newspaper june

1
CM YK ND-ND CITY 2 THE HINDU MONDAY, JUNE 16, 2014 NOIDA/DELHI AAP begins reorganisation bid The Haryana unit of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) held a meeting of its volunteers at Sukhrali village here on Sunday to assess the situation and rebuild the party. Page 4 Emergency immunisation drive to tackle encephalitis The death of 44 children in Bihar over the past month due to encephalitis has prompted the Union Health Ministry to order 100-per-cent immunisation of children. Page 5 GURGAON: Official figures state that 33,000 people ride everyday on the Rapid Metro, a three-coach train that when compared to its older, bigger cousin in Delhi resembles a toy train navigating the Gurgaon skyline. This privately built Metro line services a 5.1 km long route that has six stations, three of which are named after its sponsors – a British telecom company, a bank and an Indian phone manufacturer. In this entirely elevated route that presently runs a loop service that begins and ends at Sikanderpur, the footfall is highest in the Phase-3 station which is closest to Cyber Green and building numbers 7, 9 and 14. According to the officials at Rapid Metro, the station named after the bank – IndusInd Bank Cyber City – which has been operational for only about a month now will in the next quarter see a jump of 30 per cent in its ridership figures. Skyrocketing parking charges at the nearby Cyber Hub, a place described as a “heaven for foodies” by the online community for its range of restaurants, may be the reason for this estimated jump in ridership at this station. A Rapid Metro spokesperson concurs. “Recently, I saw a large for the elite. Gurgaon’s population is a mixed crowd of residents, commercial enterprises and officer goers and it is important to tailor- make approaches to convince each of these groups to switch from private vehicles to the train.” The Delhi Metro, he said, held multiple street plays for instance in slums and residential areas when its first line came up more than a decade ago to convince people to use the train. “The transport system is after all for public consumption and it is important that it reflects the sentiment of the people.” defers in his views on how the line is currently being managed. “The line has been constructed very well but lacks in operational aspects. Gurgaon is a multi-cultural and multi-strata society and it is important for people to be convinced to use the Metro,” he said. Citing an example where the Rapid Metro organised a programme for company CEOs to walk and ride on the Metro, the official said: “If you only do programmes that target the top bosses of companies it will appear that the Metro train is reserved The Rapid Metro was to carry nearly 1 lakh people daily but officials claim it is too early to judge the success of this private project. “We commissioned the line in November 2013 and we only made the IndusInd Bank Cyber City operational a month ago so it’s unfair to say we haven’t reached the estimated daily footfall levels. In fact, we expect this new station to soon be the one which sees the highest footfall,” said the spokesperson. An official who worked very closely with the Rapid Metro project, however, is far more convenient to just take an auto directly,” she said. Aparna was using the Rapid Metro for the first time this week, only because she was travelling to Delhi. “I feel connectivity is a huge problem for people who live in Gurgaon. Maybe for people who come in from Delhi and Ghaziabad this Metro service is convenient. I’d rather use autos to get around,” she added. Vaishali-resident Pankaj Saxena and Lajpat Nagar resident Shobit both of whom work in one of the many high-rise buildings here are cases in point. Upadhyay lives in Gurgaon’s Sector-14. Every day she spends Rs. 100 on an autorickshaw, which takes her directly from her home to her place of work at DLF Square, closest to the Vodafone Belvedere Towers, the third station on the loop service. Travelling anywhere on the line has a fixed rate of Rs. 12. “If I take the Metro, I would end up spending Rs. 70 to go to the M.G. Road station on the Delhi Metro’s Yellow Line, then change trains at Sikenderpur to travel to my office. I will end up saving maybe Rs. 10 but it group of women and children travelling on the Rapid Metro to Cyber Hub. Due to the exorbitant parking charges and lack of space on weekends many people choose to park their cars either in Sikanderpur or Huda City Centre stations and take the train,” said the spokesperson. Yet, how many of the 33,000 people who ride on the Rapid Metro are Gurgaon locals? This week, The Hindu took a ride on the Rapid Metro and interestingly found more number of “out of town” commuters travelling in from Delhi and Noida as compared to locals. 