volume 02 | issue 37
DESCRIPTION
JUN 20 - JUN 26 , 2015TRANSCRIPT
VOLUME 02 | ISSUE 37JUN 20 - JUN 26 , 2015PRICE 10
PG 10
DCP TRAFFICIn ConversatIon wIth
Pranab JyotI GoswamI Page 24
Emma StonereGrets DeletInG all of her emaIls
BeneFITs AnD PoPulARITy oFyogA Among The youTh
ToPCollegesoF ghy
TREKKERSHUT DOWN
to affect employment
Contd. on PG 02
PG04
We bring you the best colleges in the city determined by analysing the infrastructural quality along with the grade received by the colleges from the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC)
PG 13
G PLUS JUN 20 - JUN 26, 20152
s.B. Deorah Collegeestablishment -1984
number of students- approx 1500
teachers - 21 permanent and 16 contractual and per time
Departments – 9
naaC accreditation – got grade C++ in 2004
UGC recognized
laboratories- Education lab and computer lab
“We have students from hill districts and as the students are not so meritorious the results are not up to the mark. We take students who are weak in academics and therefore we cannot expect a good position but now it is reviving.”
Dhrubajyoti Das Librarian
With aspirations to study in the best colleges of the city, students step out into a world full of strug-gle, hopes and dreams, which starts with getting
admissions into their dream college. Guwahati at present is witnessing a major admission process and the competition is mind numbing.
But what makes a college good and which are the best ones in Guwahati?
Talking to 100 students, G Plus found out that 40 per cent students feel Cotton College is still the best. 25 per cent
ToP Colleges oF ghy
Cotton Collegeestablished – 1901
number of students – 4500 (approx)
teaching strength -175 at present
Departments – 25
naaC accreditation – Reaccred-ited by NAAC with grade ‘A’ in 2011
UGC recognised – Recognised
number of laboratories – individual laboratories in all required departments
Placement cell associated with various organisation placing approximately 30 per cent students every year
“I did not do a survey but I feel that Cotton College is not only best in Guwahati but in the entire northeast as it always has the high-est cut off marks during admissions and we get the best students. Also in 2011, NAAC accredited the college with grade A with a CGPA of 3.39 which is the highest in northeast.”
Dr nirada DeviPrincipal, Cotton College
B Barooah Collegeestablished – 1943
number of students – 2500(approx)
teaching strength –sanctioned post – 77, at present - 68
Departments – 18
naaC accreditation – Accredit-ed by NAAC with grade ‘B++’in 2005
UGC recognised – Recognised
number of laboratories – eight
Placement cell associated with various organisations
“Result wise, this college is earmarked and results reflects performance. By every passing year, the number of first class holders is increasing in all the departments.”
millie Kakaty Vice Principal, B Barooah College
handique girls’ Collegeestablished – 1939
number of students – 3000(ap-prox)
teaching strength – 130
Departments – 22
naaC accreditation – Accredit-ed by NAAC with grade ‘B++’in 2009
UGC recognised – Recognised
number of laboratories – labo-ratories in all required departments
the college has a career guidance cell
“It is the only girls’ college in the northeast which started with only two students in 1939. Our alumni are settled in the best places and they prove that we are producing the best girl students. Because of space constraint, we are suffering a bit as we are not being able to provide some infrastruc-ture like sports etc but still the best students come to our college.”
nirmali medhiVice principal
Pragjyotish Collegeestablished – 1954
number of students –4500 approx
naaC accreditation- Grade ‘B’
UGC recognised – Recog-nised
number of laboratories – Geography, education and science all subjects
Placement cell available
KC Das Commerce Collegeestablished – 1983
number of students – above 3000
teaching strength – above 60
Departments – 10
naaC accreditation – Accredit-ed by NAAC with grade ‘B+’ in 2008
UGC recognised – Recognised
number of laboratories – Only required commerce laboratories
the college has a placement cell associated to some or-ganisations
“The KC Das college had a very good results this year and the number of students seeking admis-sions has increased drastically which makes us one of the best college in the city.”
teachers
Arya Vidyapeeth Collegeestablished - 1958
no. of students- 3000
teachers – 100 (approx)
Department - 20
naaC accreditation- B++ in 2005
UGC recognised
number of laboratories – Sci-ence and language lab
Placement cell associated with various organisation
“Infrastructure wise we might not be the best but our faculty is better than Cotton or B Barooah College.”
ranuj Kumar DasVice president, Students Union
gauhati Commerce Collegeestablished – 1962
number of students – 3000 (approx)
teaching strength – 120 (approx)
Departments – 25
naaC accreditation – Grade B in 2012
UGC recognised – Recognised
number of laboratories – all required labs available
Placement cell associated with various organisation
“The college has been able to earn reputation in all spheres. In the fields of games, sports and other cultural and literary activities, the college has been occupying a place of pride in all the years ever since its inception.”
teacher
Pandu Collegeestablished – 1962
number of students – below 2500
teaching strength – 77 sanc-tioned and 29 per time and non-sanctioned faculties
naaC accreditation- grade ‘B’ in 2010
UGC recognised – Recognised
number of laboratories – Edu-cation lab and science subjects
Placement cell available and annually about 30% student placed.
“The Times of India rated the college among the Top 10 colleges two-three years back. The infra-structure of the college has been upgraded and we are trying our best to bring the college within the top colleges.”
bhubaneshwar bora Principal
Dispur Collegeestablished – 1978
number of students – below 2500
Departments – 11
naaC accreditation- B in 2005
UGC recognised – Recognised
number of laboratories – Edu-cation lab, electronic and computer lab for BCA
Placement cell available and annually 3-4 students placed.
“In 2012 the Times of India said that it was one of the best colleges according to a survey. Glamour wise, the college do not get any recognition but infrastruc-ture wise the college is developed. The output is not visible and in Assam the government institution will die to the deteriorating quality of education.”
amar saikia Principal
students feel B Barooah is the best, 20 per cent students wanted to join Arya Vidya Peeth, 18 per cent students said Handique is the best for girls, 7 per cent feel KC Das provides a management feel and rest of the stu-dents did not exactly know where to go.
G Plus also talked to different colleges in the city to find out the number of students, faculty strength, de-partments and courses available and also their NAAC accreditation and UGC validation. G Plus writes about top 10 most preferred colleges in the city.
Lead Story
G PLUS FEATURE
The best colleges were chosen by analysing the infrastructure quality of the college along with the grade received by the colleges from NAAC. The National Assessment and Ac-creditation Council (NAAC) is an or-ganization that assesses and accredits institutions of higher education in In-dia.
G PLUS JUN 20 - JUN 26, 2015 3
In The News
AssAm sAnmIlITA mAhAsABhAexPRess ConCeRn oVeR
uPDATIng nRCThe Assam Sanmilita Mahasang-ha, an organisation of indig-enous people of the state, has
expressed concern over the ongoing process of updating the National Reg-ister of Citizens (NRC), saying that the exercise would only ensure citizenship for 70-odd lakh illegal migrants stay-ing in the state besides facilitating dual citizenship for 1.5 crore legal and ille-gal citizens.
In a statement, the Mahasangha said that the indigenous communi-ties of Assam would be reduced to a meagre 12-15 per cent following com-pletion of the NRC update process and will not serve the interests of the indigenous people of the state and would rather affect the people.
“The NRC update is not going to serve the interests of the state’s indig-enous groups, as it will ensure citizen-ship rights for 70 lakhs illegal migrants from Bangladesh and Nepal, which is against the Indian Constitution”, a statement by the Mahasangha said.
“Also the process will provide dual citizenship to those from other Indian states who have settled in Assam. This will totally marginalise the indigenous communities who will end up losing their political power. Moreover, the Constitution of India does not provide for any dual citizenship,” it added.
ASM working president, Mo-tiur Rahman also alleged that those belonging to a particular state of the country should apply from one’s re-
spective states. “There are several people belonging to different states around the country staying in Assam for various purposes. Some are here for their jobs while there are several people carrying out business in the state for years. One can enjoy his/her citizenship by having their name enlisted on the voters’ list, which is a temporary process but updating of the NRC from a different state will hence only end up providing dual-citizen-ship to such people while it should be carried out in one’s respective state. Being an Indian citizen one can enjoy his/her voting right from any part of the country by enlisting their names before elections”, Rahman said.
The Mahasangha also pointed out that nowhere in India (in any other state) had any NRC update exercise been ever taken up and there is no plan, whatsoever, to have the NRC updated in other states in the coming days. The Mahasangha urged the Cen-tre to free Assam of illegal migrants in the real sense of the term.
“Many veteran politicians are not even aware of the process of Nation-al Register of Citizenship. In India, NRC was carried out in December,
1951 and there is no provision to up-grade the process according to Indian Constitution. NRC is not a subject of upgrading but is only carried out in Assam while no other state has been involved in the process as it is a clear violation of the constitution”, Rahman added.
Earlier, the ASM, an umbrella or-ganization of different indigenous and tribal communities, said that it would strongly oppose any “conspiracy” to include names in the national citizens register (NRC) of those people who entered Assam between 1951 and March 25, 1971 from Bangladesh.
The ASM also alleged that there has been a conspiracy to include the names of people who came to Assam between 1951 and March 25, 1971, claiming that these people should be treated as foreigners and only be given citizenship after one has formally ap-proached the government.
The ASM had also reiterated its opposition to the cutoff date (March 25, 1971) for identification and depor-tation of foreigners, saying that the or-ganizations which are supporting the cutoff date should refrain from doing so because it is unconstitutional and the conspiracy to include people who
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entered the state from Bangladesh be-tween 1951 and March 25, 1971 will go against the interest of indigenous and tribal people.
It can be added that the ASM, the Indigenous Tribal People’s Front and the NDFB (Progressive) in May 2013 wrote to former Prime Minis-ter Manmohan Singh that updating the NRC would be a faulty exercise if proper identification and detection of foreigners is not done beforehand. The three organizations also argued that by including names of people in the NRC who entered Assam from Bangladesh between 1951 and March 24, 1971 would reduce the indigenous people to a minority as “lakhs” of peo-ple from the neighbouring country would get citizenship.
The Assam Sanmilita Maha-sangha, an organisation that has been waging a legal battle in the Supreme Court, also questioned that the updat-ing the NRC with the present criteria, as the issue of validity of the Section 6 (A) of the Citizenship Act is sub-judice but has started according to the apex court’s instructions.
G PLUS JUN 20 - JUN 26, 20154
In The News
TREKKER SHUT DOWN
Trekker drivers in the city have been going through a harrow-ing time following the govern-
ment’s sudden decision of suspend-ing trekker services in the city. While trekker and other shared taxi drivers have expressed concern over the sud-den decision, some are confident that barring such services is not an easy move.
One of the trekker drivers in Paltan Bazar said that there are over 25,000 trekker drivers in the city who are dependent on the profession to earn their livelihood and just earn enough to feed their family.
“If the services are suspended, a lot of families will face huge trou-ble. Through the daily service we just earn enough to feed our families after paying the fines, the daily fares to the trekker owners, parking charges and whatever is required for the mainte-nance of the trekkers. If barred from driving, then we will have no em-ployment at all”, said Robin Baishya, a trekker driver.
There are 13 different trekker lines in the city that have an associa-tion for each area where the services are carried out. The association in-cludes the owners and drivers and look after the smooth functioning of the trekkers in their respective areas. Among these routes, Dispur to Kahilipara, Nepali Mandir to Lal-ganesh, Six Mile to Narengi, Ganesh-guri to Hatigaon and Bhangagarh to Chandmari through Rajgarh are the busiest ones. The administration, by suspending the shared-commuting system has also raised concerns
among those dependent upon such services on a regular basis.
“The trekkers only commute in those areas where there is lack of other public transport systems and people are enormously dependent on such vehicles. Suspending such ser-vices will only create havoc among the people. The government should tighten their grip and order the po-lice to be more strict about such vehicles rather than completely sus-pending the services”, said Atrayee Bhowmick, a commuter who has to travel from Lal Ganesh to Nepali Mandir on a regular basis.
“There is no question that the trekkers and shared tempos are among the most that causes accidents but suspending the service will only create problems for the common peo-ple. The government, rather than sus-pending the services, should be more strict towards the trekkers and deploy more traffic officials to keep an eye on them. The problem of rash driving will not come to an end by suspend-ing the service”, stated a commuter.
“The minimum fare of a trekker is `8 whereas a passenger will have to pay a lot more as they will have to commute through break journeys. The minimum fare might not suit the pocket of common man,” a commuter added.
