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PRAVASI BHARATIYADIWAS:REPEATING RITUAL

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AUTO EXPO 2010CARS THAT GLITTER

AGE OF TWITTER:BULBULS IN CYBER WORLD

PRAVASI BHARATIYADIWAS:REPEATING RITUAL

CONSUMERELECTRONIC SHOW:YOU GET WHAT YOU SEE

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AGE OF TWITTER:BULBULS IN CYBER WORLD

RISKY BUT REWARDINGFLIPPING JOB MARKET

RISKY BUT REWARDING

4 Letters6 Editorial

14 The World in Pictures

20 Photo Competition30 Around the World43 My Pet Peeve45 Worldlywise and

Otherwise62 Interesting Facts

About English66 Shackles of

Superstition77 My First Job

Experience

82 My Most Embarrassing Moment

84 From Waste to Wealth

95 Gadgets & Gizmos99 Medical Log

104 Net Scene110 Women all the Way116 New Arrival118 Automobiles

Round the Globe130 Human Grace

8 Terrorism Threats India’s Nuclear Installations10 New Journalism Bucks Accepted Here16 Top Brass NRIs Shun Pravasi Bharatiya Diwas64 Crucial Higher

Defence Management68 Detection of Water

on the Moon78 Bypassing Internet

Censorship80 Twitter Tweeting all Around90 Boost to Indian Manned Flight92 Rebuilding Nalanda

109 Is Suicide a Crime?112 The Olive Ridley Turtles of Rishikulya115 Body Builders’ Day Out128 Samacheer EquitableStandard Education

24 Flipping Job Market54 Wealth from Weeds

Founder: Vishwa Nath (1917-2002)

FEBRUARY 2010 No. 328

EDITOR, PUBLISHER & PRINTERPARESH NATH

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32 Hangover: Shit! Now What to...40 Smarter and Versatile Robots44 A Good Conservation Effort46 Tutorials Just a Pain in the Neck48 Outshining Competitors in an Interview60 Festival to Promote Classical Dance63 Is Cooking a Female Domain?70 Cosmetic Surgery for Men76 Kailash’s Kailasa88 Modern, Yet Traditional is Today’s Indian Girl

100 Artist of Pictorial Thinking102 Depicting Feminine Emotions on Canvas106 Marriage with a Workaholic

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52 The Romance of Books56 Ungrateful73 The Pink Slip86 Blunder

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ALIVE ■ JANUARY 2010

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WOMENAll the way

S O F T C O R N E R

Two Belarussian girls locked during a female chocolate wrestlingbout at nightclub in Minsk late in a winter night.

US Driver Danica Patrick hasbecame the first woman to wina major open-wheel race inJapan. She signed a three-yearIndyCar contract with MichaelAndrettiʼs team to serve as apart-time driver for JRMotorsports in the NationalAssociation for Stock Car AutoRacing (NASCAR).

Britainʼs QueenElizabeth II (L) meetsWelsh singer KatherineJenkins (R) followingthe Royal VarietyPerformance inBlackpool, England.

Sonia Lipski modelsHarlette lingerie andgown on board thehistoric ʻJames Craigʼbarque in Sydney.

Dancers perform during the World Cup 2010 draw at the Cape TownInternational Convention Centre (CTICC) in Cape Town.

Managing director of Madara Cosmetics Ltd LotteTisenkopfa become the double digit economic boom

two years after Latvia joined the European Union.

U.S. Carol Greiderof Johns HopkinsUniversity Schoolof Medicine smilesafter receiving theNobel Prize inMedicine at theStockholmConcert Hall inStockholm.

Performers fromthe Tun HuangArt ResearchInstitute inChinaʼs Ganshuprovince dance

during arehearsal showin Taipei.

Models showcase designs by lingerie lineTriumph during a presentation choreographed byIndian Bollywood Director Farah Khan in Mumbai.

P O L I T I C S

BJP:On the brink of breaking up?

played down his com-ments, for fear of invit-ing the wrath of RSS. Itsays that Shourie hasbeen asked to clarify hiscomments.

Seeking a salverThe BJP’s cup ofwoes, which brimmedover with the VarunGandhi controversy, shows no signsof abating. Even as Sushma Swarajand Arun Jaitley are involved in agame of musical chairs, to becomeAdvani’s successor, the veteran leaderseems to be in no hurry to quit so eas-ily. He went on record recently, that hewould continue as the Leader of theOpposition for another 5years.

Even as the duststarts settling on onescandal, another onecrops up to take itsplace. Now, media istalking about the Aptereport, which, theyclaim, contains detailedreasons of the Party’selection loss. The BJP, on

the other hand, claims that such areport has never been tabled. The need of the hour for the BJP isto conduct a genuine introspection ofits failures — not on the lines of the‘Chintan Baithak’ in Simla, whichseemed to focus on anything but thepoll debacle. Blaming all and sundrywill not help the BJP in bouncing backas a force to reckon with. It has to lookwithin itself and rectify its faults. Experts feel that the Party needs acomplete revamp in its thinkingprocess and needs to clearly spell outits common ideologies. It needs tobuild a foolproof think-tank, compris-ing of a mix of Party veterans and theyounger ministers, to find practicalsolutions to the present predicament.Many feel that former PrimeMinister and the BJP”smost experienced leader,Atal Bihari Vajpayee,needs to take on a moreactive role in the Party’sgoings-on, at least untilsuch time as things getright. His expertise maywell provide theanswers to the questionscurrently haunting theParty.■

which he has reportedlycriticised his removaleven before a properanalysis of the results,Raje is putting up a showof strength in Jaipur.In the midst of all thisbrouhaha, anotherbombshell in the guiseof former DisinvestmentMinister Arun Shourie’s‘rebellion’ has furtherdeepened the ongoing crisis. The erst-while editor of The Indian Express andThe Times of India attacked the BJP’shigh command and suggested thatthe RSS should take command of theParty. In his articulate way, Shourieborrowed liberally from literary clas-sics and Hindi films, while launchinga scathing attack on Rajnath Singh.He called him ‘Humpty Dumpty’ and‘Alice in Blunderland’ and named theBJP a ‘kati patang’ — a kite gone adrift. Shourie seems to think that thesolution is to bombard the headquar-ters, that is, remove all ministersfrom New Delhi and bring in compe-tent ministers from the States tocleanse and rebuild the Party. This,according to him, will bring back theParty’s lost credibility. The BJP has

12

ALIVE ■ OCTOBER 2009


13

The battle within the Bharatiya JanataParty (BJP) has now intensified likenever before, with almost everyleader worth his/ her salt going forthe jugular even as L. K. Advanistruggles to keep the Party ideologiesafloat. ■ by Smita Shenoy

the 700-page tome is a different issue. Anyway, Jaswant is not complain-ing as the controversy has catapultedhis book to the bestseller-list andmade him an unlikely hero in neigh-bourhood Pakistan. He is beinghailed for the ‘fair’ portrayal of thelong-deceased Muslim League leader. The former Minister is busy givingnews bites to almost all the prominentchannels and newspapers, emphasis-ing how he had stood beside Advani,when the latter was caught in a simi-lar ‘JInnah’ controversy. The insinua-tion is that Advani has not returnedthe favour. Jaswant Singh is, ofcourse, not new to controversy. Time and again, he has been thecentre of many a scandal, small orbig, but the biggest of them cameduring his tenure asExternal AffairsMinister in the VajpayeeGovernment. His Officedrew flak for its han-dling of the Kandaharepisode. However, his suddenand acrimonious expul-sion, after havingserved the Party faith-fully for 30-odd years,

The bugles have been soundedand the war cry given. It is themother of all battles in the BJP,as the Party becomes a free-for-all zone

When Mao Zedong said, “Politicsis war without bloodshed,” could hehave foreseen that India’s largestOpposition party would prove hiswords correct, one day? The battlewithin the Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) has now intensified like neverbefore, with almost every leaderworth his/her salt going for the jugu-lar even as L. K. Advani struggles tokeep the Party ideologies afloat. Ever since its poll debacle, the BJPhas been in the news for all thewrong reasons. The unceremoniousouster (via a telephone call by BJPPresident Rajnath Singh)of Party veteran JaswantSingh, over his sup-posed criticism ofSardar VallabhbhaiPatel in his book onJinnah, has furtherdented the Party’simage. Whether any-body in the party hasactually had thepatience to sit through

came as a shock even for the mostcynical political analysts. Hisremoval has kick-started anavalanche of sorts, with a series ofsenior Ministers being alienated fromthe BJP, either through resignation orthrough eviction. Thus, former aideof Vajpayee and speech-writer ofAdvani, Sudheendra Kulkarniresigned, citing ‘ideological differ-ences’. And Uttarakhand ex-ChiefMinister B.C.Khanduri was removedafter the Lok Sabha electoral debacle. Earlier, following the BJP’s dismalperformance in the 2009 general elec-tions in Rajasthan, former ChiefMinister Vasundhara Raje was askedto quit as leader of Opposition in theState Assembly. Party leadersbelieved that it was due toVasundhara’s alleged misgovernanceduring her rule in the State that theParty lost its grounds among masses.Bold stance

Perhaps, following Jaswant’s for-mula that attack is the best form ofdefence, none of the expelledMinisters is taking things lying down.While Khanduri is understood to havewritten a letter to Rajnath Singh, in

L. K. Advani

Jaswant Singh

Varun Gandhi

C O N S E RVAT I O N

place on 31 December 2008, inMinchikuli valley. He agreed to takeus there, the following day, as I waskeen on enjoying the scenic beauty ofthe area. We would also be able to seethe Governor’s shooting-lodge ofBritish days, when hunting expedi-tions used to be arranged to pleasethe ‘White Sahibs’.In the afternoon, instead of hang-ing around the lodge, a trip toJodikare and Bedaguli by jeep wasarranged. It forms part of KarnatakaState and lies at an elevation of 863metres above sea-level, to the east ofDimbam - Chamarajanagar road. Astraight run on this road leads on tothe Karnataka forest check-post, fromwhere a diversion to the right touch-es the road to Jodikare. For a good distance, the road wastarred but then it became rugged andfull of pot-holes. On either side of theroad were fairly thick sholas (stuntedevergreen forest) Mini-buses ply onthis road up to Jodikare. Jodikare road proceeds up toAthikan Estate. On reaching thecheck-post of Jodikare, we sought thehelp of a Forester to go to Bedaguli.He came along with a rifle and the keyto open the road barrier on the way. The hilly range with lush vegeta-tion presented itself to the left of theroad for some distance and, there-after, the terrain was broken by folds

of mountain with rocky mounds pro-jecting up in the foreground as wellas in the distanceds. They were cov-ered with a thick mat of dry grass, asit was winter. On the right side of theroad was rocky highland with sparsevegetation. Bedaguli lies at a distance of 5 kmfrom Jodikare check-post. Enroute toBedaguli, a thin water-fall was sight-ed amidst green vegetation. TheForester told us that it had beennamed after Srinivasa, the forest offi-cer who had been slain by Veerappan.Bedaguli has beautiful landscapeand is encircled by mountain rangeson the east, west and north. The roadabruptly ends in the southern direc-tion and, from its brink, one can seethick sholas on the down-side.

The Minchikuli valleyThe Minchikuli valley lies in thesouth-eastern direction from Bedgaluliand can be reached from there only byfoot. At Bedaguli, we saw a small herdof gaur grazing on the fringes of themounds at a far-off distance. We clicked some pictures ofBedaguli landscape and returned toAsanur late in the evening. The tra-verse to Jodikare and Bedaguli mademe feel that the prey-base for big catsin these tracts has been considerablyreduced.

The 3rd morning dawned withhopes of seeing Minchikuli valley,which has been earmarked to becomea wildlife sanctuary in the workingplan of North Coimbatore by S. JohnJoseph, IFS. At 7 a.m., we left forKaranaikarai, a tribal hamlet, at a dis-tance of 23 kms from Asanur, on theKollegal road. The drive in the misty morningwas exhilarating. At Karanaikarai,Krishna Kumar enquired about theexact location, where the 3 tiger killshad taken place. Then he picked up 2of his helpers from this hamlet, fordirections to Minchikuli valley. After a run for about 2 kms backon Kollegal road, we touched the spot

feelings against the carnivore. There is an unwritten covenantbetween Krishna Kumar and thefarmers, that the animal will not bepoisoned at any cost. So far, he says,he has disbursed Rs 77,000 out of hisfunds, in the course of 8 months, cov-ering 29 cases. He gets financial sup-port from his friends and some soci-eties, such as the Coimbatore RoundTable ACME, to meet these expenses.Granting compensation

Soon after arriving on his premis-es, on the morning of 2 January 2009,we were taken to Kali Dimbam, atribal hamlet at a distance of 5 kmfrom Asanur, to see the condition of amilch buffalo, that had been attackedby a tiger while grazing. Though theanimal had suffered only minorinjures on its left hind leg, while bat-tling with the tiger and before gallop-ing to its farm-stead, it had not recov-ered from the shock of attack. The wounds had been plasteredwith mud and Kumar told the ownerhe would arrange for veterinary helpto treat the animal. Kumar had hisapprehensions if the animal wouldsurvive. It survived for nearly 3months and died on 25th March. Later that day, Kumar got theinformation that 3 cows had suc-cumbed to tiger attack that had taken

44



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facilities, a lone individual, endowedwith zeal and gumption, has comeforward to protect tigers in theTalaimalai-Satyamangalam range ofTamil Nadu. He is Krishna Kumar of Asanur,an industrialist-turned-farmer cumwildlife-enthusiast. Shuffling himselfbetween his DPF farm and jungle-lodge cum restaurant, he is tied up intiger-conservation work with fullsteam. He has rightly chosen Asanur,in Satyamangalam forest division,that borders on Karnataka, as theweb of his activity. He works in tandem with 9 vil-lages, spread over a radius of 40 kilo-metres, and has asked the villagers toreport to him, any death of their cat-

The news item, ‘VanishingStripes’ in The Hindu YoungWorld of 24 March 2009, saysthat, over a short span of 3months since November last, aspate of tiger deaths has taken place,both in Kaziranga and KanhaNational parks. A total of 17 deathshad taken place, pointing to the poorpatrolling of core areas and conse-quential free-run for poachers. The Ministry of Environment andForest has directed the WildlifeCrime and Control Bureau (WCCB)to probe into the possible role oforganised gangs in the killings.While the Governments of Assamand Madhya Pradesh could not domuch with the given state-of-the-art

tle due to tiger attack, for makingadequate compensation. He has builtup a good network with the villagersin the course of about a year.As soon as a kill of cattle is report-ed to Krishna Kumar, he visits thesite to make sure the bovine waskilled by a tiger, by examining thebites on the neck and the break in thevertebral column. Leopards and wilddogs cannot cause such injuries. Once the kill is confirmed as thatmade by a tiger, he releases the com-pensation amount, ranging from Rs2,000 to 6,000, depending upon thetype of animal killed. His aim is thatthe farmer may not feel distraught atthe loss of the milch or draft animaland he may not harbour vindictive

Tigers are vanishing at a rapid pace. While efforts at government

level seem lacking, people-oriented approach adopted by a man inthe South shows a ray of hope. ■ by R. Krishnamurthy

A natural act in natural way in nature: A tiger preying for his food.

Movement of Krishna Kumar

SaveTheTiger

It seems, all the top leaders arerather egoistical, putting themselvesbefore the good of the party theybelong to. BJP has failed to figure outwhat the real trouble with the partyis. It seems, despite Advani’s hardlin-er instincts, he lacked firm convic-tions. Top BJP leaders are shunninghim and now his importance hasshrunk down. The problem is thatthere are a number of angry old menin the BJP spewing hatred and envy

all the time. BJP can comeback to power providedthey position themselves asa responsible centrist party.

They should try to recon-cile the differences among itsmembers. Further, the partyshould project itself as beingseriously concerned about thecurrent problems of drought,recession, education, environ-

ment, terrorism and so on. Otherwise the people will lose all

faith in it not before long. Time hascome when they need to work withinclusiveness, irrespective of caste,religion or state. The party will haveto factor in the prevailing moodamong the people to come up with aconvincing argument. If the BJPwants a future, it has to work out itsgame plan for 2014 right now.

— Vinod C. Dixit

Possessing money isyour right

Every one must have money withhim because without it he would not beable to run his family and day-to-daybusiness. Man has established moneyfor transaction in this world and he

4 ALIVE ■ FEBRUARY 2010 ALIVE ■ FEBRUARY 2010 5

Saving tigersRefer to Save the tiger (January 2010).

There are a few tigers that remain inthe wild today. This is certainly a causeof concern not only for environmentalactivists but also for the government.In the earlier days, the kings used tohunt animals as a sport. They were fol-lowed by the British, who loved blood-sport as well. After independence,things began to look up for a while.The government passed a law banning

the killing of some species that werethreatened with extinction. But the sit-uation has taken a turn for the worseonce again.

Trading in skin and body parts is alucrative business in India as well asin other countries such as China. Thishas resulted in poachers killing ani-mals for money. As a result, manyspecies, including the tiger, are dyingout. In order to save the tiger, theauthorities need to raise awarenesslevels by holding campaigns in themedia. Stricter enforcement of lawsrelated to poaching can also help savethe Indian tiger from certain death.

— Mahesh Kapasi

Government mockeryThose who talk about austerity fail

to look at the ways and means curtail-ing unnecessary expenditure incurredby government departments.

When the British administrationintroduced railway system in India, itwas meant to connect major citieswith the hill stations so that theBritish officers posted in India couldavoid the scorching heat in summer

Alive welcomes readers’ letters containing constructive criticism of

the stories, articles and features published in each issue. Also, givesuggestions for new subjects and

features. The best letter will get a prizeof Rs 200. Address your letters to:

Delhi PressE-3, Jhandewala Estate,

New Delhi - 110 055. Prize is awarded to: Daly Singh Wasan

would not get anything free.Everything costs and we need money,therefore, we should earn money, weshould spend money and we should beable to save money for the rainy days.

The people who hate money are leftpoor and they are obliged to begmoney form others. We have seen somany people who had left this life andare living in jungles are often comingto the people and begging somethingfrom them. It is because the body ofthe man needs food, clothes and manyother things to live on and even those,who run away from the mundane life,also need these things. Therefore,every one of us must try to earnmoney in a just way so that he couldbe able to run his life. The parents, thefriends, the relatives, the state and thesociety must see to it that every one inthe country has the power to earn andhe must be settled properly.

The people not in a position toearn money are often seen commit-ting crimes and create troubles forothers. So if we want peace, we shallhave to make sure that everyone isearning money in order to lead arespectable life. The states, which failto establish the people on work andearning money fail on all fronts andwhen people turn poor, that countryalways remains backward and notable to compete with the advancedcountries. Hence, in a democracy it isthe supreme duty of the state toensure that its citizens are an earninglot and have proper employment.

— Daly Singh Wasan

L E T T E R S

and spend the hot weather in cold cli-mate prevailing in the hill stations.For maintaining and running thetrains they had to recruit workersfrom various remote corners of thecountry. Those who hailed from dis-tant areas had to visit their familiesonce in a year or two and to enablethem the Indian Railways thought ofproviding the railway employeeswith free passes for travelling to theirnative places and come back.

Now each of the 40 lakh oddemployees in all grades and posts aregiven six LTCs and three free assesevery year. Even if every family has sixmembers the total number of passesand LTCs could be 64,00,000X9 passesin a year! In addition, the railwayemployees get bonus also. Thanks tothese passes, the railway system isovercrowded and the paying public isdenied berths and seats.

There is no need or justification forissuing such a large number of passesor allowing leave travel concessions.The employees of the Indian Railwaysshould be entitled only for the 2-yearor 4-year LTC available to the employ-ees of other government departments,which would work out to a staggeringamount of money and reduce the rushon the railways to some extent. Thisshould be examined and the system ofpasses should be abolished forthwith.

Paying bonus to governmentemployees is also not justified. Bonusis linked to production and the whitecollared employees who are doingonly unproductive jobs do notdeserve any bonus.

— K. Ponnu

Still a tabbooRefer to Women All the way photo-

graph with the caption ‘Models show-case designs by lingerie line Triumphduring a presentation choreographedby Indian Bollywood Director FarahKhan in Mumbai’ (January 2010).

It is strange that this kind of fashionshows are freely telecast on TV chan-

nels (not a wrong thing) but there arepractically no brassiere advertise-ments on TV (very few do appear) andnil on radio - and due to last years banon FTV for lingerie shows hardly anylingerie shows are telecast by FTV. OurInformation & Broadcasting Ministerfelt proud on such an illogical ban andacting in Taliban way.

Brassiere is like any other piece ifcloth necessary for any female to wearit to keep her figure intact –and thenecessary support breasts require fora healthy life. So what is wrong withbrassiere advertisements or fashionshows on brassiere. Every manknows that every woman-sister,mother, niece, grandmother, daughteretc wear a brassiere so why there is somuch fuss over it- i.e., brassiere adver-tisements etc. on TV and Radio etc.

Just because of illogical ban, mostwomen are ignorant- not aware of lat-est and best lingerie in the market-The Condom advertisements with

suggestive message and photographsare not considered as cheap and vul-gar or even sexy but strangely lingerieadvertisements are so considered.

— M. Kumar

Shame on systemThis refers to the editorial Selfish

representatives of people (October, 2009)which is not only thought provokingbut makes a man to rebel against rep-resentatives who are only criminalsand traitors in political uniform. Infact, these MPs, MLAs, MLCs etc rep-resent the people only to get votesand enjoy fat salaries, perks, foreignluxury cars, foreign trips only and

not for solving the problems of thecountry or its common people.

If they are real politicians, theyhave to do the following things,which truly represent the commonpeople who voted for them.

Since most politicians have theirown earnings in their profession ofagriculture, industry etc, they do notrequire salary to maintain their family.Hence they must voluntarily refusesalary and perks. This is applicable inthe case of retired or resigned govern-ment employees also who get pension.

Since the progress of the countryand its people depends on elimina-tion of corruption, the politiciansmust give free hand to Lokayuktaand CBI to do their duty.

We have completed 62 years ofIndependence. Is it not a shame to con-tinue to divide the countryby caste, sub caste, majority,minority etc that only createsconflicts and conspiraciesinstead of ensuring nationalintegration? These divisionsare only helping politiciansto cheat people and amasswealth and properties andnot benefiting the masses.Actually common peopleconsider caste and religion only in theirhouse and places of worship and notbothered about it outside while diningin a hotel and doing work in office, fac-tory etc.

— Ganesh Srikantiah

BJP needs to developfresh outlook

Your thought provoking report BJP:on the brink of breaking up? (October2009) clearly reveals that the BJP in thepresent circumstances needs to devel-op a fresh outlook and refurbish itsleadership with a set of dynamic lead-ers and should not be weird by theHindutva ideology. In spite of thewarnings issued by the RSS on a num-ber of occasions to keep the BJP intact,it had no effect on the party.


7

It is good that SupremeCourt judges have at last decid-ed to reveal the details of theirassets on the court’s website.There was reluctance on thepart of some of the members ofhigher judiciary to publicisethe property they had. The rea-son they put forward was thatjudges could be blackmailed bylitigants or harassed to explain how they acquired thewealth. However, the reluctance on the part of judiciary tomake public the details of their wealth gave a feeling in thatthey have something to hide. Recent happenings, that castaspersions on judges’ integrity, strengthened these doubts. A former Chief Justice of India had said 20% of judgesacross the board were corrupt. A common man would notdare to say so for fear of prosecution for contempt ofcourt. Even if the charge against a senior judge is as clearas daylight, punishing him is almost impossible. Toremove a High Court judge, it is necessary to impeachhim by Parliament. And, never in the history of the legis-lature, was a judge impeached, though several still-born

initiatives were taken in the past.However, of the three pillars of the State – legislature,executive and judiciary – the last is the least corrupt andpeople have to depend on it not only to get justice buteven to get things done. From repairing roads to propersupply of rations, people have to depend upon courtsthrough PILs. In such a situation, transparency of the judi-ciary is vital for installing confidence amongst the people.Though the judges in general were initially againstrevealing their assets, several in their ranks publiclypleaded for transparency regarding their property. Someof them began placing the details of their assets on thewebsite. Sensing the mood of the people and these judges,the Supreme Court Judges decided that they, too, wouldreveal the details of their assets to the public. The HighCourt judges are expected to follow suit.However, the exercise of going public with their assets isnot in any way going to help eradicate corruption. No onecan demand how the judge has acquired this wealth in thepast. For better accountability, declaring the candidates’assets should be made mandatory for all further appoint-ments. Then only it could be known whether their assets areproportionate to their known source of income. ■

ASSETS OF JUDGES

SELFISH REPRESENTATIVES OF PEOPLEThe Members of ParliamentLocal Area DevelopmentScheme (MPLADS), launchedin 1994, is meant to have afund for the MPs to spend attheir discretion on welfareand development schemes, intheir respective constituen-cies. The amount is Rs 2 crore.Recently, several MPs have

made a plea to increase the amount to Rs 5 crore. In fact,a Parliamentary committee, in its report, had recom-mended the enhancement of the MPLADS amount to Rs10 crore. The increase from Rs 2 crore to 5 crore itself willcost a difference in the budgetary outlay of Rs 4000 crorefrom the present Rs 1600 crore.The one issue on which members of all parties agree,while fighting most bitterly on every other issue, is theincrease in their emoluments. It would have been justifiedif the MPLADS funds are utilised for the genuine purpos-es they are meant for, say constructing roads in the vil-lages, repairing schools, etc. The MPLADS has becomeanother means of earning money in the name of servingthe people. A 2003 sting operation by a television channel

caught 4 MPs on camera discussing commissions to handout contracts under MPLADS.Not to be left behind their counterparts in Parliament,MLAs in State Legislatures, too, have got themselvesgrants for local area development schemes. The schemegoes against the division of duties between legislatureand the executive envisaged in the Constitution.Another factor that causes the Central Government'sfinancial drain is the mania of our political leaders ontheir personal security. Recently, BSP Members ofParliament disrupted the functioning of the two Housesto protest the proposal to withdraw NSG cover to theirleader UP Chief Minister Mayawati. Similarly, Lok Sabhawas paralysed on the basis of hearsay about the reductionof security of MPs such as Murali Manohar Joshi (BJP),Mulayam Singh Yadav (SP), and Lalu Prasad (RJD).Cannot Mayawati, who wastes hundreds of crores ofrupees on installing her own statues in public places, lookafter her personal safety from her own resources? In whatway can the life of Joshi, Mulayam or Lalu be more indanger than the life of the common man? Just becausethey have some MPs in the House to paralyse Parliament,they are blackmailing the Central Government to concedeto their unjustified demands.

EDITORIAL

ALIVE ■ FEBRUARY 2010 76 ALIVE ■ FEBRUARY 2010

Addressing the 97thIndian Science Congress, atThiruvananthapuram, inwhich more than 5,000 dele-gates from India and abroadparticipated, Prime MinisterManmohan Singh called uponscientists to liberate sciencefrom bureaucratism. Heasked them “to engage with

the Government to liberate Indian science from the shack-les and deadweight of bureaucratism and in-housefavouritism.”

No doubt, as the Prime Minister mentioned, red tape,political interference and lack of proper recognition ofgood work, had set back India from making any great con-tribution towards new discoveries and progress.

What is the condition of DRDO, ICAR, NationalChemical Laboratory, National Physical Laboratory andmany other fast-breeding institutions? They are all headedby senior scientists. But the Government’s mode of selec-tion, seniority and promotion makes them bureaucratsdealing with files in offices, rather than with the instru-

CRIME AND NO PUNISHMENT

“Patriotism is the lastrefuge of a scoundrel,” saidSamuel Johnson, the greatEnglish satirist of the 18th cen-tury. One is reminded of thissaying on reading the reportthat the Communist partieshave written to Prime Minister,demanding that 23 January,the birth anniversary of Netaji

Subhas Chandra Bose, should be celebrated as ‘Desh PremDiwas’ (Patriots’ Day). “Netaji is hailed by the people as aleader with unparalleled patriotism,” says the letter. Thesignatories of the letter include Prakash Karat of theCPI(M) and A.B.Bardhan of the CPI, with other left leaders.

Nor doubt, the people, the Forward Bloc and the RSPconsider Netaji as a leader with unparallel patriotism. Butwhat about the Indian Communist Party that split later intothe CPI and CPM? During World War II (1939-45), whenBose went out of India to organise the Indian NationalArmy, the Communist Party called him “the running dog offacism” at the order of the Russian Communist Party. Thiswas because Bose had sought the help of Germany and

Japan, that were fighting against Russia and Britain. Communists spied on Congressmen and other freedom-

fighters, who had gone underground to carry on their agi-tation. This is the record of the patriotism of Communists,to whom Soviet Union and its megalomaniac Joseph Stalincame first and India was second, if not last, after all theCommunist countries of the world, including China.

Talking about China, when that country attacked Indiain 1962, the Indian Communist Party supported theenemy. Later, the party split into CPM and CPI. Even afterthe Soviet Union disintegrated and the Communist coun-tries turned to democracy and capitalism, Indian commu-nists continued with their nostalgia for Stalinist Russia.

The letter of the leaders of the Leftist parties to thePrime Minister says, “In these days, when the spirit ofpatriotism seems lacking among our countrymen, owing tofrustration because of the poor economic conditions of thecommon man, it is necessary to give a call to the people onthe historic birthday of Netaji, to revive such a spirit.”

Well said! But before that, the writers of the letter shouldconfess their sin of calling Netaji names and undo the his-toric wrong they committed against him. Otherwise, theirwords will sound like Satan quoting the scriptures.

PATRIOTS’ DAY?

Justice delayed is justicedenied. And in India, justice isinvariably delayed if theaccused are rich and power-ful, especially if they arepoliticians and senior bureau-crats. The case of Ruchika,who was molested byS.P.S.Rathore, and driven tocommit suicide, is an exam-

ple. The crime was committed 19 years ago. Rathore, thenthe IG, molested the 13-year-old schoolgirl and the police,bureaucracy and politicians in power tried to suppressthe case. They harassed and tortured her family andfriends, demanding they withdraw the case or changetheir statements. Somehow, her parents and near onesresisted the threats and Rathore is now convicted andpunished with 6 months RI and a fine of Rs 1,000.

Day after day, newspapers and TV channels highlight-ed the incidents that followed the crime. From the thenChief Minister of Haryana to the lowest of police officials,all were found trying to help Rathore. What is more, hewas recommended and given awards and honours dur-ing the long trial. He retired as the DG of Police.

ments in the laboratory. They do turn out PhDs, but mostof them are mediocre. The degree they get is more becauseof serving their guides and seniors than because of serviceto science.

The problem is bureaucratisation of the sarkari scientif-ic community. But his calling on scientists to set thingsright, cannot work. It is the system devised by politiciansand bureaucrats that stifles science. A genius or innovatoris repressed, as no senior would like his junior to outshinehim. No wonder, our national laboratories explore andexperiment to produce nothing. The DRDO failed to makea light combat aircraft or a main battle tank for decades,compelling the Government to buy them from abroad.

Also, in a country where money is what matters, young-sters are made to choose careers that bring fat salaries. Fewtake to research in fundamental science and, those who do,get frustrated and go abroad where facilities and funds forresearch exist. Referring to Nobel laureate V.Ramakrishnan’srecent comments, that Indian scientists needed greaterautonomy, the PM said that the shackles of bureaucratismand favouritism should be removed. But who will do it? Notthe very politicians and bureaucrats, who have a vestedinterest in maintaining the status quo. ■

SCIENCE STIFLED BY OFFICIALDOM

The question now is how someone, who is accused ofsuch a heinous crime, is to be prevented from getting pro-motions and State honours. In the case of Rathore, he roseto the highest rank and was also honoured withPresident’s Police Medal, the highest honour for excel-lence in service. Now, hectic efforts are being made toenhance his punishment and withdraw his medal.

However, will these efforts be of any use, even if theybecome successful? He will be pampered with all privi-leges and comforts in jail, by the officials who were hissubordinates when he was the head of the police. Andeven to prove, that he abetted the girl to commit suicide,will be almost impossible.

The real problem is not the inadequacy of punishmentbut how soon it is meted out. If 6 months RI had beenhanded out to Rathore within 6 months of committing thecrime, instead of after long 19 years, it would have beensufficient. He would have lost his job and not got promo-tions and honours. Also, the victim would not have com-mitted suicide and her near ones harassed. Hence, delayis the most important factor that subverts justice. Thereshould be a fixed time by which cases are disposed off. Ifa girl is molested, she should not have to wait till shebecomes grandmother to get her tormenter punished.

DERECOGNISE COMMUNAL PARTIESMost of the Muslim coun-

tries have a religiousConstitution, in which religionand politics are intertwined.However, it is not so for all.For example, Turkey underKamal Pasha kept religion outof politics; so much so, theState banned purdah forwomen and Muslim-specific

dress for men. Other Muslim countries, though callingthemselves Islamic States, have different types of adminis-tration and law, varying from modern to fundamentalist.

When East Bengal was liberated from the military-mul-lah regime of Pakistan, in 1971, the newly-emerged State ofBangladesh, under Mujibur Rehman, opted for a secularConstitution. But after his assassination, the military tookover with the help of religious fundamentalists, following acoup in 1975, and the Fifth Amendment changed theConstitution into an Islamic one.

Recently, under the prime-ministership of Mujib’sdaughter, Sheikh Hasina, the Amendment was nullifiedby the Bangladesh Supreme Court, to make the State sec-ular. The Bench, headed by Justice Huq, restored the

unique feature of the original Constitution – secularismand freedom of religion. The judge said, “Secularismmeans both religious tolerance and religious freedom. TheState must not be seen favouring any particular religion;rather, ensure protection to the followers of all faiths.”

The Bangla Supreme Court’s order should be a guideeven to India, that has always been a secular country, witha Constitution directing the Government to enact a uni-form civil code to all the people, irrespective of religion,and foster a scientific temper among the masses. In fact,the Indian Government has been always submitting tothe coercion of religious leaders, to dilute the civil codeand helping to promote religious obscurantism in thename of religious freedom.

As for keeping religion out of politics, several partiesviolate the principle and even tag religion to the name oftheir parties, to woo voters of a particular community.The Hindu Mahasabha and the Muslim League thrive ondivisive politics, by misusing the name of religion. Andthere are several political parties that claim to protect peo-ple of a particular religion even when they claim to be sec-ular. It was time the Election Commission, with the back-ing of the Indian Supreme Court, derecognised politicalparties indulging in communal and divisive politics.

EDITORIAL EDITORIAL

D E F E N C E

Terrorism Threats India’sNuclear Installations

Headley and a Pakistani-Canadian,Tahawwur Hussain Rana – who visit-ed places in India and stayed close toN-installations, the threat-perceptionhas surely aggravated. In the givenscenario, a comprehensive action ismandatory if India has to secure its N-installations.

If India has taken any lesson fromthe 26/11 catastrophe, it must comeup with a formidable national strate-gy to combat terrorism and providefool-proof security to the sensitiveinstitutions and establishments.Though it has announced a series ofpolicy measures, intended to mod-ernise and improve the internal secu-rity apparatus – both men andmachines – most of these measuresare still to be implemented.

Past experiences have shown thatimplementation remains tardy andinefficient, leaving many gaps which

the terrorists have exploited,or may exploit. In case of aninroad into N-installations,the damage could be unimag-inable. Death and destructioncould be on such a large scale,that the country would berather confused as to how torespond. The cry of “enoughis enough" after every terrorattack will not work if our N-installations are vulnerabledue to inefficiency of theadministration, laced withcorrupt officials and tardyprocesses.

Although the Indian Navy,Coast Guard and the CISF have beenmandated to undertake securityarrangements for all strategically-sensitive N-installations, besides theDefence Forces that are deployed forproviding air defence cover, the stepsare precautionary in nature. Eventhough the States have been asked toincrease the vigil and patrolling, tothwart any sabotage attempt aimedat these vital facilities, a new sense ofurgency has come up to create anodal coordination agency at theCentre.

A thorough scrutiny at entrancesof airports, stations, ports, hotels, cin-emas etc, can help, along with strictmeasures to detect determined andintelligent attackers, who could pen-etrate almost any defence. The taskcan be made easier by a central com-mand and control system.

What the country needs is some-thing very formidable and concrete –both from the safety point of view ofthe N-installations, as well as a policytowards ending the militant groupsthat are out to destroy the country. ANational Strategy for CombatingTerrorism, much like the 4D Strategy– Defeat, Deny, Diminish and Defend– that the USA has followed since9/11, can be the ideal option to safe-guard India’s N-installations.

Will the Government come upwith a serious policy approach for asafer India? ■

Mumbai terror attack of 26/11is a grim reminder.

Instability in Pakistan, inclose association with Pakistanimilitants groups, aided andabetted by the ISI, could targetN-installations across the coun-try. And if the instability inPakistan multiplies into chaos,the danger to the N-installationcould be greater.

In the circumstances,besides issuing high-alertorders, how is the Governmentpreparing to meet the threat? Itis a fact, that every time theCentral Government receivessuch intelligence inputs, it asks theState Governments to beef up security,in addition to giving assurance thatnuke facilities are absolutely secure.Recently, Prime Minister DrManmohan Singh allayed fears aboutthe same.

Needing national strategyHowever, given the vulnerability

of the security system in the countryand the clear lack of coordinationamong various agencies, which led tothe devastating catastrophe inMumbai in 2008, mere assurancesmay not be enough. India needs tolook beyond the conventionalapproach and age-old methodswrapped in bureaucratic sluggish-ness and complacent responses.

India's strategic and economicadvancement of India has helped it toenter into nuclear deals with severalcountries, including the USA andCanada. However, the threat to thecountry's N-installations may jeopar-dise such agreements or it may act as asetback, giving the Western countries areason to back-track from their deals.

For example, Australia continuesto refuse to provide India with urani-um and other nuclear material andtechnology, for fear that it will be usedfor military purposes or could fall intothe hands of terrorists. And since therevelation by 2 terror suspects – David


groups, particularly LeT, wereexploring possibilities of infiltratingtheir agents, arms and ammunitioninto India through the sea route.

In November 2006, HomeMinister Shivraj Patil had alerted thesecurity establishments that theIndian nuclear-power plants were

The recent radiation leak, at theKaiga Nuclear Plant inKannada district, Karnataka,has left 55 employees in themaintenance unit falling sick

due to suspected radiation poison-ing. While nuclear experts have notruled out the possibility of sabotage,came the report that nuclear installa-tions of the country are on the targetof the terrorists.

This was disclosed by Minister ofState for Home Affairs M.Ramachandran in the Lok Sabha, inresponse to a written question. In viewof India being a constant target ofsevere terror attacks, in recent years,the nuclear installations in variousparts of the country are in great danger.

The report of possible attack onIndia’s N-installations and otherDefence establishments locatedalong, or in close proximity to its7,516-km-long coastline, is not a newsecurity threat. In November 2008,N-installations in the country wereput on high alert after Intelligenceinput revealed a sinister plan by theterrorists from across the border.

In March 2007, Defence MinisterA.K. Antony, while addressing theParliament, pointed out that therewere reports about terrorists of vari-ous tanzeems (groups) being trainedand there was likelihood of theirinfiltration through sea routes.

In May 2007, the then Minister ofState for Home, Sriprakash Jaiswal,stated that Pakistan-based terrorist

highly vulnerable to terrorists. Thelatter were making attempts to occu-py some uninhabited islands in theIndian Ocean and use them as basesfor terror attacks along the coasts.

Global intelligence agencies havealso been warning of terrorist attackson India through the sea route. The

Recently caught two terror masterminds David Headley and

T. H. Rana who also plotted 26/11 had stayed close to N-installations

of India. How lethal an N-centre go-off is taken from catastrophes

from Chernobyl explosion. ■ by M. Shamsur Rabb Khan

David Headley: Mastermind behind Mumbai attack.

Defence Minister: Pointed out possibility of terror attack through

coastal region prior to 26/11.Chernobyl nuclear reactor after accident on 26 April 1986.

T H E F O U R T H E S TAT E

New JournalismBucks accepted here

sensed it and, in the name of ‘bonus’,‘prime-time’ and a few other spots,they mint money by projecting thebig shots in a fine-tuned manner.

Of late, ‘news items of your choice’is gaining more prominence. Forinstance, if any entrepreneur or filmactor or sportsman is willing to spendextra money on his publicity, thewriter from the daily or the magazinewill help you draft your material. Insome cases, it is the other way round,as many, including some lawyers andpolice officials, are ready to draft thematerial concerning them, instead ofrelying on their versions.

Some of them even insist on goingthrough the report before it appears inprint. Readers could find several‘news items’ of exactly the same size, inthe same newspaper, on the same day,mentioning very different things, asthey were paid-for propaganda or dis-guised advertisements. It is a regret-table fact that some publications arecompromising their ideology to gener-ate revenues from advertisements.

At times, during page make-ups,news becomes a casualty at theexpense of advertisements. Suchpublications are ready to sacrificetheir editorial coverage or lead pagefor the sake of advertisements thatbring in cash.