24-year-old Aparna Sowmiya Ashok Are Gurgaon residents game for a smooth ride on the Rapid Metro? The Rapid Metro track running through Gurgaon’s commercial area. — PHOTO: S. SUBRAMANIUM A young commuter inside the Rapid Metro in Gurgaon. — PHOTO: MONICA TIWARI It has been said that 33,000 people ride every day on this privately built metro line. The Hindu takes a ride on the Rapid Metro and finds that there are more number of “out-of-town” commuters travelling on this route than the locals NEW DELHI: Entrepreneurship is the new fashion mantra that today’s youth not only wear, but also carry well with an élan. In the infinite horde of aspirations, young students are trying hard to build their own identity while basking in the joy of working for themselves. Some of the popular areas which have witnessed young entrepreneurial activities are IT services, e-commerce, product development, counselling, photography and entertainment. Sanyam Bajaj, a business economic graduate from Maharaj Agarsen College, has come up with his own photo studio. This 21-year-old photographer started his career with “zero investment’’, using the money won in 36 competitions – a sum of about Rs.36,000 – to buy himself a Canon 600D. He has covered some major projects and insists that determination was his mantra. For 23-year-old Ruchika Batra, who loves to ‘meditate and do yoga in her oversized T-shirts’, as per her twitter profile, the passion to help people made her launch “Yoga of miracles” website. She started with a website in her name and now conducts yoga workshops and life coaching sessions for youngsters in 20-30 age-group. “It took me a while to bring traffic to my website specifically because of my young age but the future is bright for online businesses and if it serves the society it is sure to go big,” insisted Ruchika. Team work is an important pillar of strength for youngsters who dabble in business. Custom T was co-founded in 2012 by three friends who sought to simplify the way people order custom T- shirts online. Videt Jaiswal from NSIT, Delhi and co-founder of the merchandising venture, said: “We all were in our first year of college and we started with a gruesome experience with a local dealer who ruined our society t-shirts. We had spent a week designing the t-shirts and collecting the money from our batch mates but when the t-shirts came post-printing after 14 more days, they were horrific! This incident was an inspiration and we translated it into action.” Since youngsters are passionate about sports, some have identified lucrative business opportunities in this. Pranav Harmilapi, 21, founder Delhi Soccer League, says “don't lose hope” is the moral that drives him. “It all started when I was repeating Class XI. I was under peer pressure and knowing that I had flunk in the class, I was determined to prove that I was way better than others. I was motivated to do something in life and never let failure affect me”, he said. He has done around 20 events since November 2010 and hopes that DSL Season 7 will be another triumph to his kitty. Some youngsters have also used technology and scientific advancement to build their own careers while bridging the gap between innovation and technology. Aishwariya Goel, founder of EmbedLearn is an engineer by profession who rather than taking up a job decided to build her own business. She has since organised around 20 workshops and winter camps in Delhi for around 1,000 students. EmbedLearn Laboratories was conceived with a dream to improve the element of “Learning by Doing” pedagogy in the Indian education system. Through her venture she strives to provide quality education by ensuring that students get adequate practical knowledge apart from academic learning. Now, Aishwarya said, she is “working to set up customised Labs in different parts of Delhi. By mid-June we will be launching our first IDiscover Lab in an NGO in Karol Bagh.” The rise young entrepreneurs in the National Capital is a sign of economic development. It reiterates the belief that employment is not generated but created and