Following the government’s de-cision, the All Guwahati Share Taxi Owners’ Association (AGSTOA) has strongly opposed the sudden deci-sion to stop share-taxi (trekker) ser-vices in Guwahati. In their defence, they are saying that a lot of youths
would lose their livelihoods. Deep Majumdar, the AGSTOA
president added that the decision for suspension of trekker services in Guwahati was met with great response back in 2003, but the cur-rent government’s decision to stop the service would greatly affect the youths trying to make ends meet. And this would also affect the cheap public transportation in the city.
The association has suspected foul play behind the decision of the government, saying, “The public will also be deprived of cheaper means of transportation within the city.”
The AGSTOA alleged that the transport department had entered into a nexus with some private par-ties. It appealed to the public and the organisations concerned not to fall prey to the sinister move and in-stead, raise their voice against it. The association would resort to a demo-cratic protest to make their demands heard if need be.
There are over 800 trekkers in the city roads doing brisk business and nearly two lakh passengers de-pend on this mode of public trans-port daily and the government’s de-cision to withdraw trekkers would directly affect them.
The trekkers were introduced in the city in 2003 when Anjan Dutta was the Transport Min-ister with the idea of providing employment to the youths of the State. With the government de-ciding to bar the trekker services, those dependent on it are bound to face the heat.
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Foul play by police officials add to autorickshaw drivers’ concern
In the route between Nepali Mandir to Lal Ganesh, the Diesel Autorickshaws (tempos) are often subjected to harassment by police and enforcement officials. As al-leged by the drivers, there are cer-tain diesel autorickshaws that have a mark “?” (Note of interrogation coloured in red or white) which pay Gunda Tax to the police to relieve them of any kind of fines during any kind of violations.
“While we have to pay violation charges of upto `600 on a regular basis, which we have to make up by gathering more passengers, the marked autos can roam freely with-out the threat of paying any kind
of fine. It is only because the diesel autorickshaws owners pay a certain amount everyday to the police”, said an autorickshaw driver.
Another diesel autorickshaws driver with a similar mark on the windshield of the vehicle on asking said, “We have special power and the police will not stop us.”
Moreover, the route between Nepali Mandir to Lal Ganesh is one of the busiest routes having around 250 diesel autorickshaws running in the particular line of which only around 25 vehicles run with a proper permit. The same has come to act after the demise of Deb Kumar, a member of the autorickshaw as-sociation on the particular route, who best handled the autorickshaws plying on the route between Nepali Mandir to Lal Ganesh.
to affeCt emPloyment
G PLUS JUN 20 - JUN 26, 2015 5
In The News
A Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) workshop with the initiative of Additional Superintendent
of Police (Communications) Biraj Das was organized on 16th June, 2015 at APRO Training School, Jalukbari conducted by Bhabajeet Choudhury and his team which was attended by the recruits of the Assam Police Radio Organisation (APRO) and the Veeran-gana unit of the Assam Police. During the workshop, Bhabajeet demonstrat-ed several self-defence and attacking techniques that can be utilised in one’s day to day life.
Concentrating most part of the workshop towards the safety of women and the dos and don’ts dur-ing times of emergencies, the MMA instructor along with his team show-cased several moves that involved participation of both male and female recruits of APRO and Verangana. During the workshop Bhabajeet also demonstrated a set of intense workout session of five minutes including 10 different workouts like Burpees, Poke-jump, Thrusters, Plank, Highknees, Push-ups, Jump-squat, Crunches and Chest-jump each for a time frame of 30 seconds. Following the demonstra-tion by Choudhury’s team, the same was continued by APRO recruits and Veerangana. “People say that crime rates have risen but that is not it, the actually reason is the rise in popula-tion and the fight for one’s own space. There are several reasons that cause a decent and educated person to indulge in crime due to the lack of his own space in the society.
The carrying of the workshop was most important for the Veerangana who patrol the city streets during late hours and come across different kinds of criminals and through the initiative of APRO, there has been several tech-niques demonstrated to the personnel.
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APRo initiatesmmA workshop
As there are several new technologies that are being introduced to make one’s life easier, similarly MMA has various techniques that can help a weaker per-son to overpower a much stronger one and the initiative will help in a great deal for police personnel”, said Biraj Das.
Diganta Barman, Technical Direc-tor, NIC who also actively participated in the demonstration spoke about the techniques and fitness regime of MMA and stated that police personnel should stay ahead of a normal citizen in the matter of fitness and such workshops will help in boosting their enthusiasm through MMA.
During the workshop, the MMA fighter stressed that while other com-bat sports are taught to earn points in their respective competitions, in MMA one only hits to damage, irrespective of how strong the opponent is. Hence, it can be very useful for one’s day to day life and for the female unit, Veeranga-na who has to deal with different types of criminals, few basic moves of the
sport can come in handy. MMA (Mixed martial arts) is a
full-contact combat sport that allows the use of both striking and grappling techniques, both standing and on the ground, from a variety of other combat sports and martial arts, including the most effective Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
Bhabajeet “ Stretcher “ Choudhury is a SFL(Super Fight League) fighter of
international ranking and his actions are to be seen to be believed.
The workshop was inaugurated by LB Singha, Director of Police (Com-munications), Assam and arranged by Prasanta Saikia, Superintendent of Police (Commn) Trg. and Biraj Das, Addl. SP(Commn) for promoting this super unarmed self-defence technique.(L to R) Prasanta Saikia, Superintendent of Police (Communications) Trg., Diganta
Barman, Technical Director, NIC, LB Singha, Director of Police (Communications), Assam and Biraj Das, Addl. SP(Communications)
G PLUS JUN 20 - JUN 26, 20156
City
Weather report for the weekSAT
20 JuneSUN
21 JuneMON
22 JuneTUE
23 JuneWED
24 JuneTHU
25 JuneFRI
26 June
Numerous showers Heavy rain Heavy rain Heavy rain Numerous showers Mostly cloudy Partly sunny
26 / 34 °C 25 / 34 °C 25 / 30 °C 24 / 30 °C 25 / 32 °C 25 / 33 °C 25 / 33 °C
CITy hosTel BusIness InCReAseD sTuDenTs FRom DIFFeRenT PlACes
BoosT PRIVATe ACComoDATIons
With more and more stu-dents coming to the city for higher education from
across the state, hostel owners in the city are doing brisk business as stu-dents stay in private hostel or as pay-ing guests in private accomodations.
Students mostly prefer to stay near their colleges and as the city’s top colleges are in and around the areas of Panbazar, Dighalipukhuri and Ul-ubari, therefore, hostels in Uzanbazar are in high demand.
“In today’s date, hostels are in demand depending on the place and environment. Students’ prefer to stay near colleges as it becomes easier for them to communicate. Uzanbazar be-ing a centre place, maximum students opted to stay here. They also don’t find any problem with water which is gen-erally the main problem in hostels. There are 8-10 hostels within a 100 meter distance here in Uzanbazar and running a hostel is not an easy task. We can’t take high fees from the stu-dents and has to manage within the stipulated fees. Besides, the girls use laptops, hair dryers, iron, iron rod for which we have to pay a huge electricity bill but we can’t charge extra for that,” said Arunjyoti Das, owner of Asheey-ana Girls’ Paying Guest, Uzanbazar,
while speaking to G Plus.Das said, “For renewal of license I
have to give `4,400 for 16 seats while I paid `10,400 while establishing the hostel. Other than this, I have to buy commercial LPG cylinders in black. We provide quality food and it is pro-vided according to the preference of the girls. The entry time is 7 pm and I also installed CCTV for security pur-pose so that girls do not get involved in any untoward incident.”
Das said that the rate per seat is `4000 and they have to manage every-
thing within that price in which they don’t get much profit as their food is better than the other hostels. They also don’t prefer any working women be-cause it becomes risky when the tim-ings do not match the exit and entry time of the hostel.
Nilamoni Gogoi, owner of Aunty Paying Guest said that the girls stay in a homely environment and as she has been running the business since last five years she has both students and working ladiesin her hostel.
“Being a single woman, I cook
affected but still students prefer the places as some of the colleges like Swadeshi Academy and Icon Acad-emy are nearby. Especially the medi-cal students who do not get hostels in their first year stay in private hostels. The rates are comparatively lower than some of the other areas but still students prefer them as per their convenience,” said Suranjana Patgiri who owned a hostel earlier in Rajgarh Road.
Patgiri said that they used to run a hostel but due to the annual flood, they had to give up their business as girls did not want to stay there and they didn’t have much space to accom-modate the girls during flood.
Karishma Phukan, a job holder who stays in a hostel in Lachit Nagar said, “The food quality is very bad and there is a chance that we will suffer from malnutrition. We give `5,200 but the food we get should not even costs `500. I don’t know where the problem lies but we give money and according-ly we should be provided with quality foods.”
According to an official of Greater Guwahati Hostel and Paying Guest Owners’ Association, there are 750 hostels in the city out of which only 250 are registered.
JUThikA bARUAh
for the girls and therefore, they don’t complain about the quality of food. The rate is `3,500-4,000 and I can’t in-crease the charge as most of them are students,” said Gogoi.
On the other hand, the owner of Siksha Girls’ Hostel in Uzanbazar said that most of the time, it is the fault of the cook that the food quality is found unsatisfactory and it has become syn-onymous with girls’ complaints that hostel food is not good.
“We instruct the cook to prepare quality food according to the girls’ preferences but they often don’t follow the instructions and the blame comes to the owner that we do not provide good food,” the owner said. He also said that he only prefer the Aakash students as they stay in the hostel after the classes got over.
Sujit Das, owner of Swapna’s P.G. said that during the admission time, the rush of students is more and this is the time that it becomes difficult to manage seats as most of the students want hostel or PGs near their college.
However, the hostels in Rajgarh Road, Lachit Nagar, Anil Nagar and Nabin Nagar which is the most flood affected areas in the city also runs suc-cessfully although at a lower rate.
“Although these areas are flood
hostel rates in Different Places:
Hostels Places Rate/month
Asheeyana Girls’ P.G. Uzanbazar `4000
Aunty P.G. Uzanbazar `3500-4000
Navagiri Girls’ Hostel Chenikuthi `3000- `4000
Chitrabon Girls’ Hostel Lachit Nagar `4200- `5200
Siksha Girls’ Hostel Uzanbazar `4500
G PLUS JUN 20 - JUN 26, 2015 7
City
Denizens of Guwahati are heav-ing sighs of relief from the perennial problem of artificial
flood after the District Administra-tion along with Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC) and Guwahati Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) took stern action to make the city free from artificial flood.
In spite of heavy shower, areas of Anil Nagar, Nabin Nagar and other flood affected areas have not been af-fected by artificial flood this year as the water channels have been cleared and the administration has set up pumps in the low lying areas to flush out the water immediately. “It is good to see that the citizens have not faced prob-lem of artificial flood this year which used to create a hue and cry amongst the people during the monsoon. Al-though some areas were flooded, but the water has been pumped out within a short span of time,” said Commis-sioner of GMC, Narayan Konwar while speaking to G Plus.
An official of Regional Meteorol-ogy informed G Plus that the normal rainfall should be 186.3mm till June in Kamrup (M) but the actual rainfall is 172.5mm which is less by -7 per cent in 2015. While in the month of June, 2014, the measurement of normal rainfall was 365.5mm, the actual rain-fall was 330.7mm, which is less by -10 per cent.
Kamrup Metro District Commis-sioner, M. Angamuthu said that in the Chandmari rain gauge, the rainfall was measured at 108.7mm in the month of
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May, in Pandu it was 81.5mm, Gandhi Mandap 74mm, Rehabari 73mm and Byrnihat measured 105mm. Rainfall measured above 50mm is regarded as heavy rainfall.
“Last year the rainfall on 26th and 27th June was 65-68mm which is quite lower than this year but the flood that occurred in May did not last long as the water evacuation was much faster in the history of Bharalu. The water flow of Marabharalu was also faster than the earlier years. ISBT, Fatasil Ambari, Pamohi areas, a part of Zoo Road Tiniali, Gauhati Commerce Col-lege, Lachit Nagar are most affected
which will be taken care of and it took only few hours to drain out the water while last year, the water remained for 24-48 hours,” said Angamuthu.
On the other hand, last year the people of flood affected areas were provided with flood relief materials as most of them were affected by the flood and properties were damaged but this year, such a situation has not arisen due to the improved measures taken by the concerned department.
