in the US. To reach the conclusion, the team analysed a collection of studies to find

that a connection between Facebook and loneliness exists.

They found that the lonelier someone is, the longer he or she spends time on Facebook.

“The interesting point of this study is that it both supports and corrects the original internet study, which is one of the most influential studies in internet research and was produced

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by researchers at the Carnegie Mellon University,” stressed Song.

“To the question of whether or not the internet increases psychological dysfunctions such as loneliness, the internet study suggested that internet use has detrimental effects. Our study supports this in that internet use is associated with loneliness,” Song maintained.

-IANS

Get rid of clutter in your email Modern-day communication is essentially around electronic mail and Instant Messaging. With the advent of smartphones, bets were laid on the demise of the email. Didnt happen.

Today, I’ll focus on one of the biggest pains of emails – clutter, and talk of the many ways of getting rid of it. Yup, like you, there are thousands who suffer from this malaise – email disorder. In fact, email clutter can easily be rated as one of the ‘Top 3’ forms of digital clutter. Here’s why: Believe it or not, at end of 2013, there were 4 billion email accounts in the world, expected to climb to about 5 billion by 2017. So you see, it`s not dying but flourishing instead.

I would think the biggest adversary in managing the Inbox is the “unlimited” space that most email clients such as Gmail offer. Remember those days when an individual email account came with limited space? Because of competition, some bright spark decided to get rid of this entry barrier and offer more storage space. Earlier, we would diligently open our emails, save/delete them, but today, most of us don`t bother to clear our Inboxes.

The second-most important reason behind email clutter is its use for soliciting online customers, and spam.

Simple ways to manage your Inbox: Subscribe with care: These days, almost anything you do online comes with this rider – subscribe to our newsletter. Think twice before you tick on that check box.

Unsubscribe: This is the biggest weapon in your war against clutter. Many of you are not even aware that you can unsubscribe from promotional emails, etc. Open a notification and find the tab that says, “Unsubscribe.”

Turn off notifications: Yet another way to remove clutter is to turn off notifications from your social networks like Facebook. Do you really want to be altered every time someone likes your status message?

Mark as spam: Annoying emails you never wanted in the first place can be marked as “Spam”. The next time a similar email lands in your Inbox, it goes straight into this folder.

Those were some short-term measures but the best way is to be better organised. There are two ways of doing this – manual and automated.

Manual Create labels. Eg: If you are a teacher and expect a flurry of emails from students, create a label that says something like, “English course”, and start re-routing all such emails to that folder. Gmail even allows you to automate this process.

Create “must do” labels like “Read” and“Action Required”. If needed, create sub labels.

Use filters. These are pre-set signals for your email client to understand the nature of the incoming emails to segregate them. So, if you have created a label that says “Action Required”, you can apply that filter to all emails coming in from Tech Guru. Every time you get an email from us, it will be re-routed/saved in your “Action Required” folder automatically.

Archive. Create a folder called Archive and store your important emails here.

“Inclusion starts from within” Malvika Iyer speakes of how she coped with life after the near fatal accident that left her as a bilateral amputee 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 RITU GOYAL HARISH @ritugh “I don’t have legs My mind says don’t weep, don’t weep For I need not bow even in front of a King” - Courage, by Mustafa, a boy with no legs (as related by Malvika during her talk) “Don’t use a spent hand grenade you happen to find outside your house as a makeshift hammer” advises Malvika Iyer, recalling that day in Bikaner, Rajasthan.

“It was a near fatal accident. I lost both my hands and severely damaged both my legs.”

Her left leg was eventually amputated due to the severity of the injuries. Eighteen months of hospitalisation and innumerable surgeries later Iyer started walking with the help of crutches. Eventually she also got a pair of prosthetic hands.

Needless to say the young girl was “Physically and emotionally traumatised.”

She was worried about all the things she wouldn’t be able to do for the rest of her life.

Iyer was 14 years old when a freak

bomb blast tore her limbs apart. A bilateral amputee, today Iyer is a junior research fellow at Madras School of Social Work, a global shaper (an initiative of the World Economic Forum) and a motivational speaker.

In a TEDx Talk conducted in Chennai in 2013, she spoke of how “inclusion starts from within”.

Since that day way back in 2002, Iyer says she has grown wiser “and inclusion is a big part of it. And when I say inclusion, it includes being okay with all kinds of hand related humour.”

She recalls an incident when she approached a doctor to improve the aesthetic appearance of her prosthetic leg when the doctor remarked that the person who wore the prosthetic would never walk. “He was obviously unaware that I had walked on my own to his clinic” she says.

Many more such incidents motivated her to take things in her own hands.

“Actually every time I say this my mother politely points out that I don’t have hands” says this gritty girl.

After the accident Iyer gave her Xth Board exams from Chennai without losing a year and was amongst the state toppers.

“There was no looking back after that as I realised that there’s a world of possibilities for me out there.”

“We all need someone who can help us see beyond the limits and boundaries we set for ourselves. In my case it was my mother” she says.

Joining a regular school after Xth was her first step towards inclusion. Iyer took up social work as her career and realised the challenges faced by differently-abled people in seeking quality education, employment opportunities, transportation, assistive devices and public amenities. Her most important learning was about other people’s attitudes about their impairments.

Societal attitudes impact the self-image of these people. Iyer talks about how the encouragement of the people around her helped her grow.

You can view her talk here: https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=9el_A5O9ZQI ritugoyalharish@gmail.com

Automated If manual labour puts you off, there are apps/software that will do it for you. These are dubbed email management apps. There are loads available, free and paid, for Android and iOS and even web-based. These can be used for personal emails or for handling organisational emails including for Customer Relationship Management (CRM).

Zoho Mail, tailored for business needs, and offered in India by Dhruvsoft (http://bit.ly/1v1xw93).MailBox is another popular iOS app (http://bit.ly/1czgLYP) which can be used by Gmail users to automate their Inboxes.

Then there are Android apps like K-9 Mail(http://bit. ly/1z2Z9CC) that can sync with multiple email accounts to help you manage them from a common dashboard.

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

THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY OCTOBER 18, 2014

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“Every product we design is like a baby. We nurture it, design it and spend months, even years, refining it. We need people who believe that we can become the next big thing and work towards making it happen.”

—Sparsh Gupta, partner and CTO, Wingify

“My biggest fear is not being able to cook and although the doctors had declared an end to my career, I was determined to continue serving delicacies. Theobroma was conceived in that interim period.”

—Kainaz Messman, owner of Theobroma

The 67th MCCIA Innovation and Entrepreneurship Awards 2014 were presented on Thursday to encourage innovation among small scale industries in the state .TGS presents a profile of the awardees

BY ISHANI BOSE @ishani_bose The five essential entrepreneurial skills necessary to run any successful business are concentration, discrimination, organisation, communication and innovation, said American businessman and ITT Corporation chairman, Harold S Geneen.

Innovation is the starting point, or the turning point- for any business.

It is therefore not surprising at all that

the Mahratta Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Agriculture (MCCIA) has been recognising the efforts of small and medium scale entrepreneurs from Maharashtra by giving out the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Awards since 1947. The GS Parkhe Industrial Merit Award is given to SSIs from Maharashtra in recognition of a manufacturing activity or for creating innovative products/designs/services.

The other awards include the Harimailini Joshi Award for New Products and

Design, Ramabai Joshi Award for Women Entrepreneurs and Dr RJ Rathi Award for Green Initiatives in Industries in Maharashtra over the years. An addition this year is the BG Deshmukh IAS award for companies that have shown excellence in the Corporate Social Responsibility programme.

Over the last 66 years, more than 430 entrepreneurs have received these awards and this year 11 companies have been awarded. No winners were announced in the GS Parkhe Industrial Merit Award category as none of the applicants presented an innovation product/design/process/service, which has been in the market for more than three years. ishani.bose@goldensparrow.com

MCCIA president Satish Magar (centre) with the winners of the 67th MCCIA Innovation and Entrepreneurship Awards 2014 on Thursday at Tilak Smarak Mandir

DR RJ RATHI AWARD FOR GREEN INITIATIVES IN INDUSTRIES IN MAHARASHTRA Gabriel India Ltd

Mahendra Kumar Singh

A pioneer of Ride Control products in India, Gabriel India, established in 1961, is the flagship company of Anand and a prominent name in the Indian auto component industry. Established in 1961, the company provides the widest range of ride control products in the country such as shock absorbers, struts and front forks, across every automotive segment with over 300 product models on offer.

“We work on our vision which is to leave our earth for a better tomorrow. How we really do it is basically in four areas: 1) Energy saving, reduction in carbon footprint, introducing green technology and reducing waste. In the processes we have included the zero discharge, the first of its kind, state of art technology. We create a lot of awareness in the team so that they understand the importance of green initiatives through feedback, training and competitions,” said Mahendra Kumar Singh, vice president and plant head.

HARIMALINI JOSHI AWARD FOR NEW PRODUCTS AND DESIGN Sky Elevators’ Multi-layer Parking System This Pune-based company has developed the mechanised two-wheeler multilayer parking system stacker with a sliding platform. The company’s Vice President, MM Deshpande said, “We were working on this product for twothree years and came up with different models. We undertook a number of modifications and upgraded it to the mechanised two wheeler parking system, with sliding platform, which won the award.” This stacker can help park twice the number of vehicles in the same amount of space.

Harison’s Corporation’s R-Lahi Rajgira Lahi machine

Ravindra H Gadre

A proprietary concern started by Ravindra H Gadre in 1982, Harison’s Corporation has been manufacturing non-conventional products. These include, Algad, a flexible vane pump for handling shear sensitive liquids, Tap-Easy, an articulated arm tapping machine and Ravi Drier, a thermal drier for drying agro products. This year, the company won the Harmalini Joshi Award for its R-Lahi Rajgira Lahi machine. About 25 years ago the company received the same prize for manufacturing motorised drum pumps for decanting liquids. Gadre explained that Rajgira (amaranth grain) needs to be popped for which no machine has been developed in the country. “The entire production is done manually and the operator has to sit near the fire for 10-12 hours/day,” said Gadre.

This often leads to health complications due to the excess heat. R-Lahi is not only a blessing to businessmen but also to the lahi making artisan. “In an hour 10-11 kilo of lahi is manufactured, and in a day 100-200 kilo. This machine can work to a limit of 20 hours a day continuously without any sound and saves the operator from the strain,” he said.

FOR THE

THRILL OF DRIVING

RAMABAI JOSHI AWARD FOR WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS Newton Software’s E-Gate Pass For the manufacture of E-Gate Pass: Kiosk-based visitor and contract labour management system. Newton Software makes innovative software products for the construction segment and the corporates. The company makes Autocad related products that automate the daily procedures of architects, providing accurate and very fast outputs.

“We have more than 1000 installations all over Maharashtra and rest of the country,” said Neelima Nevagi, director of the company which has international clients as well.