for it to happen it is very important to have a climate where young entrepreneurs not only grow but are also able to sustain their growth. Young entrepreneurs and their tales Lakshi Bhatia and Parul Garg NEW DELHI: Aspirants of bank- ing exams made a bee-line on Sunday morning for the banking seminar organised by Career Launcher in collab- oration with The Hindu. The jam-packed Kamani Audito- rium eagerly awaited Abhish- ek Gaike, a serial banking exam topper to begin with the session. Mr. Gaike talked about the various opportunities in the banking field. Mr. Gaike is a former manager of ICICI Bank, Mumbai, and holds a Post-Graduate Diploma in Banking.Through interaction with the participants, he also clarified several myths asso- ciated with banking exams and gave the aspirants a new perspective towards the banking field. Besides Mr. Gaike, Praveen Tyagi was also part of the ses- sion. As an academician, who has been associated with CL over the past 11 years, Mr. Tyagi shared techniques that would help aspirants in mak- ing speedy calculations dur- ing entrance examinations. Mr. Tyagiexplained in detail how with “smarter question- solving techniques, one can avoid tedious calculations. Smarter way to crack banking exams Staff Reporter NEW DELHI: In the last three years, Venkatesh Kandunoori and his friends have travelled to eight States with his large sketch of cricketer Sachin Ten- dulkar and collected 98 auto- graphs of national and international personalities on it. All that’s left are autographs of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress president Sonia Gandhi. After getting these, Venkatesh plans to pre- sent the painting to President Pranab Mukherjee. However, after spending for- ty days in the Capital, Venka- tesh has still not got an appointment with either leader. While Mr. Modi is expected to return from Bhutan by Tues- day, Ms. Gandhi is leaving for the United States for medical treatment and will only return after three weeks. “I started on this sketch just before the cricket World Cup in 2011. It took me six months to complete it. In the last three years, I have spent Rs. 5 lakh travelling and approaching re- nowned persons to sign my painting. I financed this by sell- ing other works of mine,” Ven- katesh told The Hindu. The four-and-a-half foot por- trait of the legend is surrounded by national symbols and small- er sketches of personalities linked to cricket, Sachin or the nation. These include former cricket captains Kapil Dev and Sunil Gavaskar, national and spiritual personalities like Mahatma Gandhi, Swami Vivekananda and Sathya Sai Baba, India’s first cricket captain C.K. Nayu- du, Sachin’s first coach Rama- kant Achrekar, cricketers Don Bradman and Vivian Richards. It also features the Indian Koh-i-noor Diamond on the British crown. “This,” according to Venka- tesh, “symbolises that even though we don’t have the dia- mond with us these people are our koh-i-noors.” Those who autographed this epic painting include President Mukherjee, former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, the chief ministers of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Mah- arashtra and Uttar Pradesh, for- mer Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, social activist Anna Hazare, musicians Lata Mangeshkar and A.R. Rahman, the 2011 Indi- an cricket team which includes Sachin himself and film stars such as Amitabh Bachchan, Madhuri Dixit Nene, Hrithik Roshan, Aishwarya Rai. The person who played the most hard to get so far, was Mr. Kalam. “It took me two years to get his autograph. Finally, I got it during this visit to Delhi... Travelling everywhere by train, I spent sleepless nights protect- ing the painting. I have done this to attract government and the public to support and fund sports,” explained Venkatesh who is currently put up with friends in Saket. A student of the Jawaharlal Nehru Architecture and Fine Arts University in Hyderabad, Venkatesh has also created a re- alist statue of Sardar Vallabhb- hai Patel. The foot-tall brass statue, which has ‘UNITY’ em- bossed on its base in silver, re- sembles Soviet-style statues with flowing garments and chi- selled expressions. “I have already planned my next work. It will be a timeline of Indian History from 3000 BC. But first, I need these two autographs to complete a cen- tury and give it to the President. I have already spent Rs. 60,000 in Delhi. A taxi, to transport this