There are a few significant excep-tions, of course. Some editors tried

their level best to balance their cover-age and even ran a ‘news audit’ toensure that. Often, some journalistswith access to politicians wereexpected not only to feather theirnests, but also to generate profit forthe media houses.

Deceptive termsSome newspapers sent out an

email, detailing ‘targets’ for eachbranch and edition, during the polls.Yet, the huge sums pulled in by somedailies did not stop them from sackingtheir staffers; they have standard argu-ments in defence of the entire process.

For instance, when a channelinvited some journalists and politi-cians for a programme, BJP leaderL.K.Advani said that, after the emer-gence of visual media, maximumshare of advertisements had beencornered by the channels, leaving lit-tle for the print media.

Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu, N.Ram said, albeit in a lighter vein,“For a change, I agree with the viewsof Mr Advani.” The channel promot-er, Rajdeep Sardesai, however, wasfirm and said that CNN-IBN also hasto emphasise the commercial point ofview.

During the Lok Sabha elections,many celebrities were seen canvass-ing for their candidates. However,

'interviews', ‘analysis’, ‘commentaries’,‘events’, ‘achievements’ and what not.With the channels, it was ‘live cover-age’, a ‘special focus,’ or even a teamtracking you for hours in a day.

Let alone bad-mouthing yourrival, this ‘pay-per’ culture alsoensures that the newspaper, maga-zine or channel will not tell its audi-ences that you have a criminal record.The sources in the political corridorsaid that, as many as 50% of theMLAs just elected in Maharashtra,have criminal charges pendingagainst them. Interestingly enough,some of them featured in adulatory‘news items’, which made no mentionof this while tracking their record.

Media-politics nexusThe writer, who traced the nexus

between the politicians and media,said one rebel candidate in westernMaharashtra calculates that an editorfrom that region earned Rs 1 crore.The concerned editor, according tohim, gleefully pointed out that therebel candidate has won by defeatingthe official candidate of his party.

It is indeed disgusting and disturb-ing to note that the money game hasmoved from the petty personal cor-ruption of a handful of scribes to thestructured extraction of huge sums ofmoney by some media outfits. Somesmall publications rely solely on‘Supplements’ to whet their appetite.

It becomes easy for them torelease supplements in this media-savvy world, to pamper the politi-cians, industrialists, tinsel world andcricketers. Even if a supplement costsmore than a crore, people withenough resources are happy to gainmileage from publicity. Visual media


The role of the ElectionCommission of India (ECI), incurbing booth-capturing, intim-idation of voters, and otherkinds of electoral fraud, has

won accolades from the public. India’selections, which in mid-2009 brought415 million voters to the 1.18 millionballot units in 834.944 polling sta-tions and were mostly peace-ful, may be one of the won-ders of the world.

However, it is widelyunderstood that, lastyear, the free, fair anddemocratic attributesof these elections havebeen compromised asnever before. Therewas large-scale, illegaland scandalous use ofmoney-power – which,to a considerableextent, involved recy-cled, dirty money, gar-nered through corruption inexecutive and legislative offices.

Recently, an article appeared in aleading daily, which claimed that therewas extensive and brazen participa-tion of a section of the media inAndhra Pradesh. Allegedly, journalistsearned about Rs 350 crore through edi-torial coverage sold to candidates dur-ing the recent Lok Sabha andAssembly elections. It is said that somepolitical candidates even recorded theexpenditure, incurred in purchasingeditorial coverage, in their official doc-

faced a no-confidence motion fromthe Communist Party of India(Marxist) and the BJP.

It is a welcome sign that somenewspersons drew the attention ofthe ECI on this new-fangled cashtransfer scheme in Andhra Pradesh.The Press Council of India has consti-tuted a 2-member committee toinquire into the matter.

The grapevine in media concurredwith the writer of the above article. Itwas further alleged that the Assemblyelections saw the culture of ‘coverpackages’ explode across the State. Inmany cases, a candidate had to pay for

almost any coverage at all; issuesdid not pose a problem.

If any candidate was notinclined to dole out to somescribes, the candidate’s namewas blacklisted in theircolumns. This made the small-

er parties pale into insignificanceand there was no or very little

coverage of candidates with inade-quate assets and resources.

Apparently, during the Lok Sabhaelections, a section of the media wereoffering "low-end" coverage pack-ages for Rs 15 lakh to Rs 20 lakh.“High-end” ones cost a lot more. Andthe rates for Assembly elections areeven higher. “It is not new,” say a fewscribes. However, the brazenness of itis quite alarming.

The deals were many and varied. Apolitical candidate had to pay differentrates for ‘profiles’, ‘features’,

Demands of professional journalists are tilted by the

interests of owners and stakeholders of media

companies. And money wielding men have no problem

in buying morals of greedy scribes. ■ by K. V. Venugopal

During the Lok Sabha elections, manycelebrities were seen canvassing for

candidates. However, during theMaharashtra Assembly polls, severalof them appear to have been hired bycampaign managers to exert undue

influence on the voters.

uments submitted to the ECI. No wonder, a speaker at a media

seminar in Hyderabad recently char-acterised the trend as a “Cash TransferScheme” – from politicians to journal-ists. Earlier, this trend allegedly pre-vailed between the politicians only.Thus, we had the Bharatiya JanataParty (BJP) accusing the SamajwadiParty (SP) of indulging in bribe to pro-tect the Central Government, whenthe United Progressive Alliance (UPA)

Conducting an interview: But will it carry enough credibility?

should debar the guilty candidatesfrom contesting elections for 6 yearsand ensure legal validity for the codeof conduct, they added.

New era journalismA doyen in the journalist profession

rued that the coverage packages arethe result of thoughtless restructuringby some newspaper organisations inthe name of cost-control. As a result,the axe has fallen on several loyal jour-nalists, particularly desk persons, whoaccepted modest sums as salary orretainership, for the love of labour.

According to him, the patient andpointed scrutiny that the desk under-took all these years, for any bias, slant,inaccuracies or exaggerations, isabsent today. Instead, he bemoaned

receive me, the moment he heard thedaily I represent.”

A similar problem confronts somevernacular dailies. It is being allegedthat authorities concerned with air-ports, railway and other important sec-tors, accord top priority to journalistsattached to established publications.

In press conferences, televisionchannels grab the attention of theorganisers, followed by the printmedia. It is alleged that the organis-ers dish out press releases, with a vol-ley of attractive gifts, to the favouredreporters. The toiling journalists areexpected to spend money from theirpockets to cover the assignment andcatch the deadline.

A veteran observer of politics andmedia observed that, during the era ofPrime Minister Pandit JawaharlalNehru, journalists were held in rever-ence. An honest and law-abiding jour-nalist according to him, sacrificedeverything – children, parents, cher-ished relatives, even his priceless life –to place the full facts before the masses.

Not for nothing did Netaji SubhashChandra Bose and other famous lead-ers aver that “the pen is mightier thanthe sword.” The scribes did their bestto expose the emerging malpracticesin society – bribing voters, imperson-ation, booth-capturing – and did notbother to serve his self-interests.

It is a matter of concern, says theobserver regretfully, that a handful ofpeople have shamelessly tarnishedthe image of journalism. As the VicePresident has rightly pointed out, it istime to inculcate ethical values injournalists. A section of academiciansare of the view that the malady ofnewspapers indulging in “paidnews” is not a matter of ethics to beenquired into by the Press Council; itis a deliberate act of corruption, to bedealt with according to law.

Since both the givers and takers ofbribe are guilty, the ElectionCommission should seek the assis-tance of the judiciary, conduct aninquiry and institute criminal pro-ceedings against both. Also, the EC

that we find PR-savvy correspondentsestablishing strong ties with thosewielding power. They do not hesitateto accept gratification. If pulled up bya straightforward management, theyswitch over to another establishment.

Indeed, in the last 2 decades, jour-nalism has become another businessfor the vested interests to exploit. Andthe print media is slowly losing out tothe electronic media with prime-time,bonus spots and attractive ratings.

Many of these sections are man-aged by politicians, who have scantregard for principles, propriety andcommitment. In the process, journal-ism has lost its standards. Some new-generation journalists make a fastbuck by giving coverage to individu-als, whose only interest is to wieldpolitical power. ■

ALIVE ■ FEBRUARY 2010 13

media call “for not accepting or pub-lishing any advertisement at the cost ofthe public exchequer regardingachievements of a party or governmentin power.” He also noted that paidnews could cause double jeopardy toIndian democracy through a damaginginfluence on press functioning as wellas on the free and fair election process.

The Vice President was alsoapprehensive that huge investments,the emergence of media conglomer-ates and their explosive growth, havebrought into focus new considera-tions that guide professional mediadecisions. It was being felt that theamazing media growth had high-lighted that the Fourth Estate was theonly one among the pillars of democ-racy that had an identifiable commer-cial and explicitly-for-profit persona.

He is, perhaps, right. Recently, a

news editor of a renowned Tamildaily was arrested when the paperpublished an article about the fleshtrade allegedly indulged in by somefilm actresses. Some of them vehe-mently criticised the daily andensured that action was taken againstit for publishing defamatory articles.

A BSP MP from Tamil Nadulodged a complaint that some ver-nacular media houses in the Statehad assured him, before the LokSabha elections, that prominent cov-erage would be allotted to him, pro-vided he was inclined to shell outabout Rs 5 crore. The candidatedeclined the offer. As a result, “I was

during the Maharashtra Assemblypolls, several of them appear to havebeen hired by campaign managers torope in crowds for their candidates.Thus, exerting undue influence onthe voters goes hand-in-hand withthe alarming rise of money-poweramong candidates.

According to Chaman Lal,Chairperson, Centre of IndianLanguages, Jawaharlal NehruUniversity, New Delhi, in all fair-ness,, the credit for boldly raising theissue of “journalism for sale”shouldgo to the veteran journalist,Prabhash Joshi. The late Joshi startedwriting, says Lal, about this malaisein the Hindi daily, Jansatta, of whichhe was founder-editor.

The renowned journalist, much tohis chagrin and discomfiture, watchedjournalism in Hindi newspapers beingsold openly to candidates in UttarPradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand, duringthe last Lok Sabha elections. Joshistarted a spirited public cam-paign on this issue andaddressed many pubicmeetings in Uttar Pradeshand Bihar.

Poignantly, he returnedto New Delhi just 2 daysbefore his death, afteraddressing many such meet-ings in Benaras, Mirzapur etc.Being a cricket enthusiast, Joshi wasalso sore about the betting associatedwith the great game.

Expressing concernVice President and Rajya Sabha

Chairman M. Hamid Ansari wasgreatly disturbed after hearing aboutthe journalistic package. Whileaddressing a 3-day workshop on‘Parliament and the Media’ organisedby the Rajya Sabha, he regretted thatthe demands of professional journal-ists are tilted by the interests of ownersand stakeholders of media companiesand their cross-media interests.

Ansari also pointed out that PressCouncil of India’s guidelines to the

blacklisted from publicity lists,”bemoans the concerned MP.

Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu, N.Ram said that the Parliament waspre-eminent and the Constitutionwas supreme, in India. Referring tothe declaration of a former Speaker ofthe Tamil Nadu Assembly that hehad “sky-high powers” and thearrest of a Tamil journalist for pub-lishing a cartoon criticising the legis-lators, Ram suggested there was seri-ous need for codification of “legisla-tive privileges and contempt.”

Unnecessary highlightingRajya Sabha Deputy Chairman K.

Rahman Khan has rightly pointedthat no privileges committee or pre-siding officer could say that they hadunbound powers, while suggestingthe media to continue the debate onthe codification of parliamentary

privileges. The former Editor ofthe Hindi daily Hindustan,

Mrinal Pandey, sought acode of ethics for both printand visual media, as wellas some kind of monitor-ing body.

A Public RelationsOfficer, attached to the

Southern Railway, regrettedthat loads of unnecessary news are

telecast round the clock. There is a rat-race, he says, among different televi-sion news channels, bringing tremen-dous pressure on journalists to deliv-er. A corporate analyst opine thatnewspersons should be aware of theirresponsibility and inform and educatethe common man.

The problem, according to insid-ers in the media, lies with bureau-crats, politicians, the corporate sector,tinsel world and sports personalities,too. Most of them prefer to pamperrenowned newspapers and periodi-cals at the expense of small dailiesand lesser-known weeklies and fort-nightlies. Once, a journalist from arenowned daily proudly proclaimed,“A Collector himself came out to

12 ALIVE ■ FEBRUARY 2010

Neglected areas

Noted agriculture expertM.S.Swaminathan has also indirectlyimplied that the journalists, instead ofindulging in coverage-for-cash, shouldanalyse the burning issues confrontingour agriculture sector. He regretted thatthe extensive prevalence of child andadult malnutrition and India’s anticipatedfailure to halve the number of the hungryby 2015, as per the first of the UnitedNations Millennium Development Goals,receives only a passing mention in themedia. The social and economic conse-quences of pervasive hunger and destitu-tion are hardly highlighted in dailies andperiodicals, he avers.

Dr Swaminathan said that it is time forthe scribes to note that nearly 66% ofIndia’s population live in villages and thatagriculture constitutes the backbone oftheir livelihood and survival. This fact isput under the carpet since it constitutes an“inconvenient truth”. Indeed, as many as40% of the farmers interviewed by theNational Sample Survey Organisationhave expressed a desire to quit farming, ifthere is another option available.

Dr Swaminathan, albeit indirectly, want-ed the media to realise the gravity of the sit-uation and wanted the media to serve as a

bright, affirming light, in the midst of a seaof despair and help generate a new confi-dence in our agricultural capability.

A disgusted scientific researcheraverred that, with the advent of 24x7 tele-vision news channels, the role of the mediahas undergone a tremendous change.According to him, instead of being respon-sible news-providers, the channels sensa-tionalise news to make it spicy. This killsgenuineness and credibility.

He also felt that the problem thatresearch faces today is due to lack of jour-nalists who specialise in the field. Theyfocus mostly on politics, sports and films.“How many of them bothered to come outwith an analysis or a feature on socio-econ-omy and environment-related subjects?”asked the researcher, sporting a sullen look.


THE

IN

PICTURESW RLDW RLD

Speed thrills: Workers put the final touches on the interior of the new railway station in Wuhan, incentral China as the country unveiled what it billed as the fastest rail link in the world.

War legacy: South Korean specialwarfare forces run in the snow during a

winter field drill in Pyeonchang. TheKorean peninsula is the world’s lastCold War frontier as Stalinst North

Korea and pro-Western South Koreahave been technically at war since the

1950-53 conflict.

Cycling mission: South African photographer GeoffBrink on the road to unicycle a distance of 1,700

kilometres from Durban to Cape Town to raiseawareness of the scourge of landmines.

Shooting high: Dubai’sBurj Khalifa tower, the

world’s tallest skyscraper,is lit by laser lights during

its opening ceremonywhen. Sheikh Mohammad

bin Rashed al-Maktoum,the ruler of Dubai,

officially opened thebuilding, which stands at

828 metres high.

Naked protest: Activists of the“Pirate Party” stage a protest in

their underwear at Tegal airport inBerlin against the introduction of

body scanners, in the wake of theDetroit plane attack.

Dancing elves:The Mancinifamily of Elvisand PriscillaPresleyimpersonatorsdance their wayto catch the‘Elvis Express’ atCentral Station inSydney for the18th annual ElvisFestival inParkes.

Simply breathtaking: Ice sculptures are displayed atthe annual Ice and Snow festival in Harbin,

northeast China’s Heilongjiang province. Fairy talepalaces, towering pagodas, and even an EgyptianSphynx — all carved from ice — were among the

sights at this year’s Snow Sculpture Festival.

Snowy pleasure: People enjoy playing in the snow,in Schoorl in northwestern Netherlands.

Row over name: TheAngel Falls (Salto Angel),

the world’s highestwaterfall, with a height of979 m, near the village ofCanaima, Southeastern

Venezuela. Will soon gotits indigenous name.

Flowing inferno: Lavacascades on the slopes of

Mayon volcano in Legazpi City,Albay province, southeast ofManila. People displaced by if

prepared for a “WhiteChristmas” and politicians

bearing gifts trooped toevacuation centres.

E X T R AVA G A N Z A

Top brass NRIs shunPravasi Bharatiya Diwas

Further, it was felt that overseasIndians should be encouraged to joinpublic life and politics upon theirreturn to India, just as they are join-ing business and academia.

However, the more pertinentquestion, that remained unansweredand which many overseas Indians,especially from Malaysia, were ask-ing was: Why is the Indian

Government only interested in theNRIs' dollars ? And it looks the otherway when overseas Indians feel andface the heat in their adopted coun-tries. They were referring to theshameless incidents in Australia,Malaysia and some African coun-tries, where Indians are at the receiv-ing end from the locals for some time.

Also, like a ritual, Indian leaders,including the PM, assured them thatthat the Government was working ongiving 'Persons of Indian Origin' theright to exercise their franchise, by thenext general elections. The responseto the PM's assurance that, overseasIndians would be given right to fran-chise, was quite lukewarm.

A third-generation Indian fromThailand, Paul Pornthep SriNaurla,was rather blunt when he said that he

were either working-class people orsmall-time businessmen.

Of course, India today is one ofthe top investment destinations.Economic opportunities are expand-ing everywhere. But, it would bemost appropriate if he made such anappeal to real big-ticket overseasIndians. Unfortunately, like in thepast, they were missing this time, too.


ence in the USA, Malaysia and SouthAfrica, with over 10 lakh people ofIndian origin each in these countries,their delegations were not bigenough. The only saving grace wasthe presence of affable and amiableSant Singh Chatwal, a NRI hotelierfrom America. A close friend of Billand Hillary Clinton, he candidlyadmitted that big-time overseas

In the biting cold weather of the cap-ital, another annual ritual, PravasiBharatiya Diwas (PBD), came to atame end, recently. Like the weath-er, the event was extremely cold

and drab, by any stretch of imagina-tion. The most well-known overseasIndians, like steel baron Laxmi Mittal,top-notch politician of America BobbyJindal, golfer Vijay Singh, VikasDhoorooso, member of the 2006French football team, cricketers likeMonty Paneshar, Ram Naresh Sarwan,and Shiv Narain Chanderpaul weremissing this time too.

Not only that, the likes of SalmanRushdie, Lord Swaraj Paul, CityBank boss Vikram Pandit and Pepsico-head Indira Nooyi, did not con-sider it worth attending. Franklyspeaking, but for the presence ofSamy Vellu Sangalimuthu, thelongest-serving President of theMalaysian Indian Congress and for-mer Minister in Malaysia, MahendraChoudhray, former Prime Minister ofFiji and Ruby Dhall, the glamourousMP of the Canadian Parliament,hardly any big-time overseas Indianwas there at the PBD.

While Indians have a huge pres-

Indians hardly care for this event. It is the duty of the Government to

ensure that known faces among over-seas Indians attend the summit.While addressing the 8th edition ofPBD, the Prime Minister, DrManmohan Singh urged those pre-sent to invest in India in a big way.Perhaps, he was not aware of the pro-file of most of the participants. They

At the end, there was a strong feeling that the

Government has to plan this annual event

more carefully and look after the interests of

the huge Indian diaspora. ■ by Vivek Shukla

The President, Pratibha Patil with the awardees of Pravasi BharatiyaSamman in New Delhi. Also present is the Union Minister of Overseas

Indian Affairs, Shri Vayalar Ravi.

The President, felicitating Dr. RubyUmesh Pawankar from Japan.

The President, felicitating TholisiahPerumal Naidoo from South Africa.

Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singhlighting the lamp to inaugurate the 8th

Pravasi Bharatiya Divas.

working or settled abroad. Delegatesfrom the Gulf were particularly peev-ed and disappointed with speechesof Prime Minister and Vayalar Ravi,the Overseas Indian Affairs Minister,for not giving them concrete assur-ances in terms of their social securityin the Gulf.

Inward remittances into the coun-try, from non-resident Indians, wit-nessed a dip during the calendar year2009 due to the global economic con-ditions, which resulted in job-lossesacross various countries, particularlythe Gulf. There has been a 13% declinein remittances at $22.8 billion in thefirst half (January-June) of the calen-dar year 2009, against $26.2 billion inthe same period last year, according tofigures on private transfers availableon the Reserve Bank of India site.

India was among the largest recip-ients of remittances in the world, in2008. The country witnessed a sub-stantial surge in inward remittances,with the NRIs considering the Indianbanking system a safe haven forparking their surplus funds. Totalremittances across various countriesin 2008 were close to $300 billion.

Almost a dozen banks, includingPunjab National Bank, Bank ofBaroda and Indian Overseas Bank,had put up stalls in the PBD, withgreat hope that NRIs would throng

is only emotionally attached to India."We want to see it growing in leapsand bound in every field," heaverred. But, he was not keen to getvoting rights in India.

Dr Singh also discussed the impor-tant subject of the welfare and securi-ty of overseas Indian workers and stu-dents. He said that many of them hadbeen adversely affected by the globaldownturn and his Government isworking on proving a social securitysafety net for returning workers.

Concern for securityHe said that the Ministry of

Overseas Indian Affairs has estab-lished a ‘Indian Community WelfareFund’ in 18 countries but there wasalso a need to structure an appropriate‘Return and Resettlement Fund’. TheGovernment is also negotiating withthe Governments of Malaysia, Bahrainand Qatar, that had a large number ofIndian emigrants, to improve the wel-fare and protection provided to them.

An NRI from Dubai said thatIndians working in the Gulf have towork under most trying conditions infar-flung countries. They hardly getany social security. It is high timethat, like the Chinese Government,Indian Government takes a pro-active role in the welfare of Indians

them in order to invest their surplusmoney. However, the PBD proved tobe huge disaster on this front, as veryfew of them were seen makingenquiries at these stalls.

An official of PNB blamed theorganisers for failing to invite afflu-ent and important overseas Indians.But, Harmohan S Walia, an NRI fromAustralia, was of the view that, asIndian banks have branches in practi-cally all parts of the world, they parktheir money in those branches.

Property disputesAnd as if it is not enough, a real-

life version of the film Khosla kaghosla is being played out with anincreasing number of non-residentIndians (NRIs). Complaints of real-estate deals going sour, illegalencroachment and unauthorisedoccupation of properties flooded theofficials of Ministry of OverseasIndian Affairs (MOIA) during PBD.

"Property dispute is one of themost frequent complaints by NRIs.They are unable to protect their prop-erty due to long absences or lack ofawareness of laws," says VayalarRavi. The largest number of com-plaints is from major real-estate mar-kets like Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore,Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Punjab.

The complaints are mainly aboutprotection of property that has beenforcibly occupied or encroached, dis-pute relating to division of propertyor inheritance and cases whereinvestors have been cheated by real-estate developers. Though there wasa session on property disputes at thePBD, only assurances were given tothe harassed, overseas Indians.

At the end of the 3-day jamboreecalled PBD, there was a strong feelingthat the Government has to plan thisannual event more carefully and lookafter the interests of the huge Indiandiaspora. The purpose of PBD wouldbe defeated if the Government looksonly at the dollars of overseasIndians. ■


Dr. Manmohan Singh releasing the Investment Tool Kit for Global Indians.

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E N T R E P R E N E U R S H I P

Flipping Job Marketalso. While away from home, the onething they realised was that, afterputting in a hard day’s labour, theonly thing a person desires is less oily,less spicy, simple, home-like food.

His conviction paved the way forhim to be a restaurateur. After beingin the IT industry for 5 years, hedecided to start food retailing. In theyear 2005, he opened his first restau-rant at Bannerghatta Road, inBangalore, called ‘Mast Kalandar’.Today, he has a chain of 6 restaurantsand wants to have many more.

He was not a foodie, but herealised the need of a good restaurantserving authentic North Indian cui-sine. He banked on his own savings,so he was his own master and chan-nelised all his energies to enter themarket more aggressively and keep-ing the rates competitive.

According to him, in this trade, thebest strategy is to satisfy the taste budsand pocket of the customer becausethey keep the cash-registers ringing.Customers are the biggest goodwillambassadors and help in spreadingthe business through word of mouth.

The food in his restaurants isserved according to the taste of the

customers and their advice and sug-gestions are always welcome. A com-plaint register is ready at the counterfor customers to register their com-plaints and suggestions.

At the young age of 35, he isexcelling in his business. His staff ismainly from the North-Eastern Statesand the chefs are from Delhi, Biharand Orissa. He looks up to MahatmaGandhi and Richard Branson (of theVirgin Group of Companies) as hisideals. Like the latter, he is inclined tofind the latest techniques, to servehealthier and tastier food.

For him, every customer is valu-able. He enjoys providing good cus-tomer-service and it gives himimmense pleasure to watch his cus-tomers enjoy their food.

Prabhakar: He did B.E. inMechanical Engineering fromB.M.S.College of Engineering inBangalore. He took up his first assign-ment as a mechanical engineer inProtocol Systems, and worked therefor 6 months. His friends insistedupon him to change his domain, as

plunge, 5 years ago, with her friendSubramaniam, and floated the‘Ascent Consulting Services,’ in JayNagar, Bangalore. A computer andtheir knowledge of the field weretheir only assets. Their office com-prised of a desk and 2 chairs becausethey could afford only this much.

They ran from pillar to post to getorders for their firm. The first 8months were very tough. The temp-tation of leaving everything andgoing back to her job was verystrong. Her father was a great sourceof strength for her; he encouragedher to give more time to her venture.

They moved step by step; cement-ed their company brick by brick,putting in a lot of hard work. It washands-on experience for them. Thefirst order that they executed, fetchedthem 1,000 rupees and gave herimmense pleasure and confidence.She counted the notes again andagain. It was not just money; it washer prized possession, and it signi-fied her victory. After that, she neverlooked back. One company led toanother and, today, she is the proudowner of 3 companies.

Gaurav Jain and Pallavi: Insteadof taking up his ancestral cloth busi-ness of Urvashi Sarees, in Saharanpur,he went out to study MechanicalEngineering at MNR in Uttar Pradesh.He came over to Bangalore and joinedWipro’s sales section.

Both he and his wife Pallavi (asoftware engineer) travelled abroad


ty. The desire for self-gratification, toshowcase their talent and to feelproud of their achievements, wasalso there.

L. Geeta: She is a CharteredAccountant by profession and herachievements outnumber her age.She is a visionary and knows how tofulfil her dreams.

She aspired for ownership and thisdrive forced her to leave her lucrativejob. She invited the disapproval ofsome of her near anddear ones but she con-tinued zealously. Today,she is an achiever.

Born and brought upin Hyderabad, shealways aspired to dosomething different. Sheworked hard for goodacademic records andscored 90% marks in her12th standard. Insteadof following theEngineering or Medical

Since time immemorial, greenpastures have lured many apeople to go for new ventures,leaving the beaten tracks. Thesuccess stories of iconic

achievers have opened the gate formany youngsters to follow theirdreams. Today, there is a lot of move-ment in the job-market. Earlier, peoplenever thought about it. Maybe, thejob-market gives them so muchchoice, besides more money. The otherfactors that contribute to it are ambi-ence, infrastructure, place of posting,work-culture and salary-hike. Everychange offers a bigger pay-packet.

Sometimes, there comes a satura-tion point in their life, when theyknow that they have to stop. At thatpoint, sometimes, they change theirfield of work and enter into an alto-gether new profession.

Many dared to take a plunge;some succeeded, some failed. Hereare the real-life stories of some ofthem. To go in for making big moneywas not always their top-most priori-

professions, she chose accountancy. She did her ICA and ICWA from

Abids and Articleship at the reputedP.Murali & Co. and landed a job asCompany Secretary. Her father sup-ported her in all her ventures andencouraged her to do something dif-ferent in life, whereas her mother, atraditional home-maker, wanted herto get married and settle down.

She was married to Anil Rao andmoved to Bangalore with him.Basking in marital bliss, a good job

and social service,everything was coolbut she wanted to addmore feathers to hercap. She joined InnerWheel Circle at RotaryClub. Still, she felt thather talent was gettingrusted; she was capa-ble of handling morechallenging situations.

Social service wasalso proving a dampsquib. So, she took a

These people had the freedom and ability to choose,

plan and execute their dreams into reality. They were lucky because

the job market in India, today, offers numerous opportunities to

young people to do what they like. ■ by Vineeta Sehgal

Gaurav Jain and Pallavi

L. Geeta

C O V E R S T O R Y

They moved step by step; cementedtheir company brick by brick,

putting in a lot of hard work. It washands-on experience for them. The

first order that they executed, fetchedthem 1,000 rupees and gave her

immense pleasure and confidence.

A devoted worker and satisfiedwith his professional life, he left hislucrative career to follow his heart’sdesire. Right from his college days, hehad great passion for automobiles andwanted to set up his own business.Since his father was also in the samefield, he had sufficient industrial expo-sure. It did not take him long to estab-lish Automat India, with his friends.

He thinks it is a very challengingexperience. He has to deal daily witha different set of customers, whobelong to the middle and upper-mid-dle class. It needs a lot of patience,great knowledge, friendly attitudeand oratorical skills.

He opines, “They are educated,and are intelligent enough to interactarticulately. Only when they havefaith in you, they will go ahead.”

Their total staff strength of 12 com-prises sales executives, technical exec-

utives and drivers for test-drives.Their relationship with the staff isthoroughly professional and they paygood salaries to keep them satisfied.

He has to put in a little more timeand effort but he feels happy about itbecause it is his own business. He canmonitor its growth; he is the masterand is not answerable to anyone. Itgives him a sense of liberation as wellas achievement.

Back to a jobThere are others, who ventured out

to taste the turbulent waters but had toretreat. Many, who set up their ownbusiness or entered into an alliancewith brothers or friends, soon realisedit was not their cup of tea. Before thewater got muddier, they opted for anabout-turn and took up a job.

The retreat has made them a bit

his busy schedule. He gives credit tohis grandparents, his parents and histeachers at Aurobindo MemorialSchool in South Bangalore for incul-cating these values in him.

He believes that there is aSupreme Power, who wants us tolead a pious life and do somethingworthwhile for the poor and down-trodden in our society. According tohim, education is not only aboutimparting the 3 R’s but inculcatingright values in a child.

No child is bad or criminal frombirth. Sometimes, there is no one togive them proper direction or teachthem moral values. If the parents areeducated, especially the mother, theycan guide them to be enlightened cit-izens.

B. Senthil Kumar: He is one of thepartners of First Choice, a Mahindra,HDFC and Sah & Sanhgi venture. Hewas born to Subbalakshmi andBhaskaran, a Mechanical Engineer,who had retired from TVS Suzuki asGeneral Manager. He was born andbrought up in Chennai and has 2 sis-ters.

He idolised his father to the extentthat he joined the same ThyagrajanCollege of Engineering at Maduraiand did his B.E. in MechanicalEngineering. He had joined the salesdepartment at Mahindra & Mahindragroup of companies and took retire-ment at an early age, in the year 2003,as Deputy General Manager, Tractors.

conservative in their approach. Aftertasting the rough waters, they are notready to take another plunge. Barringa few, they were not ready to comeout of their shell; they were morereserved; they did not want to bareall, like the earlier group of bubbly,chirpy entrepreneurs.

They did not want to be pho-tographed, did not want to give per-sonal details or preferred to changetheir names and identities. They werenot open and forthcoming. Maybe,the idiom ‘Once bitten, twice shy’applies to them.

Subhash Kapoor: He did hisB.Tech from IIT, and got a goodGovernment job, after clearing I.E.S,the competitive exam held by theUPSC. He was doing very well andwas happy with the job. In the mean-time, he completed his Master ofBusiness Administration course also.

Equipped with these 2 degrees, hejumped on to the bandwagon of job-hop, the favourite trend with young-sters these days. Soon, he got marriedto a girl from the business communi-ty. The family was raking in money,though its members were not half aseducated or talented as him.

It made him ponder. The lure ofmoney was great. He decided toresign from his job and take a plungein the business world. He, along witha friend and colleague, started a con-sultancy agency in Pune. Initially,they got very good response from themarket. It was giving them goodbusiness and they were happy.

Both of them had talent and adesire to work hard but they lackedbusiness acumen. They were waylaidby some unscrupulous people anddrawn into litigation. It seemed theend of road for him. There was a lot ofturmoil and mental agony. He cursedthe day he had opted for this venture.

After a lot of tussle, ultimately,everything was settled amicably, inhis favour. But the experience was sohorrifying that he did not dare tocontinue with the business. After this


services, he is their only consultant;they do not go to any other vendor.

Highly specialised, technical staffhas been employed, along with spe-cialists in the field on the Board. Hisprestigious clientele includes bignames like Prsi Syber Technology,Sasken Communications, ConseroGlobal, Analogue Devices, aHyderabad-based company, andGlobal Take-off. In the Governmentsegment, LRD and Postal TrainingCentre, Mysore, are his clients.

Of course, every customer is equal-ly valuable to him. He is ready to pro-vide services in the field of InformationTechnology to all. He is also associatedwith loading Mcaffy anti-virus forMadalion, Sonic Wall and IBM.

In the last one year, after takinginto account all the expenditure, he isfortunate enough not to have any lia-bilities. The surplus funds have been

utilised to buy and set up an office inJay Nagar. His hard work has paid offand he is satisfied with his success.

Deepak Srinivas: The only son ofSrinivas and Padma, this entrepre-neur is the owner of Pneucon Brakesat Kanakpura Road. He belongs to anupper-middle-class family from JayNagar, Bangalore. He was broughtup in a joint family. As both his par-ents were working, his grandparentsdevoted quality time to him, and heis very close to them.

He had put in 11 years’ service in2 companies. Being an expert in hisfield, he was paid handsomely.Though the companies he worked forwere small, it never bothered him.When the company, D Two Forging,was acquired by some bigger compa-ny, it was a turning-point in his life.

He decided to start manufacturing

the IT sector was rising, and offeredbetter scope of overall development.

He joined Kingfotech Private Ltdand then moved to TridentTechnology, a Mumbai-based firm,where he was appointed as RegionalManager for Southern India. Then, heshifted base to I Wire Networks andworked there as General Manager.

One fine day, he realised that, inorder to tap his potential, he needed tostart his own business. His friendsand family, though initially apprehen-sive of this change, supported him.

So he took the plunge. NarayanMurthy of Infosys Technologies washis ideal. His energy level was veryhigh and he was full of fantastic ideasbut money was a great constraint.

Chidambram, CEO, CyberTechnology, and Venkatesh, hisdeputy, who were very close to him,and had seen his style of working aswell as his sincerity, gave Prabhakarhis first break — an order along withfinancial assistance.

He is a great devotee of lordGanesha and prayed to Him to lendhim support in his new venture. OnGanesh Chaturthi, in the year 2006,he started his new venture, though hedid not have a business background.

He got his flat registered as hisoffice and started working from there.Since then, there has been no lookingback for him. Such is his level of com-mitment, professionalism, and hispersonal relations with the companieshe works for, that once they hire his

and took up the most challengingproject. He owns a company thatmanufactures automotive, electricaland electronic parts used in the auto-mobile industry.

He knew that the road ahead, inthe already established automobileindustry, will not be easy for him totread. But, at the young age of 35 hehad the courage to take the plunge.The TVS group of companies is hisideal. He has modelled his enterpriseon their ethics, their team spirit, theiraggressiveness.

At present, his turnover is quitesatisfying but his dream is to make itthe best multi-crore, manufacturingcompany in Bangalore and India. Hebelieves that a good entrepreneurshould have good, sound ethics andmust abide by them.

He did his graduation from R. V.college of Engineering and his post-graduation in Industrial Engineeringfrom IOWA State University, USA. Asa student there, he joined a literacyfocus group called SANKALP.

Many Indian students there wouldcollect funds and channelise themtowards the education of women andorphans back home. They successful-ly completed 6 projects. One was for asmall village on the outskirts ofBangalore, and others for AndhraPradesh, Bihar and Orissa.

He has formed his own charitabletrust and supports 2 orphanages —Belaku and Shishu Nivasa. He man-ages to take out time for them from


Prabhakar

Deepak Srinivas

B. Senthil Kumar

E N T R E P R E N E U R S H I P C O V E R S T O R Y

One fine day, he realised that, inorder to tap his potential, he needed

to start his own business. Hisfriends and family, though initiallyapprehensive of this change, sup-

ported him.

He has formed his own charitable trust and supports

2 orphanages — Belaku and ShishuNivasa. He manages to

take out time for them from hisbusy schedule.

ment of funds etc. Then came the arrangement of site, fur-niture, the market survey to get the fresh and cheap butbest vegetables, provisions, spices, crockery , cutlery, uten-sils etc. The big, special-size refrigerator and big oven(earthern tendoor), had to be brought from Delhi.

After a lot of running around, he realised nothingcomes easy in life. Finally, last year, the restaurant wasopened. He has brought in cooks from Delhi, who areversed in the culinary skills. He is paying them heftysalaries, along with livery, free meals, and accommoda-tion, to keep attrition in check. Initially, it was very diffi-cult for him because it was an entirely new field of work.

The first few months were really gruelling. There waswork pressure in the office, to achieve the targets, andthen this new venture. He had to forego his gym even.Then, his father exhorted him to take everything easy; letthings shape up for themselves or, maybe, say goodbye toit. But things started to fall in their place.

He is managing both his job as well as the restaurantbusiness. Now, he owns a big car and, instead of goingfor a flat on loan, he has purchased a plot in the heart ofthe city, to get a house constructed.

Anirudh: His father was an Army officer and strictdiscipline and punctuality were in his blood. He studiedin Bal Bharati Public School and then in Delhi PublicSchool, Delhi. After completing his studies, he enteredhis brother’s business of making and supplying machin-ery parts to BHEL. As many new entrants had joined rankswith them, there was cut-throat competition. So, he shiftedto supplying parts for coolers. However, that was also sea-sonal work. He could not make a decent living by it. He felthe was wasting his talent, time and energy.

He started contemplating a change and joined someshort-term computer course, in the meanwhile. He was stillundecided whether to change the business or to find a job.

Once, he happened to go to a big IT company, where hehad supplied coolers, to collect his dues. Suddenly, therewas a lot of commotion in the office. He learnt that somecomputer program had crashed and they were not able toretrieve the important data that had not been saved else-where. The company could face huge losses on account of it.

He offered to help and succeeded. It so happened, thatthe owner of the company was present there. He called forhim, thanked him profusely and offered him a job. On thespur of the moment, he politely declined the offer.

However, that gentleman could discern the spark inhim and was intent on hiring him. He asked him to quotehis salary. Just to squeeze out of the situation, Anirudhdemanded an exorbitant amount. To his surprise, thatwas granted to him.

He is still with the company, serving at a senior man-agerial position. Most of the time, he is globe-trotting tohelp in expanding the company’s business. ■

forts at his feet — but then came theslump in the market.

America’s biggest banks fell like apack of cards, giving a hard blow tothe world economy. The businessorders were curtailed. As an employ-er, now, he was feeling the heat. Theprofit margins were shrinking; hewas finding it extremely difficult tokeep himself and his company afloat.

It is the rule of nature that big

sharks can survive the turbulences,while the small fish perish in storms.The owners realised that it would beof no avail to save the company andallowed it to be acquired.

His earlier company, SatyamComputers, was also in the news for allthe wrong reasons but then he waslucky to get reinstated there. The

favourable winds mayonce again blow to takehis career chart to thezenith. Till then, he iskeeping a low profile.(Some details havebeen changed)

Shravan Kumar:After completing hisB.E., he went on toTexas for further stud-ies. He was more

unsuccessful venture, he again joineda reputed company.

Luckily, he has been able to buryhis past, and regain his lost ground.He is working with full zeal and ded-ication for his new company. Today,he seems happy with the job and hispresent salary. His 2 children arestudying in reputed schools ofBangalore. He has been able to pur-chase a good flat on Whitefield Road.

Sudanshu: He did his B.E. fromB.I.T. Mesra, Ranchi, and joinedSatyam Computers. With his knowl-edge-base, good contacts, friendlynature and command over his field ofwork, he was in the good books of hisseniors. Soon, he had a meteoric risein the company.

In a short span of 3 years, he enjoyedthe most coveted position in the com-pany. He could deal with the clientsdirectly to fetch business. He wouldoften fly abroad in search of business.

During one such business visit, hewas able to net in a big fish and wasrewarded with business partnershipon a platter. What else could he askfor! Now, he was abusiness partner in asmall IT company,after bidding adieu tohis previous company.

Everything wasgoing on well withhim. Industry was infull bloom and every-body was makinggreat moolah. Thesmall-town boy had allthe luxuries and com-

interested in the study of water-tables, as to how potable water can beprovided to a larger section of peo-ple.

His father had a flourishing busi-ness in Mumbai and his elder brotherhad joined father’s business, after com-pleting the studies. Shravan was sureof convincing his father, to allow himto pursue his interest. But fate gavehim a blow with the death of his father.

At his mother and brother’s behest,he had to enter the family business. In2 years, his brother was married andtook full control, helped by his wife. Atlast, his mother was convinced that thebusiness was in safe hands.