Neelima Nevagi

Toxicology Services from National Toxicology Centre and APT Research Foundation

Dr Kishori G Apte

National Toxicology Centre (NTC) and APT Research Foundation won the award for its Toxicology services. A first generation entrepreneur, Dr Kishori G Apte, ventured into the field of toxicology way back in 1993. NTC is an FDA approved, ISO certified proprietary firm, an established brand and a trusted resource in the toxicology market for last 20 years across 188 countries, committed to provide quality services in preclinical toxicity testing. Apte’s other dream project to create a platform for translational research taking it from lab to market via patenting commercial technologies, was realised in the form of APT Research Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation. This is a DSIR, government-approved R&D centre and a recognised PhD centre that was established in 2006. “This award has proved that even first-time entrepreneurs like me can realise their dreams. When I started off, I was not sure whether i would prove myself but today receiving this award has proved me wrong. Research and commercialisation are important today and these are the fields I’m working on,” Apte said.

B G DESHMUKH IAS AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN CSR

Turn to P-14 for Start-up Mentor Column by Vishwas Mahajan.

The following companies won the award for religiously carrying about Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)activities long before it was made mandatory by the New Company’s Act 2013.

• KPIT Technologies Ltd • Reliable Autotech Pvt Ltd • Sterlite Technologies Ltd • Ramelex Pvt Ltd • Mahindra Intertrade Ltd • Rourkela Steel Plant (the only company situated outside Maharashtra)

ANNIVERSARY ISSUE ON STANDS NOW SUBSCRIBE NOW: www.ThrillOfDriving.com/magazine Online subscriptions: www.digitalmagazines.evo.in

Call +91-95949-99905

RAHUL RAUT

Celebrating the Spirit of Innovation

THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY OCTOBER 18, 2014

Afraid of market bubble?

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Such incidents upset me, says Mary Kom

BY FP STAFF

Asian Games gold medal-winning boxer and Olympic bronze medallist Mary Kom, who hails from Manipur, condemned the attack on youths from her home state in Bangalore. “I don’t like it, when I hear about incidents like these,” she told reporters. “I dream of a future where such incidents don’t occur.

I think we should all live together and maintain peace,” said Kom.

In a suspected hate crime in Bangalore, a 26-year-old engineering student was beaten up by a group of men who reportedly abused and then attacked him for not speaking Kannada.

All three accused, all cab drivers, were arrested, reported Times Now. T Michael Lamjathang Haokip, the student, said that he was approached by a group of people who told him that if he was living in Karnataka and eating Kannada food, then he needed to also speak in Kannada, but added that when he did not pay heed to their demands they pelted stones at him. He has sustained injuries on his head and back.

‘Love jihad’ propaganda is anti-humanity Conversion of about 2,600 Hindu girls and about 440 Christian girls into Islam between 2006 and 2012 in Kerala is not an indication of a ‘love-jihad’

BY G PRAMOD KUMAR While the right wing propaganda on ‘love-jihad’, the alleged Muslim project of luring Hindu girls into marriage and religious conversion, rages in UP and elsewhere in India, in the distant land of Kerala, a group of film-makers are immortalising a legendary HinduMuslim love story.

The story of the film, titled “Ennu Ninte Moideen” (Yours truly Moideen), originated in the 1960s in northern Kerala and continues even today. It’s an inter-faith love story that several generations of people celebrated in Malabar, which they do it even today because it was pristine and defied conventions and religious barriers.

The lovers, Moideen, a Muslim and Kanchanamala, a Hindu, could never marry, but that didn’t prevent them from expressing and celebrating their love for each other. Moideen died at the age of 42, in an accident while trying to save people from a boat tragedy while a heart-broken Kanchanamala continued to live with his memories as the driving force in her life.

When Moideen and Kanchanamala were in love, their families were opposed to a marriage, but local people knew that they were in love. Instead of decrying their relationship as Moideen’s ‘lovejihad’ project, people around them - both Muslims and Hindus - celebrated it. They were the love-birds that people aspired to emulate. Today, one of Kerala’s top actors, incidentally a Hindu, is enacting the role of Moideen and the movie has created enormous pre-production hype across the state.

I’m bringing Kerala into the lovejihad controversy yet again because it’s a state where Muslims constitute

Indian engineer in US gets jail for stealing secrets said, “Maniar was able to steal secret information related to the companies’ products,” including BD’s development of a self-administered disposable pen injector called Vystra.

Maniar downloaded Bard and BD files onto computer storage devices, and forwarded trade secrets from his work email accounts to his personal email accounts, they said.

Prosecutors alleged that in the weeks before he left BD, Maniar downloaded more than 8,000 files of confidential information.

BD representatives also found documents with filenames including the words “resume,” “cover letter,” and/or “thank you letter,” Cliff viewpilot.com reported citing a federal complaint in the court. FBI agents said they also found and seized an “Entrepreneurial Finance Book,” in which were “flagged, notated, and/or underlined text related to calculating corporate revenues, starting corporate ventures, obtaining venture capital, and protecting intellectual property through trademarks, patents, and other means.”

IANS

Prosecutors alleged that before he left BD, Maniar downloaded over 8,000 files

SC grants bail to Jaya Contd from p1

of her appeal against the trial court order.

The high court on October 7, while declining bail to Jayalalithaa and three others, had relied on apex court orders as it ruled that putting the sentence on hold after an appeal is fi led against the trial court order was not automatic. It had said that plea for bail after the conviction was different from the plea for bail while the trial was on.

It had also cited the apex court ruling that “corruption amounts to

violation of human rights and leads to economic imbalances”.

In the 18-year-old disproportionate assets case, the trial court in Bangalore on September 27, convicted Jayalalithaa for possessing assets disproportionate to her known sources of income and sentenced her to four jail term and `100 crore fine.

The case against Jayalalithaa and three others related to period from 1991 to 1996 involving `66.65 crores when she became chief minister for the first time.

IANS

Representational image

about 24 per cent of the population and four districts have more than 30 per cent Muslims. It’s a state where interreligious and inter-caste marriages are very common and it’s also a state where allegations of ‘love-jihad’ first appeared, but was defeated by the people as well as the judiciary.

That between 2006 and 2012, about 2,600 Hindu girls and about 440 Christian girls were converted into Islam is not an indication of a ‘lovejihad’, but the increasing acceptance of inter-religious marriages. Although data on the number of Hindu-Christian marriages are not available, anecdotal information shows that it’s only on the increase. Interestingly, it has even led to

IN THE

NEWS

a new cultural practice of two weddings (Hindu as well as Christian) for the same couple so that the communities and families stay happy. It’s a sign of increasing religious tolerance.

If Kerala, with a substantial Muslim population, could defeat the ‘love-jihad’ propaganda, the rest of India too should be able to do it with a little improvement in the tolerance of other faiths. Kerala too has its share of bigots from all religions, but the progressive sociocultural environment trumped their hate speech and propaganda.

On Wednesday, two events brought the issue of ‘love-jihad’ into the main pages of the media - the stopping of a court wedding of a Muslim boy and

Hindu girl by right wing activists in Madhya Pradesh and film actor Saif Ali Khan’s article on the alleged practice.

The right wing activists in Bhopal alleged that the Muslim boy was uneducated and had lured the girl into marriage for possible conversion.

Shockingly, they could stop the wedding and hand over the girl to the police.

Writing from elsewhere, Saif called the term a “complication created in India”.

He nailed it when he said, “Intermarriage is not jihad. Intermarriage is India. India is a mix. Ambedkar said the only way to annihilate caste is intermarriage.”

Saif, although his elite urban class protects him from religious bigotry and the influence of clerics, recalled that

he himself was a product of a MuslimHindu marriage. His marriage with actor Kareena Kapoor had generated considerable hatred on the Internet with people referring to ‘love-jihad’. “When Kareena and I married, there were similar death threats, with people on the Net saying ridiculous things about ‘love jihad’.

We follow whatever religion or spiritual practice we believe in. We talk about them and respect each other’s views. I hope our children will do the same,” he said.

Saif has an advice for people who prefer interfaith marriages to dispel allegations of religious conversion - a wedding under the Special Marriages Act. As he says, one doesn’t need to stick to any religion or convert to marry a person of another religion, but can opt for a legal wedding under this Act. It’s very simple and requires only a notice period of one month. ++“The good news is that no one needs to convert from their religion to get married. The Special Marriage Act, when applicable, is the paramount law of the land. If you marry under this, it is upheld over any religious law. It is truly secular.”

Besides intense suspicion and religious hatred, what the religious fanatics had been able to do with their propaganda is straining and even destroying human relationships. As Saif said, “we grew up on real-life romantic stories about our elders marrying for love and not worrying too much about tradition. And we were brought up to believe that god is one, with many names.” It’s time that we looked at traditions and relationships differently.

The bogey of love-jihad really kills immortal love stories.

(By special arrangement with Firstpost.com)

Catch up with major developments in Pune as the week comes to a close

Panel formed to study traffic and mobility The city traffic police branch has formed a technical committee to focus on traffic planning and mobility. Former Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) director of engineering services and projects Shankar Vishwanath will assist the officers. The panel will address the issues of pedestrians, cyclists, motorists and how to reduce traffic congestion. The panel will inspect various road junctions and study the concentrated volume of traffic. They will also hold a detailed discussion on how to manage the traffic with available resources and the important changes that could be made in the system for better traffic management.

Voter turnout surpasses Lok Sabha figure Fol low ing the trend of Lok Sabha elections 2014, the v o t i n g percentage in Pune remained good during the state assembly elections. The city recorded 64.02 per cent turnout on Wednesday, surpassing the Lok Sabha figure by seven per cent. Barring a few minor technical issues with the EVMs at a centre in Dhankavdi and minor skirmishes between the supporters of Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) at Khadki, the polling day remained peaceful. There are a total of 7,475 polling booths across the 21 constituencies in the district, including over 200 critical booths. The Election Commission of India (ECI) granted an extra hour for voting this time to accommodate more voters. Majority of the polling stations located adjacent to the slums received heavy voter turnout only after 3.30 pm on Wednesday. The ECI had set a target of 75 per cent, but achieved a satisfying 65 per cent.

RAHUL RAUT

NEW JERSEY: An Indian engineer has been sentenced to 18 months in prison followed by deportation for stealing trade secrets from medical technology giant Becton Dickinson and another New Jersey company.

Ketankumar Maniar, 38, who is also known as Ketan Maniar, had pleaded guilty to two counts of theft and attempted theft of trade secrets in May, according to Northjersey.com.

Maniar, who has been in custody since his June 2013 arrest, was sentenced in federal court in Trenton Thursday.

He was also ordered to pay BD restitution of $32,454.

According to prosecution, Maniar had worked as an engineer in Salt Lake City for CR Bard Inc, which is based in Murray Hill, from 2004 until 2011.

He worked on catheters, ports and other medical products. Maniar then worked on syringes and pen injectors at BD in Franklin Lakes from February 2012 until May 2013, at a salary of $115,000, according to court documents.