painting to and from various of- fices, in order to get an appoint- ment with the leaders, costs Rs. 2000 a day. But I won’t give up,” he told The Hindu. A long wait for the last two autographs to complete Sachin’s sketch Pheroze L. Vincent Venkatesh Kandunoori with his works in New Delhi. — PHOTO: RAJEEV BHATT NEW DELHI: The School of Open Learning (SOL) will finally open its admission gates on Tuesday, a day after Delhi University shuts its application process. The move comes after a series of pro- tests by the Staff Association and the SOL Stu- dents’ Union. Previously, admissions for SOL began along with the admissions for regular colleges. As per the schedule, application forms will be available online and offline. The online forms are free and the offline forms are available for Rs. 100. The online forms will be made available from Tuesday whereas the physical forms will be available at the SOL only from June 25. The last date for applying without a late fee is August 21. Thereafter a late fee of Rs. 200 will be charged, and the final last date for seeking admissions is September 15. The SOL is currently offering courses like B.A. programme, B.Com, B.Com (Honours), B.A. (Honours) English and B.A. (Honours) Political Science. SOL to issue applications from tomorrow Staff Reporter NEW DELHI: Everyday, we con- sume copious amounts of in- formation from sources such as the internet fora, blogs, web applications, podcasts, webcasts, news, emails and the significant social media bandwagon including Face- book, Twitter, Pinterest ,Tumbler. Becoming our own ‘assimilators’, we create a dig- ital identity for ourselves. “We are ‘drowning’ in the age of information and yet, starve for knowledge”, remarked American author and public speaker John Naisbitt. Massive amount of infor- mation can be counter-pro- ductive and impact decision making sensibilities. Caught in the uninspiring rut, we have witnessed the tempestu- ous loss of our very own tradi- tional habits such as reading offline. From reading emails to managing updates, we are breathing, walking and talk- ing information. Shruti, a 20-year old Delhi University student agrees. “While there was a time when access to information was al- most a luxury, today even while there is a glut of infor- mation, it is sometimes a bit of a letdown. Revamped con- tent, innumerable argu- ments, different schools of thought but no conclusion. No matter how much you have read, there’s another person who has dug in varied information and that person can make us feel miserable,” she says. Nabeel K. Adeni, a social media evangelist and consult- ant agrees that with the in- cessant amount of content coming in through different social media, it has become challenging to consume in- formation. “Social Media has given the power to every individual to create, consume and share content of all sizes and for- mats. Like all good things, even this has side effects”, said Mr Adeni. “It has become difficult to decipher knowledge, infor- mation, and data from each other. The information over- load has made it difficult to search for and process the re- quired information, thereby, making it cumbersome to do analysis and make decisions. This is where we need to pick and choose our sources,” he added. Many ascribe the ‘easy ac- cess’ as the spoiler here, oth- ers feel that they have to be careful on the ill-effects it has on the stakeholders involved. “Children are not equipped to seize information that they view. Any kind of information arouses interest. I have to keep a constant watch on what my kids are doing,” says Shalini Manchanda, a teacher and a mother of two. “Even “too much informa- tion” is good for me as it tells me about different aspects of the same thing. It facilitates comparison. Tabulating in- formation is the solution for me to deal with information overload” says Palash, a mar- keting professional. Others say they find it to use the in- ternet as and when it is re- quired. “I don’t feel the need to re- main connected through so- cial media. My work is enough to help me connect with people”, says Rohit Bha- tia, a Delhi-based property developer. But with a thousand voices trumpeting from different sides, which one do you be- lieve? The key is to be a know- ing observer who is aware, circumspect and can commit to detachment from this for- ever-connected mode from time to time. Lakshi Bhatia Perils of gleaning knowledge from a flood of information