Now, he is in his favourite job,pursuing his interest. Basically, he isvery shy and does not want to talkabout it. His good work has beenappreciated by some of the leadingpapers but he refused to give an inter-view or to be photographed or to bein the limelight. He gives the credit ofhis success to his entire team.

He indeed is very devoted to hisproject and leads an austere life.Money is not the only driving forcebehind his job-change.

Rakesh Singh: He belongs toAmritsar, a heaven for food-lovers.He completed his engineering fromthere and took up a job in Delhi. Afteryear or so, he got a good offer onefrom a reputed firm in Bangalore.

Besides a better pay-package, theambience, the food, work-culture,everything was to his liking. The bestthing was that it had a nice gym. Heloves to spend a good part of his dayin the gym. But one thing that hemissed about his home-town was hisparents and the flavour of hot, siz-zling curries and Punjabi cuisine.

So, he and his wife Mona decidedto start a restaurant in Bangalore, tocater to the taste buds of food-lovers.As both of them are working and lovetheir jobs, they decided to rope intheir family members in the venture.

He had to undertake a lot ofresearch, travel, planning, arrange-


Creating new opportunities: Business leaders discussing at CII global meet.

Encouraging results, soaring zeal.

E N T R E P R E N E U R S H I P

He offered to help and succeeded.It so happened, that the owner ofthe company was present there. He called for him, thanked him

profusely and offered him a job. On the spur of the moment, he

politely declined the offer.



My world is pink

World’s cleanest monkey The cleanliness bug is really on

the overdrive. Even monkeys havebeen infected by it!

A monkey in Japan flosses its teethwith its hair, demonstrating thathumans are not the only animals thatclean their teeth and invent tools to

help with the task. The flosser, a free-ranging, middle-aged, female,Japanese macaque named Chonpe,may have come up with the tool andthe idea all by himself.

Escaped convict is onFacebook

Craig Lazie Lynch, a 28-year-old,escaped, British prisoner, is tauntingthe police and attracting a growingInternet fan base from his Facebookprofile. He is mocking the authoritiesfor failing to find him and openly mus-ing about moving across the Atlantic.

The police say the convicted bur-

and pulled over. It was only then thatthey realised its paws had been cruel-ly glued to the tarmac.

They alerted the rescue service andthe cat was rescued. No one knowswho superglued Timothy to the road,and Timothy is not speaking. In anycase, it is safe now and has been putup for adoption to a foster home.

So many naked conference-calls

A conference-call is easily organ-ised and it also turns out to be muchcheaper than a face-to-face meeting.A recent report from BT estimates

that the corporation managed to cutout more than 7,00,000 face-to-facemeetings during the year, thanks toconferencing, and it saved 1.4 millionjourneys. And the same report alsofound that the most popular place tocall into a conference was from thebedroom, followed by the bathroom.

People dressed as condoms to deliver serious message

On 1 December 2009, which wasthe World’s AIDS Day, people wereseen dressed as condoms in Lima,Peru, and in La Paz, Bolivia, to warnothers of the dangers of AIDS.

cooped up, gathered in WashingtonD.C. for a little restless indulgence.They squealed as they hurled balls ofsnow across the largely deserted road.

Then, a couple of snowballsslammed into a parked Hummer. Thedriver, a plainclothes detective,whom D.C. police refused to identify,got out, drew his gun and exchangedangry words with the revellers.

So why did this guy freak out sobadly over a bunch of youngstersthrowing snowballs? Maybe, he washaving a bad day.

A soap-box raceRacing across the street is the last

thing you would expect: The humble

soap-box! The Hoar Cross DownhillSoap Box Race is an event held annu-ally in a Staffordshire village. So, ifyou have missed it this time, then youcan catch up with the festivities in thenew year. People from around theworld can compete with their home-made soap-box carts. The proceedsfrom the race always go to charity.

Cat superglued to thehighway

A cat is known to have 9 lives.And this cat called Timothy, a resi-dent of the USA, has escaped with all9 of its lives intact.

Motorists passing by the strickenTimothy did not bother to stop,thinking it had been injured. But onecouple, driving along the busy roadin Minnesota, decided to investigate

S N I P P E T

glar's antics on the popular socialnetworking site have not gone unno-ticed. They have appealed to hismore than 3,800 Facebook friends tohelp track him down.

Pigs cause traffic-jamOn the southbound M11 towards

London, a lorry carrying a consignmentof 82 pigs crashed. Essex Fire andRescue Service attended the scene ofthe collision at Junction 8, near StanstedAirport, to discover that 12 animals had

escaped from the lorry and were run-ning free on the road. The road had tobe closed while the emergency crewtried to round up the animals andsecure them in a makeshift pen. ■

How would you feel if you saw astark-naked man cycling down theroad? Would it make you feel betterif this naked man had a helmet onhis head?

In New Zealand, Senior

Drive naked but wear a helmetConstable Cathy Duder stopped apair of cyclists at 10 p.m., in thebeach resort town of Whangamata.The 2 dudes were stark naked. Shetold them, “You may experiencetotal confinement. You should headhome and get helmets.”

The duo turned tail and headeddirectly back in the direction theycame from. Later, speaking to thepress, Duder said that she did notsee them again during her shift, andit was not known if they donnedhelmets and resumed their ride.

There is no doubt that pink is alovely colour. It evokes a feeling ofbrightness, of gaiety and youth.But does that mean we should turn

our entire world pink? That is exactly what 46-year-

old Kitten Kay Sera has done. Shehas had her obsession for 25 years— and has not worn anything butpink for much of that time. Sheeven wears pink to funerals, hasdecorated her home in Californiaentirely with pink, and has goneto the length of having her dog,

Kisses, dyed pink. She says that she has a natural

affinity for this colour, which makesher feel lovely and luxurious.

Santa Robs a bankThese are tough times, economi-

cally speaking. Even Santa has notbeen spared the vagaries of economicrecession.

In Nashville, Santa was forced torob a bank at gun-point because hehas to pay his elves. He arrived atSun Trust Bank in Nashville,Tennessee, dressed in his traditionalcostume of a red suit, hat and beard,along with a slightly less traditionalpair of sunglasses, and demandedmoney from the teller at gun-point.

He told the bank employees not toput dye-packs in the money, or hewould come back and kill everyone.After the teller complied and handedover the cash, Santa fled in his car,saying, “Santa needs money to payhis elves.”

Gun at a snowball fightThe call went out on a website and

over Twitter, and hundreds of peoplein their 20s and 30s, tired of being

B I N G I N G

tryptophan, an amino-acid, that canmake you fall asleep!

Vitamin-C increases the rate ofalcohol breakdown in the body.“Drink orange juice or lemonade.The vitamin-C in it will speed up themetabolism of alcohol by the liver,”advises Dr Verinder Anand, seniorconsultant, internal medicine,Moolchand Medcity, Delhi.

Coconut water is rich in potassi-um and natural electrolytes, whichget depleted with consumption ofalcohol. “Drink a glass of coconutwater before going to sleep or whenyou wake up, to replenish the lostelectrolytes,” says Dr Venkata RaoAbbeneni, internal medicine, ApolloHospitals, Hyderabad.

“Have a bowl of curd or a glass ofbutter-milk before you go out drink-ing. This will slow the absorption ofalcohol by coating the lining of yourstomach,” says Dr Chawla.

A breakfast of eggs and toast canhelp. “Eggs are packed with cysteine,an amino-acid that clears all thedestructive chemicals, that build up inthe liver when it is metabolising alco-hol,” says Dr Manoj Rai, internal med-icine, Apollo Hospitals, Bilaspur.

Dr G.L.Arora of Herbal CureCentre, Delhi, has some very interest-ing advice to give — pressing the tipof your nose at regular intervals.“Press it for a minute, give a gap ofhalf-a-minute, before pressing itagain. Repeat the procedure for awhile and experience the relief!”

Eat your rice grains, cereals, peas

alcohol level is zero, and may contin-ue for an entire day.

Hangover is the sum total ofeffects of alcoholic and non-alcoholicfactors, such as:

Toxic chemicals, such as congenermethanol, formed during fermenta-tion in most alcoholic beverages, areresponsible for headaches andvicious hangovers.

Use of drugs, especially nicotine,through cigarette-smoking.

Personality traits, such as neuroti-cism. Negative events and feelings ofguilt.

Contrary to popular opinion, com-bination of different alcoholic bever-ages is unlikely to worsen hangover.And, if you have had a hangover, youknow it is something you never wantagain. So, what can you do to avoidit? Drink less, of course!

Time-tested remediesForget black coffee or fried break-

fasts. Salvation may have arrived inan unlikely form — volcano ash.

A British firm is about to market anew cure, based on lava-formedstone, imported from Turkey andAustralia. The volcano dust or “zeo-lite” acts as a natural detoxifyingagent and has already been usedinternationally for purifying water,treating animal feed and attendingvictims of the Chernobyl nuclear dis-aster in Bulgaria.

Before you reach out for a pain-killer for the hangover, here is awarning: Alcohol and pain-killersmay lead to stomach ulcers. Instead,try out these home-made remedies(supplemented with enough waterconsumption) to ward off or get ridof the hangover:

“A major cause of hangover is thedepletion of potassium from the body.Potassium-rich bananas can help youget rid of headaches and dehydra-tion,” says Dr Sakshi Chawla, seniordietician, Fortis, Noida. The fruit isalso high in magnesium (which helpsrelax the pounding blood vessels) and


any relief; that these symptoms aregood punishment for having over-indulged in alcohol the previousnight. There is no real cure for ahangover except enough time for thetoxic effects to wear off.

What really happens during ahangover? During a drinking binge,alcohol drugs the brain cells. Whenlevels of the drug start falling, thebrain protests and needs time to getused to its absence. That is why, thebar-tender’s remedy for hangover —yet another hard drink — seems torelieve the suffering briefly.

The congeners (pronounced con-

juh-nurz), that createthe different tastes ofvarious alcoholicdrinks, have a toxiceffect on the brain,too. So, mixing drinkscreates a build-up ofcongeners. That iswhy party-hoppersare likeliest to wakeup with a horribleheadache.

The world’s first cocktail partymight have taken place inMesopotamia, some 5,000years ago, if researchers are tobe believed. American scien-

tists have found some earthenwarealong the Tigris river that show tracesof tartaric acid (an element which ischaracteristic of the grape fermenta-tion), honey, apple juice, and brewbarley (a sort of beer ante litteram).

Thus, the “hangover” has alsobeen our companion since that time.It is commonly accompanied by aheadache, nausea, a depressed mood,a smarting sensitivity to light andnoise, and other nasty “morningafter” symptoms, like feeling wobblyand feeble.

You can sense something circlingabove! If you have really overdone it,you might even be able to see them:Vultures, ready to pick at your poor,wretched body, as it lies sodden withyuletide alcohol!

Or, you might be wrecked withself-inflicted, hangover pains —throbbing head, raging thirst, mind-numbing nausea and a body that hasturned to jelly. You long for a potionthat turns carrion back into livingflesh, before the vultures tuck in!

After a night of carousing, you arewoken up in the morning by a pound-ing headache and an excruciating painin the joints. You feel exhausted, anx-ious, irritable, depressed.

Some people believe that an alco-holic hangover is discomfort fromwhich the sufferer does not deserve

Dehydration is a major cause ofhangover misery, causing a severelydry mouth, a pounding headacheand a very confused mind. Can yoube dehydrated after guzzling somany drinks? Yes, because the bodyspends 8 parts of water to burn onepart of alcohol.

One alcoholic drink, for all practicalpurposes, is equivalent to one ounce ofhard liquour, 6 ounces of wine and 12ounces of beer. The vomiting and gasis often the result of pouring alcoholinto a stomach filled with only a hand-ful of nuts and wafers.

Add to this, a lack of sound sleep.You may have slept like a log, but theheavy passing-out is actually adreamless, coma-like condition, thatdoes little to refresh the brain.

Usually, a hangover begins sever-al hours after the last drink, when theblood alcohol level begins to drop.Symptoms normally peak when the

It is a heavy-headed, swollen feeling, the day after

a bout of too much alcohol. You wake up only to wish

you hadn’t! ■ by Maharaaj K. Koul

Reckless binging in night alwaysleads to depressing hangover nextmorning spoiling your whole day.

An egg to combat alcohol.

History is awash withhangover remedies. Inancient Rome, a remedyfor a hangover was to eatfried canaries! Pliny theElder’s favourite fix, backin the 1st century AD, wasa couple of fresh owleggs. Medieval rakes sur-vived on chopped eelsgarnished with bitter

almonds. Hollywood hell-raisers of the1950s simply drank some more.

Sometimes, the cure is worse thanthe disease. That is certainly the casewith hangovers. It is bad enough towake up with a pounding head, aheaving stomach and puffy eyes. Butjust imagine topping that off with araw egg or plateful of dried eel!

Here, from a website called hang-over.net, are ways to tackle a nastyhangover. Not all of them work but, atleast, when you next reel out of bed ona Sunday morning, you have optionsat hand:

The Haitian voodoo people recom-mend sticking 13 black pins in the corkof the offending bottle!

Apparently, in the Wild Wild West,whiskey-swilling cowboys swore by acup of rabbit-poo tea!

In Outer Mongolia, drunks are saidto slurp sown a pickled sheep’s eye intomato juice!

In Puerto Rico, the local alcos curehangovers by rubbing half a lemonunder their “drinking arm”!

Apparently, still in use today,‘menudo’ isborn from a mixof a cow’s stom-ach and super-hot chillies!

Believe it ornot, prototypesfor today’sSultana Branwere being soldas the cereal forhangovers, inthe 1980s!

Hangover: Shit! Now what to ...

Strange cures

like 20% now. Get to the tap anddrink, drink, and drink. Drink untilyour stomach is so full, it hurts. Afew minutes later, your mouth will bedry again and ready for more.

Drink non-alcoholic, non-caf-feinated beverages to alleviatedepression. Caffeine can worsensymptoms, as it is a diuretic andincreases urine production.

Get out for a walk. The fresh airwill make you feel better and the exer-cise will increase your heart-rate andhelp your headache and body aches.

Of course, nothing cures betterthan sleep. Or, just relax doing stuffyou enjoy. Just keep drinking waterand taking naps.

An American company recentlyannounced it is developing a drugwhich, it claims, can sober people upwithin minutes. The human metabo-lism normally takes about 8 hours tobreak down 8 units of alcohol (4 pintsof beer or 8 glasses of wine).

A large dose of the new drug, calledDetoxahol, can clear all alcohol fromthe bloodstream within a few minutes.

So far, the drug has onlybeen tested on animals.

There is no alcohol inthe world which will notgive you a hangover.And there is no way toprevent a hangoverexcept not drinking.People process alcohol atdifferent rates, depend-ing on many factors:weight, gender, age, andwhat they eat with the

drink. The amount of alcohol thatgives a woman a high, for instance,may not affect a man as severely.

High IQ scores may do more thanseparate genius from those of lesserintelligence; they also tell how proneyou are to a hangover. Scottish scien-tists now say that smart people areless likely to suffer after a heavy nightout. Researchers suspect that this isbecause smarter people are smartenough to stay off binge drinking.

Hangovers tend to get worse with

and nuts. They are all stuffed withvitamin B1, which helps youmetabolise the grog and stabilises thenervous system.

Visit an Italian restaurant.Through extra-virgin olive oil andthe liberal use of fresh tomatoes, theItalians have learned the secret ofgetting real plump without gettingheart disease and curing hangoversat the same time.

Your body might have been 90%water before you went out but it feels

age. Drinkers over 40 not only suffermore acutely from a hangover, theytake more time to recover than they didwhen they were young. Curiously,women recover faster than men.

Preventive measuresAnti-hangover steps have to be

taken, if you are bent upon drinking.The body can oxidise only one alco-holic drink per hour. Drinking slowerthan that minimises later discomfort.A few glasses of water between andafter drinks prevent the sick feelingsthat come from water imbalance.

Eating something substantialbefore drinking slows down alcoholabsorption and saves the stomach lin-ing from irritation. The next morning,honey and dry toast is probably thebest breakfast because the concentrat-ed fructose in honey helps the bodyburn the alcohol faster.

Usually, hangover symptoms disap-pear in 8 – 24 hours. A really bad hang-over may not just be about the morningafter; it may linger on for days.

The end result of binge drinkingcan at best be described as “sick”. It isa heavy-headed, swollen feeling, theday after. You wake up only to wishyou hadn’t! The events of the nightbefore are a muddle and the onlything you can be sure of through allthat haze is that you must have madea fool of yourself.

The American humourist, RobertBenchley, once wrote: “The only curefor a real king-size hangover isdeath!” ■


If you want to enjoy your drink,without the fear of the looming hang-over, here are some tips:

Drink slowly. Your body burns alcoholat a fixed pace — about one drink anhour. The slower you go, the less alcoholreaches your blood and brain — even ifyou finally drink the same amount. Followevery drink with a glass of plain water.

Drink on a full stomach. If youexpect to drink through the evening, eata mini-meal beforehand. Food slows theabsorption of alcohol and less alcoholreaches the brain. Chips and nuts donot really absorb much alcohol.

Choose the drinks right. Congeners,which give different drinks their charac-ter, decide how much pain you willhave later. Vodka has the mildest con-gener; brandy, whiskey, red wine andchampagne have the strongest.Anything fizzy, like rum and coke, getsalcohol into your blood faster.

Remember your size. If you are havea slim, small build, do not expect to keepup with your 80-kg, heavy-drinkingbuddy. You will be harder hit by alcohol!

Hold hangover at bay

Natural neutraliser coffee.

of a dongle. The Intel Wireless Displaycomes bundled with the laptop, so youdo not need to rely on wires or dongles.All you need is an adaptor. Simply con-nect the adaptor to your TV, follow afew simple steps, and your task isdone. Once you have set up the sys-tem, sharing your screen with variousdevices at home or office is going to beas simple as pushing a button.

According to the Intel spokesper-son, the Wireless Display (WiDi) isavailable for end-users from 17January 2010, on certain select laptopmodels, which are powered by thenew 2010 Intel® Core™ i5 processor.

Dell Alienware M11x: Video gameaficionados at the show were clearlyspoiled for choice. The gaming indus-try was out in full force and there wasa plethora of cutting-edge goodies ondisplay – Nyko Wand Plus, SuperStreet Fighter IV Tournament Edition,FightStick S, Alienware M11x andmuch more. But amongst all the excit-ing products, Alienware M11x from

Dell clearly stood out as a trend-set-ting gaming netbook.

Powered by the state-of-the-artIntel Core 2 ULV, the U7300, thisgizmo boasts of an 11.6-inch display,NVIDIA GT335M switchable graph-ics, 6.5 hours of battery-life on inte-grated usage and over 2 hours ongaming mode. For a better visualtreat, the netbook can be connected toa larger screen by using theDisplayPort, HDMI, and VGA ports.

Thinnest E-book reader: Oneproblem with those e-book readersthat have been available till now isthat they are somewhat thick, com-pared to traditional magazines andnewspapers. And they are not flexi-ble. You cannot even think of bend-ing your Kindle or Sony e-book read-er. Those devices would break if youtried to bend them.

However, that is set to change,once the latest reader from theensemble of US publisher HearstMedia makes a debut in our electron-

with plethora of eco-friendly gadgetson display.

The first CES was held in 1967.Since then, the show is being held reg-ularly, once or twice every year. Hereis a description of some of the mostawesome gadgets and technologiesthat made a debut in the 2010 CES:

Intel Wireless Display: The latestWireless Display technology (orWiDi), from the ensemble of techmajor Intel, turned out to be thebiggest show-stopper at Vegas. Infact, this could turn out to be thebiggest sleeper technology in theworld. Just think about the ease,which would come to you, if youcould connect your laptop to anHDTV or business display, withouthaving to go through the rigmaroleof fumbling around with HDMIcables or having your range limitedby the length of one.

You do not even have to use UltraWide Band technology, which mightcome in the form of a flash drive type


Wonders of electronics: Dog stares back at lady from screen and people navigating in virtual reality of cyber world.

E X P O S I T I O N

The 2010 ConsumerElectronic Show at

Las Vegas


gers, analysts, senior industry execu-tives and others, crowded the myriadbooths, to have a tryst with latestinnovations in the realm of TVs,smart phones and other consumerelectronic offerings. Many more areknown to have followed the show onthe Internet and TV.

Unlike the last year’s CES show,when the global financial meltdownhad led to a feeling of gloom anddoom, the atmosphere this year wasdecidedly upbeat. Last year, the chat-ter on the show’s floor had been more

You had to be at the fabulousLas Vegas strip from 7 - 10January, when the ConsumerElectronics Show for 2010 tookplace, to discover how cut-

ting-edge technology is turning out tobe indistinguishable from magic. 1.8million square feet of immaculatelychoreographed space had come alivewith about 2,830 exhibitors display-ing 20,000 new products and the lat-est technology innovations.

The footfalls were impressive.More than 110,000 journalists, blog-

about how to weather the economicstorm than about the latest innova-tions and breakthrough technologies.

The gradual warming of the glob-al economy has led to a renewedsense of optimism, this year.Exhibitors could be heard joyouslychatting about the rapid spread ofpersonal computing and mobiledevices. It was clear that variousbusinesses, associated with electron-ics, foresaw a better period ahead –and a more inventive one. And the2010 CES was the greenest show ever,

The gradual warming of the global economy has led to a

renewed sense of optimism, this year. Exhibitors could be heard

joyously chatting about the rapid spread of personal computing

and mobile devices. ■ by Anoop Verma

Boxee set-top box: During the ini-tial days of its launch, Boxee wassimply software that that could beinstalled into your computer, to beamtop-class web content directly to yourTV. But the rigmarole of download-ing and installing of software is prob-ably too complicated and that is whythe creators of Boxee unveiled theBoxee set-top box at the CES 2010.

Now there is nothing to down-load, nothing to install. Just plug theBoxee set-top box to your televisionand start streaming the best of the

web over your home broadband net-work. So, watching those YouTubevideos is going to be a lot more funon the Boxee set-top box.

The operation is quite simple.Video outputs through an HDMI con-nector. For audio, you have the optionto use digital audio-out jack or regu-lar composite audio. Internet connec-tivity can be availed via the normalWi-Fi network. The gizmo even fea-tures a SD card slot and 2 USB ports,to allow you to expand storage.

Light Touch: Imagine a sci-fiworld filled with flat surfacesappearing blank and neat at firstsight, but any part of which is capa-ble of transmogrifying into a virtualcomputer at a mere touch. Welcometo the world of Light Touch, broughtto you by Light Blue Optics.

Most of us might not even haveheard about a company called LightBlue Optics, but it is small companieslike these, that come up with reallyamazing products and make global

pocket, point and shoot. The technol-ogy inside the device will make surethat the pictures and videos you cap-ture are of professional quality.

iPhone-controlled helicopterdevice: So you thought that youriPhone was only meant for talking,texting, and browsing! How aboutusing this gizmo to control a heli-copter? This was a major attraction atthe 2010 CES.

French firm Parrot has developedthe helicopter, a giant, hovering

remote-controlled toy, called ARDrone, which has 4 propellers andcan fly several metres in the air. Inorder to move the gizmo, all youneed to do is tilt the accelerometer inthe iPhone, or iPod Touch.

Razer’s awesome motion-con-troller: In future, your video-gameexperience is going to get more realthan what you would have ever imag-ined. The motion-controller unveiledby Razer and Sixense, at the CESshow, is capable of creating an exactmirror-image of what you do in reallife and what appears on the screen.

The Wii remotes might soonbecome passé; and that is becauseRazor’s system of using an electro-magnetic field, sent out from a singletransmitter to create an exact, one-to-one duplication of movementsonscreen, turns out to so incrediblyprecise. This is something that thefolks at Wii, which uses old-fashionedcameras and accelerometers, have notbeen able to match as of now.

events like the CES, truly worth-while. The Windows CE-poweredLight Touch happens to be the com-pany’s very first effort to create aninteractive projector that allows usersto interact with the displayed imageas they would with any moderntouchscreen display system. If youwant to know what the future ofcomputing is going to be, you need tolook no further than Light Touch.

Zyxio Sensawaft: Why should any-one ever want to control the cursor intheir computer using only theirbreath? Let us say, in some mysteriousscenario, or simply for the heck of it,you want to do just that, then youhave to rely on something like theZyxio Sensawaft. Quite understand-ably, this gizmo managed to muster anamazing amount of attention at theCES 2010. In order to control the speedand the direction of the cursor acrossthe computer screen, all you needed todo is blow into a special ‘microphone’.

By the way, the company behindthe gizmo says that the technologycan be very useful for disabled com-puter-users. It can also be used forcontrolling a mobile phone. By incor-

porating the Zyxio Sensawaft, youmight also enhance your gamingprowess. Just turn your breath into a3rd hand, while playing an adrena-line-pumping video-game!

The first batch of Sensawaftenable devices is expected to go onsale later this year. Time to take adeep breath, because soon you willhave to blow out lot of hot air to con-trol your devices. But that should cer-tainly be an interesting exercise. ■


Alex comes with an easy-to-the-eyes,6-inch, monochrome, e-ink display.

The LCD display can also be usedfor browsing over 3G or Wi-Fi net-works. At the top of the gizmo, thereis a mini USB port, and a 2.5mm head-phone jack. A removable MicroSDcard slot, expandable to 2GB, is builtin the back of the system. The screen isembellished with magnificent touch-screen capabilities and the booksdownload in a breeze.

IdeaPad U1 Hybrid fromLenovo: The coolest laptop on dis-play was clearly the IdeaPadU1 Hybrid from Lenovo. Thisgizmo swept everyone offtheir feet, by its unique capa-bility of giving users the ben-efit of both a laptop and a tablet.

When the screen and keyboardbase are attached, the IdeaPad UiHybrid works as normal laptop run-ning on Windows 7 Operating System.But when you detach the 11.6 screen,that portion becomes a petite tabletrunning on Lenovo’s Skylight LinuxOperating System.

The gizmo comes with embedded

ics showrooms. This inimitable, 11.5-inch, flexible gizmo goes by the nameof Skiff and it is geared to change theway we get our daily quota of newsand entertainment.

The Skiff has 3G connectivity, anda 1200 x 1600 resolution screen. Beingonly 0.25 inches thick, it is all set togive those anorexic models a run fortheir money. The flexible displaymade of a thin sheet of stainless steelfoil, is also embellished with touch-screen capabilities. A clear must-havefor all book-lovers.

Microsoft’s HP Tablet: It is difficultto imagine any CES show without thegrand presence of the tech behemothcalled Microsoft. The company wasout in full force at the Vegas strip, withits entire armada of state-of-the-artgadgets and emerging technologies.The versatile Tablet, that Microsoft

brought out in collaboration ofHewlett-Packard, was clearly the cen-tre of attraction for many technophiles.

Steve Ballmer was there to intro-duce the Tablet PC, which runs onWindows 7 and has the size of an e-reader. The gizmo is about asportable as a typical phone and yet itis capable of doing everything that anormal PC would.

Spring Design's Alex E-Reader:The truth is that there was no dearthof e-book readers at the 2010 CESshow. One of the most notable effortswas Spring Design's Alex device. Thise-reader manages to give the feel ofan actual book, by having 2 screens,which open like 2 conjoined pages.Powered by Google Android, the

3G capabilities and it has a solid-statememory of 16 GB. Both pieces of thesystem have battery power enoughfor 5 hours, and that is why they canwork independently. If you are famil-iar with iPhone, then you should haveno problem in mastering the Skylightoperating system, as the interface inboth is somewhat similar. You mighthave to wait till June, this year, to gethold of this mouth-watering hybrid.

The really small camera fromSanyo: According to some analysts, thenew Sanyo VPC-CS1, which wasproudly displayed during the CESevent, is the world’s smallest dual cam-

era. However, one thing isfor sure – this is the mostversatile camera youwill ever get hold of.

It is thin enoughand small enough to fitsnugly into yourtrouser pocket, and yetit features just abouteverything you need toshoot like a pro: 8-megapixel, 10x zoom,Digital Image Stabiliser,Face Chaser, Eye-Ficard compatibility, Mini

HDMI terminal, SoundZoom, and records MPEG-4 AVC /H.264 and Apple’s pushed iFrame.

Whenever you feel the need ofcapturing a moment of your life, justflip the Sanyo VPC-CS1 out of the


T E C H N O L O G Y

paves the way for faster recovery. In particular, robotic cyber knives

are emerging as a favourite tool foroperating upon malignant tumours.As it is, a robot helps a surgeon get a3-dimensional view of the siterequired to be operated. And thismakes for fewer. more precise andaccurate cuts and incisions. This kindof surgery leads to less pain, fasterrecovery and shorter hospitalisation,according to a researcher specialisingin robotics surgery.

Many of the ambitious, deep-spaceexploration missions, including theones meant for studying the terrain ofMars and the Moon, have been carriedout with the help of robotics technolo-gy. For instance, India’s Chandrayaan-II spacecraft mission, a follow-on tothe country’s maiden lunar probeChandrayaan-I, will carry 2 roboticsystems — one Russian and the otherIndian — to study the lunar soil sam-ples. Chandrayaan-II is slated forlaunch in 2012 by means of India’s 3-stage Geosynchronous SatelliteLaunch Vehicle (GSLV).

Robots are also evolving as aninvaluable tool in expanding thefrontiers of astro-biology, which isaimed at studying the dynamics oflife in the universe. The rover robotZoe, developed by NASA (National

Aeronautics and SpaceAdministration) of the USA, inassociation with CarnegieMellon University, wasdeployed to zero-in on micro-scopic organisms in AtacamaDesert, Chile, considered thedriest arid stretch in the world.

Security forces across theworld are increasingly falling

back on robots for diffusing bombs andhandling hazardous materials. Robotsare also used in nuclear-power plants,to handle radioactive materials andnuclear waste. Small, robotic,unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), con-trolled from the ground, are also usedfor reconnaissance and surveillance.

Moreover, robotic systems,equipped to improve agriculturalproductivity, are also in the pipeline.Robots, equipped to monitor thehealth of plants by zeroing-in on thediseases and insect infestations areunder development. These robots areequipped with the latest-generationsensors.

Resembling humansThe so-called humanoid robots,

developed by Japanese industrialoutfits, are slowly gaining in popu-larity. Roomba, developed by iRobot,is most popular among the systemsmeant for clearing operations.Roomba is now active in 2 millionhouseholds around the world.

Looking into the future, the plansare to develop a range of robots thatcould mimic humans and be closer tothe human decision-making ability. Itis planned to make robots moreautonomous in that they would be in a

position to function on their own. The thrust is also on evolving

robots capable of entertaininghumans. Robots of the future willbe smaller, cost-effective and morepractical, in comparison to the pre-sent-generation systems. Ofcourse, the development of robots,as projected in science fiction, isnot yet on the horizon. ■

computers also achieve theirfull potential.

There is no denying the factthat India, with its large pool oftalented engineering experi-ence and an excellent level ofexpertise in software and AI,has an environment tailor-made for sustaining the growthof the robotics industry. But asthings stand now, the robotics indus-try in India lags behind its counter-parts in North America, West Europeand Japan, in terms of growth andlevel of sophistication.

Ubiquitous presenceAccording to a research study, the

global robotics market, which wasworth an estimated $ 17.3 billion in2008, could touch $ 21.4 billion by2014. “Everybody, who is consumingcomputer technology, will want toconsume robotics technology in someway, in the coming decades,” says DrOdest Chadwicke Jenkins, AssistantProfessor of Computer Science,Brown University, USA.

In recent years, robots have beenmaking forays into the area of surgerywith the potential to change the wayoperations are performed. Rapidexpansion of health-care services, sup-ported by advances in medical tech-nology, is expected to fuel the demandfor robots that are custom-built forcarrying out complicated surgeries.

For instance, the laproscopicsurgery robots enable the surgeons towork inside the body of a humanpatient without going in for a majorsurgery. The non-invasive surgery,performed with the help of a robot,


America, a robot is a “reprogramma-ble, multi-functional manipulator,designed to move materials, parts,tools or specialised devices throughvariable programmed motions forthe performance of a variety oftasks.” As such, the physical appear-ance of a robot is less important thanits functional attributes.

In keeping with the trend acrossthe world, robots are also gaining inpopularity in India. Many leadingautomobile companies in India arenow regularly usingspecially-built, indus-trial robots for spotand arc welding, spraypainting, materialshandling and otherroutine tasks.

The Gurgaon-basedKuka Industrial Robotsspecialises in providingrobots for industrialapplications, includingones for use in automo-bile companies. Kuka

Smart, dynamic and improvedrobotic systems, endowed withthe faculty of reasoning andintelligence, are today playingan increasingly important role

in diverse sectors. They are ofimmense help in industrial produc-tion, defence, security, space explo-ration, cleaning of households, han-dling of hazardous substances,surgery, as well as many other chores,that are difficult and time-consumingfor humans to perform.

Robots feature advances in elec-tro-mechanics, electronics, systemssoftware, embedded systems andrelated tools of information technolo-gy (IT), and are immune to tediumand exhaustation. They can also per-form a specified set of tasks in a cost-effective manner, with a high degreeof accuracy and precision. Thanks tothe advances in Artificial Intelligence(AI), robots (meaning serf or slavelabour) could change the wayhumans live in the future.

According to Robotics Institute of

Industrial Robots, which says that ithas introduced the world’s heaviestpalletising robots in the Indian mar-ket, offers a full range of industrialrobots of varying description.

Blue Star, the air-conditioning andrefrigeration engineering major,makes use of over 20 robots for itsduct-cleaning services. These robotswere supplied by the Mumbai-basedRobosoft Systems, which specialisesin producing robots for use in bothindustrial and educational segments.

It also has a plan todevelop robots that cando sewage cleaning ina hassle-free manner.

According to aspokesman of KukaIndustrial Robots,about 400 - 500 indus-trial robots are soldannually in India.Sources in the indus-try feel that robots canreach their full poten-tial in India only when

Robots of the future will be smaller, cost-effective and more

practical. Of course, the development of robots, as projected in

science fiction, is not yet on the horizon. ■ by Radhakrishna Rao

Robots are doing everything from writing to entertaining children and gardening.Providing better guidance.

Smarter and Versatile Robots

Robots may soon develop sensuous emotions.

coffee is coming in plastic cups.Official II: Big deal. The coffee

continues to taste like tap water...Minister: We have lined up a few

trips for the three of you.Officials I, II and III (Looking

forward to some foreign junkets):Now that is something exciting.

inister to Official I: You, MrGupta, will undertake a tour toLajpat Nagar, Delhi. And mind youno official car and no stayingovernight. Return the same night orfoot your hotel bills yourself. Now isthat understood?

Official I: (under this breath): Iwas hoping he would send me atleast to Noida. I could have paid acourtesy call to my friends.

Minister to Official II: Mr Mathur,I am sending you to ChandniChowk. The instructions I have givenMr Gupta hold good for you also.

Official II (under his breath): If Iwas to go to Faridabad, I could atleast meet my in-laws.

Minister to Official III: MrChauhan, you proceed to KarolBagh. And since it is walkingdistance from the office, you canproceed on foot. And no conveyancebills please.

Officials I, II and III: Three cheersto the austerity drive.

Minister: Yes, that’s the spirit.And now please use the stairs todescend. There is a notification fromthe Power Ministry that we shouldconserve electricity, so the lifts havebeen switched off.

(The Minister and the Officialswalk down from the 14th floor andalmost drop dead by the time theyreach terra firma.) ■

M


H U M O U R

The AusterityExpress


Ever since the Indian FinanceMinister publicly tickedof 2 of his Cabinetcolleagues forluxuriating in 5-star

hotels, albeit at their ownexpense, the country hasbeen in the grip of anausterity drive, the likes ofwhich have never been seenbefore. If the Union Ministerfor Agriculture has had tosqueeze his portly frameinto an economy-class airlineseat, keeping him company isnone other than the CongressParty President, who hassuddenly realised that she has nobusiness to travel business-class —especially when she is not travellingon business.

um’s the word,” says herdear son, who has gone one betterand boarded a train to save somemoney for the national exchequer.Our roving reporter recently sent usthis summary of a meeting ofministry officials in Delhi, whichreflects the urgency of the UPA, the(U)ltimate in (P)robity and(A)usterity Alliance, to imposestringent austerity.

Minister: Well, gentlemen, takeyour seats. I hope all of you havebrought your own stationery. Don’task for pens or refills; we aren’t

“M

reel off the figures.Official II: At this rate, we

will soon be going back tothe Stone Age.

Official III: Thank God forsmall mercies — at least wehave a chair each toourselves and we don’t haveto share sitting space.

Minister: I am happy toinform you that, ever sincewe launched our austeritydrive, we have saved arecord 45,45,445.45 paise. Ihave mentioned the paisefor, if you take care of thepaisas, the rupees will takecare of themselves.

(Refreshments arrive)Official I: What is this?

Just half a samosa and half asandwich.Official II: Haven’t you

heard the saying, ‘Half a loaf isbetter than no bread?’

Official III (to the server): Makemy coffee without sugar, please.

Server: What do you mean?Sugar has been out ofstock for 2 weeks now.Whether you havesugar or want sugar,you get no sugar!

Official I: Threecheers to the austeritydrive. I hope you twohave noticed that the

supplying any.Official I: I had promised my

daughter that I would bring back anice pen from thismeeting. Now herdreams are dashed.

Minister: We havedispensed with the OP(Overhead Projector).So, one of you will haveto come anddemonstrate while I

[[Thank God for

small mercies — atleast we have a

chair each toourselves and we

don’t have to sharesitting space.

[[Yes, that’s the spirit.

And now please use the stairsto descend. There is a

notification from the PowerMinistry that we should

conserve electricity, so the liftshave been switched off.

It’s totally fun when austerity is taken as a serious matter.

■ by C.V. Aravind

Send your entry written neatly on white paper to: ALIVE Delhi Press, E-3, Jhandewala Estate, New Delhi-110 055.

A prize of Rs 200 is given to Amit Choudhary.

MY PET PEEVEdo not get two square meals a day.Then, there is no question of clothing,housing and other facilities.

The people living in our villageshave to do manual labour mostly inthe cities. Anyhow, they survive, theirchildren are ill-clad ill-fed. Medicaland educational facilities are notavailable to them even though they arevoters and citizens of India. Simplygiving reservation, unemploymentallowance and cheap grain will noteliminate their poverty. There areglaring disparities in the matter ofincome in our society. Sincere effortshave not been made to remove thecurse of poverty so far. Rich personsare spending money lavishly whichincreases materialism andcompetitiveness, no doubt. Until andunless, poverty is eliminated, there isno point in talking about our economicprogress and democracy. Hence, I ampeeved about government policies.

R. S. Sengar

My pet peeve is against the socalled moral police who keep onbringing up the controversies overmedia. Sometimes they object over ascene on screen or lyrics or clothes of acelebrity or a TV serial. They simplydrive the focus of the nation to such athing which makes no difference to thesociety but serves as an entertainmentonly. Some of the western countriesand religion are so confident abouttheir culture, flag and deities that theyaccept humour and fashion with anyof these things. There can be only tworeasons of such tantrums in India —either our so called moral brigade donot have anything else to do to justifytheir existence or they may be feelinginsecure of their own cultural valuesdue to the lack of confidence in theroots of Indian philosophy.

— Amit Choudhary

My pet peeve is against thosenews reporters and journalists whomake post analysis of events andblame and target only men when itcomes to post marital discords,sexual harassment, rape or forcedsex. Barring few isolated cases ofrape, the women should be equallyheld responsible. I recall the recentDelhi High Court directivepronounced for women to safeguardtheir chastity in pre-marital affairs.

Assuming men may be greedy forwomen but women are no novices,who rope in their opposite gender withprecise tactics. They connive and knowhow to use men for money, pleasureand in some instances, for fame. Inmost of the cases, in spite of being fullyaware of the man’s marital status theymake advances and imagine how suchthings can ruin a happy family. Alas!Mostly the men are targeted.

—Avinash Pandita

The news that the former DGP ofHaryana Police SPS Rathore wassentenced to 6 months imprisonmentand a Rs 1000 fine for molesting ayoung girl, who later committedsuicide is shocking. It is a justicedelayed and denied after a lapse of 19years of the crime.

— Indira Gopalan

We became politically free after along struggle. This freedom was quiteessential to raise the living standardof the poverty-ridden masses of ourcountry. Even after six decades ofindependence, penury of the peoplecould not be substantially reduced.

Our forest dwellers do not get riceand wheat to eat. We have about 40crores of people living below thepoverty line. We have the largestnumber of poor people whoseearnings are woefully meagre. They

W I L D L I F E

tain goats of the family of HemitragasHyclocres, that have found a safehaven. The population of the NilgiriTahrs in the sanctuary is estimated tobe 1,317, out of an estimated popula-tion of 2,500 in these ranges.

What is needed is a band of dedicat-ed staff that love wildlife and is com-

mitted to their protection, come whatmay. They should not be lured by anyinducement by anyone, in the course oftheir duty. Then only, the wildlife canhave a safe and peaceful haven.

That the staff should be equippedwith better gear, transport, communi-

cation and arms for protecting thewildlife. But, clearly, the Governmentis dragging its feet in providing theseto the staff. Moreover, the staffdeserves a better deal than what theyhave at present, to make their com-mitment to wildlife total.