“Every year we are afraid of the monsoon season, as the artificial flood creates havoc among the people with Anil Nagar and Nabin Nagar being
the most affected areas, but this year, the administration, along with the concerned department has taken ad-equate measures to make the city free from flood. Although floods occurs but the water drains out within a short time for which the residents of the low lying areas have not suffered much,” said Raja Das, a resident of Anil Nagar.
Another resident of Lachit Nagar, Juree Dutta said, “This year we got quite a relief from the artificial flood and for this we have to thank the Principal Chief Secretary, M.G.V.K. Bhanu and the District Administra-tion for taking steps for a flood free
ARTificiAl flOOD SiTUATiON impROvES iN THE ciTy
city. Unlike other years, we do not have to stay like a refugee and at least our properties have not been dam-aged in flood.”
According to ASDMA, children are most vulnerable to flood and urged them to learn the safest route to a safe place in case of floods, to keep the certificates and documents safely in a water proof polythene packet.
In a flood review meeting, the Indian Meteorological Department said that they will give a presenta-tion on the existing facilities and progress on installing Doppler radar in Guwahati.
Moreover, the Chairman of GMDA, Dhiren Baruah said, “In Anil Nagar and Nabin Nagar, 80 per cent of the people are relieved from flood as water did not enter the houses. In the downstream, some houses are affected but the situation is under control. The water logging is cleared within 2-3 hours in the flood affected areas and it is expected that almost the entire city will be free from drain water. We cannot fight against nature but water logging will be solved completely with the effort of GMDA, GMC, PWD and active encouragement from Bhanu.”
The Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA) has also set up guidelines about what to do and what not during flood.
•Donotgonearsubmergedtransformers/electricalpoles/electricalwiresetc.
•Donotplayinrisingwater
•Donotswiminfloodedareas
•Donotattempttorescueyourfriendifhefallsinflowingwaterandinsteadcallforhelp.
G PLUS JUN 20 - JUN 26, 20158
FoR gu sTuDenTs
gRADIng sysTem Poses PRoBlemGauhati University is the first
public university of North East India. Established on the
26th of January, 1948 with just 17 af-filiated colleges, the University today has around 326 colleges under it. This institution has a long and glorious past along with an impressive list of alum-ni. The current vice-chancellor of the University is Dr. Mridul Hazarika.
Even though Gauhati Univer-sity attracts a great number of under-graduate and postgraduate applicants every year, the past few years has seen a significant number of students pre-ferring universities outside the state due to variety of reasons. The current batches of students who have enrolled themselves in various courses under Gauhati University have been seen to express discontent when it comes to some aspects of the semester sys-tem, which was introduced from the year 2011-12, particularly the credit and grading system as well as result-declaration.
The then Principal of B Barooah
1.Lackingthoroughunderstandingofthegradingunder semester system.The students felt thatthegradingsystemwasnotaneffectivetooltomeasureachild’struepotentialasitwasmoregeneralizingandlessparticularizinginnature.
2.Theteachersarequalifiedenoughbutnotthor-oughly acclimatized with the system due towhich some aspects of it remain to be imple-mentedfully.
3.TheUniversitytakesaverylongtimetodeclaresemester results. Sometimes, results wouldn’tbe declared until three months after comple-tionoftheexams.
4.Discrepanciesintheonlineresults-Itisunder-stood that the results declared online are forimmediate reference and may contain errors.However,sucherrorsareveryfrequentwhenitcomestoGauhatiUniversity.
5.Re-evaluationisaverytimeconsumingprocess.There-evaluationresultsarenotdeclareduni-formlyandsomestudentsaremadetowaital-mostsixmonthsfortheresults.
6.The re-evaluation process for undergraduatestudents inconsideredover-priced.Whilesim-plere-evaluationcosts`600perpaper,re-evalu-ationwithPhotostatcopiesoftheanswersheetcosts `700. It is beyond the understanding ofstudentshowaprocesslikePhotostatcancostanextra 100.Apartfromthis,thestudentshavetogo througha lotof trouble toget theircop-ies recheckedas thecashcountersare seldomfunctionalatthesametimeanddonotopenontime.
Bhanita Das, a student of TDC 4th semester says, “I had to get my Educa-tion (general) paper rechecked in the 1st semester. My pointer had increased from 4 to 8. It obviously wasn’t my fault that a mistake was made but I still had to pay `700 and visit the Uni-versity several times. I had applied for re-evaluation in May, 2014 and my re-sults were only declared in September. The same problem has occurred in the same paper in my 3rd semester exam. I applied for re-evaluation in April. I wonder when to expect results.”
Another students, Mridul Taluk-dar says that he and most his friends received erroneous online results last semester when one of the general sub-jects showed a CGPA of 0 for all of them. This mistake was corrected only after 3 days.
Shantana Talukdar of 2nd semes-ter says, “I have trouble understanding the grading system. I received a major point of 5.5 CGPA and this shocked me as well as my teachers who had ex-pected better scores from me. We were told that we would be given some sem-inar on the credit and grading system but that hasn’t happened yet. I have applied for re-evaluation in only one paper as the process is too expensive and I can’t afford to get another paper re-evaluated.”
Professors too understand that there is greater pressure on the students under semester system as compared to
the yearly system. Even though one semester covers six months, it is a known fact that classes take place for 3-4 months only and the pressure of syllabus completion is high. The stu-dents are required to sit for sessional examinations and complete assign-ments, leaving very less time for other activities. After all this, if a student does not get the result that he/she de-serves despite working hard, it is very demotivating.
When G plus approached profes-
College, Dinesh Baishya had wel-comed the University’s decision to introduce this system, adding that the University would have to declare results on time in order to make the system a success. Principals and sen-ior faculty members of the colleges were happy with the decision which came in light of the University miss-ing out on the coveted “A” grade status granted by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) in March, 2010. However, some things didn’t turn up too well after its intro-duction and students were left paying the price.
G plus conducted a survey among a group of 30 students pursuing un-dergraduate degree under Gauhati University. The survey showed alarm-ing results. While seven students claimed to be content with the system, 19 students expressed dissatisfaction and four students remained undecid-ed. The following is a list of the most common problems that the students faced:
sors for their opinion on the matter, they underlined several reasons that could possibly be responsible for the problems that the students face when it comes to results. They agree that the current loopholes in the examination/ credit and grading system are not con-ducive towards the academic develop-ment of the students. Archana Sarma, Professor, Department of Political Sci-ence, Handique Girls’ College, sums it all up. She says, “In my opinion, the following problems must be rectified:
1. Paper setting- Some of the questions are intended totorture students; particularly the short answer types.Evenwehaven’theardofsomeofthosequestions.
2. Answer script checking must be made obligatory foreveryteacher.Otherwiseoneteacherhastocheckhun-dredsofpapers.This isnothumanlypossibleandnotfor the benefit of students. Special papers should begiventoconcernedteacherswhohavespecializedinthesubject.
3. AnswerscriptsofthecollegesofGuwahatishouldnotbesenttosomeinteriorplace.”
MAyURi GoSwAMi
The motto of Gauhati University is ‘Vidyana Sadhayeto’, meaning, ‘Achieve-ment through Learning/ Knowledge’. This institution had served as a beacon of knowledge for several generations and will continue to do so in the years to come. If heed is paid to the problems of students, the University will flourish further and will someday be at par with the best Universities in the country.
G plus conducted a survey among a group of 30 studentspursuing undergraduate degree under Gauhati University.The survey showed alarming results.While seven studentsclaimedtobecontentwiththesystem,19studentsexpresseddissatisfactionandfourstudentsremainedundecided.
City
G PLUS JUN 20 - JUN 26, 2015 9
In The News
sahitya sabha president urge public to avoid religious lines
Asam Sahitya Sabha (ASS) pres-ident Dhruba Jyoti Borah has urged the people of the state
to march ahead together for a better tomorrow, leaving aside the narrow boundaries of religion in the interest of greater Assamese society.
Speaking on the topic ‘Present situation in Assam and the Muslim Society’ on occasion of Al-Ameen Janakalyan Samaj general annual meeting in the city, Borah said that the Muslims who have accepted Assamese culture for ages are also an integral part of the greater Assamese society.
“We have said that if we need to move ahead for better days, there is no point of thinking in the line of religion. Covering all the religions, we need to think on the basis of lan-guage, we need to build a greater As-
samese society. Otherwise we will be doomed,” said Borah, who is a doctor by profession.
On the much talked issue –‘Assa-mese definition’ of the recent past of the state, he said it’s the responsibility of the government.
“Sahitya Sabha has not felt it nec-essary to give a definition in the wide Assamese society. According to us, all the Indian nationals, irrespective of their community, language, religion and place of origin, who accept As-samese as their mother tongue or ei-ther their second or third language are Assamese. They are the integral part of greater Assamese society,” Borah added.
Slamming the government for not taking any steps in this regard, he said that by giving the responsibility to the
Sahitya Sabha, the representatives of the public proved that they have not done it for the last 30 years.
“The major tribes of the state have their respective languages but Assa-mese is their second language of com-munication. So, all of them are part of the greater Assamese society,” he said.
The definition is required to pro-vide constitutional, legislative and ad-ministrative safeguards to Assamese people under Clause Six of the Assam Accord that was signed in 1985.
“The Muslims who have arrived since the early 1900s, have used Assa-mese language, except a few in Barak Valley, as their primary language for exchange of thought, means of educa-tion and all. So, they are also integral part of the Assamese society,” Borah added.
AdiTyA GoGoi
guwAhATI elDeRs FACIng CRuelTy ‘DAIly’
With modern day lifestyle pushing city denizens to-wards a ‘single family’
concept, the elders in the Guwahati city are facing a hard time. Their own children are now abusing them both verbally and physically.
Showing a disturbing trend in today’s family ties, a recent survey report by Help Age India, a leading NGO working to secure senior citi-zens’ rights, said that the city has the highest rate of elders who faced abuse ‘almost daily’ last year in the country.
The reports said, “Out of 12 two tier cities surveyed last year, Guwahati has the highest (71 percent) of elderly people who have faced abuse on daily basis. Another 21 percent reported to
have faced it weekly and only six per-cent in monthly basis in 2014.”
Nagpur city is next to Guwahati where elders were abused daily.
The numbers of elderly abuse in Guwahati was even reported to be much higher than the national average in the category. On national average, only 17 percent of elders faced abusive behaviour on daily basis in 2014.
“At least 35 percent elders said that they were abused at least ‘once a week’ while 20 percent have faced abuse ‘once a month’,” the reports said. Around 58 percent elders were facing abuse for minimum three to five years.
The finding too displayed that the elders in the city were abused mostly by their sons and daughter-in-laws.
“Among the perpetrators, around 74 percent were reported to be the sons in the family. Besides, the daughter-in-law were also ac-tive in abusing the elders. Some 62 percent daughter-in-laws were involved in such abusive acts in Guwahati,” it said.
Altogether, 68 percent of these abusive incidents were ‘verbal’. Among the rest, most were neglect-ed or abandoned by their families.
What came as a surprise was that the rates may go up abnor-mally too with 59 percent elders reported to have abstained from reporting such incidents to police or other agencies’ terming them as ‘family matter’.
humAn RIghTs BoDy seeKs RePoRT on sPo joB
Acting on media reports, a division bench of the As-sam Human Rights Com-
mission (AHRC) took a suo motu cognizance of the plight of the Spe-cial Police Officers (SPOs) of As-sam. The division bench compris-ing Justice AH Saikia and member Tarun Phookan in its notice, di-
rected the state’s Chief Secretary to furnish a report detailing the SPO’s service conditions, service prospects and government policy, if contem-plated, to redress their reported grievances within 30 days.
The state government recently disarmed some 800 SPOs fearing an armed revolt
PRoVIDe All FACIlITIes To AmBuBAChI DeVoTees: ghC
The Gauhati High Court on Wednesday taking suo motto cognizance directed
the Kamrup (metro) district ad-ministration to ensure all the fa-cilities are provided to the lakhs of devotees thronging the holy shrine of Kamakhya temple during Am-bubachi Mela.
Every year, lakhs of devotees from all over the globe travel to the holy shrine atop the Nilachal hills here and gather for at least a week in the temple to worship god-dess Kamakhya who is believed to go through her annual menstrua-tion cycle during these days. This year too, around 10 lakhs pilgrims are expected. The annual festival is starting from June 22 and con-cludes on June 26.
Advocate SS Dey, Amicus Cu-rie of GHC in the case, said that the High Court directed the district administration to take short term measures initially for the holy fes-tivity.