At the two companies, prosecutors

“Pakistani Army is a rogue army because Pakistani authorities have no control over their Army which is an example of indiscipline.”

— Ghulam Nabi Azad, Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha

IANS

Indian boxing champion reacts to attack on Manpuri youth in Bangalore

PUNE

The Kesari - Maratha Trust awarded famous writer Dr Sadanand More for his novel ‘Karmayogi Lokmanya’, the biography on Bal Gangadhar Tilak. At the function held at the historic Kesariwada, Dr More said that many writers do not follow the values they preach in their writings. “Lokmanya lived a principled life,” he said.

During the Lok Sabha polls 2014, the city had recorded 57.2 per cent turnout.

Ambegaon constituency recorded the highest voting percentage in the district in the assembly polls with 78 per cent while the lowest was recorded in Pune Cantonment with 46.97 per cent.

Record number of entries for Pune Open Tennis The Pune Open Tennis Tournament, to be held at Deccan Gymkhana from October 18, has received a record number of 815 entries from all over India.

The tournament offers a total prize money of Rs 5 lakh and the event’s sponsors are DSK Toyota, Head

and Euro Drinking Water. The contest will be held in the Under 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18 boys and girls categories along with men and women, singles and doubles and veteran doubles. Men, women and veteran’s events will be played from October 27. Top players Richa Chaugule, Siddhant Banthia, Shivani Ingale, Cristian Cummings, Atharva Sharma, Parth Chiwate, Tejas Chaukulkar, Gargi Pawar, Varunya Chandrashekar and Nitten Kirrtane will be seen in action in the event.

Sukhoi 30 crashes in Pune, both pilots eject safely A Sukhoi-30-MKI, India’s mainstay fighter jet, crashed 27 km from Pune on Tuesday evening. Both the pilots ejected safely before the crash from the plane that had taken off from the air force base in Pune for a training sortie.

The jet came down on the agriculture

fields in Kesnand Village near Theur.

The statement issued by the Indian Air Force (IAF) says that both the pilots are safe and an inquiry has been ordered to probe the accident. Concerns about the reliability of the Sukhoi-30 MKI have been accruing in recent months with several jets reporting engine failure.

The Tuesday crash has damaged the standing vegetables and cane crops. In 2011, a Sukhoi–30 MKI had crashed in the same area. India has 200 of these planes and 70 have been ordered from a Russian manufacturer. Based on recent complaints, the IAF has started servicing the engines of these fighter jets after 700 flying hours, instead of the stipulated 1,000 hours. Tuesday’s accident marks the fifth crash of a Sukhoi since 2010.

Three released jail inmates commit crime together, held Three inmates, who came out of the jail together, committed a series of robberies and burglaries in the past three months.

Earlier this week, the Kondhwa police arrested the suspects Suraj Kamble (24), Vishwas Chandanshive (23) and Suraj Nalawade (24) of Kondhwa. Stolen goods worth Rs 6.60 lakh were recovered from the trio. The police said that they were involved in five burglaries and do not rule out their involvement in more such cases. They were nabbed when they visited a jewellery shop in Kondhwa to sell the stolen ornaments. The trio committed thefts and housebreaks in Warje, Wanowrie, Chatuhshrungi and Mohammedwadi areas.

THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY OCTOBER 18, 2014

PUNE

“The human body is more complicated than any machine. It has emotions and intellect that affect its performance. So in the case of humans, peace and stress-free environment are also important.”

—Amar Chandel, author

“Growing up, I had a very normal relationship with my brother and sister. But, over time, they became my best friends, and now I hang out with them all the time. I’m very close with them.”

—Logan Lerman, US actor

Green hospitals benefit patients, reduce costs The national conference QUASAR—Greenathon, stresses environment-friendly approach

RAHUL RAUT

Healing healthcare environment, naturally

Towards green hospitals

BY ANJALI SHETTY @shetty_anjali Mahatma Gandhi had explained the concept of susta inabilit y in very simple terms. “The world has enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s Dr Erach Bharucha greed,” he said.

This need-greed phenomenon is the basis of modern sustainability issues.

In the health sector, sustainability leads to greener solutions and enhances productivity while reducing long-term energy costs.

On October 11, Dr Erach Bharucha, director, Bharati Vidyapeeth Centre for Health Management Studies and Research and Dr KH Sancheti, founder, Sancheti Hospital, discussed ‘Green Hospitals: a journey to a sustainable world’ and ‘Innovations in health sector for going green’ at a national conference, QUASAR— Greenathon, at Bharati Vidyapeeth that sought to help bridge gaps in health care by going green.

According to Dr Bharucha, “Green hospitals” have demonstrated

reduction in long-term energy costs, greater efficiency and increased patient satisfaction and staff retention.

“For development of a nation we need economic growth but we also need to equally look at social equity and environment management. If we do these three, then the development strategy we use becomes sustainable. As hospital managers, we are health care providers and therefore we need to understand the issue of sustainability. And, sustainability is the basis for greening.”

He said, health care management is focused on patient care at reasonable cost, societal responsibility and the health care given without damage to the environment. With these your hospital becomes a sustainable green hospital.

How does one achieve this?

This can be achieved by paying attention to the following, Dr Bharucha said: a) architecture; b) good management through leadership/ skills/attitude; c) using eco-friendly materials; d) capacity building – training; and e) most important of them all is greening mindsets.

He cited the example of the ‘wadas’ architecture of Pune — with open courtyards for fresh air; the Moghul architecture of 1600s which used flowing water for cooling and the

British India architecture of the 1800s which had high roofs and ventilators.

“Unfortunately, architects today are busy aping western designs which do not suit our ecology or surroundings,” he said.

Why go green?

Dr KH Sancheti pointed out that the process of building a green hospital has to start from day one of planning.

“To create an energy efficient, sustainable green building you have to sit with the architect and plan. The more time you spend the better it is.

Initially it was thought that green building means heavy expenditure. But with proper materials and a planned way it becomes cost effective. You have to consider factors like orientation studies, solar charts, daylight and geometric studies, use of certain glasses and others. Grey and black water treatment along with low flow settings and fi xtures in bathrooms are equally important. In fact, I am looking at a paperless hospital wherein the only requirement of paper would be for prescriptions while the rest will be take care of by technology. These are minute details we need to start with to create green spaces,” said Sancheti, who built a green hospital 35 years ago. anjali.shetty@goldensparrow.com

The Way Forward

• •

BY ANJALI SHETTY @shetty_anjali

Patients’ beds at Sancheti Hospital, Shivajinagar, are placed near windows to bring comfort. This also reduces usage of air conditioners

•

A big part of going green is to create an environment that aids healing.

Science and technology are available to make hospitals green but the healing aspect has to be part of the holistic approach.

Ayurveda, for example, looked at patient and environment as one and not two separate entities. Dr Rahul Kadam, regional director, Edifice said, Dr Rahul Kadam “Human senses respond to designs, textures, sense of smell and sense of light.

Light and colour are very important and in our context they are available in abundant. Usage of natural light reduces energy costs to a maximum. Th rough studies and research, we have found that having internal atrium designs help bring in more natural light.”

Transition spaces in hospitals reduce the use of air conditioners. “A hospital in the UK opens to a garden which enables visitors to buy flowers for patients and the seasonal flowers are used to mask smell of medicines. The use of waste wood benches in Jindal Hospital, Orissa is not only cost effective but also gives patients a sense of visual texture which helps better recovery,” said Kadam.

An evidence-based research revealed that patients prefer larger windows with positive distraction and furniture which is recycled. “Access to nature and flooring material that makes them feel comfortable not only speeds recovery but also provides a green environment thus making it a green building. It is our moral, social and professional responsibility to think out of the box by breaking conventions such that the holistic sustainable healing environments are created globally,” he said.

• • • •

Form a multi-disciplinary team with an environment expert Identify opportunities and use environment-friendly designs Team to promote environmental sensitivity, functionality, energy conservation, affordability, user-friendliness and appropriate disposal mechanism Promote advocacy training for optimum water and energy consumption Relocate beds near windows; resize windows to allow air circulation Study solar charts to bring in natural light in patients’ rooms Utilise spaces to create open gardens and walking areas

Indications of good hospital management • •

Pollution prevention, efficient energy use; use of LED, use of solar energy Use of eco-friendly products

Water and energy conservation in hospitals •

Install water meters at strategic locations

•

Read/record meters on a weekly basis

•

Analyse the data and identify high water usage areas

•

Reuse waste water by treating it for gardening or washing

•

Use of air cooler chillers in smaller hospitals

•

Educate employees on water usage

•

Plan usage of portable water

•

Plan rainwater harvesting and rain gardens

anjali.shetty@goldensparrow.com

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With Compassion & Hope

The secret of contentment

BY C RAVINDRANATH

H

ow much is enough? Where do we draw the line? What is the benchmark for contentment? Unfortunately, there is no standard answer, no cap that fits all heads. Each one of us has to decide what is ‘thus far and no further.’

The mistake most of us make is in thinking that the point of contentment is fi xed and permanent.

Can it be dynamic? Can I be content with what I have today and also be content with what I may have tomorrow – be it more or be it less than what I have today? Today, I use a pillow to sleep. Tomorrow, if I have to relinquish my pillow to a guest, can I sleep just as well as I did today, sans the pillow?

It is a question of attitude.

One way to look at it is, ‘Oh, I don’t have a pillow. How can I sleep?’

Another way could be, ‘I have a bed, a place to sleep. I can manage without a pillow.’ Herein lies the secret of contentment. The glass can be seen as half-empty or half-

full. How would we prefer to look at it?

Positivity is the fountainhead of happiness. Has it not been said that every cloud has a silver lining and there’s always light at the end of the tunnel? One of the keys to success could be the ability to delay gratification. We can either gallivant our way through school and college and regret wasted time for the rest of our lives or work hard, do well and enjoy the fruits of our labour. It’s our choice.

“In the middle of adversity lies opportunity,” said Einstein.

How many of us are conscious of this? We crib, complain, blame circumstances, fate, luck, everything and everybody except ourselves. A boxer does not lose when he gets knocked down. He loses only when he fails to get up. Can we be sharp enough to look for and seize the opportunity? Can we be resilient enough to bounce back? ”Ye dil maange more” could well be the slogan of the century, if not the millennium. There never seems to be a correct definition to

‘enough.’ Where to draw the line is a puzzle. In the process of looking for the right place to draw it, most of us never draw the line. We are too busy looking for the right place.

What prevents us from drawing the line today and then, if we find it can be drawn elsewhere, shifting it?

Have we realised how many items we have accumulated in our homes that we have not used for years, nor are likely to use for years to come and yet are loath to give them away? Why are we burdening ourselves with such useless items, practices and habits? Can we not give them up and be lighter and happier?

Where there’s life, there’s hope. Each day is a chance to live, to do, to achieve. If you don’t think every day is a good day, try missing one! Can we take charge of our lives, be happy and share our happiness with others?