The management of the FederalParks could provide some guide-lines. The staff there is well-trained,equipped better and well-providedfor, so that they can protect thewildlife and their habitat. ■

Travel tips

How to reach: From Munnar byautorikshaw / taxi cab. Munnar canbe reached from Madurai (Tamilnadu)or Ernakulam (Kerala) by road.

Best time: December to April. Thepark is closed during monsoon months.

Where to stay: Hotels, holidayresorts and lodges are available inMunnar, to suit all tastes.

Entry fee: Rs 10 for adults and Rs5 for children below 12 years. Rs 50for foreigners. Fee for vehicles ischarged separately.

For trekking and adventuretourism permit: Contact WildlifeDFO, Munnar.

enquiry. However, the Nilgiri Tahrsface some danger from their naturalpredators that prowl in the park.

With an area of 97 sq km, the parkis located amidst breathtakingscenery. The view of the hills, the val-leys, the mist, and innumerable greentea estates spread all around, is an

unforgettable experience. The mistrises like cotton-wool, envelopingeverything in its embrace. This maynot be the ideal weather for viewingthe park but it has its own charm.

Eravikulam National Park is locat-ed 15 kms from the town of Munnar,in Idukki District, Kerala. Establishedin 1975, it is situated on the crest of theAnaimalai range of the southern partof the Western Ghats. The highestpeak of South India, Ana Mudi, tow-ers 2,695 m and is located in the park.

Limited movementPermission is needed to trek with-

in the park as well as climb AnaMudi. Visitors are permitted only inthe tourist area, in the Rajamalaregion, which is actually a narrowstrip of asphalted road, 1 km long.The core area and the buffer area arestrictly off limits to visitors.

The park is 1200 m - 1500 m in alti-tude and has a luxuriant growth of‘shola’ grassland and is part of theeco-system of the Western Ghats. Thisis the natural habitat of the rare moun-


At the same time, the friendlyguard gestures you to be silent, point-ing his finger at a bush. At first, you seenothing as the animal's body colourmerges so well with the surroundings.But, as your eyes get adjusted to thescene, you gasp in surprise.

There, amidst the bushes, are anumber of Nilgiri Tahrs foraging forgrass. The frisky, young ones jumpup and down, watched sedately bythe bigger animals. As they walk, youfeel they are defying gravity withtheir nimble steps, when they negoti-ate the steep slopes. They look up atthe human beings but are soon backto their grazing.

The month of January signals the

Excitement mounts asthe eager visitor hitsthe tarred road lead-ing into theEravikulam National

Park. He is impressed bythe number of signboards,which are displayed inorder to make eco-tourism asuccess: “Keep to the road”,“Illegal trekking is punishable”, “Nohorn”, “No transistor-radio or cas-sette-playing”, “Do not leave anythingor take anything”, and, last but not theleast, “This is a plastic-free zone. Donot take any plastic material inside,”exhorts another signboard.

No wonder, then, that EravikulamNational Park is recognised as one ofthe cleanest, well-managed NationalParks in the country. The profession-al approach to conservation is evi-dent as the visitor makes the rounds.

The forest guards on duty seem tobe a committed lot. One of them warnsa visitor to keep off the grass as theyoung man tries to go off the track, insearch of a good spot for a picture.

breeding season. There is someinbreeding as the concentration of theanimals is limited to a few grazingzones. From the cold, inhospitableheights of the Western Ghats, the ani-mals come down in search of food andshelter during the winter months.They stay together in herds as theyroam in search of food and shelter.

If the visitor is lucky, he can spotseveral herds during a brief visit dur-ing season. The Nilgiri Tahrs arerestricted to the monotone grasslandsamidst rolling hills, deep valleys, andfloating mist.

“No, sir, there is no poaching here.We are all very strict,” assures a forestguard, who is slightly offended by the

A good Conservation Effort

A good Conservation Effort

WORLDLYWISE & OTHERWISEmany students who had been eagerlyawaiting to shake their legs. And thecredit definitely goes to one of my ex-students who telephonically request-ed me to divert the funds to buybooks for the under privileged.

This student of mine has beenworking with some NGO. I wasreally happy to consider and imple-ment his suggestion. Now, I havedecided to stick to this philosophyas this will be the best way a teachercan contribute to his surroundings.

— R. K. Vashistha

Caring studentI have been running my spoken

English institutes at Bilaspur for morethan a decade. For the last 10 yearswe had been celebrating “TeachersDay” with great pomp & show. Thisinvolved good amount of money ascelebration would call for hi-fi musicsystem, eatables and decoration. Itused to be an occasion to have fun.

This year, however, 5th Septemberwas celebrated in a totally differentmanner much to the discomfiture of


A prize of Rs 200 will be given to all published items.

The staff there is well-trained,

equipped better and

well-provided for, so that they

can protect the wildlife and their

habitat. ■ by D. B. N. Murthy

E D U C AT I O N

TutorialsJust a pain in the neck!

answers. Though an answer to aquestion may not differ very drasti-cally from one student to another, itcould not be so identical too.

You could identify differentgroups by the similarity the papersexhibited. A bunch of answer papersbelonging to a particular group had a

word scored as the afterthoughtand another word written in placein all the papers of the bunch! Thewhole answer was a blind copy.Each group had some stupid sim-ilarity which was common to it.

The tutorial marks had to beadded to the annual examinationmarks. I planned a strategy forchecking the answer papers. Iknew who were the scholar stu-dents, who helped the below aver-age students. I spotted the groupleaders’ answer papers from allthe bunches and gave 2 marksmore than the scholars to the oth-ers in the group.

After the checked answerpapers were distributed, a young

lady came to me and complained thata male student got 2 marks more thanher though her answer was correct. Ipromised her that I would peruse theanswer papers again and asked herto bring both the answer paperstogether to me. She never turned upwith the papers. ■

attempting the tutorials indepen-dently. The tutorials should not beused to amass marks but for build-ing the knowledge-base. The ranksand marks come along. It is likeremembering the answers to theentire yearly portion by install-ments. The art students, therefore,would do well to be more seriousabout tutorials.

Present trendsIt is a fashion these days to

blame the existing educational sys-tem. Even if it is so, till the systemis not changed, the students shouldbe loyal to the extant system.

Secondly, what is the guaranteethat students would be faithful andloyal to the new system? Surprisingly,the same students do any volume ofexercise given to them by privateclasses very sincerely.

When the bundle of the answerpapers came to me for evaluating, Iwas amused to see so many identical


him from behind and watching whathe was writing. Then, they would jotit down on the paper held in theirhands. I observed one student holdinghis paper on the back of the studenton the desk, and merrily copyingwhat he was writing!

There were 6 such groups. I hadnot seen such a funny, weird, annoy-ing method of writing tutorials any-where. I felt that I should not havetaken the trouble of teaching in thisstate of affairs. Even then, I broachedthis topic with a senior professor.

His reaction was not very pleas-ant. He expressed that they were notused to writing and, thus, could beexcused for copying. I swallowed mygrouse and quietly went to take the5th year lecture.

Why this apathy for tutorials? Thisnegative attitude had probably devel-

Inever supervised my tutorials.The staff lecturers had assured methat I need not come on the tutor-ial. That is because I was verybusy with my advertising consul-

tancy. Side by side, I was a visitingprofessor for Advertising in a collegeof Commercial Art in Mumbai.

When the college roped me in forteaching advertising theory, I hadtold them that I was quite busy but Imight join them for the pleasure ofteaching. However, when I read thesyllabus, I noticed that I had to take10 tutorials in one academic year, rel-evant to the portion covered by me. Irealised that 10 tutorials in one acad-emic year were not possible for me.So, I refused to accept the position.

Then, the Principal of the Collegeassured me that he would get his reg-ular staff to conduct and supervisethe tutorials on a suitable day, if hereceived the tutorial papers from me.I agreed to that. However, one day, Ihad to deliver a lecture to the 5th yearon the day a tutorial for the 3rd yearhad been scheduled.

Before going to the lecture, I stuckmy head into the 3rd year class,where my tutorial paper was beingconducted by a staff lecturer. I foundgroups of 4 - 5 students; each sittingaround a scholar student and copy-ing what he or she was writing.

The student in the centre was onthe bench and the surrounding stu-dents were positioned wherever theygot place — facing the scholar stu-dent from the desk, or bending over

oped because of an oft-used dictum,‘A picture talks a thousand words.’This was true for in the advertisingprofession but does not apply to thestudents’ education. In the mass com-munication, which they were to per-form in their entire career ahead,small, crispy and minimum text mes-sages will always be expected ofthem. For this, proficiency in writtencommunication was essential.

The tutorials are a grand rehearsalof the terminal or semester examina-tion. If students pay attention to themand keep themselves prepared, it isgoing to help them gradually finishthe entire portion covered by a lectur-er in the class. They can avoid the last-minute rush to finish their studies.

If they are attentive while the por-tion is being covered in the classroom,they should not have difficulty in

It is a fashion these days to blame the existing educational

system. Even if it is so, till the system is not changed, the students

should be loyal to it. ■ by Kumar Pradhan

Latest trend: Elaborating the visual with the help of projector.

Making one understand: It’s not only speaking out.

J O B C AT C H I N G

point. Nonetheless, significant detailscan be added. If you have graduatedfrom a prestigious institute, mentionthat. You may highlight professionaltraining programmes and updatingseminars you attended.

In general, be brief and to thepoint. Focus on the query. Do notwaste the interviewers’ time onunasked, irrelevant explanations. Actlike a seasoned salesman. After all,you are selling your candidature.

Instead of bragging, give facts andfigures about your achievements — ifpossible, in rupees. Tell selectors sub-tly why you think you are suitablefor the post. If you have accom-plished something remarkable inyour prior career, emphasise that. Donot lie. The interviewers can, and do,

check the veracity of boasts. Be brief.Compress your personal informationin 200 words, about 2 minutes’ talk.

Your response to the first questionmanifests your communication skills:brevity, clarity, logical order. Youmake your first audio impressionthrough that reply. So prepare well. Agood delivery will also boost yourconfidence — that you have begunwell and got a head-start. But do notrejoice too soon. For the subsequentqueries could be tricky.

Why you want to change yourpresent job?

If you were fired, better to disclosethe fact and the reason. Also relate theremedial action you have taken toavoid a repetition. Retrenchment dueto downsizing cannot be helped. Even

if your present company is infinancial doldrums, you neednot disclose the fact.

‘Better prospects’ is a goodenough reason for leavingany organisation. Betterprospects can be paraphrasedas higher salary, moreresponsibility, higher post.

Some interviewers lookdown on job-hopping. If youchange jobs too soon — say,within a year — sceptics maysuspect that you may not

other candidate, except myself, hadexperience in designing tools forcopying lathes. Without mentioningthe others’ lack of experience in thefield, I highlighted the fact subtly,during my interview. Of course, Iwas selected for the post.

Big organisations generally consti-tute committees for interviewing can-didates. These generally comprisemembers from various departmentsrelevant to the functions of the postbeing filled. The objective is to have asort of consensus among the connect-ed departments.

Although all the members of thecommittee have a say in selection, thereis usually a powerful boss, who has theultimate say — a veto. It is not difficultto find the decider. His as well as othermembers’ demeanour manifests thetop man’s authority. Most of the con-stituents will concur with him most ofthe time to be in his good books.

Screening the stuffOf course, other members will ask

you some questions to contribute tothe screening process. Answer themrespectfully. However, reply to thetop man’s queries very tactfully, pre-tending that the head has asked avery intelligent, interesting question.It made you think hard.

Your admiration for the committeehead should be obvious. He shouldthink that you will like to work underhim. After all, the decider could haveselected a suitable candidate withoutany assistance from the com-mittee. It was constituted main-ly to share the responsibility forthe choice.

Most selectors say, “Tellme/us about yourself.”

Your education, work expe-rience etc, can be browsedfrom your application and itsappendices. They were consid-ered before calling you for theinterview and need not berepeated, unless the selectorstell you to elaborate some


able in your wear. If the clime is hot and a tie makes

you sweat profusely and uncomfort-able, do not put it on — unless thevenue of the interview is air-condi-tioned. In that case, you can wear the tieafter reaching the air-conditioned area.

It is a good practice to bow andgreet the interviewers with, ‘Goodmorning/day, Sir/Gentlemen.’ Smile.You are pleased to meet the selectors.

Show your gladness for thisopportunity of a personalpresentation.

Prepare well for theevent. If you had failedto get selected in earlier

First impression usually lastslong. Your appearance givesthe opening image. You shouldappear clean, neat, tidy and, ofcourse, confident and at ease

— at the first glance. So, before aninterview shave and bathe. Trim and

clean the nails. Dress well; posh but not

gaudy — unless you areseeking a position in

advertising or fashionindustry. Your attire

must be spotlessand ironed, shoes

well polished. Youshould be comfort-

interviews, recall the questions youcould not answer satisfactorily.Prepare replies for those troublesomequestions. Ask a friend to act as aninterviewer and record your answerson a video camera. Then put yourselfin the shoes of the interviewer.

Play the video. Observe it careful-ly. Would you appoint the inter-viewed person, if you were the selec-tor? If not, revise, rehearse, andrecord the replies again. Repeat theprocedure till your friend and youare satisfied with the performance.

An interview is like a race, a com-petition, a war. Candidates use alltypes of tactics to excel others. Betterknowledge of the recruiting compa-ny’s products, machinery, competi-tors etc, helps you excel others. Infact, the waiting-time at the receptioncan be utilised to gauge the competi-tion — like a shrewd salesman.

Keeping your eyes and earsalways open to opportunities, is amantra few competent salesmen candisregard. Awareness of surround-ings situation can aid a lot in over-taking rivals.

While awaiting an interview forpost of a Tool Designer, I could see acouple of automatic copying lathesthrough a glass window overlookingthe manufacturing workshop.During the chat with other candi-dates for the post, I realised that no Little rehearsal at home will benefit you in real situation.

Candidates in a group interview often try to subdue others.

In a cut-throat competition, what

assures your selection in an interview

is a thorough preparation. Here are a few

tips on how to prepare well for the

the D-day. ■ by Prakash Hiralal

Outshiningcompetitors in an

interview

and industry. However, when you saythat you have some commendablequality, you should be able to giveexamples to back up the claim.

Versatility often succeeds overhigh, narrow specialisation. A versatileperson can carry out a wide variety offunctions in an emergency. Leadershipand ability to train subordinates arevaluable in almost all fields.

What are your weaknesses?The object of the query is to probe

your honesty and vanity. If you saythat you excel in everything, that youhave never committed a mistake, youare either vain or untruthful. Yourreply also indicates if you have pon-dered over a slip, found reasons for theerror, done something to prevent itsrecurrence. If you have not done allthat yet, start now. Cogitate over amajor failure on your part, think overthe reason and remedies and keep theanswers ready for your next interview.

Tell us about your notableachievements.

Recall your memorable assign-

have good prospects in the company.The organisation might be unsatis-fied with your performance. Oneshould spend at least 2 to 3 — prefer-ably 5 — years in a company to estab-lish that the organisation was satis-fied with your performance.

Some cynical interviewer mightimply that you are leaving your jobbecause you are in the employer’sbad books. I tackled a maliciousselector by the following reply: “I amnot very eager to leave my presentjob. I have very good prospects in mycurrent post. I won’t leave the com-pany unless you offer me a substan-tial raise over my present salary.”

Use cool, soft tone for rejoinders.After all, you are dealing with apotential employer.

What you can do for ourcompany?

Usually, the purpose ofthis query is to find outhow much — if at all — youknow the company’s productsand activities. And if you lookbefore leaping.

Did you prepare for theinterview?

Some selectors consider lack ofpreparation arrogance.

What are your strengths?Zest, originality, leadership, tenaci-

ty, sociability, alertness and many sim-ilar qualities are valued by business

ments/work which was much appre-ciated by most. These can be exam-ples of ingenuity, instances of meet-ing targets before schedule or over-shooting them. If possible, convertyour accomplishments into rupees.Currency is a universal unit almosteverybody can comprehend.

What salary do you expect?The expected salary should be at

least 3 to 4 increments over yoursalary at the juncture. You may agreeto marginally lesser increment. Donot agree to only a little more thanyour present salary.

When can you join?If you are unemployed, you

should be ready to work for anyorganisation which offers you a joband reasonable salary/stipend. Fieldexperience is an important criterionfor most employers. Experienceenhances your employability andsalary potential. So, one should startimbibing field knowledge soon afterfinishing education. You should joinas early as possible.

However, if you are alreadyemployed, ask for sufficient time —at least, a fortnight more than theobligatory notice period — usuallyone month for ordinary posts and upto 3 months for superviso-ry/managerial incumbents.

One should check the status of theprospective employer. If you havenot done that before applying for thepost, you must do it before joining

the company. Peruse the compa-ny’s website.

Browsing business and trademagazines, as well as financialpages in newspapers can help in

verifying the claims on the web-site. Chatting with employees,too, can help. But suppliers,distributors, former employ-

ees and competitors can throwmore light — however biased — onthe negative features of the company.

Make sure that the next organisationis really better than the one you intendto leave. You do not want to jump froma frying-pan to an incinerating fire. ■

Keep your credentialstogether securely.

50

Lakshmi Menon,who had bought it in1940.

The first time Iwent through thisbook, I was a littlesurprised to find,tucked between itspages, a postcard-size photograph of astrikingly beautiful,young lady, probablyin her early 20s. Thephotograph had, ofcourse, acquired a sepia tint with thepassage of time. Gracefully dressedin a chiffon saree, the young girl inthe photograph had big, smiling eyesand exquisitely-curved lips.

I thought it must be thephotograph of Lakshmi Menon, forit is not unusual for the reader to useanything handy, including his or herphotograph, as a bookmark andthen leave it in the book.

Interestingly, Lakshmi Menonhad written on the flyleaf of thisbook not only her name but also hercomplete address. Normally, readersdo not write their address on booksthey read, but Lakshmi Menon wasone of those who do.

Her book induced me to be a bitadventurous. Here is an opportunity,I told myself, for chasing romance,as I sat browsing through the bookin my study. I decided to write toLakshmi Menon at the writtenaddress and then wait for her reply.Of course, I realised it was veryunlikely that Lakshmi Menon wouldstill be living at the same old

address, after morethan 40 years.

However, in myletter, I mentioned howI had come by thatbook, which had oncebelonged to her, andhow I had found in it aphotograph that Ipresumed was hers.

Imagine myamazement when, after

about one month of posting thatletter, I received a reply. Yes, I did,and it was from Lakshmi Menon,now an old woman and living in asmall town of Kerala.

My letter had, surprisingly,reached her after it had been re-directed to her a couple of timesfrom different places where, in thepast 3 decades, she had lived withher husband. The latter had workedwith an insurance company.

he recounted that she wascarrying Jane Austen’s Emma withher while she, along with herhusband (who was now no more),was travelling from Bombay toDelhi in those days of World War II.She wrote in her reply that she had,perhaps, absent-mindedly left thebook in the train. Yes, she owned shewas in the habit of using oldphotographs as bookmarks, but shecould not quite recollect now howshe came to put her photograph inthe book that was now with me.

I sent her the photograph alongwith the book. The photograph aswell as the book was hers, indeed,she told me in her reply letter. Shewas profusely thankful to me forsending her that old photograph.

After this, a sort of pen-friendshipdeveloped between us and, every year,in the first week of January, I wouldreceive a New Year greeting card fromthe lady, with unfailing regularity. Thispractice continued till LakshmiMenon’s death in mid-1990s. ■

S

romance and mystery about them. For instance, The Adventures of

Hajji Baba, by James Justinian Morier,that I bought in 1990, had adornedthe bookshelf of one Sunil Mukerjee,in 1945, who was at that time astudent of B.A (Hons). On the titlepage, Mukerjee had written not onlyhis name, the name of his college andthe class of which he was the student,but also the date, month and the yearwhen he bought this book.

urprisingly, in a corner of thesame page, Sunil Mukerjee had,perhaps in an unguarded moment,also written, ‘Oh, my love, Aarti!’ Ifind this line especially intriguing.Now, whenever I open this book, Iwonder whether Sunil Mukerjee isstill alive.

If, in 1945, Sunil Mukerjee was ayoung man of about 20, he must be agrandfather now. I wonder whatbecame of his love, Aarti. Is the grand,old woman, with whom he now takeshis evening tea and shares hisreminiscences of days gone by, is ‘O,my love Aarti’ or some other woman?

Another bulky old book, The GoodCompanions, by J.B. Priestley, which Igot at a bargain price from the samebazaar, had once belonged to someDevdutt Sharma. Sharma, it appears,took his reading a little too seriously.

He has mentioned on the titlepage of this book the date, monthand the year, when he startedreading it. On the last page, again, isthe date, month and the year, whenhe finished it. Then, on the inside ofthe hard cover, he has expressed hisopinion of this novel –a paragraph ofgushing praise!

However, the bookI cherish most is anold and slightlymusty-smellingedition of Emma byJane Austen. I boughtthis book in 1980. Theprevious owner of thisbook was one named

S


[[After this, a sort of

pen-friendshipdeveloped between

us and, every year, inthe first week ofJanuary, I would

receive a New Yeargreeting card from

the lady, withunfailing regularity.

M U S I N G

Romance of


learnt that a little bit of drama andplay-acting were necessary, if onewanted to strike a profitable bargain.One day, while I was rummagingthrough a heap of books, a middle-aged man in a golf cap came thereand started meddling with the sameheap. Shortly, he got hold of a bookthat seemed to interest him.

“You’re lucky,” I said to him, “tohave found a book of your choice sosoon.”

To my surprise, by way of a reply,

he darted a quick look in thedirection of the shopkeeper, whowas at that moment busy talking toanother customer. Then, winking atme with a roguish smile on his face,he furtively raised his index fingerto his lips, indicating that I keepquiet and not spoil his game. I wassomewhat perplexed for a minutebut, pretty soon, came to know whatthe fellow’s game-plan was.

“How much for it?” he asked the

Ihave a passion for reading books.There was a time when I couldafford to buy 3 or 4 books everymonth. This practice continued foryears and I succeeded in building

up a fair collection of my own. However, when the price of

books started escalating, in the1980s, I found myself unable to copewith the expense. It was certainly nocomfort to know that the paperbackedition of a novel, that I had oncebought for just Rs 5 from abookshop in our city, was nowselling at Rs 100.

Then, I came to know of a‘kabadi’ bazaar in Delhi, whereold books in fairly goodcondition, apart from amiscellany of other things, wereavailable at ridiculously lowprices. The lure of thisinexpensive literary fare was toostrong to be resisted. So, Istarted visiting this kabadibazaar twice a month.

In the beginning, owingperhaps to my lack ofexperience, I was not much of asuccess in striking bargains withthe wily shopkeepers there. Thosewho knew the ways of this marketwould have laughed at my naiveteand gullibility. I would rummagethrough a pile of books, looking fora title that suited my taste and,when I lighted upon such a book,my eagerness to possess it would beso clearly written on my face thatthe shopkeeper knew he could getwhatever price he asked for it.

However, with experience, I

bookseller, holding up the book tohim.

The man took the book from him,looked at it rather thoughtfully, andthen, shooting a quick, appraisinglook at the golf-cap, said brusquely,“Ten rupees!”

“What? Ten rupees for this old,dog-eared book?” cried ‘Golf-cap’,his eyes popping out in well-simulated amazement. And then,quite abruptly, he turned to leave.

“What’ll you pay for it?” askedthe shopkeeper.

“Two rupees,” replied Golf-cap.The man threw the book back

into the heap, saying that he didnot want to starve his children byfoolishly accepting Rs 2 for a bookthat he knew was well worthmore than Rs 10 in the market.

Golf-cap once again picked upthe book from the heap, idlyturned over its pages, frowneddisapprovingly, and then, in a toneof finality, said, “Will Rs 4 do?”

“It’ll be Rs 5,” was the reply.“Take it or leave it.”

Muttering something aboutthe growing rapacity of

booksellers, he paid up, put thebook in his bag, and then made foranother shop nearby.

Of course, I could never rise tothe artistic level of the man with thegolf-cap, in striking bargains for oldbooks but I did come across somerare titles that were long out of printand not easily available even inlibraries. And some second-handbooks that I acquired from thekabadi bazaar have a certain aura of

Books, especially old ones sometime form a

sort of bridge between two completely

unknown people and give birth to a memory

that lingers on forever. ■ by A. C. Tuli

TheBooks

A LT E R N AT I V E

lantana as a potential bamboo-substi-tute for crafting furniture.

Over 60 products, ranging from bas-kets to office furniture, are beingdesigned and crafted out of lantana.Many destitute women, too, have takento crafting lantana furniture. Accordingto sources in ATREE, cost-wise, lantanafurniture is much cheaper than canefurniture. Not surprisingly then, manyoffices, business centres and individualhouseholds in Bangalore are taking tolantana furniture.

Lucrative sea-weedsOn another front, rustic women in

Langaleswar village, off Ganjam coastin Orissa, have floated self-helpgroups to promote the cultivation ofsea-weed, whose extracts are used intoothpaste, ice-cream, textile-print-ing, cosmetics, teeth-filling, tissue-

culture and packaging. Sea-weed isalso a major ingredient used in thefood-processing industry. It is used asa thickening agent in products suchas chocolates and custard powder.

Moreover, it is also considered arich source of certain vitamins andminerals. Currently, about 60 women-folk in this coastal hamlet of Orissa areactively involved in sea-weed cultiva-tion. Central Salt and MarineChemicals Research Institute (CSM-CRI) at Bhavnagar and CentralMarine Fisheries Research Institute(CMFRI) at Kochi, have developedculture technique for some of the com-mercially important sea-weed species.

Similarly, in the shallow waters ofMandapam coast, in the Gulf ofMannar along Tamil Nadu’sRameswaram coast, one can see hun-dreds of bamboo rafts floating. Theserafts carrying sea-weeds are left tofloat in the calm Gulf waters by around700 cultivators, who make a living bygrowing and selling sea-weed.

Normally, each raft, carrying about60 kg of sea-weed, gets ready for har-vesting after 45 days. Here, too, the cul-tivators have floated self-help groupsto cultivate and market the sea-weed.According to one of the cultivators, theinvestment on sea-weed cultivationcan be recovered in a year’s time.

Many fishermen, who no longerfind fishing lucrative on account of therapidly-declining fish catch, are takingto sea-weed cultivation. However,sea-weed cultivation in India is still inits infancy. South-East Asian countrieshave made major strides in cultivatingand marketing sea-weed.

Through a well-conceived strategyof cultivation and an efficient market-ing mechanism, sea-weed could be amajor money-spinner for India. Thereis a huge and captive market for sea-weed, which India can easily tap.

Experience says that sea-weed caneasily be sold in both the domesticand overseas markets. Moreover, sea-weed cultivation, in distinct contrastto aqua-cultural prawn cultivation, isan ecologically benign operation. ■

dependent on forest produce for theirsurvival, have now taken to turninglantana into beautiful furniture. It isbeing made into chairs, dining-tables, racks, cots and baskets.

This furniture has a ready marketin cities such as Bangalore andMysore. In fact, anything that can becrafted out of bamboo-cane, can alsobe made from lantana. The rapid dis-appearance of bamboo stocks hasthreatened the very livelihood of trib-als dependent on bamboo for makingboth ends meet.

Now, lantana has emerged as theirsaviour and life-sustaining force.Prior to this, the Dehradun-basedHimalayan Environmental Studiesand Conservation Organisation(HESC) had actually promoted theuse of lantana for making furniture.

Thanks to the initiative by theBangalore-based Ashoka Trust forResearch in Ecology and Environment(ATREE), tribals in M.M.Hills,B.R.Hills, Nagarhole and otheradjoining areas, were trained to makefurniture from lantana. In fact, simpleand cost-effective techniques devisedto treat strips of lantana, allowingthem to be used in much the sameway as cane, attracted the tribals to


waste as the weed has the property ofabsorbing heavy metals. In manycountries of Asia-Pacific region,water-hyacinth is used to treat waste-water and industrial effluent.

The potential of water-hyacinth asan agent to purify tannery effluentshas also been demonstrated in pilot-projects carried out in India and otherparts of the world. Water-hyacinthhas also been used effectively toabsorb chemical, heavy metals andorganic compounds, including pesti-cides from an aquatic eco-system.

However, the promise of water-hyacinth as a potential source of bio-gas, eclipses all its other properties inview of the rapidly-escalating energycrisis. Water-hyacinth-based bio-gasis being projected as a promising sub-stitute for natural gas.

Researchers at the NSTL demon-strated that 314 litres of bio-gas can beproduced from 1 kg of dried water-hyacinth mass. As it is, this aquaticweed is converted into bio-gas bycapitalising on nature’s process –decay by anaerobic bacteria found inthe warmer zones of the world.

The gas so generated can be used

Noxious weeds, both aquaticand terrestrial, that flourishwith unchecked abundance,pose a serious threat to thewell-being of both humans

and cattle. However, human ingenu-ity has paved the way for successful-ly harnessing many of the trouble-some weeds for improving the quali-ty of man’s life.

For instance, the fast-growing,much-detested, water-hyacinth, knownas a “champion coloniser of the plantworld,” is now being exploited togenerate bio-gas, purify water, andtreat effluents, as well as for produc-ing utility items, including paper,hard-board and cattle-feed.

Incidentally, the potential ofwater-hyacinth as an agent for puri-fying waste-water, was first noticedby researchers at the National SpaceTechnology Laboratory (NSTL) inLouisiana, USA, way back in 1976,while looking for an efficient life-support system in outer space.

Further, in conjunction with awater-hyacinth-based waste-watertreatment system, it is also possible torecover valuable minerals from the

for cooking, lighting and operatingappliances. The high-nutrient com-post, left behind in the digester, is richin nitrogen, potash and phosphorous.On another front, water-hyacinth isalso used in producing paper, hard-board, as well as animal-feed.

So much for the manifold uses ofthis problematic weed. Now aboutLantana.

Not long ago, lantana was consid-ered a harmful weed, found thrivingon the forest floors, posing a seriousthreat to plantation forestry. It is nowbeing widely used to make a widerange of aesthetically-designed furni-ture to suit every taste and pocket.

Lustrous lantanaKnown in Kannada language as

Belligida or Silver Plant, lantana wasintroduced into India by the Britishcolonial rulers as an ornamental plant,in early 19th century. However, itturned out be a menacing weed, threat-ening all vegetation in its vicinity.

A group of tribals in southernKarnataka, including Medaras,Koravas and Soligas, who used to be

Wealth From

Weeds

The gas so generated can be used forcooking, lighting and operating appli-

ances. The high-nutrient compost, left behind in the digester, is rich in nitrogen, potash and phosphorous.On another front, water-hyacinth is

also used in producing paper, hard-board, as well as animal-feed.

Sea-weed can easily

be sold in both

domestic and

overseas markets.

Moreover,

see-weed cultivation

is an eco-friendly

operation.

■ by Radhakrishna Rao

Deep sea treasure: Sea-weeds are emerging as lucrative alternative for coastal people.


right thing in coming to Tumkur, she tried differentmeans to earn her livelihood.

She was willing to work as a maidservant in people’shouses, but they would ask her where she came fromand where she had worked before. She had no home inTumkur and she had no previous work-experience togive them as reference. She wondered whether shewould ever get a job.

Then an idea struck her. Since there were many shopsnear the bus-stand, she requested the shopkeepers toallow her to clean their shops on a daily basis. She wentabout from shop to shop, begging the owners to allowher to work for them. Some of them agreed; some didn’t.She took up the job of cleaning shops during the dayand with the money she was paid she would buy breadand live on it for the whole day.

She worked very sincerely and honestly, so most ofthe shopkeepers were very kind to her. She used to sleepon the pavements, along with other poor people, duringthe night. Like this, she saw many sunny andunbearably hot days. In winter, the nights were verycold and she had no blanket to cover her thin body. Thebody suffered but the mind was strong and determined.She was not going to give up.

There was no message from her people, all this while,as they knew not where she was. But that did not botherher, as she knew that, one day, she would be better offand bring them to Tumkur. Every night, she would say asilent prayer as she had immense faith in God and in herefforts. She believed in her strength.

Meanwhile, in Gubbi, her mother continued to gothrough her tough days. She mother had lost all hopes;all the dark clouds in her life never seemed to have anysilver lining. Same toil during the day and samestarvation for her and her children and same beatingfrom her husband. In addition, this there was no newsabout her eldest daughter.

In Tumkur, Kamala concentrated on her work and,slowly but steadily, she was saving up some money forher family. One morning, she went to work as usual. Shestarted her day’s work. A shop-owner had left Rs 20,000in cash, on the table and rushed out of the shop on someurgent work.

After cleaning the floor, little Kamala noticed themoney. She kept it safely and then gave the wholeamount to the shopkeeper, when he returned. Theshopkeeper, who thought that he had lost the money onhis way to the bank, decided that he would reward thegirl by giving her the job of a servant in his house.

She worked in his house for 2 years and, since herfood and clothing was taken care of by the shopkeeperand his wife, she would send all her earnings to hermother so that the rest of her family could have food.

Kamala also took care of her employer’s children. She

It was drizzling heavily, one morning. After myhusband and children had left for their respectivejobs, I sat sipping my coffee and watching theraindrops gently dropping down the window-panes.The leaves of the trees surrounding my verandah

looked clean and green, decorated with the raindrops,here and there. How blessed I was, l thought. I had thetime to observe and celebrate nature.

Just as I was feasting on nature’s beauty, I heard thesound of my gate opening. An old woman entered myverandah and sat down — as if she too wanted to enjoythe beautiful scenery.

When I offered her coffee, she refused. She told methat she had come to ask if I needed a servant to work inmy house. Since mine had given me a one-month notice,I really needed one. She wanted to bid goodbye toTumkur and go back to her village.

“Thank God, I am getting a replacement! What ablessing,” I thought.

Somehow, she really impressed me at the very firstsight. She proved to be a very clean and honest. Sun orshower, she would be at my house right on time. Soon, Itook a great liking to her.

One day, she felt like telling me all about her life. Herstory was a moving one, indeed...

Her name was Kamala and she had 3sisters and one brother. She was born in avillage called Gubbi, in Karnataka. Hermother worked in a house on a monthlypay of 400 rupees. Her father was anelectrician; he was very skilled but verylazy.

He would work on a daily-wage basis.But then, he hardly went for work. Even ifhe decided to work for a day, now andthen, he was happy to spend all hisearnings on his country liquor. If he did

not go to work, he would beat up his wife and snatchthe money, for which she slogged 5 hours, every day ofthe month, to feed her children.

So, all that these children saw at home was adrunkard father and violence. There was starvation byday and by night for them. The children wouldhelplessly see their mother’s struggle. Kamala wouldwonder whether there was a solution to all theseproblems and decided that she would, one day, save herfamily.

One fine morning, she got out of bed, ran out of thehouse and stared at the sun, as if gathering enoughstrength from it rays. She made up her mind to searchfor a way to solve the problem.

amala was 13 years old on that day. She told hermother that she would leave the village and go to atown called Tumkur and see what she could do to helpin bringing up her brother and sisters.

The mother tried to persuade her not to leave them.She tried to convince Kamala that her father would, oneday, change his ways. But Kamala would have none ofthese as she was fed up of the violence and starvation athome. Every day was a dull and sad day for her. The

child in her was hurt deeply. She walked and walked till her legs

ached. She finally reached the bus-stand atGubbi. The bus was crowded and she hadto stand throughout the journey but shemanaged not to fall even though her legsached badly. The bus fare was Rs 10, andthat was all the money she had.

When she landed in Tumkur, she wastired and hungry. She had no money to buyfood. She lived for a week on the almsgiven to her by the passengers at the bus-stop. Wondering whether she had done the

K

S H O R T S T O R Y

Ungrateful

[[Kamala’s happiness,

however, did not last long. One fine

day, her husband justdid not turn up. Hewent after another

woman and lefthome, leaving

Kamala and her 2 children to fend for themselves.

She told she was very happy with them. She

then touched their heads with her palms and

blessed them. As the car approached Tumkur,

she breathed her last. ■ by Sharada Ramu


would them to school and bring them back safely. Whenthe shopkeeper and his wife went out of town, thechildren would be in her care. Never once did shemisuse the trust that they had placed on her. She lovedthe children very much and always saw to it that noharm came to them.

The shopkeeper and his wife were very impressed byher sincere and honest work. They told her to get herwhole family to Tumkur and gave her a small room,which was a part of the out-house, for her to stay withher family. He also got her father a good job anddisciplined him. The family now lived in peace.

amala’s parents decided to get her married andfound a suitable boy for her. He was a skilled electrician,and worked in a shop for repairing electrical goods. SoKamala had no money problems. She had 2 children andshe thought life had, at last, taken a nice turn. She hadbig dreams of sending her children to school, andeducating them.

Her parents were very happy as her younger sistersand brother were going to school and all seemed to begoing well for them. They got jobs after their schooling.In good time, her sisters and her brother were happilymarried.

K

village, Gubbi. She wanted to save at leasta few children from suffering the way shehad, in her childhood.

Kamala wanted to go to her village,Gubbi, just once. Her children took herthere by taxi. She visited the place wheretheir hut used to be, recollecting herchildhood days. She went near the well,where she used to wash the clothes of allher family members. She remembered,with tears in her eyes, how she would singwhile washing the clothes, even thoughthere was sadness in her heart.

All the neighbours she knew had left the village tolive in towns. She went to the temple on the outskirts ofthe village an met an old couple. As a child, she wouldvisit them whenever she went to the temple. Theyseemed to recognise her and were pained to hear of thetroubles she had faced in life.

The village now had a small health-centre. Inside, shefound a fat woman yelling at the patients waiting to beattended by her and wondered when the lot of the poorwas going to improve.

There was a municipal school, too, but it presented asorry picture. There, she found the children runningabout, while the teacher was dozing happily. Thechildren were dressed in torn clothes and had no

slippers to wear. Their hair was unkempt,but they were personifications ofinnocence. She hoped that, one day, thesechildren would become great, rich andfamous.

ince it was a Friday, she wanted tosee the Friday village fair, too. She lookedat the bangles, the ribbons, the colourfulclips and recollected how badly had shewanted them, as a child. She would look atthe hot peanuts, the colourful flowers, thefancy dresses and tell herself they are are

not for her. She bought some now and gave them awayto the children wandering about there.

“Not a single familiar face in the fair,” she told herchildren. She walked around the village and then returnedto Tumkur by the same car engaged by her children.

She was very tired by the time they left her villagebut she was at peace. She thought about her first trip toTumkur in an overcrowded bus; today she wastravelling back to Tumkur by a car. She sat there in theback seat, holding both her children's hands.

She told them that she was very happy with themand they had made her feel so loved. She then touchedtheir heads with her palms and blessed them. As the carapproached Tumkur, she breathed her last. ■

S

Kamala’s happiness, however, did not last long. Onefine day, her husband just did not turn up. He went afteranother woman and left home, leaving Kamala and her2 children to fend for themselves.

After a few months of weeping and being drowned insorrow, Kamala went to her parents. By then, the parentswere too old and pleaded helplessness.

She then went to her brother for help. He was soengrossed in his own progress, that he told her that hehad no time for her.

She went to her 3 sisters’ homes, but they told herthat she should have known how to manage her familybetter. They said she was foolish and they could donothing for her. It was time for them to enjoy life now,after all the struggles.

Sitting forlorn under a tree, Kamala wondered at thestrange behaviour of her relatives. Looking at the dryand barren branches of tree she was sitting under, she felther life, too, was similar to that of the tree. However, itdawned on her that the latter was still standing becauseof its strong roots. She decided she, too, would stand tallin this world, educate her children, teach her husband alesson or two and survive in this cruel world.

She went back to the shopkeeper, workedonce again, sincerely and honestly, for years.With the pay she got from her work, sheeducated her children. Both the childrenstudied well and succeeded in becomingclerks in an office and they took good care oftheir mother. Yet she continued working forthe shopkeeper and took good care of himand his wife in their old age.

Being pleased with her service, theshopkeeper and his wife had left her asum of Rs 10 lakh in their will. Shewas surprised and wonderedwhether she deserved this giftfrom them.

After their death, when themoney came to her and herhusband learnt of this, hecame back to her. Hepromised that he wouldleave his other wife andstay with her and takegood care of her. ButKamala would have noneof this nonsense. Shethreatened to beat himup in such a way, thathe would never dare tocome anywhere near herhouse.

Her brother came and

fell at her feet and begged her to forgive him. Kamala bynow knew too much about the ways of the world; shejust would not have anything to do with him.

Her sisters came to her and said, “Whatever it is, weshare the same blood. We were born to the same parents.You must realise that and forgive us.”

Kamala told them all they were out of her mind andheart; she wanted to have nothing to do with them. Itwas now her turn to laugh and scoff at them.

What an irony of fate, she thought. The shopkeeperand his wife were not related to her but they hadsupported her at every stage of her life for her honestand hard work.