He said, “The HC asked the authorities to modify the devotees’ entrance enclosures. As the cur-rent enclosures are blocked by iron fencings and believed to be unsafe,
the court directed the authority to replace the iron fencings with open railings. Sitting arrangements were also asked to be installed for senior citizens.”
The HC instructed M Anga-muthu, deputy commissioner of Kamrup (metro) to look into the provisions of opening multiple en-trances at least during the Mela when the rush will increase. “A pre-vious assessment said that some 400 visitors can enter the temple prem-ise per hour with a single entrance. Therefore it directed the DC to con-sider opening multiple entrance if possible to avoid any stamped situ-ation,” he added.
Dey added that the court too asked the district administration to restrict food distribution in the tem-ple surroundings especially atop the hills and to provide proper sanita-tion and water supply.
The HC too asked the district authority to imply scientific meth-ods to purify, clean and beautify the ‘Ganesh Kund’ (holy pond) located inside the temple premise. It ordered for a free ferry car service to the tem-ple from the main road beneath the hill during the Ambubachi mela.
EntRy FREE
G PLUS JUN 20 - JUN 26, 201510
In Conversation
Born and brought up in Barpeta, 1995 batch APS officer Pranab Jyoti Goswami is at present
serving as the Guwahati DCP traf-fic after joining the city police traffic department as the SP 17 months back.
After completing his schooling from Barpeta, he did his HS and grad-uation from Cotton College and MC College, Barpeta, after which he pur-sued his MA from Gauhati University. But as luck would have it, he joined the services and received his joining letter the day before his MA final ex-ams started.
In the various executive posts held during his career, he served as DSP headquarter in Karimganj, Addl SP Karimganj and Silchar, Additional SP Vigilance and Anti – Corruption and while during his stint in the vigilance department for one year, he also went to a newly born country -South Sudan in UN deputation. After returning he worked as SP security in Special Branch. After heading the city traffic department since the last 17 months, Goswami exclusively talks to G Plus about his challenges and experiences in city police.
In last one and half years, what are the changes you witnessed in Guwahati or those implemented by you in the city traffic panorama?
Traffic in Guwahati is still manu-ally managed. Guwahati existed since a long time so like almost all old cit-ies in India, Guwahati is not a planned place. Roads, market, growth of popu-lation, nothing is planned in Guwa-hati. In this scenario, managing traffic is a quite a big task but our main job is how to better manage the traffic by way of regulation. We have tried to incorporate certain things like free entries in some roads which we have closed like the Guwahati Club. Simi-larly to ease out the GS Road traffic, we have stopped the GS Road – Zoo Road connecting roads during the evening and the morning hours. Like-wise we have tried to regularise the traffic in many points by the way of certain regulation. Parking in Guwa-hati is a big problem and it is a big challenge for us. It is very difficult to manage traffic till the parking problem is not settled. Earlier Fancy Bazar used to have a very heavy clogged traffic, but after opening the jail parking, the main road, which is the SB Road is free from parking and people can move freely. We are planning to take all the vehicles of Fancy Bazar to the jail. Im-mediately finding street parkings by GMC is a problem, that is why we are
Police reflects the society DCP TRAFFIC
regulating the parking places and its in the process. We will have to allow peo-ple to park on the streets but that has to be disciplined. We are trying to set up parking places in 71 spots in across Guwahati and once it is settled, we will start enforcing ‘no parking’ norms as rest of the areas will have no park-ing. To regularise the traffic, we need enforcement and we have increased enforcement for example, last year we have collected around `29,500,000 as fines and 40 thousand cases were sent to court. This year till May we have fined around `14,800,000 and more than 18 thousand cases were sent to court. 2,300 drunken drivers were caught this year and we are trying to reduce the incidents of drunken driv-ing as much as possible.
Can we say that the traffic scenario is under control now?
Guwahati is a fast growing place. 66 thousand new vehicles were reg-istered in Guwahati last year out of which 39 thousands are two wheelers. Even two wheelers require space for parking and driving. In a way vehicles are growing very fast and the roads are not that widened and if the vehicles are increasing there will be a need for more parking. This is one part that our authorities, mainly GMC has to seri-ously look into. GMC has now decid-ed to open the flyovers for parking and this way it will provide some space but that will not be adequate. Our main concern is that public transport needs to be more efficient and more timely. In Guwahati, most of the traffic is be-cause of the office goers in the morn-ing time and in the evening when people are returning home. This is the time when we face the major problem. If public transport is efficient, then some of the people will shift from their private vehicle to public vehicle.
why are the city buses a major problem for the city traffic?
Nowhere in India city buses oper-ate the way they do in Guwahati be-cause in other places if there are some private buses also, they run under a corporation or a government which runs their entire operation but here, the city bus organisations run the buses. Though Guwahati has hardly 1000 city buses, for this 1000 buses there are six associations and their entire operation is conflicting because they are always competing with each other. If GGUMTA has 200 buses and GGMTA also has 200 buses so their main routes are only three or four
like Khanapara to Adabari, Basistha to Adabari and Noonmati to Adabari etc. They dump their vehicles in these three four routes. They have a very cut throat competition. In other cities, the drivers and conductors are under a corporation so they are trained and disciplined. In Guwahati, I don’t know what salary the drivers are getting but the main interest of the driver or a conductor is profit. Firstly they have to pay `1,400 every evening to the owner while they take the rest of the money. Two buses of a same route stop in a bus stand and they try to overtake and block the way. I have given a proposal to RTA to give the entire bus service to an umbrella body. City bus stoppages are also not regularised and that is also a problem.
In the 17 months as head of the traffic department, what are the main infrastructural challenges which you faced?
We have less number of men power and the man power which we have in the constable level, they are aging. Because of certain things, since 2008 there has been no recruit-ment in Assam Police, so, all the peo-ple who are in traffic are older now. I have a traffic unit consisting of hawaldars, constables and ASIs who
are mainly on the road. So, aging people is a big problem. Also these people are not trained in traffic. We in Assam, don’t have a traffic train-ing school. Whatever traffic train-ing they learn is in the basic train-ing course where certain amount of time is dedicated for the traffic. Otherwise all do not have proper and dedicated traffic training. Regulation is actually a sense where you have to feel where the traffic flow is more as we are handling everything manu-ally. Though we have 32 points where there are signal lights but a major portion is not functioning. Only 13-14 points are functioning. Our men are managing all the traffic junctions manually by hand signal. If a person is not properly trained, his manage-
RAhUL ChAndA
G PLUS JUN 20 - JUN 26, 2015 11
In Conversation
ment will not be as good as the traf-fic trained person. In some states, traffic persons are inducted just for traffic only and they tend to become professionals. Here personnel can be shifted to other place at any moment. Today a constable is in traffic but to-morrow he can be transferred to a thana and this way professionalism do not grow. The traffic personnel who are doing their duty sincerely and properly is because of their per-sonal skills and commitment. They have taken things seriously and in that way they are managing. We have 25 sub inspectors, 42 ASIs, 40 hawal-dars and rest including woman con-stables will be somewhere around 315. This is the total strength and it is very less as Guwahati is expand-ing. Most of the man power comes on shifts so all the man power is not present together. At a particular time minus the sub inspectors, you will just get the half of the total strength. Guwahati needs to shift from the present traffic management to IT based traffic management. I head-ing the traffic wing but do not know what is happening at a particular point because I don’t have a control room. Control room gives many ad-vantages like you will know what is happening all around and including anyone doing any misdeeds. And it is easy disseminate information like if there is a jam on a particular route, a different route can be informed to the public so that they do not waste time. So there is also a technical challenge in the department.
are the recently announced speed limits ok according to you?
The speed limit in national high-way is 100 Kmph and state highways 50 kmph. Amingaon – Hajo is a state highway. The interceptors has already started working and we have even fined some for exceeding the speed limit.
there are a lot of allegations from drivers that traffic police take money every now and then, how are you controlling it?
The specific cases should be re-ported. If people just allege it doesn’t lead anywhere and it is just like gen-eral allegations, and the question re-mains why do they pay. Reports like so and so person at so and so time whose nameplate reads so and so have taken money should be reported and the action will be taken. Most of the time, some other departments are also on the job and they also wear uniform and general people’s conception goes that these are police but we are strictly trying to brief our men that these things wont be tolerated. When such things happen, there should be specif-ic complaint lodged, and people don’t
even have to go to police station, they can lodge a complaint through email. Somewhere it is a general reflection. If you go to the Scotland Yard which is the head office of police in England, there is a line written on the gate, “Po-lice reflects the society”. In a way po-lice is by product of the society. These allegations are there and I admit that whenever such things happen, it’s the highest form of visible corruption. It gives a very bad picture to the people who see it. These things will remain till the victims come out with complaints. There are certain things regarding fine which people should know. Police per-sonnel upto the rank of hawaldar can-not impose fine. Officers from ASI to sub inspectors can fine only in some
specific sections. Only inspectors and above in police department can im-pose fine. When someone is stopped for some violation and is fined, he/she can say that they don’t want to pay and will settle the case in court. People are scared of court and they can even take receipts when fined. So, public should know all these and things should be reported so that we can take action.
tell us something about your family and hobbies.
Except me, my entre family is into teaching profession. My father was a college teacher, my grand father was a
high school teacher, one of my uncle is a high school teacher, my father-in-law was a college teacher and my mother-in-law was a school teacher. My wife is a house maker and I have two children. My daughter is around twelve years old and son is around nine.
Regarding my hobbies, I will say that since 1987, I try to devote some time for disabled people. I used to write exams for the blind persons. I wrote BA, MA and MPhil of a blind person who is the first MA of northeast and presently is a teacher in Gauhati University. After coming in touch with him, I developed a passion for work-ing for the differently abled. Whatever free time I find, I like to give that time to disabled persons. Disabled persons are not getting their rights. Upto last year in Assam, only 33 blind persons have passed BA. There are only five persons who passed MA. Their edu-cation is not spread. People do not understand that disability is not a dis-ease but it’s a condition. Disabled are no longer called disabled and are no longer called differently able. They are called functionally capable, because differently able also gives a meaning that they are not commonly able.
I also had a passion for acting. I acted in a TV serial which was tele-casted three years back in Rang. Once I was also an active member of IPTA. Whenever I get time, I watch a drama of Ratan Thyiam and also like Baha-rul staging something. I like watching stage theatre.
Onlyinspectorsandaboveinpolicedepartmentcanimposefine.Whensomeoneisstoppedforsomeviolationandisfined,he/shecansaythattheydon’twanttopayandwillsettlethecaseincourt.Peoplearescaredofcourtandtheycaneventakereceiptswhenfined.So,publicshouldknowalltheseandthingsshouldbereportedsothatwecantakeaction.
G PLUS JUN 20 - JUN 26, 201512
kALyAn dEb
wARD no 26Ward Watch
ConCentrated area DWaraka NaGarSub diviSion 26(a)CounCilor MaNjuLa kakoTIPhone number 80111 49307area Sabha member ShyaMaL hazarIkaPhone number 98547 16774PoPulation of dwaraka nagar 2000voterS 1700ProblemS: LaCk of STreeTLIGhTS, DrINkING WaTer aND ThefT
PeoPle looK forwarD to a better
DwARAKA nAgARFewfulfilledprojectsandincompleteproposals,
A completely residential and de-veloping locality behind the Downtown Hospitals, Dwara-
ka Nagar provides an ideal environ-ment for a family to live in and chil-dren to grow up. With lots of streets interconnecting each other, for a new-bie, the area might be a little confusing initially and one can end up reaching the same point where he/she started but as one gradually spends enough time in the area, the same confusing roads becomes very much convenient at the end of the day.
Surrounded by hills on one side and buildings on the other for the resi-dents who mostly reside in two storied buildings in the area, it provides a nat-ural view of the city. It becomes even better after a rainy night when the true essence of the city can be felt when a far away view of the hills surround-ing the city can be enjoyed from one’s balcony. Most residents of the area of Dwaraka Nagar could certainly not complain about lacking that essence of the city but has several other concerns waiting to be taken care of.
Unlike most areas around the city, the residents of Dwaraka Nagar has nothing much to complain about the roads and the drainage system but their primary concern is the losing connection among the people living in the same society. Having most basic amenities and a peaceful residential society, Dwaraka Nagar has also at-tracted large number of people in the recent past. Most houses, since having the capacity of accommodating more than a single household, has been given out for rents resulting in the locals coming across new faces every other day. The same has also made the residents critical over the time in the face of growing cases of theft in the
area that are making them sleep rest-less nights . Among recent cases was a bike theft where thieves managed to get away from one of the residences by unlock the doors and fleeing success-fully with the goods, without leaving any clue for the owner.