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

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

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TH E EDIT PAGE “The phenomenon of ‘paid news’ goes beyond the corruption of individual journalists and media companies. It has become pervasive, structured and highly organised and in the process, is undermining democracy in India.”

- Press Council of India

THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY OCTOBER 18, 2014

PUNE

Editor’s pick

Maharashtra’s vote is for clean governance, not Hindutva the Marathi manoos. Yes, the Marathi manoos wants justice, fairness and preference over others in his own state; but more than that he wants jobs, a revival of the local economy and affordable education. He has become proactive and positive and not negative by demanding that “outsiders” leave the state.

The rise of the BJP and the Shiv Sena would inevitably mean encouragement for the rabid, communal organisations in the Hindutva fold. However, Narendra Modi, the RSS and the Sena need to be aware that this is exactly what the people of Maharashtra don’t want.

Trouble makers will try to provoke communal politics but clearly, Maharashtra cannot achieve development and progress in a communally-charged state.

The progress has to be entirely on development and good governance.

There are clear indications that BJP’s state president Devendra Phadnavis is likely to be the next chief minister of the state. Phadnavis is young and has a good, corruptionfree image. He would be a good choice and his anointment- electoral mathematics permitting- would bode well for the state.

Irrespective of who you voted for, this is a victory for every single voter who exercised his franchise on October 15: It is that promise of the vote that has deservedly punished incompetent politicians who would now have enough time to reflect on their misdeeds and hopefully reform for the future.

@TGSWeekly editor_tgs@goldensparrow.com

TV worse than print in media corruption?

Just as many doctors and hospitals indulge in corrupt practices in the country, in complete disregard to the welfare of patients, it is commonly known that journalists and media organisations too have been infected by the virus of corruption in India.

As noted by the Press Council of India nearly four years ago, the phenomenon of ‘paid news’ in the country has gone beyond the corruption of individual journalists and media companies. “It has become pervasive, structured and highly organised and in the process, is undermining democracy in India.” The same media organisations which pontificate on values, good governance and democracy and criticise corrupt politicians, indulge in the very same practices. It is the case of the pot calling the kettle black.

With regards to the October 15 assembly polls, the Election Commission served notices in 348 suspected cases of paid news across Maharashtra and passed final orders against candidates in 73 cases.

The highest number of notices (85) were passed by the Pune district committee.

In fact, paid news has become so very common among media companies that it is no longer restricted to election-related activities. Product companies, doctors and hospitals routinely get media organisations to run their products and services in glowing articles without revealing that the write-up has been paid for at commercial rates. Since moving images are more powerful than the printed word, the scourge of paid news is far more rampant in TV than in print.

Citizens need to be aware of this reality and act against this in a multipronged manner.

Organisations found guilty of paid news should be exposed and criticised on social media and should be boycotted by all right-thinking citizens. Those speaking at public gatherings should spread awareness about the dangers to democracy from paid news. And the people at large should demand strict legislation and action against paid news from the government, MPs and MLAs. There is far greater filth in corruption and the crusade against paid news ought to be a part of the Swacch Bharat campaign.

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Yoga is more than just ‘asanas’

By Amar Chandel Whenever one talks of yoga, the image that forms is that of a semi-clad person doing certain complicated exercises or ‘asanas’. Most think this is all there is to yoga. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

While postures are indeed an integral part of yoga, they don’t comprise yoga, which is a much larger term. To focus on just one aspect will be like several blindfolded persons touching an elephant at various places and reaching a conclusion as to what it looks like.

So, what’s real yoga?

Let’s understand its most simple form: the physical yoga. Our body is a machine, like a car for instance. To run a car smoothly, you have to keep various parameters in mind: oil, air pressure in tyres, battery condition, gear oil, brake pads et al.

Similarly, the body can also function properly only when many such do’s and don’ts are followed. If not, it starts deteriorating. The combined list of all these rules which make the body function at its optimum capacity is called yoga.

Human body is more complicated than any man-made machine. It has emotions, intellect and mind. These affect its performance. So in the case of humans, peace and stress-free environment are also very important.

Just as one has to have the right type of cable or wi-fi connection to link a computer to the internet, the human body has also to connect with the super-consciousness to be in harmony and rhythm. The regimen that links us with our inner self is yoga.

IANS

All exit polls in Maharashtra after voting for the state assembly polls on October 15 have a majority to nearmajority for the Bharatiya Janata Party. The Shiv Sena too is expected to perform well, while the restnotably the Congress, NCP and Raj Thackeray’s MNS stand rejected by the voters as per the exit polls.

This is a historic moment for Maharashtra and the BJP could form its first government in the state, bringing much to the party and its supporters. However, the party and its controllers in Nagpur- the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) must not suffer from any illusions or delusions of grandeur.

The Shiv Sena should also realise that the voter in Maharashtra has not voted for Hindutva. While prime minister Narendra Modi stands tall as the mascot of the Hindutva brigade, the voter in the state has voted for promise of development, good governance and a corruptionfree Maharashtra.

The people in this state are thirsting for responsible governance.

They want better cities, good roads, a departure from caste politics and freedom from corruption.

The Congress-NCP alliance government stands rejected because it failed on all these fronts and made a mockery of the people’s faith in the power of the vote. It is the same common man from the state who has voted them out of power, fatigued by the politics of rivalry, one-upmanship, bad governance and corruption.

The people of Maharashtra have also rejected the narrow, parochial and divisive politics in the name of

Coming back to physical yoga, at least the following factors have to be taken care of if the body is to be healthy and disease-free: Right eating, right drinking, right breathing, right exercise, right sleep, right rest and relaxation, right human relationships, right attitude and right lifestyle.

The holistic yoga dwells on all the nine aspects and more in an integral manner. When all aspects are covered in an integral manner, the benefits that accrue border on the miraculous.

The most noticeable result is that one is able to get rid of some 90 percent of one’s supposedly incurable diseases merely through this regime. Not only that, one is also able to prevent most of

the common diseases.

There are many other fringe benefits.

One’s health shows dramatic improvement, excess body weight is shed, one looks better, there is more energy, people are more at peace with themselves and with others, one becomes stress free, life span improves, crisis can be coped with more easily, the quality of life is much better, tension eases, mental faculties sharpen, one can grasp most situations easily; interpersonal relationships improve, and family life improves.

To achieve all these, one has to go beyond just asanas.

The first two limbs of Ashtanga Yoga, called Yama and Niyama, too

In praise of long walk Anil K Rajvanshi

During my younger days I used to go for 6-8 kms long walk which passed Walking is like meditation. It helps through congested thoroughfares us to focus the mind on a subject. like Hazratganj of Lucknow but Lot of people go for walks in the park was never distracted by both in the morning and evening either the noise and the din of alone or with various friends, family the traffic or the crowd. and acquaintances. But I feel long One can easily be lost walks alone and without any company in one’s thoughts during are the best to think and contemplate long walks. various issues.

Throughout the Some of my best ideas and thinking history of mankind major have come while walking. Very often ideas have come to leaders I have not taken notes which I have while walking. Great regretted because the power of ideas scientists like Einstein, without jotting them down on Neils Bohr and paper vanishes like thin smoke. others took Walking helps in jiggling long walks and your brain neurons and they thought up great fire better and faster during a ideas in physics. long walk. Walking is natural.

Gandhiji honed his ideas of Salt One does not think about it. Yet Satyagraha during the Dandi during long walks the exercise March and so did Mao regarding of the body helps in release his vision of China, during his of chemicals which enhances March. Similarly the THINK Long thinking. Hence long walks great musical compositions allow the mind to think and churn of Beethoven and Tchaikovsky came the ideas and crystallise them. Human during their long walks. beings evolved to walk; running came Walking anywhere is therapeutic only to get away from predators and but in the woods it is spiritual. It seems danger. Thus walking is not only good that trees act as antennas for getting for the body but also for the brain. higher spiritual thought and walking When the mind is thinking among trees helps to increase the power very deeply on a subject then the of meditation and hence the production external scenery does not matter. of great thought. I feel that the habit

of walking should be inculcated in children. Very often concerned parents force their children to play all sorts of sports. But walking is an excellent sport and if they walk either to school or to other places it will be good for their body and brain. Besides sports does not allow reflective thinking since one has to be alert during play.

Nevertheless we should educate the children so that their use of cellphone either for listening to music or conversing during walking is minimum.

Both these are distractions for thinking.

We seem to be loosing the art of walking. The modern transport system has made us lazy. Very often I have seen young students either getting on two wheelers or waiting for a bus even for short distance travel when they can easily walk to their destinations.

Besides increasing their chances of getting obese they are also losing out on the art of thinking deeply about issues. © Anil K Rajvanshi The writer is director, Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute, Phaltan, Maharashtra. He may be reached at anilrajvanshi@gmail.com

Long walks allow the mind to think and churn the ideas and crystallise them

should be mastered. In simple terms, these can be called the do’s and don’ts of everyday living and thinking.

We have to practise non-violence and truthfulness not only because we want to be good human beings but also because we want to lead a healthy and happy life. Our emotional health is as important as our physical health and we can keep both of these at the optimum level only if we adopt a lifestyle ordained by yoga masters.

(Amar Chandel is the author of two self-help books, “Stress to Serenity”, and “Perfect Health in 20 Weeks”. The views expressed are personal. He can be reached at asknature@gmail.com.)

Limericks of the week

BY C Ravindranath

It can be done with ease Border clashes can cease It’s no aberration One from each nation Has won the prize for peace

He who votes, cares How the nation fares On the day of voting I am lord and king Otherwise - who cares?

To woo the khaap Is nothing but paap If you did it Said one wit Don’t paschataap!

THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY OCTOBER 18, 2014

PUNE

With selections from The New York Times

Will Pune City FC be a surprise package?

P 15

“The United Nations will continue to stand with her (Malala Yousafzai) against extremism and for the right of girls everywhere to be free of violence, to go to school and to enjoy their right to an education.”

—UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

Is e-reading to your toddler Let’s understand the giant herbivore story time or just screen time?

There are very few studies done on giraffes and their behaviour

BY DOUGLAS QUENQUA

JESSICA KOURKOUNIS/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Studies suggest that reading to a child from an electronic device undercuts the dynamic that drives language development

Clifford the Big Red Dog looks fabulous on an iPad. He sounds good, too - tap the screen and hear him pant as a blue truck roars into the frame. “Go, truck, go!” cheers the narrator.But does this count as story time? Or is it just screen time for babies? It is a question that parents, pediatricians and researchers are struggling to answer as children’s books, just like all the other ones, migrate to digital media.

For years, child development experts have advised parents to read to their children early and often, citing studies showing its linguistic, verbal and social benefits. In June, the American Academy of Pediatrics advised doctors to remind parents at every visit that they should be reading to their children from birth, prescribing storybooks as enthusiastically as vaccines and vegetables.