That was when she landed in my house — weak inbody but very strong in spirit. She seemed to be totallyrelaxed in her mind.

he worked for me for 3 years, though she couldquietly sit at home to enjoy her wealth, given to her bythe shop-owner. She wanted to work so as to be activetill the last.

“My children are very good; they are angels; theylearnt their lessons very early in

life,” she would say proudly.“My children are veryindependent,” she wouldboast like a typical mother.“But I wouldn’t like to bedependent on them and

trouble them.”Kamala now had a

small house, enough forher 2 children and herself.

She had a beautiful gardenwith roses, jasmines,sunflowers and coconuttrees. Her son wouldmarket all the coconutsand give the money tohis mother. Thedaughter would pluckthe jasmines, tie them

up with thread, sellthem but not keep the

earnings for herself. She never felt short of

money any more; she wasnever short of attention fromher 2 children. “I am lucky,”she would whisper toherself.

Kamala made a will thatall her money should be used

to educate the poor in her

S


[[“My children are verygood; they are angels;

they learnt theirlessons very early inlife,” she would say

proudly. “My childrenare very independent,”she would boast like atypical mother. “But I

wouldn’t like to bedependent on themand trouble them.”

P E R F O R M I N G A R T

cially synchronised performance –Nartan – on 5 October.

Monisa and Moumala Nayak said:“Our performance Nartan is a musi-cal journey that showcases the vari-eties of music used in Kathak duringold, medieval and modern times.”Their performance was divided into3 stages – Temple period, Court peri-od and Stage period, where eachstage described how Kathak hasevolved as a comprehensive andexpressive dance form. It started intemple courtyards; then the royalcourts of the Muslim and Hindukings of India started patronising it;

and, in the current period, it has beenelevated to the stage with other tradi-tional dance forms.

The climax of the sister-duo’schoreography was a jugalbandi (duetrecital) of percussion and instru-ments and concluded with a bandishthat portrayed a beautiful synthesisof all that is best in the 2 distinct cul-tures belonging to both Hindu andMuslim periods of political rule andconsequent social ethos of the Indo-Gangetic belt.

Monisa Nayak’s performance wasmarked by her perfect blending ofrhythmic patterns, footwork and

varieties of spins alongwith her profoundexpression, whileMoumala Nayak’s per-formance can bedescribed as an excellentblend of sensuous move-ments and graceful foot-work with absolute con-trol on laya.

6 October witnessedan avant-garde contem-porary fusion by AstadDeboo and his troupe of 8Pung Cholom drummersof Manipur. Said AstadDeboo: “Our perfor-mance, Rhythm Divine, isa highly refined classical

October. Their act began with aninvocatory item – Choltekku onKamadeva, the creator and preserverof Sringara, followed by a composi-tion of Maharaja Swathi Thirunal,where the nayika narrated to herfriend her experience of first love.

The scene then moved to the lovetriangle between Lord Shiva,Goddess Parvathi and Ganga whereParvathi questioned Shiva on hisamorous activity with Ganga. Thechoreography concluded with Jeeva,a dance number that symbolicallyshowed the journey of the soul – therestless human form that transcendsin the quest of knowl-edge and realisationand eventually leads tothe attainment of theparam atma or thegreater soul.

In an attempt to linkthe monument ofPurana Qila with thesensuality of Kathak,the sister-duo MonisaNayak (from the Jaipurgharana and trainedunder RajendraGangani) andMoumala Nayak (fromthe Lucknow gharanaand trained under BirjuMaharaj) created a spe-


Bhargava: “In a world that is fastturning to Western dance forms andan age where TRPs of reality televi-sion is growing, Seher’s motto hasalways been to preserve the Indianheritage and culture. With Ananya,we have succeeded in democratisingculture by first taking classical danceinto public spaces like monumentsand parks, and second by impartingit at a mass-appeal.”

This year, the festival opened on 3October, aptly with an Odissi perfor-mance by the veteran maestroMadhavi Mudgal. She has wooedaudiences in India and abroad withher delicate postures and strongrhythmic footwork. Her subtle abhi-naya, strong music knowledge and

Seher, one of the country’s pre-mier organisations in the areaof performing and visual arts,in an association with DelhiGovernment and Sahitya Kala

Parishad, hosted its 8th edition of anannual extravaganza – AnanyaDance Festival 2009. It was anendeavour to showcase Indian classi-cal dance in its pure form, packagedsleekly for the younger generationand the first-time enthusiasts ofIndian culture. The 5-day fiesta pri-marily focused on the group chore-ography at Delhi’s historic PuranaQila’s lawn to celebrate the beauty ofIndian classical dance forms.

According to Seher founder andthe festival director, Sanjeev

aesthetic sense added to the highlydistinctive character of her recitals.

She and her troupe began theirperformance with Orissa’s percus-sion diversity followed by KalidasKumarsambhavam, which highlight-ed their natya and concluded with aninvocation to the sacred river Ganga.

Rhythmic patternAnother accomplished artiste,

whose dance is marked by extremegrace, radiant movements andexpression with geometrical preci-sion and technical finesse, wasGopika Varma. With her group,Gopika performed a theme-basedMohiniyattam act titled Sringara on 4

The highlight of the festival was a special seminar titled

‘Pratibimb’ which showed an insight into how the choreographers,

retained their essential spirit of the classical form, while also

being innovative and creative. ■ by Ramesh Kumar Raja

Mohiniattam by Gopika Varma group.

Contemporary by Astad Deboo the Pong Cholam drama.

Bharatanatyam by RemaShrikant group.

Festival to promoteclassical dance

Odissi by Madhavi Mudgal group.

which showed aninsight into how thechoreographers, whopresented their work atAnanya, retained theiressential spirit of theclassical form, whilealso being innovativeand creative. The semi-nar aimed to create adialogue between thechoreographers andthe audience (youngdancers, scholars, stu-dents and dance-enthusiasts), where the

dance number characterised by themodulation of sound from a softwhisper to a thunderous climax.”

Rhythm Divine’s eerily movingritual on stage captured the Manipuriidyll of a world that was, before beingswallowed up forever by anarchy andchaos. What followed was a visualpoetry — the oriental music anddance of the drummers, slowly pick-ing up the tempo with perfect syn-chronisation. Astad Deboo comple-mented them with emoting fingers,eyebrows and body movements.

Dance of creationThe grand finale on 7 October wit-

nessed Bharatanatyam danseuse RemaShrikant making her debut in Delhi.She showcased the dance form as themost effective vehicle to access therealm of Hindu myth and scripture.

The performance commenced witha recital of Ganpati Vandana ofOttukkadu Venkata Subaarama Iyer,followed by Shrusti Tandavam, thedance of creation and depiction ofShakti, the primordial saver of this vastmanifestation. The dance concludedwith Subramaniaya Bharatiar’s mazhaior rain followed by a brisk tillana.

The highlight of the festival was aspecial seminar titled ‘Pratibimb’ (Areflection on Ananya Dance Festival),

discussion revolved around ‘classi-cal’ dance in today’s world

Questions discussed includedhow the choreographer engages withthe grammar and vocabulary of clas-sical dance forms and codificationsfor a large audience; in a world ofinfinite choices – cinema, satellite TV,jazz, salsa, Bollywood – what doesclassical dance offer that is moreattractive than these other options;what are the limits of freedom for anartiste, while attempting to beappealing and modern throughexperimentation and innovation intheir presentation. ■


Interesting Facts about English Language

● A dot over the letter ‘i’ (orlower case j) is called a ‘tittle’.

● “Forty” is the only numberwhich has its letters in alpha-betical order. “One” is theonly number with its lettersin reverse alphabetical order.

● A bibliophile is a collector ofrare books. A bibliopole is aseller of rare books.

● There are only 4 words in theEnglish language which endin “-dous”: tremendous, hor-rendous, stupendous, andhazardous.

● Only 3 words in the Englishlanguage end in “ceed”:“proceed,” “exceed,” and“succeed.”

● Except for the word Q-boat, aword starting with letter ‘Q’ has‘u’ as its second letter.

● Bookkeeper is a special wordbecause it is a word in theEnglish language with 3 consec-utive sets of double letters... (o,k and e)

● “Indivisibility” is a special wordbecause it is a word in theEnglish language with only onevowel, which occurs 6 times: ‘i’.

Wallace Jacob ■

● “Dreamt” is the only Englishword that ends in the letters“mt”.

● “Underground” is the onlyword in the English languagethat begins and ends with theletters “und.”

● “Facetious” and “abstemious”are the only words that containall the vowels in the correctorder.

● “Almost” is a commonly usedword in the English language,with all the letters in alphabeti-cal order.

Kathak by Monisa and Moumala Nayak group.

B I A S E S

Is Cooking a Female Domain?


lived at home and there was motherto take care of the food.

Later, when she started working,she was busy climbing the corporateladder and had little time to learn thebasic culinary skills. All this while,

cooking was never a issue.Now, when she was get-ting married, based on herachievements, she isexpected to know the“womanly” things likecooking and mending.

To cap it all, she is get-ting married to a person ofsimilar qualifications —but his mother is not wor-ried about the son’s lack ofculinary skills. They both

When any girl is to be mar-ried, along with her other“prominent qualification”,one thing that is alwaysstressed upon is whether

the girl knows cooking or not. My friend Raghvan’s daughter,

who is management graduate from areputed institute and holds a highpost in a resource management com-pany, got engaged to another similar-ly-qualified person. The other day, Imet the mother and congratulatedher on her daughter’s upcomingwedding. She was happy over thealliance but worried about herdaughter’s lack of culinary skills andhow her daughter’s future in-lawswould react to it.

Raghvan’s daughter was star stu-dent, a good sportsperson and verygood in cultural activities during herschool and college days. Theseaccomplishments kept her awayfrom learning to cook. She always

earn similar salaries too. Worldwide, men are employed as

chefs in all the hotels and restaurants;even roadside eateries have malecooks. Then, why is it that, at home, itis only a woman’s job? A man in thekitchen is looked down upon, evenridiculed. The word ‘kitchen’ isalmost synonymous with ‘woman’.So much so, a female Head of Statewith other women ministers isreferred to as a ‘kitchen cabinet’!

Men are great cooksIn mythology, King Nala was a

great cook; so was Bhima. There is noreference to any woman being a greatcook. Then, how come, kitchen andcooking ended up being a woman’sdomain?

In a family, where one of thespouses earns, the other one looksafter the home, cooks, cleans andtakes care of the children. But now,with the husband and wife both earn-ing — sometimes, wife earning morethan the husband — still, she isexpected to cook for the house, takecare of children’s needs and thehome. It so one-sided!!

When the wife is not able to cook,the husband buys food from a restau-rant that is cooked by a male chef, buthe will not try cooking at home. Thisis because he is a man and you can-not expect a man to know the basicskill of feeding oneself right! ■

When the wife is not able to cook, the

husband buys food, which is cooked by a male chef,

from a restaurant. But he will not try cooking at

home. ■ by Anuradha Srinivasan

Dependent on females to be served cooked food.

Working or homely, a woman has tocook anyway.

D E F E N C E

in them. What is most important is acommon doctrinal platform.

Conflicting interestsCase in point is that, currently, the

Army is harping on the concept ofCold Start in an event of limited warwith Pakistan. The concept envisagesno large mobilisation of forces, there-by losing the element of surprise —as it happened in OperationParakram in 2002.

In this concept, the pre-designat-ed, mobile battle groups start fromtheir cantonments straight for war.For this, they want the Indian AirForce (IAF) to provide them withclose air support.

The IAF is telling the Army thatthey should use their own means,like helicopter gunships, and not bur-

den it initially, with this role, asthey want to degrade the overallcapability of the enemy air force.Both schools of thoughts havemerit but who decides which oneto adopt? This is where the CDScomes in.

Another most important func-tion of the CDS system is that itprovides a single-window mili-tary advice opportunity to theGovernment. CDS also resolvesthe procurement and planningrequirement of the 3 Services,thereby ensuring optimal usage of

the Defence Budget. The Parliamentary Committee has

taken note that 8 years have gone byand, in the name of obtaining politi-cal consensus for implementing theCDS system, all that the MOD hasdone is to write some letters to theStates. Truth of the matter is that thebureaucrats, currently straddling theMOD and playing General, will losetheir primacy. So, they do not wantthis CDS system.

The 3 Services Chiefs’ individualpowers will also be eroded so they, too,do not want this system. Politicians arealso quite happy because the 3 Serviceskeep on fighting their turf battles.When things go wrong, these gentle-men can then blame one or all the 3Services and they will come out clean.The 1962 Indo-Chinese war debacle is acase in point.

For long, we, the people of India,have been listening to the parrotedassurances by the Indian politiciansand the 3 Service Chiefs that we arefully ready to give a befitting reply toanybody, who casts unholy eyes onIndia. Truth is just the opposite.

As of date, we suffer from a crip-pling shortage 11,387 officers in theArmy, 1,512 officers in the Navy and1,400 officers in the Air Force. Theseshortages are in the young and mid-dle officers order, who form the cut-ting-edge of the Defence Services.

A recent study has brought outthat, for the Army alone to make upfor this deficiency, it will take 27

in 2003 had approved the plan ofsetting up a federal DefenceIntelligence Agency (DIA) underthe MOD. Its job was to overseethe functioning of the intelligenceagencies of the 3 Services andcoordinate between the otherCentral and State intelligenceagencies. More than 6 years later,no effort has been made to makethis operational.

Another decision, aimed at bet-ter functioning of the MOD andtimely decision-making, was thatthe 3 Service headquarters will befully integrated with the MOD. TheArmed Forces officers were also to beposted on Joint Secretary andAdditional Secretary posts, whichcurrently remain the exclusivedomain of the bureaucrats. This pro-posal is also gathering dust.

What is most shocking is that, in2003, based on the recommendationsof the GOM, the then NDAGovernment had decided to imple-ment the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS)System in India also. This system isbeing followed in America, Britain,France and 67 other countries. Theonly rider was that, before imple-mentation, a political consensus willbe obtained.

The CDS system is required tocoordinate the functioning of the 3Services, which tend to pull in differ-ent directions, and create a synergy


it is shocking that the Indian politicalmasters and bureaucrats, holding thehigh chairs in MOD, have notapproved this 5-year plan, even 3 yearsafter it should have been implemented.

In other words, in the absence ofan approved 5-year plan, the 3 wingsof the Armed Forces are only shadow-boxing, when they prepare for the2012 - 2027 Long Term PerspectivePlan. It is a fact that, even after 62years of Independence, our politicalmasters have not yet spelt out thecountry’s long-term strategic goals.

If we do not know what role we,as a country, want to play in the inter-national arena in the short-term spanof the next 8 to 10 years and long-term period of, say, 2 decades, whatmeaningful planning can be done bythe security establishment? All thatwe have been doing till now, in thename of Defence planning, are theknee-jerk actions based on the imme-

Finally, the verdict is out. Thereport of the ParliamentaryCommittee on Defence, tabledin the Indian Parliament on 16December 2009, should make

the people of India stand up and takenotice of the cavalier manner in whichthe neta-babu combine, straddling theMinistry of Defence (MOD), are deal-ing with the country’s security.

If this slide is not arrested, it may notbe long before we see a repeat of theignomous defeat that we suffered at thehands of the Chinese Army, in 1962.

Kudos to this body of Indian legisla-tures who, cutting across party lines,have taken serious note of this lack-adaisical attitude of the people inpower, concerning India’s security. Thereport points out that the 3 wings of theIndian Armed Forces are working onthe “Long Term Perspective Plan 2012 -2027,” taking the “11th 5-Year DefencePlan 2007-2012” as their base. However,

diate, developing situations. Insteadof being proactive, we have alwaysbeen reactive.

Very recently, Army Chief GeneralDeepak Kapoor has confirmed thatPakistan has built 69 new bunkers onour western borders. The ChineseArmy has been transgressing our east-ern boundary in Ladakh andArunachal Pradesh, almost every otherday, as if they are visiting picnic-spots.

Lacking coordinationSince the last 3 years, these border

violations are averaging 208 per year.Both these countries have now open-ly joined hands against India. Theseshould have been sufficient enoughreasons for the MOD in India to wakeup and take immediate correctivemeasures. Have they?

Based on Kargil Committee recom-mendations, the Indian Government

Inducting old horses: Modernisation of ailingNaval fleet is the need of the hour.

Crucial Higher Defence Management

What India needs today is a strong military, which can stand

on its own. Only then, can we talk with confidence on global issues

and our foreign policy will acquire the required teeth.

■ by Brigadier Arun Bajpai (Retd)

Crucial Higher Defence Management

Banking on meagre resources: Indian Air Force needs more staff and advancedfighter planes in order to control India’s vast spatial territory.

affairs of our armed forces, our polit-ical class feels highly pleased whenwe are called a regional power on theway to become a global power. Theydo not understand that, if Pakistanand China are cocking a snook at us,it is because they know the poor stateof our Armed Forces.

All this talk of lack of funds anddefence versus development, isbunkum. Just one Madhu Koda scamof Rs 4,500 crore would have been suf-

years, if no additional efforts aremade. The situation in the Air Forceand Navy is no better. Still, the pow-ers-that-be seem quite unconcerned.

The IAF, which has a sanctionedstrength of 39-and-a-half squadrons,is down to just 32 squadrons becausewe do not have any war-planes to fly.The Indian Navy, which as per theGovernment’s own directive, wasnever to go less than 142 ships, isreduced to 132 warships now.

The 19 submarines, that we arecurrently having, are of very old vin-tage. There is no guarantee that, ifthey dive in war conditions, they willever resurface.

Antique fleetOf the 2 aircraft carriers, Virat and

Vikrant, that we had, the Vikrant wasretired 3 years back and the Virat ismore of a museum piece. Oursupreme commander, PresidentPratibha Patil, recently visited theVirat and it was discovered that it hasno planes to fly (Sea Harrier Fightershave been grounded due to age).

As for the Army, out of its 3,000tanks, only 450 tanks (T-90) can fightat night; the rest are night-blind. Wehave not bought any new artilleryguns for the Army in the last 2decades. Things have come to such apass that, for guns like the Bofors, dueto non availability of spare-parts, theguns themselves are cannibalised.

Despite this pathetic state of

ficient to equip the entire Indian Armywith heavy artillery guns. If you addto this, the 1,775 billion dollars ofblack money stashed by our worthycountrymen in Swiss banks, then avery small percentage of this moneycan make us a major world power.

There is no doubt thisParliamentary Committee on Defence,cutting across party lines, has done agreat service to the country and itsArmed Forces. Now, it is for the peopleof India and the politicians in power,who must understand that, thanks tothe China - Pakistan collusion, we arefast getting isolated in Asia.

In his recent China visit, AmericanPresident Obama has also given thegreen signal to China to play a monitorin Asia. What India needs today is astrong military, which can stand on itsown. Only then, can we talk with confi-dence on global issues and our foreignpolicy will acquire the required teeth.

China has proven Mao’s dictumthat, ‘Power comes from the barrel ofa gun.’ ■


Life is worthlessOn a Sunday early morning, I

was loitering in my upstairs balconyas usual. The link road betweenmine and the next road can be seenby me. About 7 A.M. on that day, anold man with a stick in his hand, wasvery carefully walking on a side,even though there was no traffic sothe road was almost empty.

While the old man crossing to nextroad, a running cow hit him and hefell at once. Just then another manwas coming from behind, holding aglassful of water. I really thought hewould render his helping hand, buthe bypassed him looking for a secondtowards the fallen old man. After fewminutes, same people came back and

lifted him who was profusely bleed-ing. (I could not rush to the spot as Iwas a heart patient, brisk walk or runwas a taboo to me, even now.)

Fortunately on the next day, thesame man I found with again a glass-ful of water. I called him from my bal-cony loudly and asked him why hefailed to render his help to the helplessold man yesterday. The man startedlaughing and replied me, “Sir I wascarrying God’s sacred water from thetemple to home and under no circum-stances I should place the sacred glasson earth.” He left me with a laughingface, as if nothing new.

I feel sorry for his inhuman senti-mental superstition which is stillvery strong in our country.

— G. V. L. N. Swami

SHACKLES OF SUPERSTITION


A prize of Rs 200 is given to all published items.

Joint exercise of Army, Navy and Air Force off Gujarat coast.

the boxes, in which they werebrought to earth, had leaked, conta-minating the samples with air fromthe atmosphere.

Cassini, the US-European plane-tary probe, had detected the presenceof water traces on the moon, on itsway to Saturn, in 1999. More recently,the American Lunar ReconnaissanceOrbiter’s 7 onboard instruments hadconfirmed the presence of largeamounts of hydrogen – a marker forwater – in the permanently-shad-owed, south pole crater of the moon.

ISRO scientists say that, unlessdeep-soil samples proved the pres-ence of water under the surface, itcould be difficult to prove the utilityof water on the moon. In this context,J.N.Goswami, Principal Scientist ofChandrayaan-1, says that it wouldtake a lot more time to find whetherthe water molecules are present belowthe surface layer. However, he indicat-ed that the finding of water traces onthe moon could also imply that wateris present on other planets as well.

Scientists are of the view thathydrogen, which bonds with oxygento form water, may have come from anastronomical phenomenon called solarwind. As the sun undergoes nuclearfusion, it constantly emits a stream ofparticles, mostly protons, which arepositively-charged hydrogen atoms.

On the earth, the atmosphere andnatural magnetism prevent the plan-et from being bombarded by theseparticles. But, since the moon is with-out such a protective layer, the lunarsurface is constantly bombarded by

hydrogen ions moving at one-thirdthe speed of light. The number ofsuch ions hitting the lunar surface isquite high – about a 100 million ionsper square centimetre per second.

The energy of the solar windhydrogen allows them to penetrateone-tenth of micrometer of lunar rockor soil surface, where they can pickup an oxygen ion to create a strongly-bonded hydroxyl species. Additionof another hydrogen ion of solar ori-gin will lead to the formation of awater molecule.

Sample missionIn the context of the detection of

water by Chandrayaan-1, ISRO isplanning a revision of the objectivesset for the follow-on Chandrayaan-IImission slated for launch in 2013.“We are making a mid-course correc-tion for Chandrayaan-II. We willmine the moon’s surface much deep-er to find more water,” quipped Nair.

In keeping with the changed prior-ities, Chandrayaan-II will now incor-porate a 15-kg, Indian-built roboticrover, along with a 50-kg, Russian-supplied robotic rover. These roverswill be designed to collect soil to testfor further evidence of water and ele-ments, such as Helium-3.

Chandrayaan-II will be hoistedinto space by means of the 3-stageGeostationary Launch Vehicle(GSLV). Like its predecessor,Chandrayaan-II will also featureinternational payloads.

About the proposal for scientificpayloads onboard Chandrayaan-II,Nair said, “I am under terrific pres-sure. The number of proposals forinstruments we have received is sohigh. We are full at the moment. Weare, in fact, wondering whether andhow to create extra capacity to carryall that. We will evaluate all propos-als and examine them in the light ofour objectives.”

Beyond Chandryaan-II, ISRO islooking at going in for a samplereturn mission to moon. ■

of water on the moon could give animpetus to the idea of using themoon as a base for launching inter-planetary probes, including humanexpeditions to the red planet Mars.Here again, the hydrogen derivedfrom the water on the moon couldserve as fuel for rockets meant fordeep-space missions.

One more advantage is that arocket taking off from the moon canderive a higher level of lift-off powerdue to the fact that the gravitationalpull of moon is far weaker than thatof the earth.

Interestingly, much before M3came out with the stunning discov-ery of water on the moon, the fullyIndian-built, 34-kg MIP onboardChandrayaan-1, which crash-landedon the lunar surface on 14 November2008, had detected the presence ofwater on the moon. According to ISRO,during its 25-minute descent to thelunar surface, MIP had given a “clearsignal” of water traces on the moon.

Hydrogen rainOn his part, Nair stated that,

analysis of the data provided by themass spectrometer instrument, thatforms part of MIP, gave clues towater on the lunar surface. As it is,MIP was programmed to crash-landon the lunar surface after its separa-tion from Chandrayaan-1 orbiter.

“The MIP, while falling on themoon, picked up strong signals ofwater particles. It was varying fromthe moon’s equator to the poles.These variations – from the poles tothe equator – coincided with that ofM3,” observed Nair. The missionobjective of MIP was to help ISROacquire expertise in building pay-loads for landing on alien surfacesthrough remote operations.

Significantly, scientists firstclaimed that water existed on themoon about 4 decades back, afterthey analysed rock samples broughtto earth by Apollo astronauts. Butthey had doubts about the finding as


Barren moon surface reveals water.

D I S C O V E R Y

Detection of Water on the Moon

Detection of Water on the Moon


covered 97% of the lunar surface, hasindicated the presence of water inmolecular form and in extremelysmall quantities. “There is a confir-mation of the traces of water. It is apath-breaking event as far asChandrayaan-1 mission is concerned.It is very, very significant. So far, nomission has confirmed the presenceof water positively,” observed a jubi-lant ISRO chief, G.Madhavan Nair.

The M3 payload had detected tell-tale signs of hydroxyl and water mol-ecules within the top few millimetresof soil and rocks on the lunar surface.As pointed out by ISRO, the signa-ture of water was strongest at thehigher latitudes of the moon.

Planetary researchMore importantly, the discovery of

water traces on the surface of the soiland rocks at many diverse locations,in sunlit regions of the moon, alsogoes to disprove the thesis that wateron the moon could be found only inthe deep craters in the permanently-shadowed polar regions of the moon.

“We have made a very importantstep with this discovery. When we saywater on the moon, we are not talkingabout the lakes, oceans or even pud-dles. Water on the moon means mole-cules of water and hydroxyl thatinteract with molecules of rock anddust specifically in the top millime-

India’s maiden lunar probe,Chandrayaan-1, has made a land-mark scientific breakthrough.Though its mission life was abort-ed prematurely, in late August last

year, it created waves in the annals ofglobal space research by finding thestrongest-ever clues for the presenceof water traces across the surface ofthe moon.

Indeed, this path-breaking discov-ery has gone to disprove the long-held theory that the earth’s nearestcelestial neighbour is absolutely dry.Looking for signs of water on theearth’s only natural satellite was oneof the objectives set forChandrayaan-1, which was launchedin October previous year, by meansof the 4-stage, space work-horse,Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle(PSLV).

Though Chandrayaan-1 couldsurvive for just 312 days, as againstits originally-designed lifespan of 2years, sources in the Indian SpaceResearch Organisation (ISRO) saidthat the Indian moon orbiter has metall the scientific and technical objec-tives set for it admirably well.

Incidentally, it was the US-builtMoon Mineralogy Mapper (M3), oneof the 11 payloads onboardChandrayaan-1, which found chemi-cal signatures of water on the moonwhile looking for minerals.

Moon Impact Probe (MIP),onboard the Chandaryaan-1, which

tres of the moon’s surface,” saidCarle Pieters, Chief Investigator ofM3 probe and a planetary geologist atBrown University in the USA.

Incidentally, harvesting one tonneof the top layer of the moon’s surfacewould yield just around 32 ounces ofwater.

Planetary researchers are of viewthat the confirmation of presence ofwater on the moon could trigger aserious hunt for life on the planetarybodies. Similarly, this discovery couldalso speed up the probe to confirmthe availability of Helium-3, a richand eco-friendly source of energy, insufficient quantities on the moon.

Many countries, including India,have hinted at the possibility of miningHelium-3 from the moon and trans-porting it back to earth, to generateenergy. According to Dr. K.Kasturirangan, former Chairman ofISRO, who conceived the proposal forthe Indian lunar probe, “Ultimately, inthe long run, if humankind has to goand inhabit the moon, one of the impor-tant requirements is that you shouldhave adequate water for survival.”

As it is, Russia, the USA and Chinahave all hinted at setting up humanbases on the moon in the future.Clearly, India which is planning ahuman landing mission to the moonby 2020, could not afford to lag behindin the race to colonise the moon.

On another front, the availability

Though it died prematurely, Chandrayaan-I created history

in the scientific world. ■ by Radhakrishna Rao

A WA R E N E S S

Cosmetic Surgery for Men

bers. They are turning to brow-lifts tocorrect age-related eyebrow-droop-ing and forehead-creasing. New tech-niques allow surgeons to make smallincisions and lift the forehead with-out raising the hairline or leaving anyvisible scars.”

With regards to age and ethnicity,the type of men turning to plasticsurgery for cosmetic enhancement ischanging colourfully. Some patientsare frustrated with diet and exercise-resistant fat and want body-contouringto improve their physique and max-imise the results of their work-outs.Many men are unhappy with theshape of the nose, the prominence ofears, or the ‘weakness’ of the chin.They wish to pursue facial-sculpting tobeautify their facial features. Men pre-fer straighter, stronger and more angu-lar facial features than women do.

New breed of malesFor years, Indian women have

been relying on the surgeon’s knifefor that perfect body and that flawlessface. Now, India’s economic boomhas spawned a new breed of male,middle-class professionals, with thedesire to look good and the money tomake it happen. A few years ago, theratio was 80% women, 20% men, butnow it is almost 50-50. Today, it isquite acceptable for men to go forfacials and manicures, waxing andplucking and there is no stopping it.

“The craze for 6-pack abs has been

“Appearance has taken preferenceamong both men and women. Earlier,it was considered a woman’s depart-ment; now, more men are going underthe knife than ever before. Apart frombreast-reduction, many men also wantpermanent cure for their hairy chests.We use the laser technique for hair-removal. This is a permanent way toremove hair from the chest. It meansone sitting a month for 4 or 5 months,”he further added.

Most of these men opt for cosmet-ic surgery when they are looking fora new job or a new partner, hereveals. “A lot of men come for wrin-kle-removal treatment, botox shotsand filler injections, just before goingfor a job interview,” says Anup Dhir.

According to the AmericanSociety of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery,surgery is becoming increasinglypopular with men as a way to dealwith maintenance and change ofimage. BBC news has reported thatbreast-reduction surgery is gainingpopularity amongst men with gynae-comastia, generally known as manboobs or moobs.

According to Dr Mohan Thomas,Director, Cosmetic Surgery Instituteand Senior Cosmetic Surgeon atBreach Candy Hospital, Mumbai,“Cosmetic surgery is no longer tabooin India. The awareness levels andthe demand for cosmetic surgery areincreasing consistently. Men are seek-ing cosmetic surgery to enhance theirbody and looks in increasing num-


are taking more care of themselvesand trying to improve on their looksto bring out their best.

Inspired by Bollywood actors andmodels, who parade around shirt-less, these men — mostly in their 20s— are ready to shell out money toimprove their looks. Generally, menand women want to feel confident inthe way they look, be happy withhow their clothes fit, and hope theirimage justifies that.

In the workplace, gaining respectand getting that better-paid positionamongst younger co-workers is rea-son enough for many men to investin cosmetic procedures. Anotherstimulus is the intense competition inthe business world. There is often aperception, correct or not, that anolder person is less up-to-date and

This is the age of presentation.How you present yourselfmakes a great impact on yourcareer. Looking good improvesone’s self-image and confi-

dence and can play a part in beingsuccessful at home and at work. Thisawareness has contributed to thegrowth of male cosmetic surgery,worldwide.

The definition of cosmetic surgeryhas changed in line with people’s out-look towards life. An increasing num-ber of youngsters are going for differ-ent options to enhance their looks.

The days of plastic surgery as a‘women-only’ pursuit are over. Moreand more men realise that, lookingtheir best can boost their confidence,motivate them to exercise more, andhelp them feel good. Men, these days,

efficient. In an effort to retain ayouthful look, many men haveturned to cosmetic surgery.

Preference for appearanceToday, an increasing number of

men are going for cosmetic surgeryand plastic surgery. The reasons forthis are complex. It probably reflectsan increased awareness about cos-metic surgery and health-care issues.

“Ten years ago, about 10% of myclients used to be men. Now, it is40%. Most young men want to flaunta firm, clean, unshaven chest,” saysAnup Dhir, a senior consultant in thedepartment of cosmetic surgery, atApollo Hospital.

More and more men realise that looking their best can boost their

confidence, motivate them to exercise more, and help them feel

good to bring out their best. ■ by Suman Bajpai

So much pain, lot of gain too. In the end, good look is the reward.

Pioneers of cosmetic surgery in India: Dr Anup Dhir (L) and Dr Mohan Thomas.

Being a macho man is a craze today.

In India, cosmetic surgery has beenpractised for a long time but there hasbeen a notable surge in the past 5 years.There is an increasing demand for aesthet-ic procedures from people in the urbancities of Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai,Bangalore, Pune and Chandigarh.

Cosmetic surgeries in India wereassociated with celebrities and peopleof the affluent-class at a point of time.Today, these surgeries are increasinglybeing taken by the mushrooming middle-class. At present, more and more menand women from the upper-middle-classare opting for cosmetic procedures toattract lucrative jobs, get the best possi-ble marriage partner and mainly get ridof any deformity that they feel impactstheir self-confidence and self-esteem.

The major growth factor of the Indiancosmetic industry, among others, is itsaffordability — and that comes from thegrowing disposable income. Anotherimportant factor is the consumer awarenessthat has resulted from the active efforts ofthe media — especially the print media.

The estimated size of the overall cos-metic surgery industry is worth Rs 460crore, with the maximum revenue con-tributed by invasive or surgical proce-dures. These cost comparatively morethan the non-invasive procedures.

Breast-reduction can cost anythingbetween Rs 40,000 - 60,000 and lasersurgery for hair-removal can burn a Rs60,000-hole in the pocket. A botox shotcomes for Rs 8,000. Rhinoplasty, gynae-comastia and liposuction cost betweenRs 30,000 and Rs 45,000.

Indian cosmetic surgeryindustry

example, a man’s skinis thicker and the facialarea contains hair. Thismeans the blood sup-ply is greater. Theresult is a greater risk ofbleeding but betterhealing.

In general, men tendto be less happy withthe results of cosmeticsurgery than women.And there is a flip sidealso. Experts say that anunqualified or unac-credited pair of hands conducting asurgery can be risky, with possiblecomplications like excessive bleeding,

a media creation. Not surprisingly,young men are looking for the ulti-mate body-contouring by high-defini-tion liposuction. For men, who arecommitted to a good body-shape byway of a healthy diet and regular exer-cise, a 6-pack look can be created bybody-etching through hi-definitionliposuction,” says Dr Mohan Thomas.

“Dimples are also gaining popular-ity among men, probably since manyBollywood stars are sporting dimples.Dimples can be created by surgeryfrom within the mouth and with fewdays’ recovery time. In a few weeks,the dimples look quite natural. Botoxand fillers are used as quick-fix,lunch-time procedures for removal ofwrinkles and creases,” he adds.

“Having breasts can be veryembarrassing for a man. Most find itannoying and comes in the way ofwearing tight T-shirts and baring thechest (for swimming and otherwise).During puberty, hormonal changestake place in the body (unopposedfemale hormones or low levels ofmale hormone) and, as a result, breasttissue form and enlarge in some boys.

“This may disappear in manycases, over time. But, if it does not,the residual breast tissue and fattogether form the male breast. Thiscan very well be removed in an aes-thetic manner with liposuction only,using certain special instruments.This is termed ‘Key-Hole Male BreastSurgery’. The scars are minimal andfade in time. This is a day-caresurgery and one can return to workin a couple of days.

“Hair-transplantation is also apopular option for men. The hair fol-licles from the back of the head aretransplanted to the top and grow likenormal,” adds Dr Mohan.

ProcedureCosmetic surgery in men uses

many of the same procedures as inwomen. However, because of thestructure of a man’s body, there aremany technical differences. For

scarring, nerve damage,skin necrosis and evenparalysis of the face.

The most-sought-after procedures formen are keyhole malebreast-reduction, hair-transplantation, dimple,hi-definition liposuc-tion, rhinoplasty, dou-ble chin, facial rejuvena-tion, botox and fillers,brow-lift, tummy-tuck,ear correction, skinresurfacing, eyelid

surgery, penile implants for erectiledysfunction, and male genital cos-metic surgery. ■


Aromaz, the aromatic brand ofbeauty produces from RDM Care(India) Pvt. Ltd. recently launchedanti marks and scars cream andtamarind-based skin care range ofproducts. Karishma Kapoor, thebrand ambassador of Aromaz,launched the products at IITF (IndiaInternational Trade Fare), in NewDelhi last year. The product rangebased upon the principle of treat-ment with aroma with constituentsof distinct essential oils extracted

from plants and others that help inrejuvenation of skin and body.

Karishma Kapoor, epitomisingthe Aromaz’s personality says,“Today’s fast and stressful life takesextreme toll on the skin, so it’s verynecessary to take proper care. TheAromaz skincare range with array ofproducts has the insight of aromaticconcept, backed by strong researchand development to improve theskin texture and is highly relevantfor today’s modern women.”

Since ages, tamarind has beenused as an essential beauty treat-ment for women. It’s a traditionalherb used in cosmetic ingredient.The use of extracts to tamarind seedsenriched in xyloglycans is an activeagent in a cosmetic product for topi-cal usage for the skin. The active con-stituents of tamarind extract are ofgreat benefit in skin care. Studioshave shown that tamarind extractsignificantly improves skin elasticity,hydration and smoothness.

The range includes gels, astrin-gents, bleach, shampoos, condition-ers, scrubs, creams, lotions andbody wash.

Karishma Kapoor Unveils Aromaz’s Latest Products

Cosmetic surgery is aboon for women also.

It was indeed a bolt from the blue. Although with theglobal recession, the market had shrunk like a home-spun fabric, retrenchment had started almost in allsectors but nobody had ever imagined in a wildestdream that the management’s blue eyes boy Vibhor

Arya would be ever given the ominous pink slip. Hewas known as media’s whiz kid with a Midas touch. Sofar every project handled by him had turned into a vir-tual gold mine.

Call it luck, his businessacumen or strategy ofworking hard and partyingharder, he would concen-trate on one project at atime to turn it into a win-ning venture. He also hadan enviable reputation ofcompleting his projectsbefore time. Obviously, hewas the prized possessionof the big bosses and theyoungest highest paidexecutive in the company.Then what went wrongwhere? Of course, therewas not much business inthe offing and companyhad to curtail the expensesbut why at his cost? Hedecided to meet Mr.Raizada, the big boss.

“Actually I was about tocall you Vibhor, to explainthe things and personallytell you that we are partingways not due to any faultof yours and I will love to

have you once again as my most trusted lieutenant, themoment things return to normal. But when they wouldor would be ever in my lifetime, I don’t know so I haveto bid adieu to you with a heavy heart,” Mr. Raizadasaid helplessly.

“As you yourself honoured me by calling your mosttrusted lieutenant Sir, why don’t you give me a chanceto be with you and fight your battles,” Vibhor pleaded.

“I wish I could Vibhor but the only battle we have tofight is of virtually ‘NOWORK’ or in other words,no clients,” Mr. Raizadapushed a file towards him.“Look for yourself, howmany clients had cancelledtheir contracts. There is nowork for you Vibhor.”

“I don’t mind taking upthe small projects Sir.”

hose are alreadybeing handled by othersand there’s nothing new inthe pipeline. I suggestVibhor, you start free lanc-ing for the small projects.There’s no dearth of smallplayers in the market andthere will be no dearth ofwork either for a talentedman like you. My bestwishes are always withyou,” Mr. Raizada stood upto shake hands with him.

Vibhor’s head whirled.He knew there was nodearth of work for him. But

“T


S H O R T S T O R Y

The Pink SlipVibhor felt surge of excitement running up and down his

spine. The apprehensions, the feelings of uncertainty and

insecurity seemed to have been vanished in the assuring

presence of Parul. ■ by Kumud Bhatnagar

take the news that her son has lost the job and perhapshis well off in laws now won’t like him for their well-placed daughter? And what about Parul, who tells himevery night, “Now only... more days for us to be united.”How will he tell her that he has lost the job?

The best thing would be to switch off the mobile andquietly think over the issue. He switched off the mobilebut could not think of any solution or sleep either. In thewee hours of the morning, he had a fitful nap that thedoorbell rang.

‘Has the newspaper man got the inkling of his beingunemployed and wants his money in advance,’ fumingand fretting he opened the door. Parul was standingwith a travelling bag, bleary eyed and tired yet lookingas ravishing as ever.

“How come you’re here?” was all he could say. Pushing him aside Parul came in, closed the door and

threw her on him. “What else could I do Vibhor, let you undergo all this

alone?” she asked in achoked voice.

He was baffled rathershocked.

“Who told you?” “My instincts. Look,

before switching off yourmobile, you had alwaysbeen informing me before-hand but today there wasno message. Late in theafternoon, when I tried onyour office landline, notthe receptionist but a man,most probably a peon toldme that neither you noryour assistant was in theoffice. The speculationsabout retrenchment in your fields were also rife and Idecided to take no chance and catch you at home.

ut as luck would have it, the boss wanted a feasi-bility report of a new project immediately and to com-pile the data I had to be in the office till 10 at night. Icame home, packed an overnight bag and rushed to theairport. To cut the long story short, I could board aninternational flight going via Mumbai.”