Besides, there have been several such cases of vehicle and property theft over the past that has raised concern among the people of the area. It adds more to the concern knowing that the entire area lacks in street lights as the entire area sinks into darkness and the incidents over the time has seeded a sense of insecurity among the people.
Though the GMC has come up with its innovative Project Jyoti where one can have his own street light for mere charge of Rs100 and an average of monthly charge of RS 25 to Rs 30 but most residents allege of being una-ware of the entire concept. However, a few critical residents stated, “People
have lost the connection these days with other people of the same soci-ety. One would not contribute a mere amount Rs 30 knowing that it would not just help the person himself but also the entire neighbourhood, while others are completely unaware of the entire concept. There are meetings held at times but most of them are not even aware of where the society is lag-ging behind and rather criticise the government.”
Among major concerns, lack of prominent source of drinking water also tops the list of the residents of Dwaraka Nagar. “Most people in the area who do not have boring systems in their places have to buy their eve-ryday’s share of drinking water as the facility of water supply was never pro-vided in the area. An average house-hold requires 1000lts of water on a daily basis to meet his basic require-ments which, for a average earning
family gets out of the budget. With the growing numbers of buildings and mostly flats in the surrounding area where every unit has at least twenty households, it requires water in large quantity that can only be attained through boring. So it can be estimated that by the next two to three years, the area will face huge scarcity of water”, said Hemanga Mahanta, a local resi-dent.
“Though the installation of the pipelines of GMDA/JICA’s water sup-ply project has already been conclud-ed in the area, with the slow progress we cannot expect to have continuous
water supply by the end of next year”, Mahanta added.
With some of the basic require-ment fulfilled but several yet remaining to be met, the residents look forward to a positive outcome in the near future. The interconnecting area that has the VIP Road to its east, Downtown Hos-pitals to its west, there are several other areas that are conjoined to Dwaraka Nagar. It can also be mentioned that the area is also the residence of the al-leged car thief Anil Chauhan who is currently behind bars.
Councilor’s say
Talking to GPlus councilor Manjula Kakoti stated that firstly people should come forward to let the authorities know about what the area is deprived in. Since the authorities cannot reach every nook and corners so people should also come ahead with their problems.
“There were several areas in my ward where people faced the problem of streetlight such as Puberun Path, Krishnakanta Handique Path, etc. have been installed with streetlights. There was minor clash with the PWD which has been resolved and people can approach us for any kind of requirement”, the councilor said.
“A simple solution to the problem of street light is that people can col-lectively apply for the GMC’s initiative Project Jyoti which is also a very sim-ple procedure. Since, every locality has their own welfare committee so they can collectively apply for the required number of street light in a particular area and whatever electricity amount is charged can be divided among the locals which should be of an average of minimum Rs5 to Rs10. Such an amount every month should not be of much concern among the people and as the maintenance of the lights will be the responsibility of the GMC itself but one has to take the initiative first and I urge the people to step up”, the councilor added.
As per the problem of drinking water the councilor informed that most of the installation of pipelines has been concluded besides few places and since Dispur is a much larger area comparatively in some parts the wart is still under process but it is expected to be functioning in the year 2016.
“Untill the water supply project kicks off another initiative with the as-sociation of PHE has been taken up. However, the same requires 10kucha land for the project to be carried out. Similar project has been carried out in Rukmini Nagar Mahila Samiti through an NOC provided 13lechas simi-larly in Basishtapur and Bhaba Dutta Path such projects are carried out. If similarly a small piece of land can be provided the problem of drinking can be resolved or people have to a little more patient until the JICA project kicks off.”
G PLUS JUN 20 - JUN 26, 2015 13
Special
BeneFITs AnD PoPulARITy oFyogA Among The youTh
JUThikA bARUAh
yoga Centers in guwahatiCentres Address Contact
The Art of Living Fancy Bazar, Sadhna Mandir 9864028306
Shape Up Yoga Aarohan Building, Beltola Road, Wireless
9864132633
Institute of Yoga & Nutrition A.T. Road, Bharalumukh, Athgaon
9435040467
Purbanchal Yoga Mahavidyalaya
Gotanagar, Maligaon 9864017643
Umachal Yogashram Kamakhya, Maligaon 8768954809
The Art of Living Kalapahar, Bharat Seva Ashram
9435043509
The Art of Living Pandu, AOL Ashram 9854755963
Vivekananda Kendra Uzanbazar 9864261037
The Art of Living Airport Road, near Azara Hospital
9864066286
Patanjali Arogya Kendras Mathura Nagar, Dispur 9864063886
Yoga has been practiced by al-most all people since ages be-lieving that it helps reduce stress
and pain but what is yoga and where did it orginate is rarely known to peo-ple. Yoga comes from the Vedas and all rituals are yoga.
Speaking to G Plus, State Media Coordinator of the Art of Living, Ashok K. Thard said, “People has a wrong con-cept that twisting, turning and stretch-ing a body are the only forms of yoga but in actuality, all physical activities are yoga. If a woman is sweeping the floor, that is also a yoga, so is the clos-ing of a door or doing household activi-ties. The Art of Living yoga is a holistic way of life that integrates all elements of ancient knowledge of yoga to make a prayerful discipline uniting the body, mind and soul.”
Thard said, “The entire cosmos is running in vibration and yoga is na-ture’s innovation. All the natural behav-iour turned stagnant however, and to introduce such natural vibes, the Rishi Munis studied nature and gave a form in different names which we now know as yoga. Pranayam and Suryanamaskar ashan are the forms of yoga but all daily physical activities are also yoga. If one say that they don’t have time or don’t want to do yoga, it is a wrong concep-tion because they are performing yoga through different activities.”
Thard also said that yoga has im-mense benefits and people can de-rieve peace and happiness in life from yoga. “People don’t want to fight and inter-caste, inter-religion fight occurs because spirituality among the peo-ple has diminished. Spirituality can be
gained through yoga and when one is spiritual, then the conflict amongst the people will no longer take place. Yoga can create belongingness among the people and teach them to bring social
transformation in the society.”Yoga can do miracles and every
disease can be cured through yoga. Even a disease like cancer can be cured through yoga. According to Shri Shri
Ravi Shankar, health is not the mere ab-sence of disease. It is a dynamic expres-sion of life in terms of how joyful, lov-ing and enthusiastic one can be. This is where yoga helps- postures, pranayama (breathing technique) and meditation are a holistic fitness package. Yoga also helps in weight loss, stress relief, inner peace, improved immunity, living with greater awareness, better relationships, increased energy, better flexibility and posture, better intuition etc.
Yoga is popular among the youths and Thard said that 70-80 per cent youths are involved in yoga. As said by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India is a young country, therefore the youths are the future and they can bring about changes. “The mentality of common man is that yoga means exercise. When we talk about yoga, we say that we do not have time or we don’t go forward as we think of our age, whether we have the right age or not to do yoga whereas we are doing it right from childhood. But due to our misconceptions, we think that exercise and meditation is the only form of yoga. Every action is yoga, whatever we do for ourselves, family or our profession. We can con-nect the inner and outer world through yoga,” said Deba Kumar Baruah, senior faculty of The Art of Living.
There are various courses of yoga like Yoga Training and Yoga Therapy. Yoga Training is meant for Masters students while Yoga Therapy is used to
cure patients of various ailments. There are also diploma courses like Diploma in Yoga and Naturopathy. The course fees differ in different centres. For Shape up Yoga, the course fee is `2500 per month and in Purbanchal Yoga Mahavidyalaya, the fee is `25,000 for 3 years B. Sc annually.
Thard also said that yoga should be practiced in group because it could be more flexible than to practice person-ally in home, although if anyone wants to practice personally, instructors are available to teach in home.
On the occasion of International Yoga Day on 21st June, the Art of Liv-ing will conduct yoga at Maligaon Rail-way Stadium in collaboration with NF Railway where 5000 people will assimi-late together. Another 1000 people will conduct yoga at Terapanth Bhawan.
On the other hand, Patanjali will also conduct yogathon at different plac-es in the city. “65 per cent of the Indian population is below 35 years age and the youth are the future. Today’s generation is involved in ill-deeds like consum-ing alcohol, taking drugs and violence which is a matter of concern and it is only through yoga that such habits can be removed to form a healthy society. And therefore, Patanjali will organize the International Yoga Day at various places in the state along with other states of the country,” said Rajib Choudhury of Patanjali Yoga Committee.
G PLUS JUN 20 - JUN 26, 201514
Sports
kALyAn dEb
The main aim of any martial art is to defend oneself in day-to-day life. The practice also
brings with it many added advantages like physical fitness, agility, youthful-ness, smartness, confidence and dis-cipline.
Taekwon-do is one of the most popular combat sports including sev-eral others in the same category like Boxing, Karate, Kung-Fu, Wushu, Mua Thai, Kick Boxing, Mixed Mar-tial Arts, etc.
Taekwon-do literally, ‘Tae’ means ‘To kick with the Feet’, ‘Kwon’ means ‘To punch with the Fist’ and ‘Do’ means ‘the Art’. Thus Taekwon-do means ‘The Art of Kicking and Punching’ thereby uses 100 per cent of his assets.
In Assam, the banner of the combat sport is carried by All Assam Taekwon-do Association and Tae-kwon-do Association, Assam (ITF) affiliated to International Taekwondo Federation (ITF).
all assam taekwon-do association
The inception of the association in the state of Assam took place after Taekwon-do Federation of India, the only body affiliated to Olympic Asso-ciation in the year 1978. It was in the year 1982 after the establishment of association, All Assam Taekwon-do Association, when the torch bearer on the sport in the state started three schools around the city in Chatrib-ari, Bharalumukh and Milanpur to encourage youngsters and provide training in the particular sport. AATA made its mark in the national scenar-io for the first time by participating in the 3rd National Taekwon-do Cham-pionship and clinched the 4th posi-tion in the year 1984 where pioneers of the sport from Assam, Shambhu Sharma and Pranjal Baruah claimed gold and bronze medals respectively.
The association kept growing by participating and claiming top spots and the years between 1984 and 1994 were the golden era of the state’s sce-nario in the combat sport during which the association made a bench-mark in the national scenario.
But the association faced went downhill from 1994 due to lack of ac-tivities and exposure tours and it took ten years to revive itself after forming a new committee under the presiden-cy of Dhruba Hazarika. Since then the association has never looked back again and claimed top spots in most of the competitions.
The association has produced some promising players in the sport who claimed medals in the national and international level. Along with pioneer members such as Bamkin Das, Sambhu Sharma, Imrajul Haque, Gopal Thapa, Pranjal Baruah, Hiran-ya Saikia, Nihar Das, there are several sparkling talents Rajiv Bora, Parag Dhar Konwar, Rekha Rani Gogoi and seven times national gold medalist Surendra Bhandari.
taekwon-do association, assam (Itf)
After several rounds of negotia-tions between the Taekwon-do Associ-ation of India and the Taekwon-do As-sociation, Assam, ITF was introduced in the state. It was formally introduced following the 22nd ITF National Tae-kwon-do Championship, held at Khu-diram Anusilan Kendra, Kolkata on 28th – 30thDecember, 2007.
Raaj Hazarika, Dr. Hirak Das, Nanda Dulal Baruah, Mitali Upadha-ya, Rabijit Rajkumar and Rojan Var-ghese, who were also among the first ITF black belts of Assam, represented the Assam delegation. The next year, in 2008, Deepjyoti Borah got the ITF black belt, followed by several others ITF Taekwon-do practitioners.
Taekwon-do Association of As-sam, from its founding day, has worked for the promotion of the sport along with physical and mental fitness among the people of Assam and has produced many players of national level. Deepjyoti Bora, Rojan Varghese, Binod Baishya, Uday Das, Hrishikesh Sarma, Anurag Barman, Bikash Bhu-miz, Jibakanta Kaman, Mintu Goswa-mi, Rishik Chandan, Sarwar Tanweer Hazarika, Laba Kumar Deka, Biman Jyoti Kashyap, Abhigyan Sarma, Izaz Hussain are some of the prominent fig-ures produced by the state of Assam in the combat sport.
woman in taekwon-do
Over the years, with their utter dedication and consistent perfor-
mance in the sport, the wom-en team of the state has over-powered the boys. Talents like Rekha Rani Gogoi, Sanju Boro, Sabita Ramsiari, Rodali Baru-ah and Monika Baruah, all of them national medalists, have been consistent in the sport in the recent times. In the recent-ly concluded National Games held in Kerela, the state team claimed the second position with five out of eight girls won medals.