On the other hand, the academy strongly recommends no screen time for children under 2, and less than two hours a day for older children.At a time when reading increasingly means swiping pages on a device, and app stores are bursting with reading programmes and learning games aimed at infants Therese Madden reads with with her two-year-old, Beatrice, at their home in Philadelphia. As children’s and preschoolers, which bit of guidance should books migrate to digital media, researchers are studying the effects, and a handful of new studies suggest parents heed? The answer, researchers say, is not that reading to a child from an electronic device undercuts the dynamic that drives language development yet entirely clear. “We know how children learn to read,” said Kyle Snow, the applied research director at the National Association for the Education of over the kids’ hands and saying, ‘Wait, don’t press say, no piece of technology can substitute for a live Young Children. “But we don’t know how that the button yet. Finish this up first,’” said Dr Julia instructor - even if the child appears to be paying process will be affected by digital technology.”

Parish-Morris, a developmental psychologist at close attention.

Part of the problem is the newness of the devices.

Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the lead Dr Patricia K Kuhl, a director of the Institute Tablets and e-readers have not been in widespread author of the 2013 study that was conducted at for Learning and Brain Sciences at the University use long enough for the sorts of extended studies Temple University. Parents who used conventional of Washington, led a study in 2003 that compared a that will reveal their effects on learning. books were more likely to engage in what education group of 9-month-old babies who were addressed in Dr Pamela High, the pediatrician who wrote researchers call “dialogic reading,” the sort of backMandarin by a live instructor with a group addressed the June policy for the pediatrics and-forth discussion of the story in Mandarin by an instructor on a DVD. Children group, said electronic books were and its relation to the child’s life in a third group were exposed only to English. intentionally not addressed. “We that research has shown are key to a “The way the kids were staring at the screen, it tried to do a strongly evidence-based child’s linguistic development. seemed obvious they would learn better from the policy statement on the issue of “What we’re really after in DVDs,” she said. But brain scans and language reading starting at a very young age,” reading to our children is behaviour testing revealed that the DVD group “learned she said. “And there isn’t any data, that sparks a conversation,” said absolutely nothing,” Kuhl said. “Their brain really, on e-books.” But a handful Dr Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, a professor measures looked just like the control group that had of new studies suggest that reading of psychology at Temple and cojust been exposed to English. The only group that to a child from an electronic device author of the 2013 study. “But if learned was the live social interaction group.” undercuts the dynamic that drives that book has things that disrupt the In other words, “it’s being talked with, not being language development. conversation, like a game plopped talked at,” that teaches children language, Hirsh“There’s a lot of interaction when right in the middle of the story, Pasek said. Today, what Kuhl found is commonly you’re reading a book with your then it’s not offering you the same referred to as the “Baby Einstein” effect, named for - Dr Pamela High child,” High said. “You’re turning advantages as an old-fashioned the enormously popular video series that entranced pages, pointing at pictures, talking book.” Of course, e-book publishers children from the late 1990s to the mid-2000s, but about the story. Those things are lost somewhat and app developers point to interactivity as an was ultimately found to have a negative association when you’re using an e-book.” In a 2013 study, educational advantage, not a distraction. Many of with language development in infants. In 2009, researchers found that children ages 3 to 5 whose those bells and whistles - Clifford’s bark, the sleepy the Walt Disney Co., facing the threat of a classparents read to them from an electronic book had narration of “Goodnight Moon,” the appearance of action lawsuit, offered refunds to people who had lower reading comprehension than children whose the word “ham” when a child taps the ham in the bought the videos. Similarly, perhaps the biggest parents used traditional books.

Green Eggs and Ham app - help the child pick threat posed by e-books that read themselves to Part of the reason, they said, was that parents up language, they say. A study conducted by the children, or engage them with games, is that they and children using an electronic device spent more University of Wisconsin in 2013 found that 2-yearcould lull parents into abdicating their educational time focusing on the device itself than on the story olds learned words faster when using an interactive responsibilities, said Snow of the National (a conclusion shared by at least two other studies). app as opposed to one that required no action. But Association for the Education of Young Children.

“Parents were literally putting their hands when it comes to learning language, researchers © 2014 New York Times News Service

“There’s a lot of interaction when you’re reading a book with your child.”

BY NATALIE ANGIER

wildlife biologist at the University of Warwick in England. But through advances in satellite OKAVANGO DELTA, BOTSWANA: and aerial tracking technology, improved For the tallest animals on earth, giraffes can hormonal tests and DNA fingerprinting be awfully easy to overlook. Their ochered methods to extract maximum data from giraffe flagstone fur and arboreal proportions blend scat, saliva and hair, and a more statistically in seamlessly with the acacia trees on which rigorous approach to analysing giraffe they tirelessly forage, and they’re as quiet as interactions, she said, “we’ve been able to map trees, too: no whinnies, growls, trumpets out their social structure and relationships in or howls. “Giraffes are basically mute,” said a much more sophisticated way; there’s a lot Kerryn Carter, a zoologist at the University of more going on than we appreciated.”

Queensland in Australia. “A snort is the only For their part, male giraffes ever in search sound I’ve heard.” of the next mating opportunity have been To giraffe researchers, found to be astute appraisers the paradox of this keystone of the local competition and African herbivore goes beyond will adjust their sexual strategy questions of its camouflaging accordingly. Males generally coat. Giraffes may be popular, gain in rank and access to they said - a staple of zoos, fertile females with age, and the corporate logos and the plush alpha bulls flaunt that seniority toy industry - but until recently physically and behaviourally: almost nobody studied giraffes The twin ossicones that sprout in the field. Giraffes are the like a snail’s tentacles on top “forgotten megafauna,” said of a giraffe’s head thicken and Julian Fennessy, a giraffe lose their charming tuftiness; researcher and the executive a bony mass bulges up in director of the Giraffe the middle of the forehead; - Kerryn Carter Conservation Foundation. the neck musculature grows “You hear all about elephants, visible; and the male’s posture Jane Goodall and her chimpanzees, Dian becomes ever prouder and more unflinchingly Fossey and her mountain gorillas, but there’s vertical. been a massive paucity of information about Andre Ganswindt of the University of giraffes.”

Pretoria in South Africa and his colleagues Scientists have lately discovered that have found that young bulls recently launched giraffes are not the social dullards or on their rutting career will, when they’re on indifferent parents they were reputed to be, their own, mimic the basic demeanor of their but instead have much in common with elders: head held high, neck puffed out, females another charismatic mega-herbivore, the pursued and prodded and their urine sniffed famously gregarious elephant. Female giraffes, for signs of estrus. But should a dominant bull for example, have been found to form close saunter into view, the younger males instantly friendships with one another that can last for drop their sexual antics and seek to make years, while mother giraffes have displayed themselves look small and innocent. signs of persistent grief after losing their calves Giraffes are found throughout subto lions.

Saharan Africa, currently classified as a single “Giraffes have been underestimated, even species with up to nine subspecies that differ thought of as a bit stupid,” said Zoe Muller, a by features like head shape and whether the fur on their legs is plain or patterned.

The species is not listed as endangered, but researchers point with alarm to evidence that in the past 15 years, the giraffe population A F R I C A has plummeted some 40 percent, to less than 80,000 from 140,000. Partly to highlight the NIGER crisis, conservationists this year declared CHAD June 21 the first World Giraffe Day SOUTH ETHIOPIA the longest day for the tallest animal, SUDAN CENTRAL AFRICAN they said.

R E P. K E N YA UGANDA © 2013 New York Times News Service

“Giraffes are basically mute, snort is the only sound I’ve heard.”

TA N Z A N I A

Source: Giraffe Conservation Foundation

Beyond the Zoo

ZAMBIA

B O T S WA N A NAMIBIA SOUTH AFRICA

Giraffes are considered a single species with up to nine subspecies. Fewer than 80,000 giraffes are scattered across a broad arc of central and southern Africa.

In genes of ‘exceptional responders,’ clues to fighting disease

With this issue

GE PA ES

Diwali gifts

S PAGE EW VI

In the issue ON TH EI N

The company discontinued the drug because it was not working - except for her - forcing her to stop taking it. But her cancer has not returned. Conley at the cancer institute and her colleagues decided to check early phase clinical trials of drugs that had been abandoned. Were there some participants who were helped, some exceptional responders?

“Yes, they were actually there,” Conley said.

“Ten per cent, maybe less, had this response.”

On September 24, the cancer institute announced it was sending letters to cancer doctors seeking exceptional responders. They are hoping for tumor samples from 300 such patients, Conley said. So far, they have examined the clinical data for three cases that were sent in. Two of them really are exceptional responders, she said.

Now the challenge will be to figure out why.

Grace Silva © 2014 New York Times News Service

ON TH ER E

Grace Silva, 58, has a horrible form of thyroid cancer that is considered untreatable - usually patients are sent to a hospice and die within months of learning they have the disease. But she is still alive four years after her diagnosis. She is what cancer doctors call an exceptional responder: someone who defies all expectations by dramatically responding to a cancer drug tried not with a real rationale but more out of a doctor’s desperate urge to do something.

With the advent of rapid and inexpensive gene sequencing, the National Cancer Institute has started a nationwide search for people like Silva to try to figure out the genetic changes that allowed them to respond. The New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday published her story as a case history in the new genetic era, which concludes with a lesson that may help doctors treat thousands of other patients with more common cancers, like breast and bladder cancer, and even help them find an alternative when a common drug stops working.

Dr Barbara Conley, a lead investigator for the new cancer institute study, said she and her colleagues had been inspired by a couple of published papers on exceptional responders and genetic analyses that revealed why they reacted the way they did. One study at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre

was testing a drug called everolimus that is approved for kidney and breast cancer. Researchers asked if it could treat bladder cancer. Forty-five patients got the drug. Two responded.

“The verdict was, ‘OK, I guess everolimus does not work in bladder cancer,’” said Dr David Solit, the principal investigator. But then there were those two patients - one, in particular. Her cancer had spread to her abdomen. She was expected to live less than a year and there was no treatment for her. But with everolimus, her tumors disappeared. “I was at a clinical meeting and everyone was saying this drug did not work,” Solit said.

“I said, ‘It worked for her.’” Her cancer had a mutation in a gene that made it dependent on a protein, mTOR, for growth. Everolimus squelches the activity of mTOR. The woman is still taking everolimus and her cancer has not recurred.

Then the group found another exceptional responder, a patient taking an experimental drug for a cancer of the ureter, the tube that carries urine from the kidney to the bladder. “She not only responded but she was cured,” Solit said.

KAYANA SZYMCZAK/THE NEW YORK TIMES

BY GINA KOLATA

ON THE FEA TU R

Researchers are trying to find out why some cancer patients respond to drugs well while some don’t

Rapture ‘less’

PAGE GE UL D

Curry King

MONEY MATT ER S

Signposts Wholesale inflation eases to 5-yr low India’s wholesale price inflation eased to its lowest levels in nearly five years at 2.38 per cent during September compared to 3.74 per cent in the previous month, aided by a moderation in food and fuel costs, government data showed Tuesday. The wholesale price index (WPI) was at 7.05 per cent during the corresponding month of the previous year.