“I am really sorry Parul,” Vibhor said hoarsely. “Isimply don’t know how to break this news to everybodyespecially when all are so excited about our fastapproaching wedding.”

“Why are you behaving like the proverbial pigeonwho by closing his eyes presumes the danger to be over?The news about the retrenchment in your firm will be inthe news soon and everybody would get worried over

B

your silence. Face the crises boldly and inform every-body about it.”

“I would have if the marriage had not been in the off-ing. Look Parul, I won’t be unemployed for very long...”

man of your qualification and calibre can easilyfind an alternative job,” Parul cut in. “And my parentstoo will agree for it if that’s what bothering you. As faras I am concerned, I am with you through thick andthin. Look, had mom not insisted for an elaborate wed-ding, we would have been married by now. Then couldanybody ask me to leave you?”

“Then I could have easily come to Hyderabad to livewith you.”

“That you can still do Vibhor, I mean after the mar-riage. Although being hyped as Cyberabad, basically theretail marketing in Hyderabad thrives on paddy andtobacco crops, industries and educational institutions arealso there.”

“To tell you the fact, Iam looking for an alterna-tive career in educationalinstitutions Parul. Havinga master’s degree in man-agement, I can look for anopening in an instituteteaching planning andmanagement.”

“Not only internationalbut other prestigiousinstitutes are there andthere is no dearth of smallplayers either. LookVibhor, I am entitled for acompany car and accom-modation. The car isalready there and when

married I can move out of my paying guest pad. Not aswanky bungalow but a decent flat would be there tillyou get settled in your new vocation. But Vibhor youhave your home in Delhi, supposing you like to getsettled there, I won’t mind looking for an opening formyself there itself.”

Vibhor looked straight in her eyes. “I won’t like to dislocate you too Parul when I am

already uprooted. You will keep the home fire burningwhile I’ll explore the market for myself. We’ll work as ateam Parul and emerge out as the winners.” Vibhor feltserge of excitement running up and down his spine. Theapprehensions, the feelings of uncertainty and insecurityseemed to have been vanished in the assuring presenceof Parul.

So far he was looking at the grey colour but Parulhad shown him ‘pink’ in the so-called pink slip. ■

“A


he couldn’t think of switching over to something newright now, with his wedding being just a few weeksaway. The wedding cards from his and his fiancee’s sidewere already in the printing press. The venues for thefunctions were booked long back and the inviteesrequested to make their travel arrangements. Only hisoffice people had not been informed. Actually it wasParul’s idea to keep their marriage plans a secret till lastminute.

“Once people come to know about our beinginvolved, for a slight lapse on our part, they may jeer atus for day dreaming and you know what? Moreover,presuming that we would be going on leave, we may beburdened with extra assignments. Let’s complete all ourpending work quietly, then a week ahead of proceedingon leave, approach the management with the weddinginvitation and leave application,” Parul suggested.

hatever she said couldn’t be refuted and Vibhordecided to comply by that. Actually Parul’s matter offact approach had made him to fall hook, line and sinkerfor her. Although he was well placed in life and hismother had started looking for a suitable bride for him,she too didn’t seem to be in a hurry. One night shephoned him to come over to Delhi to attend his cousinAnuj’s marriage.

“Look mom, didn’t I tell you that I am not in a moodto get suffocated in the sultry weather of Delhi...”

“Yes and I too agreed,” his mother intervened. “Buttoday in Anuj’s betrothal ceremony, I saw a few ofbrides’ unmarried cousins and friends. Some are strik-ingly beautiful and others simply good looking but all ofthem are well placed professionals. I want you to airdash to Delhi tomorrow, have a look at the girls, haveyour pick and then go back. I’ll take care of the rest.Look Vibhor, without feeling awkward, you can quietlymake your choice.”

“Without knowing whether the other party is inter-ested in me or not.”

“So far the girls I am talking about are uninvolvedand their parents have coaxed them to attend this mar-riage for groom hunting purpose.”

“I see Anuj and Anushka’s marriage is a modern day‘sawayambar’ mom?” Vibhor joked. “Whoelse has come or is expected? I mean, mycousins.”

“Almost everyone expect you and mostof Anuj’s old friends are also there.” Thatdid the trick. He and Anuj being classmateshad common friends. It would be real funto meet everybody in one go.

“Okay mom, I’ll catch the first availableflight.”

It was indeed a pleasure to be amongst

W

the old friends and cousins; he too joined the leg pullingand verbal duel between the bridesmaids and thegroom’s party.

“Oh come on girls, why are you bent upon provingthat Anushka is about to join the bandwagon ofdimwits?” one girl asked. “Why don’t you realise that itreflects upon Anu’s taste? So let them have the lastword.”

Vibhor looked at the girl, not strikingly beautiful butshe was quite attractive and what impressed him mostwas that unlike other girls she was not dressed to killbut attired in a simple yet stylish dress.

“What a way to escape from defeat,” Vibhorremarked.

“In polished words, it is known as stooping to con-quer,” the girl replied.

Vibhor was floored. He made a beeline for his moth-er, showed her the girl and told, “If you want that girl tobe your daughter in law, please be on the job right nowMa. I am booked by the morning flight but if things lookfavourable, I can extend my stay.”

As luck would have it, Parul too was supposed to goback to Hyderabad where she was working in a leadingpharmaceutical company. After being told about Vibhor,she too extended her stay. Things really moved fast afterthat. Although she was quite happy about her job, shewas prepared to resign if she could get an equally goodone in Mumbai.

“Meanwhile we’ll give flying visits to each otherevery weekend,” Parul said breezily. “With our types ofsalaries and savings, the airfare is not worth frowning.The couples in our income bracket spend that muchamount in resorts and spa every week end.”

hat’s right,” Vibhor agreed. “Many of my bache-lor friends spend a packet on massage and steam bathetc at health resorts. We’ll be spending that amount to bewith each other.”

“Yeah, for a short while, once we’re together we toowould go for all these fads but meanwhile let’s live theway we’re living.”

They had no objection for an early marriage andVibhor’s parents also wished so but Parul’s parents

wanted some time to prepare for their onlydaughter’s wedding. The preparationswere in full swing from both the sides thatthis catastrophe broke on Vibhor’s happyworld. He didn’t know how to break newsto his family, especially his mother whowas more excited than him for the mar-riage.

Every night she would excitedly tellhim for something new, she wanted to bedone during his marriage. How will she

“T

[[“As you yourself

honoured me by call-ing your most trust-

ed lieutenant Sir,why don’t you giveme a chance to be

with you and fight your battles,”

Vibhor pleaded.

M E L O D Y

to sing, on finding you a competitor?Not at all. The scenario has

changed now. Though we are livingin the age of cut-throat competitions,healthy competition also co-exists,which every professional under-stands. If you have the requisite tal-ent, people will admire it, and helpyou bring it to the fore.

A.R. Rahman, Shankar Mahadevan,Vishal Bharadwaj, Vishal-Shekhar andPritam are some wonderful examplesof this trend. They respect each otherin equal vein and request one anotheras per the demand of the given lyric, togive it a perfect voice. It’s a kind ofRam raj for the music scene in India. ■

bers. Unlike my Sufism-influencedsongs, I sang only those tracks thatcould enthrall them. I knew it was theyoungsters’ festival, so I did not wantto bore them with my slow numbers.

My selection of songs paid offwhen they were hystericallydemanding more and more! But Ihad to finally stop, as I am only ahuman being, not a music system! Iwarmly thank them for showering somuch praise and affection on me.

Though this may be a repetitivequestion, could you tell us whatmusic means to you?

Well, my answer is the same everytime! Music to me is more like medi-tation. It’s like connecting with God.While singing, I get lost in someother sphere. It’s like finding myinner self and soul.

When it comes to singing tracks formovies, you seem to be very particular?

I believe in quality, not quantity.It’s not that I have dearth of offers; Iwant to concentrate only on quality.If I start singing every song that isoffered to me today, I would definite-ly start sounding very monotonousand people will get fed up. Manyother playback singers followed thispractice and had to face criticism.

You are a music composer as well.Which job is more challenging:singing or composing?

Both are entirely different, interms of effort. Singing simply goeson the direction of the given compo-sition and situation involved. On theother hand, composing brings a lot ofresponsibilities to any music director.In addition, a composer has to gowith different kinds of situations.

As a music director, I have all theliberty, when I am composing songsfor my non-filmi, private albums.When I compose songs for movies, Ihave to keep in mind the situationand follow the mood of the actors.

I feel there is definitely far morechallenge when I am given the


They say, if youhave the talent,nothing can stop itfrom erupting.This is what hap-

pened to the currentsinging heart-throb,Kailash Kher. After burn-

ing his hands in busi-ness, Kailash moved tohis old hobby of singing,

to make it a full-time pro-fession. Here, he feels

infrastructure has little roleto play, unlike in business.

Realising his hidden poten-tial, Kailash dared to explore his

own kind of singing mannerism. Itis a trait that he has inherited from

his father, Pandit Mehar Singh Kher,a folk singer renowned in UttarPradesh, Punjab and Haryana.

Subsequently, Kailash moved toMumbai. After some hiccups, helanded an offer of the track “RabbaIshq Na Hove...” for the AkshayKumar starrer Andaz, which instant-ly became a smash-hit. Soon, hissong “Allah Ke Bande...” from therelatively obscure film Waisa BhiHota Hai - Part II (2002) made hima household name.

Since then, there has been nostopping this short-statured

singer. Besides giving mem-orable hits, Kailash has

also lent special appearances in someblockbusters, including Corporate(2006) and Mangal Pandey – TheRising (2005). Today, the singer is aproud owner of the band ‘Kailasa’,and an acclaimed lyricist and musiccomposer as well.

On a recent trip to Delhi, for a con-cert in Shri Ram College ofCommerce, Delhi University, he wentnostalgic about his formative yearsand the city where he learnt the basics.

Excerpts:How does it feel to be in Delhi,

where you spent most of your youth?It certainly feels great to be in the

city where I grew up and learnt thegayki of Kumar Gandharva, and fol-lowed that pattern and style of singing.Though I wasn’t a regular student ofDelhi University, as I graduated withits correspondence programme, I feelnostalgic about those playful days.

Moreover, how can I forget the day(3 years back) when I decided and sub-sequently formed our band ‘Kailasa’ inDelhi, with immense help from Nareshand Paresh. Though they are Mumbai-based, I met these guys in Delhi, dur-ing a concert at Pragati Maidan.

How did you feel, performing infront of Delhi University students?

I’m really thrilled about the wayyoungsters’ feet tapped on my num-

Music to me is more like meditation. It’s like

connecting with God. ■ by Ramesh Kumar Raja

Kailash’s‘Kailasa’

Though we are living in the age of cut-throat competitions, healthy competition also co-exists,

which every professional understands.

Enchanting new release from Kailash.

My First Job ExperienceThough by qualification I am an

advocate, I chose to become ateacher by profession for sheer loveof closely interacting with childreninstead of hard core criminals! Asmy own kids were very small I hadplans to work after a couple of yearslater, but the principal Mrs. S.L.Sahay (a strict disciplinarian popu-larly known as “Hitler” for her cutand dry ways) of the nearby Englishmedium school run by the Bhilaisteel plant (where my husband wasserving) phoned me one fine morn-ing and offered me a temporary postof Teacher. Though I was hesitantinitially, my husband encouragedme to take a plunge!

As the school was facing acutestaff shortage I was asked to takecharge of Class V-B as its classteacher. It was a section full of smart,radiant and mischievous children.First of all, I had to sign my presencein the staff attendance register andprepare a lesson plan to be submit-ted to the Principal for her approval.In my excitement and confusion Isigned before the Principal’s nameas her and my names had SL in com-mon! In the first period itself I hadestablished a fine rapport with thecute and friendly children of my sec-tion like Maya, Soma, Aroop, Amit

and several other charmers andenjoyed teaching and listening totheir stories and jokes in between.Came the last period and Lo!

The principal had sent a peonwith a message to meet her beforegoing home! Nervously I went to heroffice to face the grim-faced “Hitler”pointing her finger without a wordto the Teacher’s attendance registerwhere my signature was prominentlyaffixed before her name! Then sheran her finger on my lesson plan run-ning into three pages and said shewanted only an outline plan and notan essay! Thirdly she pointed to myhair which had turned grey due tochalk dust!

“All these, my dear, indicate yourstate of nervousness and it is onething which a teacher should not pos-sess. From now on I want to see yousans this, but with a smile!” Needlessto say that this boosted mymorale in my first encounteritself with the so-called“ H I T L E R ” !Later I served inthat setup for 23years duringwhich I got theBest Teacheraward! — Shanta N.

Laxman

assignment of composing music for amovie than a private album.

Aren’t you worried that othermusic composers will stop asking you

N E T I Q U E T T E

might be available to them. But, unfortunately, someemployees are using this facility for checking their e-mails 20 times a day (if not more), useless chatting,downloading songs, movies, or even accessing porno-graphic websites.

This is casting a very heavy strain on resources andcausing loss of valuable time. Therefore, it is impera-tive to block access to certain websites. Nonetheless, anumber of circumvention technologies are available foraccessing blocked websites.

Let us assume that, whenever a user tries to access ablocked site, the computer says, “Please contact yournetwork administrator.” Now, the user can open aproxy site, such as power.com or carbonproxy.com orjumboproxy.com. These websites will provide atextbox, in which the user can type the name of theblocked site which he wishes to access, and sign-in. Itis possible that the user might be able to access theblocked website.

The loopholesAs an analogy, suppose 2 individuals, A and B, are

forbidden from talking to each other. So A and B do nottalk to each other but A conveys the desired informa-tion to C. In turn, C conveys the information to B andalso takes information from B and passes it onto A. Aand B do not talk to each other but the interchange ofideas has taken place through an intermediary, C.

There are a number of other websites like stupidcen-sorship.com (https://www.stupidcensorship.com) andpeacefire.org, which provide circumvention methods.

There is another method of accessing blocked web-sites. The websites are actually identified by a number,for instance, 203.77.188.166 (referred to as IP address).On some operating systems, this number appears onthe Status Bar (a bar at the bottom of a window), whena website is being opened.

A user can determine the IP address of the websiteshe wishes to surf and then type the number in theAddress Bar, instead of typing the domain name(eptra.com is an example of domain name). The work-ing of these methods often depends on the level ofsecurity that has been implemented in an organisation.

Statutory warning: Accessing banned content canbe a serious violation of the law. You can be constantlymonitored when you access the Internet.

Also, when you work on the computer, your “foot-prints” are being recorded in some files (such asRegistry File). So, though you might wipe off the infor-mation that is visible to you (such as information fromthe Address Bar of the browser), even then you mighthave left some clues in some other files. ■


information.In a country like

China, the materialavailable over theInternet is controlled atthe national level,ensuring uniformity inthe blocking of accessthroughout the country.The Internet users inChina might not be ableto access informationpertaining to Tibetanand Taiwanese inde-pendence or some other political fig-ures (due to obvious reasons).

In the USA, schools, libraries etc.are required to block access toobscene or pornographic material, as

Afew nations have blockedaccess to some websites thatare promoting undesirablematerial. These websites areconsidered immoral,

obscene, or carrying news incitingpeople towards subversive activitiesor intend to bring about communaldisharmony, or speak against prevail-ing rituals in certain regions, etc. Thepurpose is to protect the fertile mindsof the younger generation, or nation-al security concerns, or to organisestrategic events.

The problems caused due to pre-venting access to certain websites aresometimes aggravated because someauthorities use Commercial FilteringSoftware, which is actually subject toover-blocking. Such soft-ware works on the prin-ciple of categorisation.

A classic example ofblocking could be thataccess to a website dis-seminating informationon AIDS might beblocked simply becausethe term “unprotectedsex” might appear some-where in the website.The net result is that asection of the societymight be deprived ofsexual education or, per-haps, some important

per Children's InternetProtection Act (CIPA).There are some countriesin the Middle-East,which block access towebsites that discusshomosexuality issues.

If this filtering systemis implemented at theInternet Service Provider(ISP) level, then it is dif-ficult to ensure uniformi-ty unless filtering isbacked by law. The ISPs

may use their own discretion in exer-cising censorship over the Internet.

As a consequence, some usersmight not be able to access certainmaterial which might be accessible

through a different ISP inthe same country. A par-ticular cable serviceprovider might giveaccess to only 60 chan-nels, whereas anotherprovider might have 83channels.

Perhaps, a time mightcome when the use ofInternet will have to beregulated in our countryalso. Many organisationsin our country have pro-vided Internet services totheir employees, so thatpertinent informationAccessing the cyber world: Interruptions are going to arise soon.

You might wipe off the information that

are visible to you on computer, even then

you might have left some clues in other hidden

files. ■ by Wallace Jacob

Bypassing InternetCensorship

Perhaps, a timemight come whenthe use of Internet

will have to be regu-lated in our countryalso. Many organisa-tions in our country

have providedInternet services totheir employees, sothat pertinent infor-

mation might beavailable to them.

S O C I A L N E T W O R K I N G

ucts. (A number of SanFrancisco eateries tweettheir daily menu, forexample).

There is a transfor-mative power in anSMS, that is extremelyinspiring. Think about astreet-vendor in India,asking, “If I get a water-melon, will you buy it?”!

Suddenly, it is not just aboutsearching for information; it is aboutletting the news find you — offeringpeople, anywhere, the chance to gettheir messages out to anyone who isinterested. As a tool for students andfaculty to compare thoughts on atopic, Twitter could be used academ-ically to foster interaction and sup-port meta-cognition.

The world-spanning vision is cer-tainly a long way from where thecompany’s founders started out:Williams, who grew up on a farm inNebraska, dropped out of collegeand packed his bags to Silicon Valley;Stone, a Massachusetts native, alsoquit university to take up a designapprenticeship; Dorsey, who grew upin Missouri, moved to California,ending up working for a taxi-dis-patching company in Oakland, justacross the bay from San Francisco.

Stone says that part of their inspi-ration comes courtesy of people witha similar global drive. “There is a lotwe can learn from smart people, out

in the world. One of thethings I like so muchabout President Obamais his vision that it is nota zero-sum game, whereone country is going towin the game for earth.That fits Twitter.”

How does Twitterwork

Like for any other social network-ing website, users have to sign up,register their phone numbers andcreate their own network of friends.

In the terminology of the website,you ‘follow’ your friends or somecelebrity, while your friends will ‘fol-low’ you. To converse with yourfriends, you post a message (tweet)and, unlike e-mail services, where youhave to add the name of each recipient,the website distributes it to the entirenetwork of people who are followingyou. Hence, the same message willappear in everyone’s home-page.

Unlike other content-based, socialnetworking websites, which allow theuser to create contents like uploadingphotos, videos, keeping a blog andincorporating various multimediaprogrammes, Twitter operates bymanaging the simplest mode of socialnetworking — sending and receivingmessages. Perhaps, its simplicity hasmade it the fastest-growing websitein the social networking category.

By accepting messages frommobile phones, web, or instant mes-sage (IM), Twitter makes it easy forfolks to stay connected. To target alarger user-base, Twitter is primarilydesigned to work with the SMS pro-tocol as it is the most widely usedand also supported by all service-providers across the globe.

SMS allows the user to exchangemessages from a cellphone to otherservices like landline phone or anInternet website. Any message sentto Twitter is collected by its mobile-switching-centre (MSC) andprocessed by a series of redirectionsbefore getting posted on the website.

somebody’s messages or rebroadcastones that are interesting, funny orimportant.

Twitter is many things to manypeople but, most of all, it is light-weight, easy to use and transparent.Its swirl of activity is like a huge party,full of hundreds of conversations youcan tap into — unlike Facebook, anexclusive club where you need toknow the right people to join in.

All of this makes it popular withthe users and the media, which duti-fully reports every twist and turn onthe site. There are 4 billion cellphone-users in the world, who are carryingaround Twitter-ready devices. TheTwitter team, sitting in San Francisco,tries to concentrate on keeping thingsrunning smoothly without interfering.

World-spanning visionIf enough people talk about some-

thing, it bubbles to the top ofTwitter’s hot topics — a list that letsusers see what everyone else is talk-ing about. Apart from weeding outspammers, the Twitter team largelykeeps its hands off.

Of course, Twitter is not only aboutpeople chatting to their friends or shar-ing news of a revolution. Biz Stonepoints to the success of companies, whouse the service to communicate withcustomers — whether it is big namesoffering discounts or smaller business-es, who tell them about the latest prod-


incur phone service-provider fees. This onlineapplication is part blog,part social networkingsite and part cellphonetool. It is designed to letusers describe what theyare doing or thinking, ata given moment.

Twitter’s 52 employ-ees are part of the biggestmedia story on the planet. Their onlinemessaging service, which encouragespeople to share their thoughts with theworld in short, bite-sized morsels, hasrocketed into the public consciousnessover the past year.

It began as something a hip,young iPhoner would do. It thenwon endorsements from people suchas Oprah, who knew celebritieswould want to let their fans knowevery time they left the house.

And then, most extraordinarily, itbegan to play a role in times of extremecrisis, getting information out of coun-tries, such as Iran and China, where theauthorities were tightly controlling thenews. And to top it all, this amazingjourney from plaything to instrument

Suddenly, Twitter, a free social-networking and micro-blog-ging service, that enables itsusers to send and read mes-sages known as “tweets”, has

become immensely popular. Twitteris ranked as one of the 50 most-popu-lar websites worldwide and is the 3rdmost-used social network.

Twitter is a service for friends, fam-ily and co-workers to communicateand stay connected through theexchange of quick, frequent messages.People write short, text-based updates,of 140 characters or fewer. These mes-sages are posted to your profile oryour blog, sent to your followers andare searchable on Twitter search.

Tweets are displayed on theauthor’s profile-page and deliveredto the author’s subscribers, who areknown as followers. Senders canrestrict delivery to those in their cir-cle of friends or, by default, allowopen access. Users can send andreceive tweets via the Twitter web-site, Short Message Service (SMS) orexternal applications.

While the service costs nothing touse, accessing it through SMS may

of social change, seems tohave happened in a matterof months.

How does it feel to beat the heart of it all? “It’s alittle bit like being in theeye of the storm,” saysBiz Stone, one of the com-pany’s co-founders.

Chief Executive EvanWilliams and Stone — 10-

year dotcom veterans, who hadenjoyed previous success buildingblogging service and social networkingsites — knew they were on to a winner.Within a year, the podcasting companywas being sold off and the team wasconcentrating full-time on Twitter.

The idea was simple: to build awebsite that let someone tell theirfriends what they were doing. At anygiven moment, millions of people aresending messages from their com-puters or mobile phones or readingthe messages left by others.

Twitter lets you choose who youwant to keep up with. They, in turn,can choose whether to reply. The con-versations are largely held in theopen, allowing anyone to point to

Twitter is the newest term on the plethora of

social networking sites, which offers even high profile

people as well as commoners to twitter to all others.

■ by Sudha Chandrasekaran

witter Tweeting all

around

The idea was simple:to build a website

that let someone telltheir friends whatthey were doing.

At any givenmoment, millions ofpeople are sending

messages from theircomputers.

To converse with yourfriends, you post atweet and, unlike

e-mail services, whereyou have to add thename of each recipi-ent, the website dis-

tributes it to the entirenetwork of people who

are following you.

can step in and out of the flow ofinformation as it suits you and itnever queues up with increasingdemand of your attention.

Additionally, users are very muchin control of whose updates theyreceive, when they receive them andon which device. For example, set-tings are provided for schedulingTwitter to turn off automatically atdinner-time and users can switch offTwitter updates at any point.

Following someone on TwitterThis simply means receiving their

updates. When you follow someone,every time they post a new message,it will appear in your Twitter home-page. New messages are added toyour home-page as people post them,so you always get the updates in realtime. When you log in, you can seewhat the latest updates are.

In the grand scheme of things,Twitter is just a part of a larger move-ment in which Google, Facebook, themobile phone industry and theInternet, all play a part. How doesTwitter compare to any of the previ-ous start-ups that its creators haveworked at?

“Everything about Twitter goesfaster,” says Stone. “It has grownfaster, we move faster. ...any decisionyou think we are going to need tomake 2 years from now, we will prob-ably have to make it tomorrow.” That,he suggests, reflects modern life — aworld where we expect things to hap-pen with lightning speed. ■

The website sends the message backto all the people in the user’s net-work by reversing the process.

Twitter, as a result, can be used foraddressing several people by the samemessage. Twitter does not just admireObama; it also played a part in theelection campaign as his team usedthe service to send out messages tohundreds of thousands of supporters.

In countries all around the world,people follow the sources most rele-vant to them and access informationvia Twitter as it happens — frombreaking world news to updatesfrom friends.

Is not Twitter just too much infor-mation? No. In fact, Twitter solvesinformation overload by changingexpectations traditionally associatedwith online communication. At Twitter,we ask one question, “What are youdoing?” The answers to this questionare, for the most part, rhetorical.

In other words, users do notexpect a response when they send amessage to Twitter. On the receivingend, Twitter is ambient — updatesfrom your friends and relatives floatto your phone, IM (Instant Messagingis a type of real time communicationservice) or website and you are onlyexpected to pay as much or as littleattention to them as you see fit.

The result of using Twitter to stayconnected with friends, relatives andcoworkers is that you have a sense ofwhat folks are up to but you are notexpected to respond to any updatesunless you want to. This means you


MY MOSTEMBARRASSINGMOMENT

Send your entry written neatly on white paper to: ALIVE

Delhi Press, E-3, Jhandewala Estate, New Delhi-110 055.


Absurd treatWe expected some guests for

lunch that day. They were relativeswho were passing through thetown, and had informed us, thatthey would be dropping in on us.As the expected time was roundabout 1 p.m. we had, told that theycould have lunch with us, beforeproceeding on their journey, andthat they should have it withoutany hold.

So I had prepared vegetable andnon-vegetable dishes, and all of ithad turned out very well. The rice,as usual, I had made in my checkson rice cooker. You take down therice vessel, after one boil, and withsufficient water, the rice gets cooked,and ready, in the checks on cooker.

Imagine my consternation, whenI had set the table, with the curries inrespective dishes, called the gueststo the table, and then gone to fetchthe rice but there was no cooked ricein the vessel but only the hot water.What had transpired was that I hadforgotten to put in the rice!!

The long and short of it, theyhad to eat at a hotel after all.

— Hyma Bala Krishnan

World’s most powerful man sharing his views with common people.


R E C Y C L I N G


WFrom asteearthto

Need is the mother of all inventions, they say. But all theinventions by humans have generated so much wastethat our environment is unable to cope with. Here

again, faced with the necessity of disposing of the waste,humans resort to innovation. PET bottles, a major item ofuse and throw mentality, have become such a nuisancethat our earth has begun to cry under their burden. But aninitiative taken in a Latin American country shows somehope, as people built a full-fledged house using PET bot-tles as the main building blocks instead of bricks. Suchexperiments need to be emulated all around the world toease our environment of the problems it is facing...


ajor Anand looked outof the command bunker.Across the field of snow, inone bunker, he saw a few faceswhich looked just like his ownmen, except that their eyes wereblazing hatred. They considerKashmir Valley as part of theircountry, on religious grounds.What they do not admit is that,they have not only snatched a bigchunk of the neighbour’s land, butgifted away some of it to anothercountry.

At some places along the Line ofControl, the temperature is belowzero. Human life is always injeopardy, routinely threatenedby the extreme conditions andrugged terrain. Life is in greatperil due to the snow andavalanches. But all thosedangers are nothingcompared to how humansthreaten each other here,along the Line of Control.

Sudden movement isdiscouraged, as it will be wrongly understood. Soldiersare advised not to smoke, as it will give away theirpositions. Threats of shelling from the other side are notdependent on the time of the day; they have beenconsistently present, every hour, for the last 60 years.

It is perplexing that, in the face of everflowingmassive financial aid to crush the fanatic outfits, whichare prowling all over, the enemy has amassed its troopshere, in an eye-ball to eye-ball situation, instead ofcrushing its fanatic, terrorist outfits for which it isgetting massive, international aid. Thus, the country hasdestabilised its own very existence, leadingto disintegration.

Major Anand sat behind the foldabletable, in the underground CommandCentre. On the wall before him, washanging a map of the region. It was spottedwith red pins, showing the placement ofthe adversary, and blue pins, showing theirown.

War looked inevitable; anger wasbuilding up. Then, just one stray bulletfrom across the line was enough to ignitethe short fuse. The light machine-gunsopened their lethal mouths, blazingindiscriminately all around, thick and fast.

MThe smell of cordite was

everywhere. The bunkerswere overrun and busted,the occupants killed. In thefrontal assault, Major Anandgot injured in the leg. Later,he was evacuated to thebase hospital. The battletheatre widened from theLine of Control, to thefertile plains of Punjab andto the far, arid deserts ofRajasthan.

The columns andcolumns of soldierscrossed over, backed byartillery and armouredregiments, deep downinto the adversary’sterritory, capturing the

strategic installations,villages and small towns.

The entire region was inflames. The adversary could not

withstand the massive show offirepower and preferred to retreat.

The Western countries, fearing that theadversary may resort to nuclear-headed missiles,culminating in mass destruction on both sides,immediately passed a resolution in the Security Council,which brokered a cease-fire. Pressure was mounted onthe victorious side to show generosity, by returning thecaptured territory, which it did.

ut the situation on the ground did not change abit. It remained as tense as it was before thecommencement of the war. Then, what was the hurry forshowing generosity to the defeated adversary, knowingfully well that it will be reciprocated only with perpetual

hatred and distrust?It is nothing but foolishness.

Strategically, the country gained nothing. Itfailed to exercise its bargaining power for along-term truce. It meekly gave in, evenafter having lost thousands of its men inthe war.

A few of the soldiers will get gallantryawards posthumously, during the RepublicDay function. Citations from the President,addressed to the widows, will be telecastlive on the national network. But they willsoon be forgotten. The men’s lives werelaid down in vain, for it ended merely in ashow of short-sighted generosity. ■

B

Major Anand was commissioned in the Raj Rifles(Rajputana Rifles). The name may not beimportant but what is important that he can beidentified with the gallantry awards, gleamingmedals and ribbons, pinned on the left side of

the chest, won during combats in the service of thearmy. His Battalion Commander, Lt. Colonel Hemanthad nicknamed him ‘Daredevil’.

One day, the wireless came to life with orders tomove the battalion to the dizzy heights, as reinforcementalong the Line of Control. They were all standing withtheir newly-received snow-kits at the military airport. Alot seemed to be happening.

Here, a wife and child and there, half-dozen palswere shouting in encouragement. In one secludedcorner, an aged father and mother were talking softly totheir son. There were many young women and girls,some weeping, some fighting back tears, as they stoodby their husbands / sweethearts / boy friends. Thebuzzing sound of farewell echoed at the terminal.

One father was saying to his son, “Sorry, your momcouldn’t make it due to illness, but she has sent youparanthas and sweets.”

“Thanks, Dad.”“Take care of yourself, as our hopes are based on you.

When you opted for the army, we couldn’t musterenough courage to oppose your decision but we areworried about your safety.”

“Don’t worry, Dad. I am 22 years old. I will look aftermyself,” he replied reassuringly to his father.

“Hope they give you enough time, to get adjusted tothe new environment.”

“Of course, Dad. They can’t pick us straight from thescorching desert base of the Rajputana Rifles, straight tothe dizzy heights, where the oxygen is in short supply.We will be given some time and training on the lowerslopes first, to get acclimatised.”

He was not aware that the clouds of war werehanging very low, eager to unleash their ferocity. Wherewas the luxury for acclimatisation?

In one corner, young Pooja, was sobbing. “Pleasedon’t. I cannot bear it,” Lieutenant Dev put an arm

around her shoulders. “We should not say anything thatwe may regret later. You will see, I will be gone and thelove will wear off — you will meet some other fellowand...”‘

“I don’t want anyone. I want you only,” she sobbed.“You are going to mess up everything!” he said.“Maybe, we are too young... I just want to go on

being your girl.”“I guess, you know what you are letting yourself in

for?” Dev said.“I don’t care,” she replied.“What will your parents say?”“I don’t care what they say. Will you write to me?”

she implored.“I will give you my address as soon as I can.”“I’ll wait for you. No matter how long you are gone,”

she smiled through her tears.“If you want to change your mind, Pooja, I mean

it...be honest.”“Do you really do not want me to?” she enquired.“No, not at all. I guess this sort of conversation makes

us engaged,” he wiped her tears as she managed aweak, little smile and nodded.

“So it’s all right to say it now?” he asked.“Yes,” she replied reassuringly.“I love you, Pooja.”“Me too, Dev. I’ll wait for you.” They parted. It is the cruelty of the destiny that Dev

could not come back to tie the marital knot with her. Hegot a bullet-hole in the chest, in the war.

Just then, Major Kapoor 2nd-in-command of thebattalion, ordered, “Attention, all 6 companycommanders. Move with your men and material in analphabetical order (Alfa, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo,Foxtrot) to terminal gate number 2, for airlift.”

Soon, they were transported to frozen heights. Of thewomen they have left behind, some will wait and somemay not...

‘This love of mineGoes on and onThough life is emptySince you have been gone.’


S H O R T S T O R Y

BlunderIt is not only sheer stupidity but also a strategic blunder to

lavish generosity on an adversary in the war.

■ by D.B. Chaddha

[[A few of the

soldiers will getgallantry awardsposthumously,

during the RepublicDay function.

Citations from thePresident, addressed

to the widows, willbe telecast live on

the national network.But they will soon be

forgotten.

T R E N D

Modern, yet Traditional is Today’s

Indian Girl

before leaving him.”In big cities like Delhi or Mumbai,

a number of young girls are livingalone or are in a live-in relationship.However, even for the girls of smalltowns, long-term relations are, slowlybut surely, losing their significance.

Says Dr Sameer Parikh, a wellknown psychiatrist, “Indian societyhas largely been influenced byWestern culture in everything.Nowadays, youth is trying to racewith the living standards of Westernculture, where these things are verycommon.”

Says Geeta Ahuja, 63, a grandmoth-er of 3, “An Indian girl is not reallygeared up for this change. She is onlygoing after Western culture blindly,like a copy-cat but there comes a junc-ture when she realises that sherequires emotional support too.”

However, the fashion might put aquestion-mark on the rich Indian cul-ture. In India, marriage has its ownsignificance. Marriage is like a festiv-ity and an institution, and has fantas-tic touching implications.

After so many transformationsand shifts, there is a section of thesociety that still considers marriage isnecessary for a happy existence. Wetried to know whether the trend will,in due course, cause the institution ofnuptials to collapse.

“Not in the near future,” answerthe majority. “Only a few Indiangirls are breaking free from thebonds of matrimony and weshouldn’t feel threatened yet.We can rest assured that thisholy institution of marriagewill not be bulldozed, atleast for the coming 15 or 20years. We are safe,” statesParikh.

With this, one cansay that though mod-ern Indian girls arepacing up like arocket but are tradi-tionally intact.Anybody beg todiffer? ■

savings. I have my parents and bud-dies with me. So, I think, there is nonecessity for me to make a life-longcommitment.”

According to Tanvi, matrimony ismore of a lumber. Her proclamationapparently reflects the changingmindset of that simple, Indian tradi-tional girl.

Free-bee Rama Mishra, whobelongs to Bihar but is working inDelhi as a senior marketing executive,has the similar opinion to share. “Idon’t want to spend my life like mymother did. I want to be liberated andI cannot see myself imprisoned withinunnecessary boundaries,” says Rama.

She further states, “Why do par-ents always expect girls to follow thenorms set by the old, traditional,Indian society? I am sorry but I amnot ready for it. We are living in a freenation and we have the full right tolive our life the way we want to.”

On own termsMoreover, sex before marriage in

India has always been regarded asforbidden or it is treated as some-thing against the Indian laws andnorms. But now, an Indian girl is notbothered about it. She is involved inlive-in relationships.

A girl from the city working witha multinational firm in Bangalore,who is in a live-in relationship for thepast 4 years, on conditions of secrecy,says, “I am a girl who loves her inde-pendence more than anything else inthe world. If my partner tries to get inthe way of my work or the way I amleading my life, I’ll not hesitate


different fronts. There was a timewhen boys feared obligation in theirrelationship with a girl. But now,roles have been reversed.

Since the Indian girl has becomemore career cognisant – thanks toeducational development – she is notdilly-dallying in exploring newavenues and opportunities in herrelationships and ways of life.Gradually, she has gained a vastlypragmatic attitude and mindset

“Why should boys have allthe fun?” is the punchline of an advertise-ment of a prominentautomobile company,

featuring Bollywood sensationPriyanka Chopra. The ad has a typical‘desi’ girl, giving a ride to an English-speaking, chauvinist youngster, onthe bumpy road of an Indian village.

This is reel. But in real life as well,girls are riding ahead of the boys on

regarding her partner or better half.For her, occupational life has

become more imperative than heremotional or private life. Hence, mar-riage seems to have become a burdenthat she can easily do without andstill be happy.

The trend is gaining recognitionnot just amongst the girls working inmetropolitan cities but even those insmaller towns. They are becomingmeticulous professionals with

domestic life taking a backseat.

Taking a cue of this para-digm shift, we talked to somemembers of the fair sex andtried to investigate why theythink that marriage is notnecessary for them. Here isan account:

Says Tanvi Saxena, a stu-dent, pursuing post-gradua-tion in Economics from DelhiUniversity and also prepar-ing for higher academics,“Why should I get married? Ican manage everything —home, money, my car and

Many modern Indian girls are breaking free

from the bonds of matrimony.

Does that indicate that the society is in for a drastic change?

■ by Ramesh Kumar Raja

In big cities like Delhi or Mumbai, a number of young girls are

living alone or are in a live-in relationship. However, even for the

girls of small towns, long-term relations are, slowly but surely,

losing their significance. Independence: Occupational life has become more imperative than familial life.

S PA C E M I S S I O N

To begin with, a 3rdlaunch pad will be setup at SDSC on India’seastern coast, for entryinto the space capsuleand escape chute. In atie-up with the Instituteof Aviation Medicine(IAM), a part of theIndian Air Force (IAF),ISRO will be setting up an astronauttraining-centre, on the outskirts ofBangalore.

This will be equipped with a radi-ation-simulator chamber, to help theastronaut candidates handle radia-tion from the sun; a centrifuge toenable manoeuvres in space; a zero-gravity simulator to familiarise theastronauts with the conditions inouter space; and hardware meant totrain astronauts to fly the spaceship.

On the other hand, theThiruvananthapuram-based VikramSarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), thelargest Indian space establishment,will take up the challenge of develop-ing a space-suit for the astronauts.Developing a space-suit, capable ofwithstanding the extreme conditionsin outer space, including severe radia-tion, poses a stiff engineering chal-lenge and the technology for develop-ing it is zealously guarded.

Further, the Mysore-based DefenceFood Research Laboratory (DFRL)will be preparing the food for Indianastronauts. It may be recalled that,between 2003 and 2007, ISRO had car-ried out extensive studies to analysethe technological challenges involved

in the manned space mis-sion and the requiredcapabilities to realise themission.

In the internationalpolitical and strategicarena, an Indian mannedflight mission is consid-ered a calculated move toboost its national pride.

In fact, it represents a clear-cut dilu-tion of the original philosophy withwhich India launched its space pro-gramme, in 1963, with the firing of a9-kg sounding-rocket from the fishinghamlet of Thumba, on the outskirts ofThiruvananthapuram.

Seeds sownWay back in the 1960s, Dr Vikram

A. Sarabhai, the founding father ofthe Indian space programme, hadnoted, “We don’t have the fantasy ofcompeting with the economically-advanced nations in the explorationof the moon or planets or mannedflights. But we are convinced that, toplay a meaningful role nationally andin the community of nations, wemust be second to none in the appli-cation of advanced technologies tothe real problems of man and society,which we find in our country.”

Of course, so far, ISRO has notfirmed up any specific plan for themoon-landing mission. At the sametime, it has not totally ruled out thepossibility of sending a human missionto the moon. In the mean time, ISROwill tap the human expertise, scientific

talent and technological infra-structure available in the countryto the fullest extent, to give apush to the Indian manned mis-sion.

Today, a feeling is gainingground that in the backdrop ofIndia’s emergence as an eco-nomic and technological power,a manned flight is a right stepin the direction of pushing thefrontiers of the Indian spaceprogramme to a “new high”. ■

Vehicle (GSLV), featuring an uppercryogenic engine stage.

Exactly 16 minutes after the lift-offfrom Satish Dhawan Space Centre(SDSC) in Sriharikota island onIndia’s eastern coast, the launch vehi-cle will inject this crewed vehicle intoa near-earth orbit. On completion ofthe mission, the manned capsule willreturn for a splash-down into the Bayof Bengal.

ISRO, which had released the con-cept of the crew vehicle in February2009, is awaiting the final clearanceof the Indian Government for themanned flight mission. Former ISROChairman G. Madhavan Nair haddriven home the point that a mannedspace mission is a vital part of India’sstrategy of sustaining its leadershipposition in space exploration.