Importance of Combat sport
“Combat sport is extreme-ly important in one’s daily life. The main objective of combat sports is self-defense. It gives one the confidence and courage to face any difficult situations in life. With the increasing crime rates, combat sports have proved to be a life saving tool in many situations”, said Hirak Das, president, Taekwon-do Association, Assam.
“Knowledge of combat sports is becoming especially important for women. With the rise in crime against wom-en, women need to be prepared to face any unexpected situa-tions. The inner courage and confidence along with the fit-ness that develops in the prac-titioners is the first weapon. The skills learnt are the next weapons that can at least petty criminals, eve teasers, etc. at bay”, said Pranjal Baruah, joint secretary, AATA
The earliest records of martial arts practice in Korea date back to about 50 B.C. These earliest forms of Korean martial arts were known as ‘Taekyon’. The techniques of modern Taekwon-Do were developed by Gen-eral Choi Hong Hi when he started developing new techniques systemati-cally from March 1946. Technically the year 1955 signaled the beginning of Taekwon-Do as a formally recognized art in Korea. It was on 11thApril, 1955 the name “Taekwon-Do” submitted by General Choi Hong Hi was officially accepted.
Taekwon Do rapidly spread across the different countries of the world. On the 22ndMarch, 1966, the Inter-national Taekwon-Do Federation was formed with associations in Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, West Germa-ny, the United States, Turkey, Italy, Arab Republic of Egypt and Korea. International Taekwondo Federation (I.T.F.) was therefore, the first ma-jor Taekwon-Do Federation in the world. General Choi wished that Tae-kwon-Do should not become a tool in the hands of the Korean government. So he shifted the ITF Headquarters to
history of taekwon-doToronto, Canada in 1972.
With the ITF control lost, the South Korean Government decid-ed to form a new federation. This resulted in the formation of World Taekwon-Do Federation (WTF) on May 8, 1974. These two feder-ations, ITF and WTF have domi-nated the Taekwon-Do activities throughout the world.
Taekwon-Do Association of India (ITF) was born after the entrance of ITF Taekwon-do to India in the year 1984 under the guidance of Grand Master Leong Wai Meng, 9th Dan Black Belt. Till 1991, it was known as All In-dia Taekwon-do Association (ITF) and the new name “TAI” was given under the Chairmanship of Master B. Rajendran in 1991 and was registered in Delhi.
There are many talented mar-tial artists in Assam and TAA and AATA recognises the need of these talented people of the state to grow and find a platform training them in the acclaimed sport and self-de-fense technique.
girls overtake boys in Taekwon-do in guwahati
G PLUS JUN 20 - JUN 26, 2015 15
art
In a bid to bring all the women the-atre personalities on a single plat-form, theatre activist Rabijita Go-
goi has organized an all women theatre festival – Swayam Women Drama Fes-tival -- in the city where directors and playwrights from Delhi, Punjab and Manipur have participated.
Gogoi also claims it to be the first of its kind all women drama festival to have taken place in this part of the country.
“This has brought all the directors and artistes working in different areas together. We have witnessed the rise of a few female directors from 1970 to 90 in different parts of the country. Be-fore that, it was all dominated by men. This platform will also encourage the upcoming female directors of the re-gion to deliver their best,” said Rabijita whose Jirsong Theatre has organized the event.
Prominent theatre personal-ity, Tripurar Sharma who was present during the Swayam Women Conven-tion, a part of the theatre festival, said that knowing what the female direc-tors are working was important.
“I think this festival will be a great platform to bring together the young women directors of the region,” said Sharma.
The two-day festival started from June 13 at Rabindra Bhawan with Pakiza Begum directed ‘Pad-mapriya’ based on Mamoni Raisom Goswami’s ‘Devi Pithor Tez’ and Papori Medhi enacted ‘Samay Ka Ghata’.
The next day, young director Dipika Deka’s ‘Kaath Putla’ and ‘Neihatpiraba’ written and directed by Manipur’s S Thaninleima was staged.
Then, another play ‘Bada’ by New Delhi’s Sajida which is based
on Mahasweta Devi’s novel ‘Daulati’ was staged on June 14.
Thaninleima, the first woman director from Manipur to pass out from National School of Drama (NSD), said that the women direc-tors are still miles to go.
“There is still a huge gap. I think the mindset of the people of the so-ciety need to be changed if we re-ally want to see a change towards the right direction. We had to struggle a lot in our society and the struggle is still going on,” Thaninleima said.
Among others, her play ‘Neihat-piraba’ (torture), was an eye-catcher during festival as the plot is on the turmoil in the region following mili-tants’ ambush of 18 Indian soldiers in Manipur.
It’s also a tribute for the Iron lady Irom Sharmila who has been struggling in demand of repealing Armed Forces Special Power Act (AFSPA) from the region.
“It’s about seeking peace under the circumstances of politics of dif-ferent layers and the clash for power. I want to say through this play that no one can give you peace unless you have to find it yourself. I have used symbolism to a great extent here. By using the king in a game of chess, I have tried to project how the common people always suffer for the interests of the kings or the king makers,” S Thaninleima, the writer and director
All Women Theatre festival in city
Seeking peace in hour of crisis through play stage
AdiTyA GoGoi
of the play told G Plus.This play was staged for the sec-
ond time after its debut in Imphal on May 22 this year.
The real life sufferings of the peo-ple are shown in the shadows. A blind folded Irom Sharmila is portrayed in the play.
“Sharmila has been fighting for a cause for the last 14 years. But nobody is listening. So, I have portrayed her in a way where her eyes are blind folded and her mouth is tapped. The govern-ment can at least show some respect to that soul,” Thaninleima said.
G PLUS JUN 20 - JUN 26, 201516
A ‘sTeThosCoPIC’ VIew
health
The recent scuffle between few doctors and family members of a popular artiste, who breathed
his last at the Guwahati Medical Col-lege and Hospital, has again raised the burning topic of ’Doctor-Patient Relationship’. A good doctor-patient relationship is integral to the improve-ment of medical care of the people. This relationship is an important de-terminant of the quality of care, built on the solid foundation of trust and empathy. Doctors are held in very high esteem in our society, which, at times, treats him/her as a demi-god. It is important to maintain the sanctity of this relationship for which effective communication is a necessary prereq-uisite. Any breakdown in the doctor-patient relationship could lead to mistrust, dissatisfaction and, in some instances, scuffle and litigation. There-fore, effective communication imbued with empathy between the doctor and the patient and belief and trust in each other is of utmost importance.
Doctors are sometimes unable to devote sufficient time to the patients’ complaints and inquiries due to the heavy load of cases. This prevents ef-fective communication and appropri-ate interaction between the two.
Governments need to redesign the health delivery systems in order to not overburden the doctor. At the same time, it is necessary to invest more in disease prevention and health promotion in order to lessen the bur-den on the health care infrastructure. The primary health care system also needs to be utilised at all levels and the workforce strengthened. The doctors also needs to be freed of administra-tive responsibilities which takes away too much of their time from their main duties as medical professionals. The patients too need to understand the doctors’ limitations viz a viz their workload and should rationalise their expectations. They should also know how to take preventive measures so that the chance of them becoming sick gets reduced. Medical colleges and medical councils also have a very important role to play in educating and training medical graduates about building the right attitudes towards their patients. They also need to be taught empathetic and ethical behav-iours so that they treat their patients in a sympathetic manner and don’t be-tray their trust. Since a patient puts his full faith in the doctor, it is incumbent on the doctor not to indulge in any kind of malpractice when the patient is most vulnerable. Doctors need to empathise and respect their patients, which can act as effectively for their recovery as medication. Doctors also need to understand patients’ right to be better informed of their health status and health care practices and the role of doctors in their treatment process.
what triggers attacks on doctors?
The most common trigger of such incidents is a sudden death. Other triggers are denial of treatment, a delay in providing care, an absence of equip-ment and drugs during emergencies,
doctors in front of patients, humili-ating and demoralising them. Many resident doctors do not have regular duty hours. They are not even assured of a day off following a night on call. They may work all day and attend calls through the night. So patients coming in through the night assume that the doctor on duty is sleeping and get an-gry. They may not even get a break to eat. All this takes a toll. Many residents cannot go home even on holidays. Several have problems adjusting to the culture and the work environment of a big hospital. Although medicine is a rewarding profession in the long term, residents resent that their peers in engineering and management are already established a lot earlier in life. Many of them start with the belief that medicine is an exalted profession and they, as doctors, should be treated with respect. They become disillusioned when their colleagues or patients don’t reciprocate this belief.
what is the public opinion about government health services?
Patients get angry when doctors go on strike. They feel that the be-haviour of a few patients should not become the reason to inconvenience so many others. The most common grievance of patients is the hospital staff ’s rude behaviour. Very few pro-viders are polite and they do not treat patients with respect. Patients are violent only under severe provoca-tion. Patients also get angry about the constant demands to pay for services or to purchase materials from outside. Other major grievances are delays, being shuttled from department to department and poor communication about the patient’s condition. Patients are more upset about the constant demands to buy drugs and supplies from the private pharmacies. In gen-eral, patients and their relatives feel helpless. They feel that the system is not responsive to their needs and they cannot exert any control on their own treatment. One common complaint is that doctors and nurses do not re-spond to calls from patients.
what actually should be done?
After I talked to a few of my junior and senior colleagues from both pri-vate and public hospital set up, as well as some of the past patients, I deduced the followings. There is an urgent need to improve conditions in hospitals and the need to communicate tactfully with patients. There should be more
staff on the front-end to give more at-tention to patients and their relatives. A few social workers should be posted in the wards also. We should under-stand that the primary problem is a high patient load and adverse working conditions, which make it impossible for resident doctors to provide ade-quate care and also maintain commu-nicate linkage with patients and their relatives. The need of the hour is more doctors especially a senior doctor – to communicate with aggrieved relatives. There may still be heated exchanges but the situation may not turn vio-lent. When a patient dies the relatives often blame junior doctors for their “inexperience”. But they are likely to accept the same explanation if given by a senior colleague. Aggrieved pa-tients would at times be satisfied if the senior publicly reprimands staff; they would feel that action had been taken. Counselors or social welfare workers should talk to the relatives while the doctors deal with the medical aspects of care. Senior doctors should deal with serious issues, such as breaking news about death and seeking permis-sion for post-mortem. It is important to build a bond with them, give them time to reflect on the problem. The nurse or doctor should be promptly able to separate the medical problem from the administrative problem and hand over the situation to a more competent authority. Doctors have no training in handling crowds or aggres-sion. Stringent punishment to those who involves themselves in assaults or physical abuse would be a deter-rent against such attacks. Assaulting a healthcare worker should be made a non-bailable offence. Similarly many problems would be resolved if patients were treated with more respect. Doc-
tors should make an effort to empa-thise with patients and their families and pay heed to repeated complaints from a particular patient/relative. Doctors should be imparted commu-nication lessons so that they can man-age most potentially violent situations. Doctors should not be made to run around to collect consumables and drugs. Ward staff and casualty staff who are responsible for maintaining stocks and ensuring their availability should be made more accountable. Ensure that patients don’t have to walk a lot and wait for long periods, which adds to their frustration and suffer-ing. Providing residents with better accommodation, ensuring that they get breaks for resting, and providing counseling for resident doctors with problems or difficulties in adjusting to a new city and environment will do a lot of good in alleviating this growing menace.
In modern times, there are vari-ous social, cultural, economic, psy-chological and legal aspects, which make the doctor-patient relationship more complex than ever before. Scuf-fles and legal actions against medical malpractices had further complicated this relationship. Therefore, all those involved in the provision of health and medical care – governments, medical colleges, medical councils, profession-al medical associations and health and medical personnel – must have their roles cut out very clearly. The increas-ing use of force against healthcare facilities and medical personnel is an issue that requires systematic research.
and abuse or negligence by hospital staff. Sudden deaths are most com-mon following an accident. Crowds of people who often accompany accident victims interfere with the emergency treatment. The doctor has to treat the patient while also managing the crowd and worrying about mob psychology. Many a times relatives have a limited understanding of the patient’s critical illness. They often expect the medical staff to do a miracle and save the life of their loved one, regardless of their critical condition. Many patients come to public hospitals desperate for help. Patients are often referred to a govern-ment service after having spent most of their money in private hospitals and hence the emotional turmoil and des-peration for a miracle.
are the doctors under pressure?