Consumer price inflation at 6.46% India’s consumer price index-based inflation at 6.46 per cent (provisional) came down to its lowest levels since 2012 during September from 9.84 per cent in the corresponding month of last year, government data showed Monday. The retail inflation based on Consumer Price Index (CPI) had slowed down to 7.73 percent in August from 7.96 per cent in the previous month.

Sensex trades flat; auto stocks gain A benchmark index of Indian equities markets on Thursday was trading flat at 28.24 points or 0.11 per cent up as auto stocks gained. Good buying was observed in auto, IT sectors, while selling pressure was seen in oil and gas and capital goods sectors.

The 30-scrip Sensitive Index (Sensex) of the S&P Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), which opened at 26,260.35 points, was trading at 26,377.57 points (at 09.22 a.m.), up 28.24 points or 0.11 per cent from the previous day’s close at 26,349.33 points.

Future Retail’s rights issue gets SEBI nod Market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has approved Kishore Biyani-led Future Retail’s proposed rights issue to raise up to `1,600 crore. SEBI on Wednesday said it gave its final observations on October 10 on the draft offer documents submitted in July through issue lead manager Axis Capital Limited.

Rights issue involves issue of shares to existing investors as per their holdings at a pre-determined price and ratio.

One has to be careful about phoney market experts and do proper research before investing

“A prediction about the direction of the stock market tells you nothing about where stocks are headed, but a whole lot about the person doing the predicting,” cautions Warren Buffett.

Predictions appear to be all-pervasive and ubiquitous—be it stocks, markets indices, GDP, interest rates, etc. As retail investors have begun to take an interest in the markets, many brokers and advisors are offering predictions about the Sensex level by the end of 2014, or three years from now, and so on. Now, as the market has turned slightly overvalued, some are wondering whether the market is in a bubble zone. Past research has shown that most professionals are poor market-timers because prediction is among the most hazardous occupations.

People love forecasts. The more specific the figure, and the more specific the date of occurrence, the more people are hooked. In the highly uncertain world of financial markets, certainty is a straw they hang on to desperately. Th is is why newspapers ask ‘experts’ and TV channels poll brokers (of all people!) to predict the Sensex next year. It may be entertaining—but is useless as a guide for investment.

It is impossible to predict outcomes in a complex system like the stock market which is not only influenced by domestic but global factors as well. According to a study (cxoadvisory.com/gurus/) by CXO Advisory Group, which analysed over 6,500 forecasts by 68 experts for the US stock market, their aggregate accuracy was less than 50 per cent.

The highest accuracy by an expert was 68.2 per cent with 44 forecasts, while the lowest forecast accuracy was 20.8 per cent with 20 forecasts. The study was conducted over a seven-year period, from 2005 to 2012.

Other studies on expert estimates have drawn similar conclusions. The Vanguard Group’s study of flexible allocation mutual fund schemes (or dynamic schemes as known in India) found that only 43 per cent of such schemes were able to outperform their benchmark. The study mentions that the failure of market-timing strategies has not been limited to mutual funds; investment newsletters, pension funds, investment clubs and professional market-timers have also failed to demonstrate consistent success.

Philip Tetlock, in his book, Expert

Political Judgment, has carefully examined why experts go so wrong. He analysed over 28,000 forecasts made by hundreds of experts in a variety of different fields and found that specialists are no better than nonspecialists in predicting what would happen in their field. He also found that knowing a lot may make a person less reliable than someone who knows little.

Robert P Seawright, chief investment & information officer for Madison Avenue Securities, an investment advisory fi rm, outlines four simple steps one could use to look at market predictions. He takes these steps from volcanologist, Erik Klemetti, of Denison University who suggested how one should look at volcano doomsday predictions which have been doing the rounds on the Internet.

1. Consider Your Source: Unless the source is unimpeachable, ignore it. Seawright mentions that experts are prone to the same weakness all of us are; but they

rarely admit it.

Even if held accountable, he says, they will give an excuse like they were blinded by an impossible-to-predict event. Or, as Bob Janjuah, a strategist with Nomura, says he would have been right with his extremely bearish views but the central banks came and rigged the market. (moneylife.in/ article/23870.html) Seawright cautions, “Before you make serious portfolio changes based upon some urgent warning, be sure you are well aware of the risks and opportunity costs of doing so… and make sure you know the full and complete track record of the forecaster you’re relying on. Very few ‘expert’ forecasters will talk about their misses and they all have lots of misses.”

2. Consider the Motivation: Does the forecaster have a personal motivation for making the prediction? Market pundits and media houses alike, have a motive for making and propagating predictions. While the ‘experts’ are looking to make a name for themselves for getting a call right, media houses love sensational headlines. While most of the times, analysts make predictions

Fortnightly market view: Churning continues

Modi government has made many big moves; but the benefits to the economy remain hazy

BY DEBASHIS BASU

Last fortnight, I had suggested that the sub-26,000 region on the Sensex is not far off. On October 8, the Sensex hit 26,150 and bounced back. That same evening, the US Federal Reserve released the minutes of its previous meeting which point to how much the Fed is led by the market’s concerns.

As the Fed saw it, there was a risk the market may misunderstand any change in its language of guidance and feared that it would then be forced to act on the market’s misinterpretation. So, Fed officials were anxious to send the message that any change in the guidance depends on the data and the first rate hike wouldn’t occur mechanically after some fi xed time. They stressed ‘patience’—on raising interest rates, worrying about weaker foreign economic growth and the stronger dollar.

Within seconds of the minutes being released, US market-players interpreted it as dovish and indices shot up. In reaction, Indian indices, which were wilting for days, opened with a huge gap up on Thursday.

The Sensex eventually notched up a 400-point gain with

lots of small-cap stocks participating in the rally. However, we don’t expect a runaway move, given that valuations are high and there has hardly been any step by the government which has a direct and substantial impact on businesses and their earning power.

Indeed, a slow realisation is now seeping in that many of the changes being talked about by Narendra Modi will be indirect and long-term in nature. Some of them may even burden companies before any benefit accrues. His first mission Jan Dhan Yojana, under which 75 million ‘new’ bank accounts

will be opened, is complete. Instead of fi xing accountability about bad loans first, and filling up the top positions in six headless banks, the government has taken exactly the same bloated setup and forced them to spend hundreds of crores of rupees on another ‘Yojana’.

Such ‘Yojanas’ were the hallmarks of Congress governments.

Supporters of Modi say that he will make a difference in implementation.

This could be true. Modi has done a lot for Gujarat as an able administrator.

However, for the government to continue to involve itself even more, goes against Modi’s own slogan of ‘minimum government, maximum governance’.

Last fortnight, I had argued that, most likely, we are in for a long period of sideways movement. Morgan Stanley is already talking of ‘Modi premium’ disappearing from stock prices, though it claims to be impressed by several small changes which the government seems to have made. However, it would appear hard to quantify the benefits in terms of higher earnings growth which alone can propel the market higher. @moneylife

PUNE

“We are committing ourselves to doubling our investment in the state (Madhya Pradesh) from the current `30,000 cr to `60,000 cr by 2020” — Mukesh Ambani (at MP Investors Meet)

Afraid of market bubble?

MONEYLIFE DIGITAL TEAM

OCTOBER 18, 2014

to get their clients to do what they want.

Seawright writes that we would critically analyse a prediction only if we disagree with them than when we agree. We are also more likely to recall supporting evidence than opposing evidence.

3. Consider the Data: Demand lots of data from multiple sources and with careful confi rmation. When a market crash happens, and they eventually do, there will be some who would have accurately predicted it, while there will be many who would take credit for doing so. Seawright quotes Peter Lynch who once said, “Far more money has been lost by investors… trying to anticipate corrections than has been lost in corrections themselves.”

Most market pundits would give vague predictions such as a correction is expected or a crash is expected soon. “Specificity is, of course, a great enemy of media pundits,” says Seawright. While one may not be able to predict the market with utmost accuracy, “one who keeps predicting doom without specificity will eventually be right, no matter how much opportunity cost has been paid in the meantime,” he says.

4. Consider the Scale of Th ings: Even if there is really strong evidence of a current problem, most problems are relatively minor. If you own stocks and fear a 10 per cent-20 per cent correction, you should not be investing in stocks. If you are terrified by standard market volatility, “you need to re-think your entire investment philosophy and dramatically reduce your return expectations,” says Seawright.

Historically, when short-term volatility occurs, it rarely lasts; markets have corrected themselves and continued to trend upwards.

One should not rush into any investment decisions based on predictions of short-term movements, even if one who has predicted it has been fairly accurate in the past. Sticking to your goals and investing systematically will help you overcome the short-term market volatility.

Seawright concludes by saying, “Don’t let the purveyors of misinformation send you down the path to panic. Instead, stand up to them and use reason and science to turn them away!” One should do one’s research, focus on a process and always stick to a strategy that has been rigorously tested and worked in the past. @moneylife

Industrial output momentum to pick up, says ratings agency NEW DELHI: Ratings agency India Ratings and Research said it expects the weak industrial output to regain momentum during the first quarter of 2015-16.

Last week data showed that the industrial activity, measured in terms of the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), grew marginally by 0.4 per cent in August over the same month of the previous year.

The August industrial growth compared unfavourably with the 0.5 per cent recorded in the previous month, the Central Statistics Office data showed. The cumulative growth for April-August 2014-15 over the corresponding period of the previous year stands at 2.8 per cent.

The agency said it expects the manufacturing sector to take-off in the festive season.

“The sector (is expected) to do well in the coming months backed by a favourable base, festive season demand and the budgetary push. Ind-Ra expects the manufacturing sector to grow at 5.3 per cent in FY15,” the agency was quoted in a statement According to the agency, the mining sector which witnessed negative growth for three consecutive years, due to a stiff coal production target and the Supreme Court lifting the ban on mining iron ore in Karnataka and Goa, witnessed a turnaround and grown each month since November 2013.

“But the cancellation of 214 coal blocks allocated since 1993 will adversely impact coal production in the near term. It is highly unlikely that the reallocation process will be complete by FY 15. In this situation Coal India is expected to take things forward but CIL itself is struggling to achieve its own coal production targets,” the agency pointed out. In FY 14 CIL achieved 95.96 per cent of its production target and achieved just 2.3 per cent growth over FY 13 production. To achieve the captive coal mines’ FY 14 coal production target, CIL will have to improve its production performance by 8.41 per cent, which does not look too feasible.” The growth across use-based sectors which includes basic and intermediate goods has been uneven, thus showing that the recovery across sectors will be a gradual and slow process.

IANS

START-UP MENTOR

“First time investors should start with funds that invest in blue chips. They can gradually look up the risk curve in terms of mid and small cap funds.”