However, Nair denied the sugges-tion that, “India has taken up themanned flight programme to com-pete with China in the final fron-tiers.” He said that the Indian spaceprogramme is guided by its own setof priorities and mission goals. Evenso, analysts believe that India’smanned mission plan is in responseto China’s achievement in the fron-tier areas of space exploration.

With the successful accomplish-ment of the maiden lunar missionChandrayaan-1, ISRO is now busypreparing the ground-work for themanned space mission. In order tosupport the manned mission, ISROwill be not only be setting up newfacilities but will also be developing“new and innovative” technologies.


flying an Indian astronaut onboardSoyuz, before the Indian manned mis-sion. As part of an Indo-Russian agree-ment, the selected Indian astronautwill be trained in the Russian Star Cityand this exercise would help Indiagain an insight into the nitty-gritty ofthe astronaut-training programme.

In 1984, Sq. Ldr Rakesh Sharma ofthe Indian Air Force (IAF), becamethe first Indian cosmonaut. He flewto the Russian Salyut-7 space stationonboard the Soyuz-T vehicle, underthe international space cooperationprogramme of the Soviet Academy ofSciences. Incidentally, the first Indiansatellite, Aryabhata, meant for scien-tific research, was hoisted into spacein 1975, by means of a Russian launchvehicle.

Russia will also contribute arobotic rover to India’s 2nd lunarmission Chandrayaan-II, which isplanned to be launched in 2012-13.This robot will help study the soil

Russia will chip in, with its tech-nical expertise, to help Indiabuild the manned spaceshipfor the Indian human spaceflight mission slated for a take-

off some time during 2015-2016. According to Alexei Krasnov, Chief

of the Department of Piloted Programsof the Russian Federal Space Agency,Roskosmos, “The Indian side intends touse the experience of building themanned spaceship Soyuz to advance inbuilding their spaceship. We will buildthis spaceship in a similar scheme, butit will not resemble Soyuz.”

Interestingly, China had also fall-en back extensively on the Soyuzspaceship technology for building itsmanned space vehicle, Shenzhou.China has accomplished 3 humanflight missions, one of whichinvolved a space walk. Its astronautcandidates were trained in Russia.

Krasnov also revealed that Indiaand Russia have discussed the issue of

samples scooped from its landing-site on the lunar surface.

In order to perfect the re-entrytechnique, that is considered criticalfor a successful manned mission,ISRO will launch a SRE-2 recoverablespace capsule experiment in 2010. InJanuary 2007, ISRO had launched andsuccessfully retrieved its first spacecapsule recovery experiment SRE-1.The SRE-1 was launched by means ofthe 4-stage space workhorse, PolarSatellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV).

Mission planAs envisaged now, the Indian

manned flight, expected to cost theexchequer Rs12,400 crore, willinvolve the launch of 2 or 3 crewmembers onboard an autonomousspaceship. This space capsule, whichwould weigh around 3 tons, will belaunched at the head of a 3-stageGeosynchronous Satellite Launch

Outside a space station andtraining at Russian Centre

for future cosmonauts.

Boost To Indian Manned Flight

Today, a feeling is gaining ground that a manned flight

is a right step in the direction of pushing the frontiers of the

Indian space programme to a “new high”. ■ by R. K. Rao

Thiruvananthapuram-based Vikram SarabhaiSpace Centre (VSSC),

the largest Indianspace establishment,

will take up the challenge of develop-ing a space-suit for

the astronauts.

The Indian Space ResearchOrganisation (ISRO) hasreleased design illustrationsof the capsule and rocket itplans to develop for thenation’s first independentmanned orbital spaceflight,currently scheduled for2015. The capsule isdesigned to accommodatethree people, but the initialspaceflight will carry a two-astronaut crew. The rocketwill be a variant of ISRO’splanned GeosynchronousSatellite Launch VehicleMark 2, featuring safety andreliability enhancements forcrew-launching missions.

Launch vehicle

Orbital vehicle

Cutaway view showing three-person crewand environmental control elements

The Shape of ISRO’s Human Spaceflight Ambitions

R E S T O R AT I O N

(ASI) is to unearth the campus which,in its heyday, was spread over 16kms, going by the writings of the 7thcentury Chinese scholar Xuanzang(Miuen Tsang).

According to Dr Ravindra Panth,Director of Nava Nalanda Mahavihara,deemed university, “Today, we haveonly 10% of Nalanda. We have to findout remaining 90% of the campus. Wehave to properly map it to rebuild it.”

Xuanzang had described Nalandaand its major gateway to the campus,its 8 halls, richly-adorned towers anddeep, translucent ponds, in detail. Hecame to India in 650 AD, throughCentral Asia. He spent 5 years atNalanda, as a student and teacher.

He had taken back with him 637volumes of the sacred texts and spenthis final years in translating them.Nalanda and its 3 libraries weredestroyed by the Khilji rulers in the12th century. Xuanzang’s collectionand works survived in Chinese.According to Dr Panth, China hasagreed to present Xuanzang’sChinese translations and some origi-nal volumes, that he had taken withhim, to the resurrected Nalanda.

The Indo-Chinese collaborationplan, to revive Nalanda, was mootedin the 1950s. Founder-Director ofNalanda Mahavihara, Ven. J. Kashyap,had visited China and met the ChinesePrime Minister Xhen Enlai. In 2001,the Hiuen Tsang Memorial Hall cameinto being at Nalanda.

Writing about the education scenein ancient India, in The Wonder ThatWas India, A.L. Basham observes that,with Buddhist and Jain educationbeing centred not at the teacher’shome (which was the idea underSmritis), but at the monastery, everymonastery would give training topostulants.

Early descriptionQuite early in the history of these

sects, certain establishments acquireda special reputation as centres oflearning and some of them devel-oped into true universities. The mostfamous of these was the Buddhistmonastery of Nalanda in Bihar,which was founded in the Guptaperiod. It remained the most famousteaching centre in medievalBuddhism until it was pillaged byinvading Muslims.

Our knowledge of the day-to-daylife at Nalanda depends chiefly onHeuan Tsang, who describes themonastery in the 7th century as fullof intellectual activity. Under its agedand saintly abbot Silbhadra, Nalandadid not confine itself to trainingnovices for the Buddhist order butalso taught the Vedas, Hindu philos-ophy, logic, grammar and medicines.Students, other than the Buddhists,who succeeded in passing a strictoral examination, were admitted.

Nalanda was supported by the

ious disciplines, including Buddhism.At an East Asia Summit, in December,the Founding Board considered theinfrastructural development by theState Government, with help from theCentral Government, internationalagencies and private endowmentsand also help develop the Buddhisttourism potential.

The Nalanda project would drawequally from virtual knowledge-banks and resident faculty; the idea isto revive the innovative and eclecticspirit of what was a top-class centrefor intellectual discourse, said Singh,elaborating some more details of theNalanda project.

The Archaeological Survey of India


Documents carried from Nalanda toChina and Tibet have been translatedby Indian scholars, who learnt thelanguage, adopted Chinese namesand settled in China, he said.

The idea is to set up a centre ofeducational excellence, near the siteof the original Nalanda University. Itwould be an international university,based on an international treaty withEast Asian countries as partners.

The Bihar Government has identi-fied 500 acres of land for this purpose.The framework of the treaty, that hasbeen worked out, would give jointownership to all these countries.

The Mentor Group has identifiedthe pedagogy. It would be a post-graduate institution, a semi-European model with a Rector(instead of a Vice-Chancellor). Thearchitecture would retain the originalflavour, said N.K. Singh, giving somedetails of this significant project.

According to him, the medium ofinstruction would be mainly English.The aim is to include the study of

Hectic activities, in the recentpast, organised by some cul-tural activists and intellectu-als, have resulted in the estab-lishment of an international

consortium, the Mentor Group. Theiraim is to revive the great ancientIndian university of Nalanda underan Indo-China Friendship Project.

The Mentor Group is holding con-ferences at different places, worldover, to finalise a detailed agenda torealise this noble mission. It is hopedthat the practical work on establish-ing the university would start soon.

According to N.K. Singh, member,Nalanda Mentor Group, ancientNalanda on Indian soil was morethan Indian. Diverse disciplines,including science and philosophy,found a place there. It was a rare,integrated world. Nalanda was aconfluence of cross-cultural influ-ences between East and South Asia.

Established in the 3rd century,Nalanda was destroyed in the 12thcentury by the Khilji kings.

Asian languages, especially the dor-mant ones like Sanskrit, Pali andPrakrit. Pali is still one of the optionsin the Indian Administrative Serviceexamination but few choose it.

There would also be Westerninputs in the shape of scholars in var-

Nalanda was spread over an area of 16 kms and it took

6 months for its library to burn down after Khilji raided the

place. It has not been able to recreate its international

flavour since then. ■ by Suraj Saraf

Imposing ruins: But fine and intricate artwork like miniature statues and trellises are also visible here and there.

Rebuilding Nalanda

Small stupas around the campuscontaining ashes of ancient monks.

Buddha’s first sermon, of which nowlittle more than the inner coreremains, was once a most importantstructure of beautifully-patternedbrick-work, with a high, cylindricaldome rising from a lower hemispher-ical one. and large images of Buddhawere set in gable ends at the cardinalpoints. The stupa at Nalanda, 7 timessuccessively enlarged, in its presentruined state gives the impression of abrick pyramid with steps leading upto its terraces.

“It was originally a tall shape,raised on a high base, with a smallerstupa at each corner. But the monu-ment underwent so many alterationsin the Gupta and Pala times that it is

revenue of an enormous estate of 100villages and by the grants of manypatrons, including the great KingHarsha himself. It provided freetraining to no less than 16,000 stu-dents, who had a large staff of ser-vants to wait on them. Themonastery consisted of a very largecomplex of buildings.

From Nalanda, the missionaryPadma Sambhava went forth to con-vert Tibet to Buddhism in the 8th cen-tury. At the same time, pilgrims fromas far away as China and S.E. Asia,visited Nalanda to learn the puredoctrine, observes Basham. “Underthe patronage of kings of the Palaline, Nalanda remained a centre ofBuddhist piety learning until theMuslim invasion.”

Revealing pastBasham writes further, “In the

first rush of a Muslim advance downthe Ganges, Nalanda and other greatmonasteries of Bihar were sacked,libraries were burnt and monks wereput to sword. The survivors fled tomountains of Nepal and Tibet andBuddhism in India was dead.”

About the architectural style ofNalanda, Basham observes, “Of laterIndian stupas, the 2 most famous arethose of Sarnath, near Benaras, andNalanda. Sarnath, the scene of

now difficult for the untrained eyesto recognise its original form at anyone stage of its development.

“At the greater Buddha sites, suchas Nalanda, the groups of monasticbuildings were often surrounded likefortress walls. In their present partialdilapidated state, these heavy domessometimes seem a little forbidding.Originally, the lime-washed or plas-tered stupa shone brilliantly white inthe tropical sunlight, its pinnacles,now generally broken, rising like agolden spear from the ceremonialstone umbrella on top of the dome.Then it must have given a differentimpression.”

It was perfectly in the fitness ofthings that now, when globalisation istaking strong roots, shining instancesof ancient globalisation like Nalanda,Silk Route et al, should also haveattracted deep attention to how theirmodel of cultural, intellectual andpersonal exchanges could add to themomentum and humane develop-ment in modern times, when wholeworld is beset with strife and tension.

Establishment of the InternationalMentor Group is obviously to realisethat golden goal. Revelations aboutthe past are crucial to build up thepresent and future as underscored byDr Kapila Vatsyayan, renownedscholar of Indian heritage. ■


Enjoying a day out: Nalanda is a major tourist attraction during winter.

On study tour: Buddhist scholars visit the site in great numbers.

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Japanese Prime Minister YukioHatoyama drives an electric-poweredpersonal vehicle "i-Real" of Japan's

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Chairman of OliveTelecommunication, Arun Khanna (C)

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cashless payment system.

Both these events attract the bestlong-distance runners in the world.The top 10 runners in the men’s eventin the Mumbai Marathon in 2009were from Kenya and Ethiopia, withKenneth Mugara of Kenya winning in2 hours and 11 minutes. Some of themwill be representing their countries in

the forthcoming CommonwealthGames in India.

The Mumbai Marathon started itsregistration almost 6 months prior tothe race, to inculcate a sense of com-mitment from the participants andgive them sufficient time to train forthe race.

Removing the fearFor those, who find the marathon

intimidating, there are short-distanceraces, of 5 kms and 10 kms. These arebecoming increasingly popularamong fitness enthusiasts inBangalore and Hyderabad. For thesesmaller races, the training time isdrastically reduced and there is lesstension at the home-front and work-place of the runners.

Running for a cause has becomevery popular in the half marathons andmarathons conducted in the country. In2009, the Airtel Delhi Half Marathonraised more than Rs 1.5 crore in thepledges received from runners, for 75NGOs. Over the past 5 years, theStandard Chartered MumbaiMarathon has raised over Rs 26 crore,

for 'Astha'. This Delhi-based NGOworks to rehabilitate children suffer-ing from autism, cerebral palsy andlearning disability.

Yes, marathon running has arrivedwith a bang in the country! Whatmotivates these runners — some ofthem in their middle age — to train120 km to 200 km, every month?Sometimes, they run at night, toachieve their goals and aspirations.

Hi-tech raceThe 5th Delhi Half Marathon, in

November 2009, attracted 9,000 run-ners for the 21 km race and there were21,000 participants for the 7 km GreatDelhi Run. The 6th edition of theStandard Chartered Mumbai Marathonin January 2010 saw 2,000 runners par-ticipate in the full marathon and 9,500runners in the half marathon.

Most of the races conducted byvarious professional organisationsrequire a lot of time and effort tomake the marathon an enjoyableevent for the participants. Most of theruns are sponsored by various corpo-rates. All participants, who run the 21kms and 42 kms races within a stipu-lated time-frame, are given medalsand participation certificates.

Then, there are special awards forthe various age categories. Additionaltiming certificates are provided tothose who avail of chip-timing, wherean electronic chip is tied to the run-ner's shoelace. Timings are recordedagainst their respective bib numbers,as they cross special mats placed atstrategic points, along the race course.This also eliminates any unethicalpractices on the race route.

The marathon craze has caught onin non-metros as well, like Gurgaon,Nagpur and Vadodara. In 2009, 2 races,the Airtel Delhi Half Marathon and theStandard Chartered Mumbai Marathonwere awarded the gold and silver labelsrespectively, by the InternationalAssociation of Athletics Federations,for satisfying IAAF requirements forworld record purposes.


hours and 39 minutes. The StandardChartered Mumbai Marathon ofJanuary 2010 will be his 100th race.

Tanvir Kazmi has been passion-ately maintaining a blog formarathon enthusiasts, for the past 5years. From his Noida home, hewrites in detail about the majorevents in the country and the world.

He publishes immediate results ofthe races, with pho-tographs, as soon as theyappear on the net. Kazmi,who is passionate aboutrunning, shares his expe-riences online.

He is amongst the fewto have participated in allthe 5 Delhi HalfMarathons, since theinception of the race in2005. He enlightens run-ners about the domesticcircuit, providing details

India’s grand, old marathon run-ner, Ashis Roy, is nearing his goalof a century of runs, slowly andsteadily. During his 97th marathonin Washington, he was down with

bronchitis and an upset stomach. Buta less-than-fit Roy bravely ran 42 kmsin 6 hours and 41 minutes.

He ran his 99th marathon inGurgaon. He finished the run in 6

about registration and participantfeedback.

The running bug caught SanjaiBanerji in 2008, when he attempted tocomplete his first marathon withalmost no training. He crossed thefinishing-line in a never-say-dieeffort, convinced he could do far bet-ter with proper training.

Now, with 2 half marathons andone full marathon under his belt,Banerji plans to celebrate his 50thbirthday in 2010, by running the DelhiHalf Marathon in under 2 hours.

Working as a Deputy GeneralManager in a cement plant in Satna,he runs thrice a week, waking up at4.30 am. He has been bitten by a dogand almost run over by a truck, dur-ing his early-morning runs but he isnot one to give up!

In 2009, he persuaded his col-leagues, friends and relatives to con-tribute towards a corpus of Rs 25,000

Whether it is an elite athlete aspiring to represent his country,

the fitness freak who wants continual improvement or the die-hard

veteran wanting to come first in his or her age category, marathon

running has come to stay in the country. ■ by Mobius Mukherjee

Promoting sport spirit: John Abraham.Winners of Mumbai Marathon.

Marathon RunningA Growing Phenomenon

S P I R I T

Participants inDelhi HalfMarathon.

Corporates arealso getting

involved.

Rahul Bose, regularly visit the Expo topromote their respective NGOs

The organisers provide water andenergy drinks through volunteersduring the run and have mobile toi-lets and emergency medical facilitiesat regular points along the race route.It was a heartening sight to seeprompt medical attention being pro-vided to runners suffering fromsprains, in the recently-concludedDelhi Half Marathon.

A lot of preparation has to beundertaken before attempting amarathon for the first time. 48-year-old Sanjai Banerji says it was a tough

benefiting morethan 100 charities.

These racesalso allow runnersto meet celebrities,who come in largenumbers to cheerthe participants.Bollywood starsSharukh Khan,Ajay Devgan,Rahul Bose and Nikhil Chinnapawere among those who cheered therunners during 2009. Some, like GulPanag and Milind Soman, are regularhalf marathon runners.

Corporate icon Anil Ambani runsin the half marathon event of theStandard Chartered MumbaiMarathon, every year. Prominent cit-izen Kiran Bedi makes it a point toparticipate in the shorter-distanceraces. John Abraham has been select-ed as the Event Ambassador for the2010 Mumbai Marathon.

The Expo, held a few days prior tothe marathon, enables runners tovisit the various stalls showcasingsports equipment, special food sup-plements, sports apparel, runningshoes and a host of other interestingparaphernalia.

Several game-shows are organised,which allow the runners to be aired onlocal channels on TV and radio.Celebrities, like Shabana Azmi and

experience. Now, he trains zealouslyfor 6 months in a year.

Inspite of a very hectic schedule atoffice and driving 50 kms to work, hefinds time to train in the early hours ofthe morning. He attributes his partici-pation in the longer races to a veryaccommodating and supportive wife,who chose aerobics instead of running.

Banerji has been maintaining arunning log book for the past 2 years,with details of each training run,injuries sustained and fitness reportfor the day. He daily monitors his rest-ing heart-beat, stays hydrated bydrinking 15 glasses of water a day and

has stopped drinking tea atthe office.

Training guideThere are a number of

good books in the market,for those aspiring to run amarathon. They are HalHigdon’s Marathon: TheUltimate Training Guideand Runner’s World maga-zine’s Run Less Run Faster.Both books have been writ-ten by well-known authori-ties in their field . They

offer complete information on howto train in the most economic man-ner and can be ordered throughamazom.com.

Fitho, an Indian website onhealth and fitness, provides com-

prehensive information from expertson weight-loss, muscle-gain, health,diet and fitness with regular forums.There are a plethora of interestingwebsites on the net, which can beviewed by typing ‘marathon’ onGoogle.

Whether it is an elite athlete aspir-ing to represent his country, the fit-ness freak who wants continualimprovement or the die-hard veteranwanting to come first in his or her agecategory, marathon running hascome to stay in the country. Indeed,participation numbers have doubledover the past 2 years. ■


Attracting celebrities: Mumbai Marathon.

Professor Alan Ashworth and aBritish team of scientists have devel-oped a promising pill, which may beable to treat more types of cancer thanfirst thought. According to them, thewonder pill can tackle 5 other forms ofthe disease, in addition to the com-mon breast cancer — prostate, skin,ovarian, bowel and womb cancer.

As per lab tests, the drug targetscancer cells while leaving healthy cellsrelatively unaffected — meaning fewerside-effects for patients. It belongs to aclass of PARP inhibitors. Called ola-parib, it is already being used to treatsome hereditary forms of breast cancer.

The team found that the PARPinhibitors killed 30% breast cancercells and up to 80% of prostate, skin,womb, bowel and ovarian cancers. ■

M E D I C A L L O G


Treatment found for ‘chemobrain’As of today, an increasing number

of women survive breast cancer, yetsurvival comes at a price. Mild cogni-tive impairment following chemother-apy, known as “chemobrain” or“chemofog”, is one of the most com-monly reported post-treatment symp-toms by cancer survivors.

Patients, who take medication forcancer, often find themselves with anew problem when their treatment isover. Symptoms of chemobrain canalso include lack of concentration,inability to organise daily activities,mental confusion, memory loss anddecreased mental clarity.

It is estimated that chemobrainoccurs in as many as 99% of breastand ovarian cancer patients receivingchemotherapy or radiation treat-ments. 61% of these patients continueto experience fatigue and memoryproblems long after their cancertreatment has stopped.

Now, researchers led by the Dr Elyse

Ever wondered why womenspend so much time in shopping,while men just get in and quickly getout, with the relevant item?

According to researcher Dr DanielKruger, from University of Michigan,USA, the different shopping stylesdate back to the skills that womenused for gathering plant foods andthe skills that men used for huntinganimals for food.

Foraging for food was a daily

activity; often social, and includedyoung children, if necessary.Gathering edible plants and fruitswas traditionally done by women.When gathering food, they had to beadept at choosing just the rightcolour, texture and smell, to ensurefood safety and quality. These habitspersist even now.

In modern terms, women are muchmore likely than men to know when aspecific type of item will go on sale.They also spend much more timechoosing the perfect fabric, colour andtexture. For men, it was critical to huntan animal quickly and get it home asquickly as possible. The same habitpersists even now. Men often have aspecific item in mind and want to getin, get it and get out.

However there are variations.There are women who behave likemen while shopping and men whowill roam from shop to shop.

Birth-control ringlaunched in india

Making the fam-ily-planning pro-cedure simplerfor women, apharmaceuticalcompany haslaunched a birth-control ring that, itclaims, has no side-effects. Launched by M/S Organon,Nuvaring is a flexible, transparent ring,made of inert plastics. The ring containshormones that enter the bloodstreamdirectly, thus inhibiting ovulation.

Nuvaring makes the family-plan-ning procedure simpler for women.Instead of taking a pill every day, thering needs to be inserted once everyweek. Three weeks of insertion fol-lowed by one-week ring-free interval, isthe procedure that needs to be repeatedevery month for a continued family-planning effect. Around 20% womenuse family-planning devices and medi-cines in India. The ring will be good asit does not have any side-effects andwill not cause obstruction in any otherroutine activity.

Male and female shopping styles are evolutionary

Lower, MD, Professor of hematol-ogy/oncology at College of Medicine,University of Cincinnati, have reporteda possible new treatment for the prob-lem using the drug dexmethy-phenidate (d-MPH). She has describedthe encouraging results of a 14-month,multi-centre, Phase 2 study of d-MPH.

The 154 cancer survivors at 21 med-ical centre showed significant reduc-tion in fatigue and improvement inmemory, when treated with dosages of10 mg to 50 mg of d-MPH per day,when compared with a control groupreceiving a placebo. All the patients,who had an average age of 53 years,had completed at least 4 cycles ofchemotherapy about 2 months beforethe study began. 90% of them werefemales (76% with breast cancer and14% with ovarian cancer).

The study showed that up to 50mg a day of d-MPH is safe and effec-tive for relieving chemobrain in adultcancer patients.

Wonder pill for cancer

A R T

rely completelyon destiny andwork towards abetter future forourselves. This,too, is indicatedby kites as theyfly as a reactionto several factors,such as windspeed, expertiseof the flyer, space for flying andmore.

The colours in the kite are a mes-sage held up to us, saying that ifgood deeds are performed, life can beas colourful as a kite in the sky.

Has this series in any way affect-ed your thought process, regardingthe use of colours?

To an extent, colours have mademe introspect even more. I have nowbegun to think of colours as synony-mous with life. The mind reacts to thesight of colours. White makes us feelat peace, while red makes us vibrant.

The seasons of nature are ways tosee and understand colour. Whenthere are bright colours in our vision,as in a flower garden or in a rangolipattern, at once our minds begin tolink up with thoughts of celebration.

As a nature painter, have you evercampaigned for the environmentalprotection through your art?

Undoubtedly, I have been anactivist in this field, since long. InPune, I participated in the BalGandharv Kala Dalan organised bythe Pune Municipality, to illustratethe effects of pollution on urban liv-ing. At once, I painted an image,where the trees were blackened withsmog and dust and carried the mes-sage of reducing vehicle-usage tocontrol emissions and bring about ahealthy environment.

In my city, I am an active cam-paigner for plastic-free living and nopolythene shopping-bags and carry-bags. My art dramatises the ill-effectsof thinking of only today and leavingthe morrow neglected. Nature and itsforms are used to convey my mes-sage. ■

quill pen, the public appreciated it. The Bombay exhibition brought me

plenty of public interest. People madeenquiries about the technique. Thisgave me an impetus to change overfrom conventional colour work to spe-cialised pen-and-ink canvas work.

What is the layout routine thatyou follow in the preparation of anartwork?

My canvases are undertaken aftera great deal of thought. While otherartists tend to make a rough sketch oftheir idea on the canvas and beginthe work of filling in the colours, Icreate a detailed sketch of mythought process before I dip my peninto ink making my strokes fully con-trolled.

My sketching stage is one of pun-ishing exactitude. Everything isdetailed in the work. I do not like toadd more strokes during the inkingstage, as that invariably shifts the bal-ance of the artwork and it takes a greatdeal of time and effort to remedy afalse move on canvas. That is why myart has no duplicates at all.

Your recent work titled ‘Kites’ hasstrong hints of colour merged withinthe overall black and white. Reason?

The colour, in combination withpen and ink, is to illustrate a philoso-phy that my paintings showcase. It isthat kites are a sample of life, meta-physics and art. The shapes and formsof kites resemble the living beings.

As a painter, I see life and its manyforms in kites. The colour depicts thehappiness, mellowness and even thesadness, that life throws up. At thesame time, a kite is not altogether afree soul, for the flyer is the controllerof its ‘destiny’ in the sky.

In that way the kite is a symbol ofmetaphysical thought, which surmis-es that human beings are not themakers of their own destiny com-pletely. The turn and twist that lifetakes is partially in the hands of theSupreme Being.

At the same time, one must not


It is a being that can perch on anytree, fly in any direction, and hasplumage in colours uncountable. Tome, the bird is the symbol of all that ahuman being can aspire for in life.

You invariably include stones andhills in your landscape paintings.These are dense objects. How are theycompatible with lightweight andfree-spirited images?

The stones and hills are signs ofsolidity, but they are also a mirrorheld up to the hardships that humanbeings endure in life. The stone car-ries the message of endurance in theface of difficulties. Life is not all frol-ic and fun; there is also a sombre sideto it and stones are its outer form.

Your chosen medium is pen andink. Why have you chosen this medi-um over the common preference of oilcolours or acrylic on canvas?

I have used colours till the end ofthe 1980s. I realised that colours hada drawback: some of them, speciallyblack, hardened quickly, leaving mevery little time to react to mythought-process and express itthrough the canvas.

What impact did stint as a comic-book illustrator have on your art?

When I was doing illustrations forcomic books, I used black colourextensively to create outlines. Ienjoyed the fun of seeing the pen cre-ate images on the white paper.Gradually, the thought gelled in mymind that I should use the pen to cre-ate images on canvas.

I began by making a few paintings

using the pencil and liked the effect oflight, on the paper. When I held myfirst exhibition of fine art done with a

Rang Art Gallery, Mob: 9811078742Email: [email protected]

www.rangartgallery.com

Artist of PictorialThinking

My art dramatises the ill-effects of thinking of only

today, says the artist. ■ by Subhra Majumdar

Nature and art are often calledinseparable twins. In the caseof artist U.R. Kanade, there is acorollary to this statement. Forhim, nature enters his art as

controlled vistas, with birds perchedon hillocks, kites in motion and evenstones within locational settings.

A senior lecturer at Pune’s BhartiVidyapeeth College of Fine Arts,Kanade has incorporated symbolicpresentation of the avian species asembodiments of a free spirit. His kitesare miniaturised versions of the colour-ful experiences that life provides, whilethe stones and hills are reminders of asteadfast resolve to overcome difficul-ties that dog our footsteps.

Excerpts from an interview:The bird in your paintings is a

striking feature, consciously made tobe very visible in the painting. Is therea reason behind this depiction?

Ever since my school days, I havebeen fascinated by the sight of a birdflying in the sky. To my mind, it con-jures images of something lightweight

and carefree. Itappears tohave no falsesense of egoand is not sup-pressed by theweight of itsown prob-lems. Life

A R T

to take birth in the neighbour’shome; not in their own. In short, awoman has to undergo great ordeals,from birth till death, despite the factthat she is the creator of mankind.”

About the claim of woman empow-erment, Rupender says, “This is awrong type of notion coined to keepthe anger of women from erupting.They say women are moving ahead inevery field and walks of life. Butground realities remained unchanged.

“Even highly-educated and high-profile women cannot move freely inthe society today. No woman candare to roam after dark, for danger islurking for her everywhere. No oneknows when a woman would bemolested, raped or even killed. Andyou call it woman empowerment!”laments Rupender.

The artist’s anguish over the

pitiable condition of women isexpressed in several of her paintings.These paintings communicate in astraightforward manner with theviewers. No explanation is needed,as the subjects speak for themselves.

Rupender feels that commerciali-sation of art can be very beneficial forthe artists, provided that it is done ina positive way. She herself does notwish to use her art for commercialpurposes. She is happy with what herartwork fetches in the market.

She says, “I am still in the learningphase and, hence, my expectationsare not so high. Of course, I don’thave to run from pillar to post, to sellmy paintings.”

Nevertheless, she is continuouslystriving to excel in her chosen field.Her latest paintings show a markeddifference from her initial works. ■

She feels, “We are already experi-encing the fury of nature, which isnothing but an outcome of our ownactions and the ill-treatment we aremeting out to her. But the tragedy isthat no one is ready to learn. Nobodyis ready to mend his ways to protectnature.”

Her anguish towards a deteriorat-ing environment is overtly expressedin colours through her brush-strokes.Have a look at her paintings, and youwill at once know how concernedthis artist is about the fate of nature.But it does not mean that everythingis grey for her.

Her paintings give an optimisticmessage also, that all is not lost yet.Hope still survives and things can beset right, provided that we comearound in time.

Another theme that has caughtRupender’s fancy is the plight ofwomen. She is rather perplexed tosee their pitiable condition. She feelsthat the life of a woman is full ofparadoxes. She is the creator ofmankind but is never accorded herdue status in the society.

She gives vent to her agony thus,“Everybody wants the company of awoman, a pretty woman at that. Butno one is ready to accord her therespect that she ought to be given;nobody is ready to regard her as a sis-ter or mother.”

She further says, “Girls are a cheerfor the society, but people want them


endless admiration. All this encour-aged her to take up art as a career.

Rupender feels that Kolkata playeda vital role in refining her artistic tal-ent, as it is the hub of art in India. Herfather is a pilot with a commercial air-line and, the transferable nature of hisjob, made them move from city to city.Yet, the artist pursued her art with anindomitable determination.

Being a self-taught artist, shelearnt the finer aspects of art withcontinuous practice. Nevertheless,she holds artist Vijendra Sharma inhigh esteem. His works haveinspired her immensely.

She says, “His art is figurative andquite realistic. Being an artist ofnature, I always feel drawn to realis-tic paintings, as they bring the wholeworld on a canvas. It was but naturalfor me to see a substance in VijendraSharma’s art.”

However, Rupender’s art is notjust about realism. She has startedexperimenting with modern abstract

For different people, perceptionof art is also different. Forsome, it is a way of communi-cating with the surroundingswhile, for others, it a way of

experiencing immense joy. Youngand charming artist Rupender Kaurtakes art as a means of expressing herinnermost feelings. She has made it amedium for highlighting the plightof common women in the society.

Kolkata-born Rupender has had astrong inclination towards art sincechildhood. During her early schooling,her artistic talent brought her laurels inthe form of certificates, citations and

art also, under the aegis of veteranartist Bijan Paul. She regards him asher mentor.

She says, “Bijan Paulji has guidedme to gain expertise in the finer aspectsof abstract art. I regularly interact withhim. He tells me about various art tech-niques. I wish to imbibe as much artknowledge from him as I can.”

Nature fascinates her and is thedominating theme in Rupender’spaintings. She takes all the coloursfrom nature and splashes them onher canvas. She avers she can liveamid nature for an infinite period oftime and never get bored. She says,“Nature is an integral part of us. Ashuman beings, we are incompletewithout nature.”

Man’s treatment of nature, today, isa cause of concern for Rupender. Shefeels hurt by the way modern man isdestroying nature for his vested inter-ests. He is so shortsighted that he evenfails to see that his future is closelyrelated to and depends on nature.

The plight of nature and women saddens her,

yet she keeps her optimism alive with her bold artwork

in vibrant colours. ■ by Our Correspondent

Depicting FeminineEmotions on Canvas

N E T S C E N E

Video-Games for the New Year

that she might be a dangerous diver-sion from the heart of your mission.

The decisions that you take asGrey Warden are going to have aseminal impact on the future ofmankind. There will be times whenyou must display leadership quali-ties and take ruthless decisions. Youmight even be forced to sacrifice yourfriends and loved ones for the greatergood of mankind. There are manypossible ways in which the game canend, based on the choices that youmake through the game.

A creation of ElectronicArts, this game can beenjoyed on XBOX 360, PS3and any Windows-poweredPC.

BayonettaGet ready for a mortal

combat with a string ofangelic enemies, includingsmall minions and giganticbehemoths. The thin linebetween good and evil getsblurred as Bayonettaunleashes her firepower onsupernatural forces. She isarmed with 4 enchantedguns, known as ScarboroughFair, and she is unstoppable.

Needless to say, you playBayonetta. It is your job to send thenefarious supernatural forces back tothe depths of hell, where they belong.Guns are not the only weaponry thatshe possesses in her arsenal. Bayonettais also capable of unleashing the pow-ers of an Iron Maiden and Guillotine.She can even charge her Magic Gaugeto send the enemy packing.

However, the most deadly powerof all, the one that gamers are goingto enjoy to the hilt, lies in her hair.This hair is designed to deliver anexciting dose of devastation. Itserves as a magical conduit throughwhich demonic beasts can be sum-moned for aid in battle.

And that is not all. When youplay as Bayonetta, you can alsotransmogrify, at a moment's notice,into a panther, a bat and any otherform that may be suitable for hand-ing a difficult situation.

You are allowed to retrieveweapons from fallen enemies and usethem to enhance your own firepower.Bayonetta is one action-thriller thatwill surely deliver edge-of-the-seatexcitement to the most demandingaction aficionados.

A creation of Sega Of America,this game can be played on XBOX360 and PS3. ■

stop at nothing in order to defeat hisenemies.

In his quest for revenge, Devlin ishelped by French resistance and byBritish intelligence. But he does byhimself much of the work of sabo-tage. He is an experienced brawler,capable of killing with a singlepunch. He is also an ace marksmanand an explosives expert.

When he gets going, there is sab-otage in every direction. Zeppelinsget blown apart, trains get derailed,bridges implode, armoured cars getblown into bits and enemy facilitiesget levelled to the ground.

Needless to say, such monumen-tal destruction is tailor-made todeliver excitement. Essentially, youare a one-man army, delivering mas-sive punishment to the Nazis andthat is going to be a lot of fun.

Published by Electronic Arts, thisgame can be played on XBOX 360,PS3, and Windows.

Dragon Age: OriginsThere is certainly great joy to be

had by emulating medieval knightsand battling fire-breathing dragons.That is exactly what you are going todo within the labyrinths of this excit-ing video-game.

An epic tale of violence, lust, andbetrayal, 'Dragon Age: Origins' is setin a fantasy world, where survival ofhumanity is at stake. You play asGrey Warden, one of the last of anancient order of guardians, who havedefended the lands on the continentof Thedas, throughout the centuries.

Betrayed by a trusted general in acritical battle, you must hunt downthe traitor and bring him to justice.As you fight your way towards thefinal confrontation with an evil force,you will face monstrous foes andengage in epic quests to unite the dis-parate peoples of a world at war.

Incorporated in the plot is thecharacter of a mysterious and seduc-tive shape-shifter, who might holdthe key to victory. But it is also likely


ters of history come to life within thelabyrinths of this game.

The story takes off in 1292, whenMarco Polo departed from the courtof Kublai Khan in China, with 14ships filled with over 600 passengersand crew. Only one ship with 18 pas-sengers survived after a voyage of 18months. In his writings, Marco Polohas not revealed what happened tothese lost ships.

As he embarks on his epic journey,the realisation dawns on NathanDrake that Marco Polo was hiding amuch bigger secret than what histori-ans could have ever expected. Hisreal quest was for the legendaryCintamani Stone, the “wish-fulfillingjewel” of Buddhist mythology, whichwas rumoured to be stored inShambhala.

As Nathan races forward onMarco Polo’s footsteps, he has tocontend with a determined adver-sary. This is a rogue, paramilitaryleader, who will stop at nothing inorder to get his hands on the magicaljewel.

A creation of Sony, this thrillinggame can be played on Playstation 3.

The SaboteurAs you get sucked into the

labyrinths of this exciting video-game, you find yourself transportedto Nazi-occupied Europe. You play

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

The critically-acclaimed game of2007 is back in an advanced avatar,embellished with an engrossing story-line, new graphics and high-octaneaction. Nathan Drake, a fortune-hunter with a shady reputation andan even shadier past, has embarkedon a dangerous journey. He is out todiscover the real truth behind the lostfleet of Marco Polo and the legendaryHimalayan valley of Shambhala, morecommonly known as Shangri-La.

Will he be able to find success inhis quest? That depends on yourskills as a gamer, because you will beplaying the game as Nathan Drakehimself. The most mysterious chap- the role of a quintessential saboteur,

who will use explosive tactics todestroy the Nazis and turn the tide ofwar in favour of the Allies.

The setting is sexy, action-packedand eminently dangerous. Thecolourful cast populating this gameseems to be straight out of the WorldWar II era. You play in the role ofSean Devlin, a womaniser and adrunkard, who has fled from hisnative Ireland to try his luck at race-car driving in Grand Paris.

He ignores the Nazis around himuntil Nazi soldiers kill some of hisfriends. Furious at the death of hisfriends, he vows revenge. Hebecomes a saboteur, a man who will

As you get sucked into the labyrinths of this

exciting video-game, you find yourself transported

to Nazi-occupied Europe. You play the role of a

quintessential saboteur. ■ by Asit Amrevy

L I F E S T Y L E

Marriage with aworkaholic

perennial hectic schedules through-out the year, and he had to find sometime for his family. From his talk, Icould make out that my boss was suf-fering from the loss of intimacy withhis wife. Sexual alienation is commonin workaholic couples, which mightlead to breakdown or divorce.

The workaholic, in principle andin practice, becomes married to hisjob. While utmost commitment towork yields handsome pay-offs, lossof commitment to the life partnercomes in the form of the biggest loss.

Loss of humour and the ability tobe in a playful mood was also visible.Since the loss of energy and vitality isso huge among workaholics, theyhardly like to speak a word when theyenter their residential premises. As aresult, life becomes overly serious,melancholic and empty ofmeaning.

While the workaholic– either husband or wife– would prefer a calmand quiet environment athome, the other half andthe children would loveto talk and play since thatis the time the family istogether. Irritation atonce takes over a wearyman or woman once thekids try to hug him or herand they are brushedaside with slight anger.

If this continues for along time, it is highly like-ly that relations with chil-dren will also becomesour. Much of thealienation amongthe teenagers, thatwe witness today,is due to theutter negligenceof parents, wholove their work more thantheir kids.

Increasing work pres-sure and a too-busy sched-ule can gradually blur thethin line between one's

home and workplace, compellingnew-age executives to devote littletime for leisure or personal space.Most workaholics are unable to finda way to strike a balance betweenwork and family time.

So, the decision of my boss to go ona week’s vacation was not only anurgent necessity to save his marriedlife, but also the essence of complete-ness among humans. One's duty is tolook after the personal life as seriouslyas the professional one.

Important thingsThus, we have examples of

authors, scientists and explorers,who had been so engrossed in theirartistic pursuit that they had to partwith their spouses, or their married

life failed miserably.The studies on worka-

holism came to the lime-light with the publicationof 'Work Addiction RiskTest' by B. E. Robinson in1999, which is detailed inhis famous book Chainedto the Desk: A Guidebook forWorkaholics, Their Partnersand Children, and theClinicians Who Treat Them.

However, in 2006, S.J.Vodanovich and C.Piotrowski, in theirresearch, showed thatworkaholism couldimpact diverse areas ofhuman functioning, suchas individual, family,organisational, and soci-etal levels. Researchershave concluded that workaddiction is identical toan addiction to alcohol,which leads to unman-ageable life, family dis-integration, serious

health problems, etc.Other maladies

include obsessive-com-pulsiveness, perfec-tionism, and typical

and hapless. But he had no otheroption any more. With the expansionof his organisation, his business hadincreased many times, which con-sumed all his time...

As he went on talking about his pri-vate life, I discovered how unfortunatehe was! When, after a day’s work, hereached home, he usually found hiswife seething in suppressed anger.And being tired to the hilt, he wouldbe in no mood to crack jokes, or evensmile properly, while his wife wantedto talk about sundry things and issues.