A shortage of health care per-sonnel is a nagging problem – either because of under-staffing or because of rampant absenteeism among the support staff. Nurses and doctors are compelled to do jobs like crowd man-agement, pushing trolleys, getting drugs and equipment and escorting patients between departments. This affects their interaction with patients. Such work reduces their status in the eyes of the relatives. It does not help that resident doctors are sometimes bullied by the permanent ward staff who view them as novices and tem-porary. The environment of the out-patient department compounds the stress, where crowds of patients, each pushing case papers to get the doctor’s attention, surround them. If a Class IV staff is absent there is no system to manage the stream of patients. Absen-teeism is common among senior doc-tors (registrars, assistant professors and professors) who may make cur-sory rounds of the wards and are often missing during duty hours when they are required. This affects the quality of care and dampens the residents’ mo-rale. Many full-time professors and associate professors practice privately which has made the situation worse. Teachers rush to leave the teaching hospital and compensate their pay packets with a private nursing home attachment. Senior doctors may not be committed to patients in a public hospital. A number of academic posts remain vacant and this overburdens the existing cadre of doctors. Doctors are under constant pressure to give special treatment to patients who have connections with politicians, senior government officials or senior doctors and administrators. It is common for patients to proffer a ‘note’ or letter of reference from an influential person. It is not rare to have politicians demand preferential treatment for certain pa-tients. Administrations should not succumb to pressure from politicians, local leaders and patients instead of standing up for doctors. The recent in-cidents of violence by patients have led doctors to practice a kind of defensive medicine – doctors’ focus on avoiding an “incident” even if it is at the cost of victimising innocent colleagues. Senior doctors may berate resident
THE DOcTOR-pATiENT RElATiONSHip
dR. bikASh RAi dAS,Consultant Heart Surgeon, GNRC Hospital
G PLUS JUN 20 - JUN 26, 2015 17
Life
Churr vellam, tantra vellam, these are the only words which will help you when you travel to Kerala!” Arun da told me, with a mischievous gleam in his eyes.
“That’s all?” I asked. “Yes, that’s it!” Arun da reiterated,
knowing pretty well that I will be able to manage the rest. As if!
Anyway, Kochi in Kerala was sti-fling, humid; the clothes sticking to our bodies, adding to the discomfort. We checked into a hotel only for a cou-ple of hours as we were to travel in the late afternoon. While Dad went for a shower, I thought I should just relax for a while and sip some water to cool myself. As I poured myself a glass and looked out into the city, I wondered how familiar everything looked; a replica of my home, my Assam. The trees and the hills, both of which were untouched of course by unscrupulous environment destroyers; resplend-ent with dark green foliage, almost like a thick velvet carpet. The houses too were somewhat similar. I put the glass to my lips and was in for a shock. The water I poured for myself was hot; hot as a cup of tea! My tongue smarted from the sudden impact and I squirmed. I called for room service and after the boy arrived, I told him, “Chur vellam, NO!” And I crossed my hands like I was a striking a ka-rate pose and said, “Tantra vellam!” The boy grinned cheekily and shook his head from side to side. Now, I was in a fix! This gentleman doesn’t seem to understand me! What should I do now? And my knowledge of the lan-guage was limited to only ‘Hot water’ and ‘Cold water’. How did Arun da even think I could manage my stay in Kerala with such limited vocabulary?
I restarted my exercise of making him understand. Eventually, the boy zipped downstairs faster than a roller coaster and was back in a ziffy with a jug of cool water, not cold water, at the same time handing me a neatly writ-ten note, “Government regulation. We serve only warm drinking water!” Wow! And only later, I came to know that shaking of the head from side means a YES and nodding means NO!
That same afternoon, we checked out and traveled to Mannuthy, a three hour bus jaunt through a not-so-wide road, lined on both sides by thick foli-age. In less than half an hour, we had left the city behind us and had got onto village terrain and the hutments hud-dled together reminded me so much about my villages back home. Even though the bus was loaded with peo-ple, their voices were barely audible as they spoke in low voices with each other. At one point, just before we got onto a bridge, which stretched over a not-so-deep-or-wide-river, our bus came face to face with another bus. I was wondering if they would scream expletives at each other, like my peo-
ple back home. But surprisingly, they didn’t, even though our bus was on the wrong foot. They smiled, nodded and passed by, with no signs of being flustered.
In Mannuthy, Don Bosco authori-ties had arranged for a home stay. Five days and we were a part of the family! What reception! And my fellow stu-dents at Don Bosco helped me more than I had expected in the practical exams of my course! Wonderful peo-ple!
I was suddenly broken from my reverie as Tirus tugged at the sleeves of my kurta. “Mom, we are being called inside by the Principal. It’s our turn. Let’s go!” My heart thumped wildly as my husband and I exchanged glances. We were visibly nervous.
We greeted him and took the three seats in from of him. I was sit-ting to the left of Tirus and smiling, with the greatest desire to disappear into thin air. Well, I didn’t of course as I was no genie.
As Fr. Antony Thekkel, Principal of Don Bosco went through Tirus’ filled up form for Class 1, he didn’t even for a fraction look as if he wished to make us uneasy, but we were pre-determined to be squeamish. After a couple of moments, he looked at Tirus and said, “Tirus is a nice name! What does Tirus mean?”
“King of justice!” “Oh good!”“Why didn’t you go to study at
your brother’s school?”After a couple of seconds, Tirus
said, “The school is very far!”“Hmmmm!” And Fr. Antony
Thekkel flashed a smile, contemplat-ing at the same time.
“So are you a good boy or a naughty boy?”
Tirus thought it better to say that he is a good boy. After all, an admis-sion to Don Bosco School mattered, for various reasons!
However, Fr. Thekkel said, “But
Rest in peace
TinAT ATiFA MASood
I love naughty boys. So will you be naughty?”
Tirus returned the most impish smile ever and said, “Yes Father!”
“Thank you!”Our first meeting with Fr. Antony
Thekkel and we were left with warm memories. After that, I had the oppor-tunity to meet him several times. Fr. Thekkel would call me to anchor for some show or the other involving the street children of Guwahati and also when I had to mentor his children of Classes IX, X, XI and XII for Teen of the Year 2013.
Over a cup of hot coffee in his of-fice, he told me that he is from Man-nuthy in Kerala and I shared my part of the story.
Fr. Antony Thekkel, breathed his last on the afternoon of Thursday, the 18th of June at Rajgiri Hospital, Aluva in Kerala. He was suffering for long from a debilitating disease. He had so many dreams for Don Bosco School in Guwahati. There was so much to learn from this quiet, unassuming personal-ity, who was a leader in his own special way. I for one was extremely sad when he left for home. I wasn’t very sure he would return.
Fr. Antony Thekkel, just 48, was ordained as priest on January 7, 1999. I knew him to be a very committed ed-ucator, a dreamer for the community, the impoverished and an artist. Teach-ers, students, parents would all crowd up to him to rub onto themselves the joviality of an extremely disciplined person. He left a deep impact on many of us, even though we met him for a very brief period of time.
Fr. Antony Thekkel will be bid farewell on his final journey at a funer-al fixed for Saturday, June 20, 2015 at 2 pm at Don Bosco School, Mannuthy, Kerala. May his soul rest in eternal peace.
hiS hoLinESSSRi SRi RAvi ShAnkAR Ji
www.artofliving.org/yogaFollow Sri Sri @SriSriSpeaks on twitter
Inexpensive anti-aging treatment
We cannot stop our body from aging, but the least we can do is keep it healthy and detoxified. Yoga, along with its sister knowl-edge – Ayurveda, offers wonderful techniques to treat those wrinkles and patches that come with age. These techniques cleanse the body inside out and rejuvenate it.
Shed those extra poundsHave you been meaning to lose
those extra pounds without sweat-ing out at the gym? If you didn’t know how to do so, yoga is the so-lution! Focused on breathing and slow moving exercises, yoga is as effective as working out at the gym, minus the sweat.
age - no bar
Fitness is not restricted to just one age group and neither is yoga. It is said that infants perform yoga better than most seasoned prac-titioners do. Whether you are 7 or 70 years old, yoga can help you stay fit and energized. On this Interna-tional Yoga Day, school kids to sep-tuagenarians around the world will do yoga and show that yoga is not restricted to just one age segment!
Improve metabolism
Now that your immune system is functioning properly, it is time to look at the metabolism rate. Those complex and complicated looking yoga postures, which in reality are just about trying and practicing, are boosters for your metabolism. Combine that with good diet and food habits, and voila, your metabo-lism rate is now under your control! Also, yoga has the power to help you lose weight by balancing the body’s metabolism.
burn cholesterol
Excess cholesterol and bad cholesterol blocks the arteries and risks heart seizure. Yoga asanas help bring this under control by restrain-ing the cholesterol in the blood. Several studies on this subject have proven the effectiveness of yoga in bringing the cholesterol level under control.
radiant skin
Yoga is not just about creak-free joints and supple spine. Yoga asanas flush out toxins, which in turn add radiance to the skin. Bring in ayurveda here and all your skin related problems will vanish.
shape up!
If you have spent hours in the gym trying to lose fat from the belly, yoga can help you out. Unlike gym-ming, yoga adds flexibility to the body and thus facilitates the ease of losing unwanted flab from difficult areas. With yoga by your side, chis-eled abs are just an asana away.
Peace of mind
A healthy body is home to a healthy mind, and yoga is the path to understand your body and mind better. Practicing yoga on a regular basis brings focus, skill in action and emotional balance in life. It also calms and rejuvenates your mind, empowering you to deal with life in a much better way. Meditating for a couple of minutes also helps stay happy and focused.
8 Reasonswhy you need to do yoga
G PLUS JUN 20 - JUN 26, 201518
events
DAtE EVEnt VEnUE
20 June Book Launch; Arupa Patangia Kalita, Imran Hussain and more; 06:00 pm
UDARA, C/O Dr Santana Bordoloi, 52, Naojan Road, Uzan Bazar, Guwahati 781001, ASSAM
20 June BOLLYWOOD NITE FT. DJ LLOYD AKA BOMBAY BOUNCE; 6:00 onwards
Topaz Guwahati,
20 June RITMO (ISRAEL) ; 7:30 PM TerraMayaa
21 June ASSAM BIKERS 3RD ANNIVERSARY RIDE
Pantaloons, Guwahati, India
21 June SPLASH POOL PARTY || SEASON3 || VH1 SUNDOWNDER
Crest Shoppers Point,
Guwahati,
21 June World Music Day Celebration; Joshua Queah; Live; 8:00PM
TerraMayaa
21 June World Music Day Celebration ; DJ Shameless Mani
Cafe Copa
21 June Cafe Copa presents ‘Karua’ ; 9:00 PM
Cafe Copa
neXt 7Days June 20 to June 26
The NEIFT ANNUAL DESIGN CEREMONY was held on 14th June 2015 at New Brindaban Gardens, Guwahati. The event boasted a 100
feet Ramp in the City. The emcee Pragya Paromita welcomed Vikram Rai Medhi, the CEO of NEIFT who briefed about the event and also his commit-ment to take forward the Fashion Industry of North East across the country. The Chief Guest Police Commissioner Jyotirmay Chakravarty expressed his happiness to see the talents of the students and ap-preciated the efforts of NEIFT.
Awards were presented to three Young Achiev-ers - Nandini Baruva for Fashion , Dr. Maneka PP Bora for Culture and Dipannita Jaiswal for Media Growth.
The ensemble included models from Brazil, UK, Delhi amongst others along with Super Model Lois from Sao Paulo. The Ceremony was held with the support of Dalmia Cements, Government of Arunachal Pradesh, Air Asia, NHPC, XS - The Place To Be and Hotel Gateway Grandeur.
neIFT AnnuAl DesIgn CeRemony
G PLUS JUN 20 - JUN 26, 2015 19
D'com Bhuyan
A survey conducted by South Korean electron-ics firm LG has named Guwahati as the least happiest of all cities among the metros with
Chandigarh being the happiest city of all. In the East Zone, which is overall the least happy zone, Patna was found to be the happiest city while Guwa-hati was adjusted the least happy.
Chandigarh is followed by Lucknow, Delhi, Chennai and Bengaluru in the top five slots whereas the bottom five slots were taken up by Guwahati, Mumbai, Jaipur, Kochi and Hy-
derabad.The survey was conducted in 16 cities among
an average sample of 150 people from all socio economic backgrounds.
According to the survey, “People of these cit-ies are broadly happy with the amount of time they get to spend with family and quality of rela-tionship they share with their friends and family. They are also happy with the kind of control they have over their life with respect to doing what they want and taking decisions for themselves.”