—Nandkumar Surti, CEO, JP Morgan Asset Management Co

THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY

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 Vishwas Mahajan to mentoring@pune.tie.org

Work as a team and identify each partner’s key role in business We are a group of four co-founders running a QSR (Quick Service Restaurant) venture. We studied together in college and our venture is what we dreamed in our college days. However, as we have been in the business for last few years now, and we find ourselves continuously fighting with each other. Please help.

- Ashish Datta Dear Ashish, your question and our discussion that followed, has given me a clear idea of the situation you find yourself in at this point of time. Here is my assessment and suggestions.

First of all having friends as your co-founders is certainly a great thing. You have a relationship, trust and shared history outside of your venture. Many times, this kind of the relationship becomes very critical when your venture is going through the roller-coaster and you can depend upon each other for psychological support.

Many successful ventures started by friends as cofounders were conceptualised in their college days. These are some of the most creative times of lives. There aren’t many commitments, people think freely and are willing to take bigger risks in order to achieve their dream. Take examples of Facebook or Google. These have been conceptualised and started from campuses.

Now coming back to your venture. All of you are engineering graduates. However, you have chosen to start a venture in the area of your passion which is food service.

After graduating, you have worked in your engineering jobs and after a few years you have come back together to start the venture. You have surely assessed the growth potential in this area and have chosen this to be your venture idea.

However, none of you comes from the F&B or restaurant background. So, all of you have learned this business pretty much from the beginning as you started the venture. Th is is not necessarily bad. But in hindsight, it may have made sense to you to collaborate with someone from the industry who can bring the needed expertise.

I was discussing with a very famous microbrewery founder in the city of Pune and one of the critical success factors for his business was to be a partner with a ‘Master Brewer’ - who understands to brew the beer.

All of you are very bright and have learned the ropes of restaurant business pretty much on the job. Th is has resulted in some failures for you. You had to shut down two of your locations. But over the period of time, you have learned from that and moved on to create new restaurants in new locations and grown the business. So you deserve congratulations.

You have indicated of occasional friction and lack of accountability in your team. I suggest that you engage a mentor who will help you iron out the issues that you are having working together as a team. Being fi rst generation entrepreneur and the bright people, I am sure each one of you can learn everything and potentially do everything that is related to your business.

I notice that there are several overlapping areas of responsibility, and distribution of work or roles amongst yourselves is not very clear. Th is leads to confl ict because everybody has an opinion on everything. Th is can delay or hamper the decision-making process.

My suggestion would be that your mentor should help you identify the key roles that each of you can play in your business.

Prima facie, these can be: a. The store location/ infrastructure management b. The menu planning, c. Raising a finance, d. The overall leader who will be the face of the company.

If you can try and identify who is best suited for each of these roles and then let the individuals work on these independently with focus and KRAs. While all of you are equal, it is important to understand that there should be one leader. Narayan Murthy said in his famous interview in last TiECon. While Infosys had six cofounders there was one clear leader and everybody deferred to that leader. Th is helped Infosys avoid the kind of problems you find yourselves now.

Please do not discard or compromise your personal friendships and segregate these from the role definitions and work that you do. Th is will be an important facet of your team.

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

SPORTS

THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY OCTOBER 18, 2014

PUNE

“ India has huge potential and the Indian Super League is helping. We must make sure that we’re all together with one goal to d help India play in the World Cup sooner.”

— FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke

“ It is pleasant to see that there is a good fan following of football in India. I didn’t expect to see such huge turnout for the games.”

— West Indies cricket pace legend Michael Holding

Will Pune City FC be a surprise package?

With star players like David Trezeguet, Kostas Katsouranis and Lenny Rodrigues, FC Pune City look more dangerous than others in ISL

By Arjun Krishnan PUNE: Pune City FC is representing the seventh largest metropolis in the country in the Indian Super League (ISL). Owned by Bollywood superstar Hrithik Roshan and the Wadhawan Group, the team has a tie up with Italian Serie A giants Fiorentina, who have a fifteen per cent stake in the franchise as well.

Though the team played out a drab draw in their first encounter against Delhi Dynamos in New Delhi on Tuesday, with big names in world football spearheading their attacks has promised a lot.

The team will take on Mumbai City FC on October 18 and will play their first home match at Shiv Chhatrapati sports complex, Balewadi on October 26.

The squad has a nice mix of Italian and Indian players with sufficient talent and experience to upset their rivals in the tournament.

Among the Indian players, the ones that really stand out are goalkeeper Arindam Bhattacharya, 19-year-old midfield sensation Pratik Shinde and regular India internationals Lenny Rodrigues and striker Joaquim Abranches. It may look light, but these are talented and experienced individuals.

An injury to one of them though, could be an issue.

The notable foreign signings include former Juventus and Napoli goalkeeper Emanuele Belardi, Italian defender Bruno Cirillo, iconic Greek midfielder Kostas Katsouranis, and of course French and ex Juventus club legend David Trezeguet. Kostas Katsouranis’ exceptional ability to lead could mean he’d assume captaincy at Pune, as he did for Greece in the 2014 FIFA World Cup on an interim basis.

Strengths Trezeguet will surely feature as one of the two strikers in the starting XI.

His technical ability combined with his mental and physical prowess led him to be one of the greatest strikers in modern football. During his prime he was the complete striker. Besides being gifted with pace, power and an eye for goal, his aerial ability was matchless. Well past his prime, the 36-year-old will still prove to be a menace in and around the 18 yard box.

Significance of leadership in football is often understated. Katsouranis is arguably the best leader in the league and can play in various positions as well — an attribute that is a product of his technique, speed and strength.

He has been described as ‘a reasonable goal threat despite being notionally a midfielder’. His presence in a three-

man midfield could bring out the best in him.

Rodrigues has established himself as the spine of the Indian national team and his former club Churchill Brothers which went on a title winning spree during the midfielder’s six-year stint at the club. His strengths include a fine range of passing and the ability to break up the opposition attack and immediately start one of his own. He also has an excellent attitude towards the game, which was cited by team CEO Gaurav Modwel as one of the main reasons for signing him.

Weaknesses There seems to be a lack of established Indian players in the

Pune squad. Aside from Rodrigues, there is no one Indian who brings the same level of experience to this side.

The other Indians will need a big personality to talk to them when they are low on morale. Although Colomba has managed several Italian clubs in his career, he hasn’t excelled at any. His most notable contributions have been avoiding the drop.

Conclusion Pune FC’s squad has slightly less firepower than most other teams in the ISL, Trezeguet and Katsouranis being the only big names. This does not however, denote a lack of quality. With stability in defence and midfield and a deadly attack featuring Trezeguet and

Nigerian Dudu Omagbeni, Pune could well and truly surprise us all.

Squad The Internationals: Emanuelle Belardi; Daniele Magliocchetti, Bruno Cirillo, Andres Gonzalez, Park Kwang-Il; Davide Colomba, Kostas Katsouranis, Omar Rodriguez, Saidou Mady; Ivan Palacios, David Trezeguet, Dudu, Lalit Thapa, Arindam Bhattacharya; Dharmaraj Ravanan, Pritam Kotal, Deepak Devrani, Anupam Sarkar; Mehrajuddin Wadoo, Pratik Shinde, Tapan Maity, Israil Gurung, Manish Maithani, Lenny Rodrigues; Ashutosh Mehta, Joaquim Abranches.

(Credit: Firstpost)

Leading all the way Marquee Player David Trezeguet The player needs no introduction. The 1998 World Cup winner for France is nicknamed Trezegol for obvious reasons. The prolific striker has a career total of 225 goals in 425 appearances including 138 goals for reigning Serie A champions Juventus. He also scored

34 goals for the French national team, a stat that places him 3rd in the list of leading French goal scorers. He has a World Cup, a European Championship, two Ligue 1 championships, two Serie A championships and two Supercoppa Italiana titles under his belt — also featuring in Pele’s list of 100 Greatest Living Footballers in 2004.

Manager Franco Colomba The 59-year-old is an Italian football coach and former player. His most recent achievement was saving Serie A club Parma from relegation in 2012, being subsequently

confirmed at the helm of the club also for the new season. He has also managed several other Italian clubs.

Colomba’s preferred formation is the 4-3-1-2 (via transfermarkt), suggestive of his liking for free flowing, attacking football.

He will hope to implement the same in this FC Pune City side.

Committed a lot of mistakes: Colomba

NEW DELHI: FC Pune City coach Franco Colomba, though content with a point away against Delhi Dynamos, observed that his side committed a “many mistakes” in their first Indian Super League (ISL) match.

Both teams, with big names in world football spearheading their attacks, promised a lot, but mustered little as the match never got any momentum.

“I am happy with the performance of our team, considering it is our first match. It was not easy for us. We made many mistakes, particularly in counter-attack. But we hope to rectify these mistakes before our next match and play better,” Colomba said, at the press conference after his side’s 0-0 draw against Delhi Dynamos at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium.

He said that the match demanded a lot of intensity and energy from both set of players.

“It was a very difficult match, physically draining, tactically intense. It demanded a lot of technical ability from the players. It wasn’t easy at all for us, as Delhi are a very good side. They had three-four quality attackers, so we had to be careful,” he said.

He said unfamiliarity among players and teams will be a common factor among the first round of matches of the inaugural tournament.

“In the first half, we took time to settle down and analyse our opponents’ game. Both teams were new so it was natural. As all teams of ISL are new, this will be a problem faced by all the eight teams of the tournament,” he said.

“We wanted a win but it was difficult to achieve that considering it was the first match of the competition. We will try to rectify our mistakes and win our next match.

In the match both teams were expected to shake off their initial tentativeness and apprehension for more assured play, but proceedings remained dull and confined to aimless midfield squabbles. Danish forward Mads Junker was the liveliest in the initial stages drawing out a couple of saves from Pune goalkeeper Emanuele Belardi.

Pune had only a weak left-footed shot from their icon Trezeguet to show for their efforts and were mostly pegged back in their half by the hosts.

— IANS

Moderate performance by Pune players ‘Playing piano soothes my nerves’ Despite not being in the title race, Pune players benefitted individually in the World Junior Chess Championship

Roshan Rangarajan

Akanksha Hagwane

is satisfactory. She is beating higher ranked players. She hasn’t played many tournaments outside Pune and when she will start playing regular tournaments abroad this experience will come handy,” said Akanksha’s coach Jayant Gokhale “Actually we were expecting that she would get her WFM norm, but it seems very difficult now. However, her game has been improved and her rating too.

Our aim was to cross 2000 rating before December, and this performance will be

Abhimanyu Puranik

enough to attain the target,” he added.

Gokhale who is also coaching CM Abhimanyu Puranik, said that his ward has misjudged the junior player’s killer instinct.

“In junior level, every player fights till last and it’s very difficult to beat them.

I think Abhimanyu missed that and he played the tournament like the World Youth,” said Gokhale.