He did realise that women love tobe with their husbands in advancedage and that he had not been able toprovide company to his wife.

“You know, she cites the exampleof our neighbour – the TransportCommissioner. How he maintains hisofficial duties and how he comeshome by evening and plays with chil-dren,” my boss laughed a bitter laugh.

I could understand what he meant.The difference between Governmentofficials and entrepreneurs is the dif-ference of a sense of ownership.

Pragmatic decisionWithout doubt, busy men’s wives

are not happy. And if the husbandshappen to be young CEOs, they havebigger reasons for worry. Suspicion ofinvolvement with the private secre-tary can lead to mental agony for thewomen, who are waiting at home. Incase of young women bosses, thingscan be all the more precarious.

It is, however, not always illicitrelationship or occasional sexual rela-tionship that is the sole concern ofwives and husbands; it is the generalworry of living in a big, of unexpect-ed incidents like blasts and accidentsand stress-related to work that add toconcerns.

Coming back to my boss’ miserableconjugal life, he was rather tense thatday. He seemed to have realised, per-haps for the first time, that he had todo something to save his personal life.

His wife was not happy with his

Like many professionals, I lovemy boss for a few good reasons:That he is a workaholic; that isvery disciplined; that he has abusy schedule throughout the

year; and that he is very focused.All these are, perhaps, the com-

mon traits among the breed calledCEOs. My boss is one of them. In 25years, he has been able to establishan institution that has branches in5 foreign countries, in additionto 7 centres in India.

At the age of 58,he is the busiestperson in ourorganisation,or perhaps oneof most devotedpersons I haveever seen in mylife. He

receives no less than 300 mails every-day, and replies to most of them. Inaddition, he does myriad otherworks like meetings, administration,financial control, writing articles innewspapers and foreign tours.

We were surprised when he sentus an all-staff mail that he was goingon a week’s vacation, as absencefrom work was something not part ofin his life. He often gave us a mildscolding whenever we asked for afew days leave. He knew he was ask-ing something that is not viable, buthe liked to see his persona in others.

In the evening, when I asked himabout his vacation tour, his answerwas short: He was off for some dayswith wife, to Shimla.

In spite of working with him formore than 5 years, I have not beenable to decipher how things werebetween him and his wife. I did won-der how he coped with the conjugalrelationship while working even onSundays.

I say this because, whenever I amcalled on a Saturday to do urgentwork, my wife gets angry. She doesnot like our weekends or holidays —which are not many in private firms— to be consumed by office or anyother assignments. And a happywife is essential for a happy life.

Seeing me a little confused at hisdecision, he asked me to sit down.After a brief pause and a few puffsat a cigar, he said that his was themost stressful life. As he had no timeto devote to his wife, he felt helpless

Should workaholic professionals and CEOs not plan a vacation,

every 6 months, with their families? ■ by M. Shamsur Rabb Khan


Without doubt, busymen’s wives are not

happy. And if thehusbands happen to

be young CEOs,they have bigger

reasons for worry.Suspicion of

involvement withthe private secretarycan lead to mental

agony.

world. Just as delayingan important meetingis critical for your pro-fessional growth,delay in reachinghome for a family out-ing or dinner would, ifit was promised, isequally serious.

Meeting a profes-sional deadline is asimportant as fulfillingpersonal obligations.Both – husband and

wife – need to sit and chalk out a planof action as to how to get the time outof the busy schedule, rather thanadopt an approach that could leadconflict and confrontation.

Some professionals do seriouswork, finish the day’s work as perplan, but like to spend some time withfriends at some restaurant for refresh-ment. This is asking for problems.

And equally undesirable is thebehaviour of a wife if she starts blam-

behaviour. The most common after-effects of workaholism can be rapidhealth deterioation, job stress, work-family conflict, teamwork problems(as not all employees would followthe workaholic), job performance,aloofness from family interactions,problems in communication, lack ofenjoyment of life and leisure time.

The busiest of men on earth mustkeep in mind that there are moreimportant things than money in this

ing her husband once he enters thehome premises. Nagging or blamingyour spouse for not finding time foryou may make it even more difficultto move towards a comprehensiblesolution.

The conversation should not focuson the spouse's failure to strike a bal-ance between work and family, buton the desired attention and familytime. In Delhi, as in other metros,working men do often come homelate, but it is not advisable to bringthe office into home premises. Aworkaholic, like my boss, reacheshome and still talks about office onthe phone or opens up the laptop forreplying mails.

As I was grappling with how myboss had faced life, I knew ourDirector was moving in the rightdirection by going on a week’s leaveto the Himalayas. And in his last mailhe wrote thus: ”Please no calls, nomails and no communication, exceptin extreme emergency.” ■

Spouse of a workaholic should adopt a sympathetic attitude.

ISL E G A L

Suicide a Crime?


dying! It would subject the person togreater depression.

Further, in many a case, the State’sresponsibility for the plight of thevictims cannot be overlooked.He/she is the victim (and not a crim-inal) of the circumstances that havedriven him/her to resort to theextreme step, and deserves to betreated with sympathy and compas-sion. What the survivor deserves isproper counselling by experts andrehabilitation – and not punishment.He/she is not a threat to the society.

Anachronic law As the Delhi High Court had

rightly observed, Section 309 is “ananachronism, unworthy of humansociety.” There has been an all-roundresentment against continuation ofthis Section and a strong plea torepeal it, since long.

Thus, Section 309 IPC becomesillogical and meaningless, and it ishigh time that the same is repealed.

There are a few Sectionsin the Indian PenalCode, that havebecome irrelevant inmodern society, war-

ranting amendment or totalrepeal. One such Section is309 IPC, which deals withsuicide cases, making the‘attempt to suicide’ a crimi-nal offense. Its avowed aim isto prevent suicides by indi-viduals, and the one whosurvives the attempt is pun-ishable with 1-year imprisonment orfine or both.

However, the statistics of suicidesreel out a different story. There wasan over-30% increase in the numberof suicides during 1996 to 2006,despite the Section, thus refuting theclaim that the penal Section is meantto check the suicide rate.

As one analyses the pros and consof the need for continuation or other-wise of Section 309, the cons wouldundoubtedly outweigh the pros. Lifeis so beautiful and precious that noone would like to voluntarily termi-nate it, for no reason. A person is dri-ven to end his/her life due to acutemental depression, born out of cir-cumstances that make it miserable tocontinue. It has got to do with one’smental strength (or the lack of it) towithstand the severity of adversities.

While sympathising with thosewho succeed in their attempts, it iscruel to punish those who survive. Itwould only amount to punishingthem for their inability to succeed in

However, the provision deal-ing with the punishment forabetting suicide shouldremain in force.

The argument that, “bydeclaring attempted suicide apenal offense, the IPCupholds the dignity ofhuman life,” appears to bemisplaced and out-dated. Ifone cannot live with dignity,for whatever reason, the verymeaning of life would be lost.

It is against this back-ground, that the Law Commission ofIndia has urged the Government toremove Section 309 of the IPC, describ-ing an attempt to suicide as a “mani-festation of a diseased condition ofmind.” It adds that, “it would not bejust and fair to inflict additional legalpunishment on a person who hasalready suffered agony and ignominyin his failure to commit suicide.”

In fact, in the late 1970s, the Centredid make an attempt to do away withthe Section by introducing a Bill, butunfortunately, by the time it could bepassed, the Parliament got dissolved. Itmust, however, be mentioned, givingdue credit to the Government, thatthough the attempt to suicide is anoffense, the Section is seldom used.And even where cases are booked, theyremain on records as mere statistics.

It is hoped that the Centre wouldseriously consider the progressive andwell-intentioned recommendations ofthe Law Commission. It should soonbring out a Bill suitably amending theIPC to repeal the contriving Section. ■

It would not be just and fair to inflict additional legal

punishment on a person who has already suffered agony

and ignominy. ■ by P. V. V. Satyanarayana


WOMENAll the way

S O F T C O R N E R

Second runner up in the Miss Belgiumcontest, Binta Telemans (L) Miss

Belgium 2010 Cilou Annys (C) and Firstrunner up Lien Aernouts celebrate on

at the Miss Belgium election evening atthe casino in Knokke.

The 16 female German contestants pose during the Miss Germany beauty pageant in Listow, northern Germany. Cathrin Durakovic (6th L) won the Miss Germany title.

A new PETA ad with US country singer Carrie Underwood(L), US First Lady Michelle Obama (2nd-L), with television

talk show hosts Oprah Winfrey (2nd-R) and Tyra Banks (R),all who avoid the wearing of fur.

Indonesian cheer leaders dance asthey attend a ceremony to

welcome the FIFA World CupTrophy Tour to Jakarta.

Actress KatherineBoecher arrives at the thepremiere "TheSpy Next Door"in Los Angeles.

Swimmers, many wearing costumes, take part in an annual swim in the cold

waters off the coast of Usedom Island amidheavy snowfall that was forecast to

intensify into the New Year.

Desperate to collect funds for the Society for Preventionof Cruelty to Animals (SPCA), 12 women ‘bared’ it all fora tasteful calendar that went on sale during Christmas.

A model wears mobile phones on herbelt covered in Ed Hardy cases, at the

Ed Hardy booth at the 2010International Consumer Electronics

Show, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

French prisoners Celine(L) andSarah walk free thanks to apresidential pardon after 18

months jail for drug smuggling.

C O N S E RVAT I O N

The

Olive Ridley Turtles of Rishikulya

rough-skinned, listening to the seawith single-minded direction andcrawling towards the foam now crest-ed with flint glow that flickers likefire. When they come out of theirholes, they are exposed to the vagariesof nature. Fishing birds, crows andeagles hunt them from the sky; thereare jackals and dogs, who savour eventhe eggs from the rookery.

Tragically, large fishing-trawlers,with their sprawl-ing nets, kill thelarge, lovely OliveRidleys, whenthey either cometowards the beachor go back afterlaying the eggs. Alarge number of

carcasses stink for miles together. It isa ghastly sight. But, at Rishikulya, theturtles were discovered barely 8 yearsago and, with sincere and committedvolunteers, they are being protectedzealously.

At Gokharkuda village, the fisher-men community regard the turtles astheir friends. These turtles eat jelly-fish, which are very poisonous innature. If the jelly-fish stings a

human, it causeswrithing pain in theentire body and it ishard to cure. And,when it is time for thefish to breed, a jelly-fish's contact can ruinthe entire sack of eggs.

The salty water,clean atmosphere andpleasantly warm cli-mate suit the brown-ish-green, olive-shapedOlive Ridleys. These

are the smallest of the species of turtlesfound here and weigh upto 41 kg. Theymate in water and, by February, con-gregate within 2 - 3 kms off the shore,to breed. After sunset, the turtles dig apit, one-and-a half feet deep, with theirfleshy feet. Then the egg-laying begins.

WWF volunteers have been keep-ing a vigil on a beach area of 2 km,since the past 5 years. Young boysfrom the village are the guardianangels. WWF has fenced a 3-sq-kmarea of the rookery, to keep off landpredators like dogs, jackals, hyenasand jungle cats.

alone or in pairs, delighting us all. These aquatic souls swim a long

distance, from Sri Lankan shores tothe Bay of Bengal, every winter, to laytheir eggs on quiet, unspoilt beaches.Bhitarkanika's Nasi Island, Wheeler'sIsland, Ekakulanasi, and Gahirmathahave been their favourites for long.Then, they were spotted in Satabhayabeach at the mouth of the Devi riverin Puri and at Rishikulya in Ganjam.

They come for mass nesting, whichis called arribada — following aninborn instinct. And they lay 80 to 150eggs within 2 hours, digging up large,conical holes in the sand. And then,with their flippers, they shroud them inthe sand and go back to the sea — toreturn only after a year. There, theseeggs incubate for around 45 days underthe hot sun, till hatching takes place.

Evading predatorsThe tiny turtles, barely 4 inches

long, crawl towards the sea afterdusk. They emerge in groups at nightand instinctively make a dashtowards the sea, navigating towardsthe horizon. By emerging at night,the baby turtles evade predators andthe scorching daytime sand.

There they were — tiny-tots hardlyweighing 10/20 gm — dark and


WWF's Orissa Chapter, was there toreceive us in the village ofGokharkuda. It is a small fishing vil-lage with a population of 450 to 500.It has a primary school too. The vil-lagers are both proud and vigilant oftheir winter guests, the endangeredspecies of the Olive Ridleys. They areaware of their presence and woulddo everything to protect them.

Peter is in his early 40s and isquite an inspiration for the youngboys, who volunteer to help. The lat-ter, hailing from the fishermen com-

Eagerly, I accompanied mysquad to Rishikulya Beach atRambha in Orissa. Here, theRishikulya river flows into theBay of Bengal and the lake of

Chilika begins. From Bhubaneswar,Rambha is hardly 135 kilometresaway and it takes about 2 hoursalong NH 5 to reach the place. TheApril sun was searing on our skin butour spirits were high for we weregoing to have a rare glimpse of OliveRidleys in their infancy...

We stopped at the picturesqueRambha rest-house on theshore of Chilika Lake. Afterlunch, we headed forGhokarkuda village, some 17km away via Huma, wheremiles of spectacular saltmounds appeared like whitetents pitched on a small hillrange. Fishermen were har-vesting salt just like one har-vests paddy.

Peter Michael, Director,

munity, are quite well-informedabout the aquatic life here. For daysand nights at length, they keep vigilas though on a pilgrimage!

We walked about a kilometre, tillwe could see the sea pounding thesand. It was a delightful scene. Onthe sandy beach were lots of bedtewa creepers, with large, pink flow-ers. The sturdy fibre of the creeper isused as a rope by the fishermen.

There was a narrow band of bluewater and sandy bars and we couldsee the great Olive Ridley turtles frol-

icking in the water, so close tous! As if they could sense ourpresence, they would peekfrom the water and quicklyplunge back. In the mild, set-ting sun, their lovely headsshimmered like gold and thedeep-bluish wings splatteredlike the tails of a whale. Therewere lots of them — at least250 — if one could make arough guess. They swam

At river Rishikulya, the turtles were discovered

barely 8 years ago and, with sincere and committed

volunteers, they are being protected zealously.

■ by by Mona Lisa Jena

New born turtles are being released into their natural habitat.Preparation for new life: Copulating turtles.

Increasing human interference is hampering the survival of turtles.

The volunteers at the beachroamed with baskets in their glove-covered hands, picking them andleaving them at the shore as a protec-tive measure. However, hardly one ina thousand of hatchlings entering thesea manage to survive. And onlywhen they turn 15 and above, do theybecome mature enough to breed. Thatis why it is pertinent to protect them.

For millions of years, they havecountered threats from man andnature and, now, man's greed andhigh technology have brought themto the verge of extinction. Countlessturtles drown in trawler nets.Promotion of tourism also takes awaytheir privacy. They often abandon thebeaches for such reasons. Like themigrating birds in winter, that flock toChilika Lake in lakhs, Olive Ridleys

Last year, the egg-laying tookplace from 15 February. Around 2.5lakh turtles had come ashore to laytheir eggs. The beach was so denselypopulated by them that the boys hadto jump over their backs to get across!The hatching took place from 4 Apriland continued till 11 April.

There were lots of brahminy kites(sankhachila), brown fishing kitesand hawks at the shore. So were sea-gulls and crows. But, inside thefenced area of the WWF-protectedbeach, the birds could not landbecause they were driven away bythe vigilant boys.

Soft sandThey asked us to walk softly and,

at times, our feet would sink unex-pectedly in the porous mixture ofearth and sand, which keeps theirnests ventilated and moist. As if itwas shifting sand! These are the nestsof the turtles, they said.

We saw the new-born turtlesemerging from their nests and saun-tering towards the sea. They left amosaic with their feet, on the sandand the trail was lovely as a picture.Soon, there were hundreds of them.When the waves lapped at the beach,they flung themselves into the surfand were whisked away to their far-off destination.

also come here every year. After walking around for about 4

kms, we sat on the sandy bed, admir-ing nature's beauty in that moonlitnight, watching the shafts of lightshooting through the blue turf andglowing on the waves. It was a treatto be here and adore nature's won-der; an unforgettable experience.

As the silver orb of a glowingmoon inched its away up, we headedback to Rambha. Rambha happens tobe the extreme end of Chilika Lake.Here lies Ghantashila hill. The stoneshere sound like a ghanta or metal bell.Beyond it, are the famous islands —Breakfast island, Honeymoon island,

Sipakuda (formed by shells droppedby the birds), and Chadheihaga(bird's droppings).

In winter, large numbers of migra-tory birds can be seen here. The areais largely dominated by fishermen,who make a living from the sea andits crabs, shrimps, and fish. Theyneed no other occupation. But theyrue that restrictions on fishing in thelake has ruined them. They are sell-ing off their boats and opting to workin Goa and other such fishing areas.

Rambha is lovely, with a fewplaces of interest, like Nirmaljhar andNarayani cave, nearby. Though thereis a small railway station, most of thefast trains do not stop here. So, onecan travel up to Berhampur orBalugaon and hire an autorickshawor taxi to reach here. ■


Religious activities are also increasing around the habitat of turtles.

Cattle visiting Rishikulya often frighten turtles away.

O C C A S I O N

B


Championship organised by DelhiState Board and Fitness Association,in collaboration with DelhiUniversity Students’ Union (DUSU).

Said Lal, “Such competitions giveus a platform to showcase ourachievements. There is hardly anymoney involved in the field of body-building but it feels nice when themedals start coming. My family ini-tially tried hard to convince me thatbody-building was meant for goonsand not people like us. But they alsolike it now, as it has earned me abun-dant reputation. Many kids in my vil-lage, who want to have a good body,come to me for assistance.”

For survival sakeLal came to attend the competi-

tion after bagging the title of MrHaryana, held earlier in 2009. “Thereare enough such competitions to getus noticed. Body-builders can evenget jobs with the Railways or theIndian Air Force. But that happensonly if you have some support andsponsorship,’‘ Lal lamented.

In the pageant at DU, Lal won thetitle of Mr Northern India in the 65-70kg category, while Yatender Pawarfrom Uttar Pradesh became the over-all winner. The pageant was divided

Ever wondered what body-building is all about? It entailsmuch more than just bulgingbiceps and flaunting muscles.From following a strict regimen

to taking a diet rich in fat and protein,a body-builder has to go through adaily, hours-long, strenuous, sweat-it-out regimen, to get a perfect shape. Butdue to lack of Government support,hundreds of body-builders all over thecountry have to live an obscure life,like any unsung champion.

Sunder Lal, 30, a lad fromSonepat, Haryana, is a dismal case ofGovernment apathy. Notwithstanding,he is still struggling on his own toearn a name at international venues.His stuffed biceps and broad chestmay not have earned him money, butthey have definitely brought adequatepride to his family, back home. Lal, abody-builder for 6 years, is contentwith that. And, he feels, with no finan-cial support or training facilities fromthe Government, many body-builderslike him pursue their passion withoutexpecting much in return.

Lal and about 160 other body-builders from 10 States in north Indiagot a chance to flex and flaunt theirmuscles at Delhi University, recently.The event was the 49th edition of MrNorthern India Body-Building

into 5 categories of different weightbrackets. All the body-builders posedwith enthusiasm on the ramp.

Behind the scenes, however, theyall shared a common complaintagainst the lack of support for body-builders. “So much medical and sci-entific research goes into body-build-ing in foreign countries. That’s whytheir body-builders win medals atinternational events. In India, it is dif-ficult to even find sponsors,” said 18-year-old Shubhankar, who is pursu-ing BBA alongside body-building.According to him, body-buildingdeserves a better deal, consideringthe hard work they put in daily.

Concurred 21-year-old VirenderMahajan from Pathankot, “I work outfor at least 4 hours in a day. I havealso given up on fast food and eat adiet rich in protein. It’s not at all easyto be muscular.”

The concerned authorities, too,could not hide their disappointmentover this kind of neglect to the body-builders, who mostly have to be self-dependant for their survival. Theofficials of the agency, that organisedthe contest, said they were trying todo more for the body-builders. “Wewill definitely look into their needs,”said Darshan Singh, executive chair-person of the event and agency. ■

At the end of the day,

all shared a common

grudge against the

Government about

lack of support for

body-builders.

■ by Ramesh Kumar Raja

uilders’ day outody

N E W A R R I VA L

and make the blood rush to the groin.The prose pieces are incisive, mature,confident, and savvy.

A Tale of Two RevoltsAuthor: Rajmohan GandhiPublisher: PenguinPrice: Rs 599Pages: 402

In the eyes of most people, globali-sation might be a relatively recent phe-nomenon, but Rajmohan Gandhicomes up with the amazing idea that,even in the 1850s, the world was inter-connected. He finds some obviousconnections between 2 of the mostfamous revolts in history, thatoccurred in different parts of the world— the 1857 Revolt in India and theAmerican Civil War. Britain, of course,was a common link between the 2events, as were invocations to religion,race and notions of governance.

While the Indian uprising arousedsignificant interest in America, andwas considered a confirmation ofIndian perfidy, the Indianelite of the time unequivo-cally supported AbrahamLincoln’s Unionists andthe abolition of slavery.

Gandhi prefers to usethe vehicle of biography toget his message across. Inthe beginning of the book,the readers get introducedto William HowardRussell, the first, modern war-corre-spondent, who was there to cover therevolts in India and in the USA.

According to the author, there wasconsiderable American interest inIndia’s 1857 Revolt. In fact, the situa-tion then was quite the reverse of whatit is today, when more Indians knowabout the American Civil War thanAmericans do about the Sepoy Mutiny.

One of the merits of Gandhi’sstudy is that, when compared withthe American Civil War, it becomes alltoo clear that the Mutiny of 1857 wasnot India’s “first war of indepen-

dence”, as some nationalist historianshave seen it. It broke out not over agrand issue or contested principle,but over suddenly-provoked casteand religious sensitivities.

It was the alleged presence of pig fatin the casing of cartridges, used bysepoys in the Indian army, that sparkedthe mutiny. Even if it did bring theHindus and Muslims together againstthe British, this alliance “seemed torequire the glue of rage, and it lackedthe promise of permanence.”

Large sections of contemporaryIndian opinion chose to side with theBritish rather than with the rebelsbecause their interests seemed moreclosely aligned with the former.Neither the dotard Bahadur ShahZafar nor the scheming Nanasahebinspired confidence as alternatives toBritish rule.

In addition to Russell’s biography,there are biographies of 5 differentIndians — Bankim ChandraChattopadhyay, Sir Syed AhmadKhan, Jyotiba Phule, IshwarchandVidyasagar and A.O. Hume. Through

these personalities, theevents leading up to the1857 uprising are traced.We also come to knowabout the wider Indianreactions to British rule,the revolt and the natureof social and intellectualexchange between theBritish and the Indians.

For good measure, thereare biographies of Karl Marx

and Leo Tolstoy, that allow a panoram-ic sweep of the 19th century and showhow events of the time continue toimpact our lives. However, while theenterprise to compare 1857 and theAmerican Civil War is certainlyadmirable, it also leads to strange jux-tapositions, where Abraham Lincolnstands alongside Ishwar ChandraVidyasagar, and the African-Americanreformer Frederick Douglass suddenlygives way to the Muslim thinker,Sayyed Ahmed Khan.

— Anoop Verma ■

‘Foreplay’, in which these lines occurto explain the leitmotif of Desilicious:“Numerous crude caricatures andsexist stereotypes of South Asian sex-ualities linger stubbornly in our post-colonial zeitgeist: South Asians con-tinue to be represented, frequently,either as repressed victims of sexlessarranged marriages, or as hypersexu-al inheritors of the Kama Sutra.Selections in Desilicious subversivelysample and remix several ‘familiar’narratives of South Asian sexuality,creatively exploring the range ofdesires thriving between thesepolarised stereotypes.”

The stories are extremely irrever-ent and, in their own subtle way, theymanage to lodge their protest againstsome of the familiar cultural and legalshibboleths in society.

The book begins with Tanuja DesaiHidier’s sensual story Tiger, Tiger. Thisis an engrossing, coming-of-age story,set in a world where sexual norms arein a state of constant flux. “She couldnot, however, bring herself to takethese new boys quite all the way insideher, turn them into men in the bafflingfactory of her body, as she never feltshe’d completely expelled him fromher, regained her space and balance.”

The poems by Shompaballi Duttaare purposefully vague, to let thereaders imagine what could be,rather than what is.

Sunil Narayan and Amber Nasrullacome up with stories that are full ofangst of identity.

The Reluctant Voyer by RashmiChoksey takes the reader on a roller-coaster ride into the world of fantasy,before bringing him back to reality,where the ceiling is leaking and theVCR is whirring.

There is Aziza Ahmed in the storyMetal Pleasure, who flamboyantlydeclares, “It’s psychological. It’s reli-gious. It’s the desi, tight cunt syndrome,that prevents you from laughing dur-ing sex. That prevents you from lettingyourself get as loose as you want.”

It is lines like these that are gearedto make the pulse beat a notch faster,


up, and we could see that, despiteNehru’s reluctance to grant thedemands, linguistic States were pop-ular. What followed in 1959 wasmuch more serious. The publicationof Maulana Azad’s India Wins Freedomshattered the accepted story of India’sindependence.”

It is clear that Desai’s target ofattack is Jawaharlal Nehru’s iconicbook, The Discovery of India. Nehru hadportrayed the idea of the Indian

nationhood as a seamlessevolution, over the ages,through various cultures andpolitical systems. However,this is only a case of differentwriters tending to see historythrough the prism of their ownpersonal experiences andreaching completely differentconclusions.

Desai does not agree that thehistory of India ended at 1947. In fact,the flow of the narrative is such that,1947 seems like nothing more than ablip in India’s long history. The story ofIndia still goes on and there are manymore good and bad times that peopleof this country are going to see.

The task that Desai has taken onhimself, while writing this book, is todiscover modern India. How didIndia end up becoming a functioningdemocracy in a part of world that isinfamous for being a playground ofmilitary dictators? He seems to beasking this question continuouslythroughout his book.

That is probably why he choosesto name the first chapter The Vasco DaGama Moment. According to him,more than anything else, it is thearrival of Europeans thathas shaped the culture ofmodern India. Desaitends to dwell on a lot ofhypothetical situations,where he speculateswhat could have beenthe fate of the country,had the British not woncertain decisive battles.

He writes, “Tamil

The Rediscovery of IndiaAuthor: Meghnad DesaiPublisher: Allen LanePrice: Rs 699Pages: 498

Blame it on Meghnad Desai’sumpteen TV appearances and theresultant celebrity status, that the titleof his book has now turned into agigantic cliche. How canthis gentleman with afunny-looking hairstylehave the presumptuous-ness to rediscover India,when the country hasalready been discoveredin a book written byIndia’s tallest leader,Jawaharlal Nehru?

Recently, RahulGandhi did try to discov-er India during his famous “DiscoverIndia” tour. His tour was mostly aboutthe quality of life in certain, rural pock-ets of the country. Meghnad Desai hastaken on his shoulders the cumber-some task of tracing the path throughwhich modern India has evolved.

There are elitists, who cannot tol-erate a middle-class bourgeoisieshowing the temerity of rediscover-ing the country during the course of abook of 498 pages. If someone fromthe political class had used this title,then that might not have raised asmany eyebrows.

Leaving the title aside, there is alot that is of interest in the book.Meghnad Desai begins with a shortpreface, in which he discusses hisinteraction with the book that hashad a seminal influence on him.

“I read Nehru’s The Discovery ofIndia when in my teens. It gave us thebasic story, beautifully recounted bya masterful writer.”

A paragraph later, in the samepreface, he writes, “This seamlessstory was shattered during the 1950sitself. The agitation for linguisticStates took a popular anti-Congressform in Bombay, where I was growing

Nadu could have been French-speak-ing and Bengal either Dutch orEnglish-speaking. Maharashtra mayhave been Portuguese-speaking…”

The essence of the book is that theIndian nation, that exists today, is onlyone of many possible futures, whichcould have transpired. The element ofchance had a big role to play. The bor-ders of any country in the world havenever been sacrosanct in history andthe same is the case with India.

The book is interesting to read andit does offer a different way of lookingat our history. Primarily because of itspresumptuous title and the celebritystatus of its author, it will certainlymanage to sell quite a few copies.

DesiliciousEdited by: Masala Trois CollectivePublisher: Orient PublishingPrice: Rs 295Pages: 175

Desi is a slightly pejorative term,that probably refers to Indians wholack an international outlook towardslife. But, when the desi decides to turnsalacious, then he or she can churn outa Desilicious kind of erotic literature.

It is easy to get enticed by storiesthat evoke the quintessentially sub-versive ideas of transgressive sexualacts, that are forbidden by society.Nothing is taboo for the group ofventuresome writers, whose contri-butions are a part of this seductiveand alluring collection of erotica, thataims to stimulate the mind as well asthe body, and succeeds.

Contemporary erotica is oftenfound to be sexist, but

Desilicious cannot beaccused of that. The sto-ries are exceedingly liber-al and they conjure a feel-ing as welcome as that of amountain breeze fanningyou with butterfly wings.

The book does not havea foreword. What it has isan imaginatively titled,

Automobiles


S L U G

Like previous occasion, this timetoo carmakers from around the globe

took India’s Auto Expo 2010 bystorm. It was India’s first auto showafter the world is showing the signs

of recovery from recession. Notsurprisingly, car-makers presented a

number of models yet to belaunched in India as well as conceptcar models. Thrust was, however, onenvironment conservation. In line of

this, there were many ‘green’ carmodels also, which will soon be

launched in India. Glimpses...

This newversion fromToyota will setnew drivingetiquette onroads.

The all newChevrolet Cruzz is

here to give youcruising

experience.

Concept car fromHonda for economy

and efficiency.Glittering

A truly world class car

from Tata.

Brand newlaunch ofworld’s mostfavouriteJaguar in Indiaafter it wastaken over byTata Motors.

Concept car from Toyotathat will run on fuel cellsto ensure totalenvironment protection.


Tata bringsworld classRange Rover inIndia.

New variant ofFabia from Skodafor D-segmentcustomers.

Jazz sport for the lovers of sport cars.

Yeti from luxury car maker Skoda.

X6M and Z4sDrive: Twopowerfulsaloon carsfrom BMW forcomfortableand safe ride.

Electric Indicafor cleanatmosphere.

E-vehicle fromevent sponsorsChevrolet.

Yet anotherconcept e-car in

waiting.

Cars for all:Small car

model Beatfrom

Chevrolet forhigh end

marketsegment.


New CBR from Honda for speed thrillers.

Ninza for easy biking.

Flirtatious bike for flirting men.

Rs 22,50,000, 1700 CC bike from Honda. Real challenge for Indian men.

Royal Enfield Bullet that has stood for power and endurance.

Innovative electricscooter from Mahindra.

Renault’s comfortscooty with ample

room for two.


A vintage Mercedes that ruled the road in yesteryears.1953 Chevrolet Belair Sedan.

Some moreenticing

models ofvintage cars

from Ford andMercedes.

S L U G

Classic motorsPhotos by Nishit Nath

Fascinating

vintage cars that missed the

Auto-Expo lime light...

A sports car thatblazed the track

during its prime time.

Vintage Rolls Royce: Still carrying an air of royalty. 1934 Lagonda.

BMW Isetta: really a gemfrom olden days.

And some vintage bikes...


R E F O R M S

equitable education will be a far-offdream. Also, they caution that thedifference in the medium of educa-tion may cause disparities. Initially,the recommendations were wel-comed with apprehension. Some pri-vate schools opposed it. But theGovernment claims that all con-tentious issues have been resolved.

All told, some private schools arestill resisting this move. They areplanning to challenge theGovernment’s decision in the court.

Even as the matriculation schoolsare resisting the uniform syllabi intro-

duced by the State Government,experts of the Central Institute ofIndian Languages (CIIL) have sug-gested ways to implement the samewithout any resistance. DeputyDirector of CIIL, Dr Pon Subbiah,who heads the Central-fundedNational Testing Service (NTS), anationwide project for researching“testing and evaluation” in the educa-tion sector, said a core syllabi could beformed by taking salient features ofthe 4 existing Boards and provide it topeople who are willing to adopt it.

“People resisting the uniform syl-

Anglo-Indian and Oriental. The new education policy was first

discussed by the DMK party in the2006 elections. The party had promisedto introduce equitable standard schooleducation, if voted to power. Once thegoal was achieved, the Governmentappointed a committee headed by DrS. Muthukumaran, former Vice-Chancellor of BharathidasanUniversity, to study the possibilities ofintroducing equitable standard educa-tion in schools. Muthukumaran sub-mitted his report in 2007.

Dr S. Muthukumaran, Chairmanof the Samacheer Kalvi Committee,explains that Equitable StandardEducation (ESE) refers to the com-mon school system, neighbourhoodschools and education for all. He fur-ther added that quality education forall is a must to ensure a country’sprosperity and also that a countrywill gain if the individual gains.Quality education can be guaranteedonly if all schools are good. ESEwould be implemented only in aphased manner.

Cautious approachMinister of School Education

Thangam Thennarasu said that theState Government was bringing inSamacheer Kalvi because “economicdisparities started reflecting in schooleducation and that should not comein the way of quality education for allsections of students. Uniform qualityeducation cannot be denied becauseof economic conditions of people.”

He further added that the StateGovernment’s decision to implementequitable standard school educationby merging all Boards was not a“unilateral decision.” All the stake-holders involved were consultedbefore arriving at the decision. “Thisdecision was lauded by them as it is astep towards ensuring equitable stan-dard education.”

But some experts caution that, aslong as the infrastructure and thenumber of teachers are not increased,


In spite of the fact that this is beingtalked about for several decades, ithas not fructified. The main road-block is the fear, that in the name ofequitable education, standards willbe compromised; the good standardof education now available in certainschools may no longer be available.

Finally, in August 2009, the State

Soon after attaining indepen-dence, our country took a deci-sion to provide education forall up to class 8. When this wascontemplated, it was under-

stood that access to quality educationfor all will be the aim. “Education forall” meant good education for all andevery school in the country wasexpected to maintain standards andparents would admit their children inthe neighbourhood schools. That is, acommon school system will prevail.

More recently, the Tamil NaduGovernment has called this systemEquitable Standard Education orSamacheer Kalvi (in Tamil languagesamacheer means ‘equitable stan-dard’ and kalvi refers to education).Samacheer Kalvi is a new scheme ofthe Tamil Nadu Government to pro-vide a uniform and quality educationto all children. This system is beingbrought in to ensure that students inrural schools also have the same stan-dard of education as students in cityschools.

Government announced its decisionto implement the equitable educationsystem and this has been lauded bymany. “Samacheer Kalvi is a revolu-tion in the history of the State,” saysVice-Chairman of State PlanningCommission, M. Naganathan.

Initially, the new education policyis to have a single-board system andwill be implemented in the academicyear (2010-2011) for classes 1 to 6 andin 2011-2012 it will be extended toother classes. “It is a historic decisionby the Chief Minister, in response to along-pending demand,” said SchoolEducation Minister ThangamThennarasu.

The State Government has decidedto create a Common Board by merg-ing all boards of education prevalentin the State of Tamil Nadu. As for themedium of instruction, besides Tamil,other languages now being usedwould continue. Unlike in otherStates, currently, 4 streams of schoolsystems are being followed in TamilNadu: State Board, Matriculation,CM M. Karunanidhi

A few people feel it is deleterious forstudents of minority communities to beforced to learn Tamil as a 2nd languageas it will severely impact their marks inclass 10. They suggest that Tamil be taughtas a compulsory 3rd language for thosewho do not opt for it as a 2nd language.It can be taught from class 1 to class 8.

This will give all students a workingknowledge of the language, which isabsolutely essential, and simultaneouslyallow them to choose a 2nd languagethey will be more comfortable learning,say Hindi or French. This will also notaffect their class 10 aggregate marks.

Moreover, Tamil Nadu is the only Statein India, where a 3-language formula isnot followed. As a result, the minorities aresuffering and they are pushed back. Nodoubt, Tamil is the regional language andis a must for seeking employment in TamilNadu but, for that, ample opportunitiesare there to learn the language.

Sadly, the Government is silent onthe issue of making basic Hindi a com-pulsory language. People seeking jobsoutside Tamil Nadu find themselves in a

real soup, without a working knowl-edge of Hindi.

There are others who feel that the suc-cess of this system depends on how theGovernment implements this programme.Just as it was careful before arriving atthis decision so also it needs to be carefulin implementing it. In its over-anxiety, thematriculation standard should not be low-ered and the student community shouldnot be adversely affected.

Concerned over the StateGovernment’s move for a uniform syl-labus, dozens of matriculation schools inthe State are now opting for affiliationwith the CBSE. The schools fear that,once a uniform syllabus is implemented,they would be forced to close down asthe same syllabus would be offered byother State Board schools, deprivingthem of their exclusivity to provide a bet-ter standard of education. They feel thatthe CBSE system of education will givethem more flexibility in terms of choiceof subjects and textbooks.

Some parents, who can afford it,are already enrolling their wards inpublic and international schools.

Welcoming the Government’s pro-posed equitable standard school educa-tion with caution, Union Home MinisterP. Chidambaram added the caveat thatthe prescribed standards should bemore of a “minimum benchmark,” andnot put a ceiling on the academicachievement of students.

SamacheerEquitable Standard Education

The main roadblock is the fear, that in the name of

equitable education, standards will be compromised;

the good standard of education now available in certain schools

may no longer be available. ■ by Sudha Chandrasekaran

A few comments on the introduction of Samacheer

The implementation of this newsystem would also require the teacher-training system to be enhanced and allefforts will be taken to prepare theteachers for this system. However, theteaching fraternity is apprehensiveabout the designing of the curriculum.Apart from the fact that the new syl-labus requires teachers to play a morechallenging role, schools will have toplan such a framework so that teach-ers have enough on their plate withintegrated subjects.

“The proposed uniform educationsystem for a common syllabus in theState would be implemented onlyafter proper discussions with educa-tionists and public,” said Minister forHigher Education Dr K. Ponmudi.

Expressions of skepticism about

labi would be lured to adopt the coresyllabi that would be better than allthe 4 Boards,” Dr Subbiah observed.

Books for SamacheerAfter presiding over a meeting to

review the implementation of theGovernment’s latest policy decisionin education, Thangam Thennarasu,School Education Minister, assertedthat the decision-making processwould be completely transparent.The best features of the present syl-labi of the existing 4 streams — StateBoard, Matriculation, Oriental andAnglo-Indian — would be incorpo-rated. Teachers of private institutions,if they desired so, would be involvedin the preparation of text-books.

He told The Hindu that “we arekeen on enhancing the overall qualityof text-books in terms of content,printing quality and visual appeal.”--

He further said, “We will also usethe NCERT text-books as a modeland look at incorporating some oftheir features. Text-books would,hence, include a lot of pictures andother visual elements.” Decisionswould be taken on the syllabus andtext-books in a transparent manner.

On questions regarding the 2-lan-guage formula, Thennarasu said thatthere would be no change in the posi-tion that Tamil, as a language, wouldhave to be learnt compulsorily (up toclass 10). Besides Tamil, steps wouldbe taken to continue with the presentpractice of permitting other lan-guages as a medium of instruction.

any new initiative are not uncom-mon, and so the voicing of apprehen-sions being witnessed over the pro-posed implementation of the systemin Tamil Nadu from next academicyear (for class 1 to 6 ) is not unusual.

Before introducing a uniformstream of education throughout theState, the policy-makers should takeinto consideration the fact that it isnot possible for all students, whopass out of colleges in Tamil Nadu, toget suitable employment within theState. In this regard, we see that, inorder to face global competition,China has changed its education toinclude English language courses.

In India, especially Tamil Nadu, theMatriculation and CBSE schools arefunctioning well, and the products ofthese schools have qualified for higherstudies more easily than those whostudied in the State Board syllabus. Itwould prove disastrous to the youth,if, in the name of providing a uniformsyllabus, the Government fails to pro-vide the type of education needed toface the global competition. Further,the ability of the teachers to teach wellis most important in order to improvethe standard of education in theschools and improve the learning lev-els of the students studying therein. ■


Demanding quality: Public protest against shortcomings of Samacheer.



Poor girl’s honesty Recently, I had been to a labour-

ing centre nearby. While coming outI found to my dismay that my newchappal I had kept outside wasmissing. There was another pairidentical to mine. Presumably some-body had taken away my pair mis-taking it for hers as it was dark.

The one left behind was an oldone with lots of stitches in it.Anyway, I wore it as I could notwalk barefeet. Next day, I went to

the centre and reported the matterto the gentleman there. I was in for asurprise. He told me that aseemingle poor girl had given him apair of new chappals with a requestto find out the owner of the same.She said she took it by mistake. Iwas happy to see that it was mineand accepted it. Needless to say, Igave the old pair to the man there tobe handed over to the poor girl.Nevertheless, inwardly I thankedthe poor girl for her honesty.

— Savithri Viswanathan

HUMAN GRACE