Upload: marco-s

Post on 21-Jul-2016

7 views

Category:

Documents


2 download

DESCRIPTION

Newspaper - JUne

TRANSCRIPT

Page 1: Newspaper June

CMYK

ND-ND

CITY2 THE HINDU MONDAY JUNE 16 2014

NOIDADELHI

AAP begins reorganisation bidThe Haryana unit of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) held ameeting of its volunteers at Sukhrali village here onSunday to assess the situation and rebuild the party Page 4

Emergency immunisation drive to tackle encephalitisThe death of 44 children in Bihar over the past month due toencephalitis has prompted the Union Health Ministry to order100-per-cent immunisation of children Page 5

GURGAON Official figuresstate that 33000 people rideeveryday on the RapidMetro a three-coach trainthat when compared to itsolder bigger cousin in Delhiresembles a toy trainnavigating the Gurgaonskyline This privately builtMetro line services a 51 kmlong route that has sixstations three of which arenamed after its sponsors ndash aBritish telecom company abank and an Indian phonemanufacturer

In this entirely elevatedroute that presently runs aloop service that begins andends at Sikanderpur thefootfall is highest in the

Phase-3 station which isclosest to Cyber Green andbuilding numbers 7 9 and14 According to the officialsat Rapid Metro the stationnamed after the bank ndashIndusInd Bank Cyber City ndashwhich has been operationalfor only about a month nowwill in the next quarter see ajump of 30 per cent in itsridership figures

Skyrocketing parkingcharges at the nearby CyberHub a place described as aldquoheaven for foodiesrdquo by theonline community for itsrange of restaurants may bethe reason for this estimatedjump in ridership at thisstation A Rapid Metrospokesperson concursldquoRecently I saw a large

for the elite Gurgaonrsquospopulation is a mixed crowdof residents commercialenterprises and officer goersand it is important to tailor-make approaches toconvince each of thesegroups to switch fromprivate vehicles to the trainrdquo

The Delhi Metro he saidheld multiple street plays forinstance in slums andresidential areas when itsfirst line came up more thana decade ago to convincepeople to use the train ldquoThetransport system is after allfor public consumption andit is important that it reflectsthe sentiment of the peoplerdquo

defers in his views on howthe line is currently beingmanaged

ldquoThe line has beenconstructed very well butlacks in operational aspectsGurgaon is a multi-culturaland multi-strata society andit is important for people tobe convinced to use theMetrordquo he said

Citing an example wherethe Rapid Metro organised aprogramme for companyCEOs to walk and ride on theMetro the official said ldquoIfyou only do programmesthat target the top bosses ofcompanies it will appear thatthe Metro train is reserved

The Rapid Metro was tocarry nearly 1 lakh peopledaily but officials claim it istoo early to judge the successof this private project ldquoWecommissioned the line inNovember 2013 and we onlymade the IndusInd BankCyber City operational amonth ago so itrsquos unfair tosay we havenrsquot reached theestimated daily footfalllevels In fact we expect thisnew station to soon be theone which sees the highestfootfallrdquo said thespokesperson

An official who workedvery closely with the RapidMetro project however

is far more convenient tojust take an auto directlyrdquoshe said Aparna was usingthe Rapid Metro for the firsttime this week only becauseshe was travelling to Delhi

ldquoI feel connectivity is ahuge problem for peoplewho live in Gurgaon Maybefor people who come in fromDelhi and Ghaziabad thisMetro service is convenientIrsquod rather use autos to getaroundrdquo she addedVaishali-resident PankajSaxena and Lajpat Nagarresident Shobit both ofwhom work in one of themany high-rise buildingshere are cases in point

Upadhyay lives in GurgaonrsquosSector-14 Every day shespends Rs 100 on anautorickshaw which takesher directly from her hometo her place of work at DLFSquare closest to theVodafone Belvedere Towersthe third station on the loopservice Travelling anywhereon the line has a fixed rate ofRs 12

ldquoIf I take the Metro Iwould end up spending Rs70 to go to the MG Roadstation on the Delhi MetrorsquosYellow Line then changetrains at Sikenderpur totravel to my office I will endup saving maybe Rs 10 but it

group of women andchildren travelling on theRapid Metro to Cyber HubDue to the exorbitantparking charges and lack ofspace on weekends manypeople choose to park theircars either in Sikanderpur orHuda City Centre stationsand take the trainrdquo said thespokesperson

Yet how many of the33000 people who ride onthe Rapid Metro areGurgaon locals This weekThe Hindu took a ride on theRapid Metro andinterestingly found morenumber of ldquoout of townrdquocommuters travelling infrom Delhi and Noida ascompared to locals