Abhimanyu who is highest rated city player in this tournament, wasn’t up to the mark. His spectacular win against IM Idani Pouya (2517) in the 7th round was the high point, but he failed to impress against lower rated players like Swain Ashirwad (1998). On the other hand, in the 10th round, he was holding a strong position against GM Abasov Nijat (2528) and stretched it to 96 movies before surrendering.

“I was in a good position but made some bad moves under time pressure.

Atharva Godbole

Otherwise the picture would have been different,” said Puranik.

Meanwhile, the other city players like Roshan Rangarajan, Harshit Raja and Atharva Godbole played on lower boards, far away from the limelight.

But, at the individual level, they did a satisfactory job earning a considerable raise in their ELO rating.

Rangarajan, who is back in action after long time, played a safe strategy and drew seven out of ten games, while Harshit won three and drew thrice, losing four games. His wins against Abhijith M and Dhulipala Bala Chandra Prasad were quite impressive.

“Harshit could have played much better, but he tried too many things in this tournament and wasn’t able to concentrate on his strong points. I think this happens with most of the players,” said Harshit’s coach Prathmesh Mokal. ashish.phandnis@goldensparrow.com

Amruta Mokal

PUNE: Hosting an elite event like World Junior Chess tournament has been definitely a major boost for Pune’s chess scenario. Though, the city players were never in contention for the title race, getting a chance to test their skills against top junior players over the world was the biggest opportunity for them.

And the city players didn’t waste the golden chance and improved their ELO rating considerably.

With three round to go, Akanksha Hagwane is leading the pack. The 14-year-old, who recently featured in the World Youth Championship in South Africa, was on the learning curve during the World Juniors.

Though, after 10 rounds, she has just five points in her kitty, those five points came from five wins against higher rated players including Women International Masters (WIM) and Women Fide Masters (WFM). After losing to WGM Mona Khaled of Egypt in the first round, Akanksha bounced back by beating WIM Shalmali Gagare in the second round and impressed with a 41move win against WIM Varga Klara of Hungary in the 8th round. Later in the 10th round, she prevailed over WFM Sakshi Chitalange, who was in super form throughout the tournament.

“Her performance in this tournament

Aniruddha Rajandekar

BY Ashish Phadnis @phadnis_ashish

Finland’s Erik Ronka playing piano in hotel lobby

BY Ashish Phadnis @phadnis_ashish PUNE: Finland’s talented youngster Erik Ronka is a regular name in the national chess circuit. With four national titles in different age categories under his belt, the 19-year-old is placed third in Finland’s junior ranking.

And he also plays piano. During the ongoing World Junior Chess Championship at Hotel Hyatt, while other players were discussing the game after the rounds, Ronka was seen playing the third movement (Presto agitato) of Beethoven’s Moonlight on a piano in the hotel lobby.

Ronka said, “I am a pianist first before developing an interest in chess. I have been learning the instrument for 11 years and have cleared a few grades also.

Playing the piano soothes my nerves and helps me approach the game with a

relaxed mind.”

Ronka started playing chess with his brother, while his elder sister insisted that he should concentrate on music.

Ronka didn’t disappoint both.

“I joined a chess club when I was 11. Compared to other players it was a late start. Winning the first tournament with a rating of 1,700 boosted my confidence and I continued with the board. I bagged the under-14 national title in 2011 followed by two under-16 titles and an under-18 contest in 2012.

I have represented Finland in World Youth Championship three times, but my performance wasn’t up to the mark,” he said.

“My love for piano continued and I cleared two exams. But, in Finland, everybody has to join the army and I will be joining the army next January, more piano exams will have to wait,” he said. ashish.phandnis@goldensparrow.com

SPORTS “Currently, India is ranked 158 in the FIFA world rankings, and it will be some time before we see this ranking make an upward move.”

— Actor John Abraham

Signposts Baker’s Basket tennis from Oct 21 PUNE: Indian The 13th Baker’s Basket Tennis Tournament has received 190 entries in six events in three categories this year. The tournament will be held by Sunny Jacob Tennis Academy at the Ladies Club Tennis Court, Camp from October 21. The events are for boys and girls under 10, 12 and 14.

This year the entries per event are strictly restricted to 32.

Varroc A team wins first league round PUNE: Varroc A registered a fivewicket win over Veer Maharashtra Warriors of Nasik in their league encounter at Siddharth Memorial Cricket tournament, organised by Pratham Sport Management at Verroc Cricket Ground, Thergaon.

Sudhanshu Gundeti’s unbeaten knock of 49 runs helped Varroc A to attain the target of 115, set by Veer Maharashtra. He was later declared as the man of the match.

Kritika topples top seed Dharana PUNE: Second seed Kritika Chhabra toppled top seed Dharana Mudaliar in the girls’ singles to win the Marathe Jewellers Super Series, a national ranking title in under-14 category at Deccan Gymkhana courts recently.

Kritika of Maharashtra stunned Dharana of Andhra Pradesh 7-5 in the first set. In the second set of this prolonged match, Kritika was blocked tactfully by Dharana to 3-6.

And then in the decider, Kritika kept her composure and gave a tough fight and overcame Dharana 6-2.

Meanwhile, in the boys’ segment, top seed Sacchit Sharrma of Delhi, outran Gujarat’s eighth seed Dhrumil Thakkar of 6-1, 6-2.

Results: (Boys) Sacchit Sharma bt Dhrumil Thakkar 6-1, 6-2; (Girls) Kritika Chhabra bt Dharana Mudaliar 7-5, 3-6, 6-2.

India continues winning rhythm Johor Bahru: Riding high on confidence post their thunderous win in the last match against Pakistan by 6-0, the Indian Junior Men Hockey team defeated host Malaysia 4-2 in their fourth pool match of the 4th Sultan of Johor Cup being played at Taman Daya Hockey Stadium in Johor Bahru, Malaysia.

The game commenced at a slow pace as neither of the teams, in spite of their continued attacking efforts, were able to score. It was in the 25th minute that India earned a penalty corner and Sumit perfectly converted that opportunity into the first goal of the match, giving India a lead of 1-0. A quick goal followed in succession when Gurinder Singh of India swiftly utilized the penalty corner awarded and the ball sailed past the Malaysian keeper into the net. Malaysia earned a penalty corner twice during the initial half but failed to convert them. The score stood at 2-0 at the end of half time, giving the visiting team a reason to rejoice.

However, the second half saw a change of course as Muhd Rohulami scored the first goal for Malaysia in the 37th minute and Azril Misron posted another field goal in the 42nd minute, leveling the goal tally.

THE GOLDEN SPARROW ON SATURDAY OCTOBER 18, 2014

PUNE

“We badly wanted to qualify early for the Olympics as we have seen on previous occasions that it can become really difficult towards the end.”

— Indian men’s hockey team skipper Sardar Singh

Playing inside out Tennis extravaganza from today Days before Sachin Tendulkar launches his autobiography, his comedian friend has launched a book titled ‘How Sachin destroyed my life’ MALAY DESAI It’s not what you think it is, though, for there is a finer print on the book’s cover, which reads ‘… and gave me an all access pass to the world of cricket’.

The author Vikram Sathye, a debutant, is an MBA in marketing after all, and has packed in enough ingredients for the average Indian Sachin/cricket fan to take home or share with his friends at the bar. In fact, the whole book is so irreverent, it seems to be a compilation of Sathye’s stand-up comedy over the past decade.

Unlike his hero’s, Sathye’s career wasn’t intricately p l a n n e d .

After being admittedly mediocre at school cricket, he gave up on his cricketing dream and took to Excel sheets after higher studies, being a media executive at MTV among other places. It was there that his skills of imitating Sachin and Tony Grieg made him an office star and soon there was no looking back. Sathye’s life got fatefully intertwined with cricket, with stints at corporate events and later with Sony’s Extra Innings, and now after 12-14 years of being a ‘travelling cricket comedian,’ he filters his experiences to make a book.

Selling a Sachin book to Indians is risky, but Sathye has kept the strong opinions, analysis or criticism

out. Thanks to his vast experience as a comedian, he knows exactly what the male cricket fan enjoys– personal stories and anecdotes about cricketers, garnished with a fan boy tone. His first sentence, ‘..don’t judge me by my writing abilities’, itself ensures the pundits don’t expect pretty prose.

Sathye claims Sachin ‘destroyed his life’ in the late 80s and 90s, by playing such outstanding cricket that all other achievements, sporting or otherwise, seemed pale. That’s an exaggerated, but an entertaining platform to belt out his one-liners from. His experiences with a cross-section of cricketers, TV presenters, journalists and even the team’s statistician and masseur evoke enough ‘LOLs’ and ‘wows’ for you to share further at a house party. Hear this, for instance, ‘The last time Sehwag moved his feet, he was 2 ½ years old!’

Then there are the insights –how Ponting found the gaps, how Sachin cracked M u r a l i ’s doosra, what exactly went behind was Dravid’s focus and more. The only cricketer’s tales that are missing is Ganguly, and that’s a downer. Sathye doles out many generalisations, especially about women, stretching his stand-up license further. He assumes that girlfriends and wives aren’t interested in sports and at one point says ‘every mother wants her son to become a cricketer’ so an IPL contract can not only get them out of their modest lifestyle but also make her a kitty party queen’.

That said, Sathye’s tone at the beginning of the book, admittedly ‘mediocre’ turns into a confident, boastful one toward the end. Isn’t that true with Indian sport itself?

TGs NEws SErvice @TGSWeekly

PUNE: Top Indian players like Somdev Devvarman, Yuki Bhambri along with Asian games gold medalist Saketh Myneni will be seen in action in the MSLTA organised $50000 KPIT ATP Challenger at Shiv Chattrapathi sports complex in Balewadi from today.

The tournaments has attracted Davis Cuppers from 21 countries including Kazakhstan, Russia, Japan, Slovakia, Spain, USA, Belgium and Czech Republic.

Former top 10 world ranked doubles pair, the Ratiwattana

twins Sanchai and Sonchat , Asian Games gold medallist Aleksandr Nedovyesov of Kazakhstan, Russian Alexander Kudryavtsev, Japanese Davis Cupper Yuichi Sugita, Slovak Davis Cupper Aljaz Bedene, Spaniard Adrian Menendez-Maceiras, Belgian Davis Cupper Kimmer Coppejans are some of the players to watch out for at the event.

“We will have 10 Indians in the main draw including the wildcards, giving Indian players an equal opportunity to compete at world class level on home terrain,” said president of the organising Committee Kishor Patil.

“It will be a great opportunity for Indian players to pick up valuable points. A title here can help players like Somdev to make it to the main draw of the Australian Open,” said tournament director Sunder Iyer.

The qualifying rounds will be played on Saturday and Sunday (Oct 18 and 19) while the main draw will get underway from Monday. The matches will be played from 11am onwards.

KPIT has also organised special bus services from PYC Gymkhana to Balewadi stadium. The event has also planned tennis clinics, quiz contests for the children and fans. editor_tgs@goldensparrow.com