24-year-old Aparna

Sowmiya Ashok

Are Gurgaon residents game for a smooth ride on the Rapid Metro

The Rapid Metro track running through Gurgaonrsquos commercial area mdash PHOTO S SUBRAMANIUM

A young commuter inside the Rapid Metro in Gurgaon mdash PHOTO MONICA TIWARI

It has been said that 33000 people ride every day on this privately built metro line The Hindu takes a ride on the RapidMetro and finds that there are more number of ldquoout-of-townrdquo commuters travelling on this route than the locals

NEW DELHI Entrepreneurshipis the new fashion mantrathat todayrsquos youth not onlywear but also carry wellwith an eacutelan

In the infinite horde ofaspirations young studentsare trying hard to build theirown identity while baskingin the joy of working forthemselves

Some of the popular areaswhich have witnessed youngentrepreneurial activitiesare IT services e-commerceproduct developmentcounselling photographyand entertainment

Sanyam Bajaj a businesseconomic graduate fromMaharaj Agarsen Collegehas come up with his ownphoto studio

This 21-year-oldphotographer started hiscareer with ldquozeroinvestmentrsquorsquo using themoney won in 36competitions ndash a sum ofabout Rs36000 ndash to buyhimself a Canon 600D

He has covered somemajor projects and insiststhat determination was hismantra

For 23-year-old RuchikaBatra who loves to

lsquomeditate and do yoga in heroversized T-shirtsrsquo as perher twitter profile thepassion to help people madeher launch ldquoYoga ofmiraclesrdquo website

She started with a websitein her name and nowconducts yoga workshopsand life coaching sessionsfor youngsters in 20-30age-group

ldquoIt took me a while tobring traffic to my websitespecifically because of myyoung age but the future isbright for online businessesand if it serves the society itis sure to go bigrdquo insistedRuchika

Team work is animportant pillar of strengthfor youngsters who dabblein business

Custom T was co-foundedin 2012 by three friends whosought to simplify the waypeople order custom T-shirts online

Videt Jaiswal from NSITDelhi and co-founder of themerchandising venturesaid ldquoWe all were in ourfirst year of college and westarted with a gruesomeexperience with a localdealer who ruined oursociety t-shirts We hadspent a week designing thet-shirts and collecting the

money from our batchmates but when the t-shirtscame post-printing after 14more days they werehorrific This incident wasan inspiration and wetranslated it into actionrdquo

Since youngsters arepassionate about sportssome have identifiedlucrative businessopportunities in this

Pranav Harmilapi 21founder Delhi SoccerLeague says ldquodont losehoperdquo is the moral thatdrives him

ldquoIt all started when I wasrepeating Class XI I wasunder peer pressure andknowing that I had flunk inthe class I was determinedto prove that I was waybetter than others I wasmotivated to do somethingin life and never let failureaffect merdquo he said

He has done around 20events since November 2010and hopes that DSL Season7 will be another triumph tohis kitty

Some youngsters havealso used technology andscientific advancement tobuild their own careerswhile bridging the gapbetween innovation andtechnology

Aishwariya Goel founder

of EmbedLearn is anengineer by profession whorather than taking up a jobdecided to build her ownbusiness

She has since organisedaround 20 workshops andwinter camps in Delhi foraround 1000 students

EmbedLearnLaboratories was conceivedwith a dream to improve theelement of ldquoLearning byDoingrdquo pedagogy in theIndian education systemThrough her venture shestrives to provide qualityeducation by ensuring thatstudents get adequatepractical knowledge apartfrom academic learning

Now Aishwarya said sheis ldquoworking to set upcustomised Labs in differentparts of Delhi By mid-Junewe will be launching ourfirst IDiscover Lab in anNGO in Karol Baghrdquo

The rise youngentrepreneurs in theNational Capital is a sign ofeconomic development Itreiterates the belief thatemployment is notgenerated but created andfor it to happen it is veryimportant to have a climatewhere young entrepreneursnot only grow but are alsoable to sustain their growth

Young entrepreneurs and their talesLakshi Bhatia and Parul Garg

NEW DELHI Aspirants of bank-ing exams made a bee-line onSunday morning for thebanking seminar organisedby Career Launcher in collab-oration with The Hindu Thejam-packed Kamani Audito-rium eagerly awaited Abhish-ek Gaike a serial bankingexam topper to begin with thesession

Mr Gaike talked about thevarious opportunities in thebanking field Mr Gaike is aformer manager of ICICIBank Mumbai and holds aPost-Graduate Diploma inBankingThrough interactionwith the participants he alsoclarified several myths asso-ciated with banking examsand gave the aspirants a newperspective towards thebanking field

Besides Mr Gaike PraveenTyagi was also part of the ses-sion As an academician whohas been associated with CLover the past 11 years MrTyagi shared techniques thatwould help aspirants in mak-ing speedy calculations dur-ing entrance examinationsMr Tyagiexplained in detailhow with ldquosmarter question-solving techniques one canavoid tedious calculations

Smarter way tocrack bankingexams Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI In the last threeyears Venkatesh Kandunooriand his friends have travelled toeight States with his largesketch of cricketer Sachin Ten-dulkar and collected 98 auto-graphs of national andinternational personalities onit All thatrsquos left are autographsof Prime Minister NarendraModi and Congress presidentSonia Gandhi After gettingthese Venkatesh plans to pre-sent the painting to PresidentPranab Mukherjee

However after spending for-ty days in the Capital Venka-tesh has still not got anappointment with either leaderWhile Mr Modi is expected toreturn from Bhutan by Tues-day Ms Gandhi is leaving forthe United States for medicaltreatment and will only returnafter three weeks

ldquoI started on this sketch justbefore the cricket World Cup in2011 It took me six months tocomplete it In the last threeyears I have spent Rs 5 lakhtravelling and approaching re-nowned persons to sign mypainting I financed this by sell-ing other works of minerdquo Ven-katesh told The Hindu

The four-and-a-half foot por-trait of the legend is surroundedby national symbols and small-er sketches of personalitieslinked to cricket Sachin or thenation

These include former cricketcaptains Kapil Dev and SunilGavaskar national and spiritualpersonalities like MahatmaGandhi Swami Vivekanandaand Sathya Sai Baba Indiarsquosfirst cricket captain CK Nayu-du Sachinrsquos first coach Rama-kant Achrekar cricketers DonBradman and Vivian Richards

It also features the Indian

Koh-i-noor Diamond on theBritish crown

ldquoThisrdquo according to Venka-

tesh ldquosymbolises that eventhough we donrsquot have the dia-mond with us these people are

our koh-i-noorsrdquoThose who autographed this

epic painting include PresidentMukherjee former PresidentAPJ Abdul Kalam the chiefministers of Andhra PradeshTelangana Tamil Nadu Mah-arashtra and Uttar Pradesh for-mer Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwalsocial activist Anna Hazaremusicians Lata Mangeshkarand AR Rahman the 2011 Indi-an cricket team which includesSachin himself and film starssuch as Amitabh BachchanMadhuri Dixit Nene HrithikRoshan Aishwarya Rai

The person who played themost hard to get so far was MrKalam ldquoIt took me two years toget his autograph Finally I gotit during this visit to DelhiTravelling everywhere by trainI spent sleepless nights protect-ing the painting I have donethis to attract government andthe public to support and fund

sportsrdquo explained Venkateshwho is currently put up withfriends in Saket

A student of the JawaharlalNehru Architecture and FineArts University in HyderabadVenkatesh has also created a re-alist statue of Sardar Vallabhb-hai Patel The foot-tall brassstatue which has lsquoUNITYrsquo em-bossed on its base in silver re-sembles Soviet-style statueswith flowing garments and chi-selled expressions

ldquoI have already planned mynext work It will be a timelineof Indian History from 3000BC But first I need these twoautographs to complete a cen-tury and give it to the PresidentI have already spent Rs 60000in Delhi A taxi to transport thispainting to and from various of-fices in order to get an appoint-ment with the leaders costs Rs2000 a day But I wonrsquot give uprdquohe told The Hindu

A long wait for the last two autographs to complete Sachinrsquos sketch Pheroze L Vincent

Venkatesh Kandunoori with his works in New Delhi mdash PHOTO RAJEEV BHATT

NEW DELHI The School of Open Learning (SOL)will finally open its admission gates on Tuesdaya day after Delhi University shuts its applicationprocess The move comes after a series of pro-tests by the Staff Association and the SOL Stu-dentsrsquo Union Previously admissions for SOLbegan along with the admissions for regularcolleges

As per the schedule application forms will beavailable online and offline

The online forms are free and the offlineforms are available for Rs 100 The online formswill be made available from Tuesday whereasthe physical forms will be available at the SOLonly from June 25 The last date for applyingwithout a late fee is August 21

Thereafter a late fee of Rs 200 will be chargedand the final last date for seeking admissions isSeptember 15

The SOL is currently offering courses like BAprogramme BCom BCom (Honours) BA(Honours) English and BA (Honours) PoliticalScience

SOL to issue applicationsfrom tomorrowStaff Reporter

NEW DELHI Everyday we con-sume copious amounts of in-formation from sources suchas the internet fora blogsweb applications podcastswebcasts news emails andthe significant social mediabandwagon including Face-book Twitter PinterestTumbler Becoming our ownlsquoassimilatorsrsquo we create a dig-ital identity for ourselvesldquoWe are lsquodrowningrsquo in the ageof information and yet starvefor knowledgerdquo remarkedAmerican author and publicspeaker John Naisbitt

Massive amount of infor-mation can be counter-pro-ductive and impact decisionmaking sensibilities Caughtin the uninspiring rut wehave witnessed the tempestu-ous loss of our very own tradi-tional habits such as readingoffline

From reading emails tomanaging updates we arebreathing walking and talk-ing information

Shruti a 20-year old DelhiUniversity student agreesldquoWhile there was a time whenaccess to information was al-most a luxury today evenwhile there is a glut of infor-mation it is sometimes a bit

of a letdown Revamped con-tent innumerable argu-ments different schools ofthought but no conclusionNo matter how much youhave read therersquos anotherperson who has dug in variedinformation and that personcan make us feel miserablerdquoshe says

Nabeel K Adeni a socialmedia evangelist and consult-ant agrees that with the in-cessant amount of contentcoming in through differentsocial media it has becomechallenging to consume in-formation

ldquoSocial Media has given thepower to every individual tocreate consume and sharecontent of all sizes and for-mats Like all good thingseven this has side effectsrdquosaid Mr Adeni

ldquoIt has become difficult todecipher knowledge infor-mation and data from eachother The information over-load has made it difficult tosearch for and process the re-quired information therebymaking it cumbersome to doanalysis and make decisionsThis is where we need to pickand choose our sourcesrdquo headded

Many ascribe the lsquoeasy ac-cessrsquo as the spoiler here oth-

ers feel that they have to becareful on the ill-effects it hason the stakeholders involvedldquoChildren are not equipped toseize information that theyview Any kind of informationarouses interest I have tokeep a constant watch onwhat my kids are doingrdquo saysShalini Manchanda a teacherand a mother of two

ldquoEven ldquotoo much informa-tionrdquo is good for me as it tellsme about different aspects ofthe same thing It facilitatescomparison Tabulating in-formation is the solution forme to deal with informationoverloadrdquo says Palash a mar-keting professional Otherssay they find it to use the in-ternet as and when it is re-quired

ldquoI donrsquot feel the need to re-main connected through so-cial media My work isenough to help me connectwith peoplerdquo says Rohit Bha-tia a Delhi-based propertydeveloper

But with a thousand voicestrumpeting from differentsides which one do you be-lieve The key is to be a know-ing observer who is awarecircumspect and can committo detachment from this for-ever-connected mode fromtime to time

Lakshi Bhatia

Perils of gleaning knowledgefrom a flood of information