In focus
When one get the expo-sure one wishes for and the experience of visit-
ing most parts of the world, there are very few who come back to one’s motherland. Sattyakee D’com Bhuyan, a name not unknown to many, stands strong as an example that one’s love for his native land can bring him back to his mother-land which makes him as Guwaha-tian as one can get.
Son of the famous playwright and National Film Award win-ning director Dhiru Bhuyan, the first thing that strikes most people about D’com Bhuyan is his first name which according to him is just a style statement. D’com Bhuy-an started his contribution towards the art and culture of the region at a very tender age as a child artist when he was merely in 3th stand-ard. It didn’t take much long for the young talent to be recognised when the very next year, Bhuyan was se-lected for 4th International Chil-dren’s Film Festival for Sutir Eta Din by Kulada Bhattacharjee and that was where the journey began.
Although D’com Bhuyan, for all those years had been performing in front of the camera but at the same time, his passion for creation from behind the camera, exhibited while directing Tennessee Williams’ A Street Car Named Desire at the age of 21 which made him the young-est entrent in the field of direction back then became one of the turn-ing points of his life. He has never turned back since. Over the years D’com has directed several plays in both English and Assamese, some of which include Mahesh Dattani’s 30 Days in Sptember and Matho Chithi, the Assamese version of popular English play Just Letters. Ahh! Women, an adaptation of internationally acclaimed Croa-tian playwright Mario Gavran’s All About Women is one of his recent work that gained huge popularity.
One of the biggest achieve-ments of D’com Bhuyan was being selected as the Youth Icon of the
country by India Today in the year 2010 for his creative contribution towards development of arts in the region. Although according to Bhuyan, the respect and the blessings that he gained from his seniors, friends and family mem-bers is what he considers one of his biggest achievements. That also includes being married to wife Rudrakshi Bhuyan and being blessed with two kids T’mok and T’ya Bhuyan.
Besides theatre and movies, Bhuyan also has an ear for music that was introduced to him by his uncle during his days in Shillong. He was highly influenced by Lou Majaw, Jayanta Hazarika, Dhruba Sharma (member of Friends), Kalyan Baruah whereas, Jim Reeves, Beetles, Uriah Heep, Jethro Tull, Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppe-lin are among his other influences. Bhuyan himself is very passionate about guitar and has quite a few collections of acoustic guitars.
His passion and flair for crea-tive arts and the will to contribute to the culture of the region is what kept D’com going which is also a reason that after working for ten years with the World Bank’s South Asian Communications Depart-ment, he took voluntary retire-ment and shifted back home. In his short visits during his tenure with the World Bank, D’com always left Guwahati with a heavy heart as every time he departed from Guwahati he left a part of himself behind. However, after staying away from his passion for ten long years, Bhuyan made his comeback with his team D’Passion Collec-tive and is indvolved with several workshops and several other ini-tiatives to promote the art among youngsters.
Among his ongoing projects, Bhuyan will be seen alongside singing maestro Zubeen Garg in the movie ‘Mission China’ that is set to be released by the end of this year where Bhuyan will be seen playing the role of a sniper.
Is guwahati the least happiest city?
MAnJiT MAhAnTASeNioR JouRNaliSt
According to me as a conscious citizen of Guwahati and regardless of any survey we are not happy at all. We face several problems such as water-logging, communications, cost control and every issue that a common man faces in ones day-to-day life. My concern is not the other cities but as a Guwahatian the tax payers of the city are not provided with adequate services. So, Guwahati can not declared as a happiest city. There is no doubt that in some areas certain developments have taken place but the tax payers do deserve more.
PREMkAnT ChoUdhARy BRaNCH MaNaGeR, PaNaSoNiC iNdia PRivate liMited
I was surprised to read that because I believe that Guwahati should be the happiest city. I’ve been residing in Guwahati for several years and I have seen lot of changes and people with even minimal income are happy over here. People have different lifestyles here and rather than being considered as the least happy, the city should be among the top ten happiest cities of the country. I have seen the lives of people in other metro cities who have to travel hundreds of kilometers through all the hassles to get to work and people in semi-metro cities people are much happier. People might be earning more in other cit-ies but happiness cannot be measured through one’s income alone, it is only a part of it whereas on the other hand, people are missing time with their family and in every other aspect people much happier here as there are so many good things about the city.
nibiR bhUyAnMuSiCiaN
During the survey, not all sections of society were considered. While the upper mid-dle might be happy with the survey but when it comes to the middle class, people will certainly not be happy with the survey. The reason behind is that there certain aspects on which the middle class people are dependent upon. Most middle class people travel by bus and Guwahati transport system is one of the best in the country. One does not have to wait for a bus unlike other cities so there is no problem in the mode of transportation. Also the rate of accidents are lesser than that of other cities. The lack of medical facilities is a problem as it is not adequate enough. When it comes to happiness quotient, people have the luxury to enjoy most things that are banned in several other cities. So over all, I think it was not an honest survey and I think Guwahati is a happy city to stay and I am happy.
bidiShA SinGhAJouRNaliSt
I cannot understand how a company does a survey like that. Why would you like to tell the people of a city that you guys are the unhappiest lot in India? Do they have the worst sale figures in Guwahati and they wish to put the blame on our so called ‘unhap-piness’? Are they implying that we need to buy more of their products to soar high in the happiness quotient? If so, their marketing ploy is pretty flawed, as it has rightfully offended many Guwahatians, and they might now need some serious damage control!
TheATRe ARTIsT & DIReCToR
G PLUS JUN 20 - JUN 26, 201520
ABCD-2 Jurassic World Hamari Adhuri Kahani
tanu Weds Manu Returns
Apsara Cinema Daily at 11.00 AM, 2.00, 5.00 & 8.00 PM
Anuradha Cine-plex Daily at 9.00 AM, 5.15 & 8.30 PM Daily at 11.45 & 2.30
PM
Fun Cinemas Daily at 11.35 AM, 5.00 & 8.30 PM
Daily at 9.15 AM & 2.35 PM
Gold Cinema(Paltan Bazaar)
Daily at 11.00 AM, 2.00, 5.00 & 8.00 PM
Daily at 11.15 AM & 6.15 PM
Daily at 3.45 & 8.30 PM
Daily at 1.30 PM
Gold Cinema(Fancy Bazar)
Daily at 11.00 AM, 2.00, 5.00 & 8.00 PM
Daily at 1.45 & 4.00 PM
Daily at 11.15 AM & 6.15 PM
Daily at 8.45 PM
Gold Cinema(narengi)
Daily at 11.00 AM, 2.00, 5.00 & 8.00 PM
Telebooking numbers: Anuradha Cineplex; 03612656968, 9954544738, Fun Cinemas: 9864800100, 9864800200, Gold Cinema (Fancy Bazaar): 03612735367, 9854077177, Gold Cinema (Paltan Bazaar): 9854066166, Gold Cinema
(narengi): 8811001898
NoW ShoWING
Suresh (Varun Dhawan) and Vinnie (Shraddha Kapoor) are a part of the dance crew
Mumbai Stunners and are par-ticipants of a dance show named Hum Kisi Se Kam Nahi. In one of the qualifying rounds in the show, the crew gets disqualified from the show for performing a routine that is copied from a Philippines dance crew. Soon they are quoted as ‘cheaters’ and everyone from Mumbai Stunners bears the brunt of this mistake in their personal lives as the people they are concerned to often tag them as ‘cheats’.
Ashamed by the insults that he hears from people and the in-ner guilt of cheating his mother’s teachings, Suresh finds a new goal and wants to wash off his image by participating in the World Hip Hop competition at Las Vegas.
Since Vinnie is in love with Suresh, it takes no time for her to hop on to his Vegas dream and together they manage to con-vince the other dancers too. In a not-so-chance meeting, Suresh meets Vishnu (Prabhu Deva), an alcoholic, who is a brilliant danc-er. Convinced that only he is fit to be their choreographer, Suresh and his team take a long time to persuade Vishnu to help them and eventually succeed.
Thus, Vishnu stands by them and impressively trains this dance crew which is now named as India Stunners. While the team
gets selected to go to Vegas, there is something fishy about Vishnu’s behavior and some ulterior mo-tives are yet to be discovered.
Remo D’Souza has grown as a director and it is quite evident in this film as he tries to hold the film in a much wiser manner. There is no best to his choreogra-phy and hence visually the film is a treat for all the performances in 3D. I particularly loved the digital effects used for the credits at the on set. The best part is that Remo takes very little inspiration from Hollywood’s Step-Up and hence you feel no need to even get into comparisons. Quite challenging for any director, yet Remo holds the second half so well that in spite of its lasting run time, the final performance makes up for your lost time. Yet, it would have been best to get the film down to two hours ten minutes than drag it since elongated 3D movies are a pain to sit through.
The cinematography is note-worthy as we breeze through Ve-gas and Grand Canyon.
Music by Sachin-Jigar is the side hero of this film. It works wonders with the eye-catching dances. Their background score also fills the minor dull moments in the film.
ABCD 2 is a fun watch for all those who love dancing. If you have two left feet when it comes to dance then at least get thrilled watching this. Surely, India’s best attempt at a dance film.
MovIerevIeW
Cast: Varun Dhawan, Shraddha Kapoor, PrabhudhevaDirector: Remo D’Souza
reviews
It’s tempting to give BABYMETAL’s debut album BABYMETAL a full five-star rating. Or ten star. Or all
the stars. Not only does the album create a totally new genre, it defines it and also ends it at the same time. The band’s producer Kobametal says the name came to him in a revelation, but it would be interesting to see where the idea to mix super-girly J-pop and riff-heavy heavy metal into an unholy blend of frothing cuteness came from. These are two styles that never in a million years should have been Frank-ensteined together...the girls’ ultra sweet and innocent vocals juxtaposed with cookie monster growling is batty, the pummeling beats that underpin the bubblegummy radio pop melodies are nuts, and the occasional hip-hop interludes, drum’n’bass bits, and dub-step breaks really push it into wacky-land. The record really shouldn’t work at all, and BABYMETAL should just be a total joke that is funny the first time someone sends you a link to one of their videos, but quickly loses its ap-peal. Somehow it does work, though; maybe it’s the sheer audacity of it all that elevates the album past joke status and close to genius.
youShouLDreaD For Princess Mia, the past five years since college graduation have been a whirlwind of activity, what with
living in New York City, running her new teen community centre, being madly in love and attending royal engagements. And speaking of engagements, Mia’s gorgeous longtime boyfriend Michael managed to clear both their schedules just long enough for an exotic (and very private) Caribbean island interlude where he popped the question! Of course Mia didn’t need to consult her diary to know
that her answer was a royal oui. But now Mia has a scandal of majestic propor-tions to contend with: Her grandmother’s leaked “fake” wedding plans to the press that could cause even normally calm Michael to become a runaway groom. Worse, a scheming politico is trying to force Mia’s father from the throne, all because of a royal secret that could leave Genovia without a monarch. Can Mia prove to everyone - especially herself - that she’s not only ready to wed but ready to rule as well?
album: BABYMETALartist: BABYMETAL
you
ShouLD
LISTeN
Book: royal weddingauthor: meg Cabot
Pillars of Eternity isn’t Bal-dur’s Gate 3, but only be-cause of a few technicali-
ties like the name. Its new world is distinct from Forgotten Realms in detail rather than spirit, its en-gine and mechanics are patterned almost entirely after what Bio-Ware and Black Isle were doing with the Infinity Engine back in the 90s. The backgrounds, higher resolution and with nicer effects, but cut from the same cloth. Each Act beginning with a portentous narrated text scroll. The map. The assassins out for your blood. The progression through small towns suffering from a background threat (this time to children rath-er than iron) before entering a big city of politics and intrigue. To be sure, you can find the individual elements there in many RPGs, but in this case the particular mix leaves no doubt as to what you’re supposed to be feeling nostalgic about. And if any doubt persists,
it’s soon beaten over the head with the magic words “You must gather your party before ventur-ing forth.”
In keeping so close to the Bal-dur’s Gate/Infinity Engine tem-plate, Pillars of Eternity can’t help but inherit a few old flaws, and it would have been nice to see a bit more personality of its own shine through its carefully traditional design and shell. That said, what most stands out is just how well it manages to modernise the experi-ence of playing those games and stand apart from them as an epic adventure in its own right. It’s an RPG with design firmly rooted in nostalgia, but one that absolutely doesn’t rely on it to be enjoyable today. Instead, it’s both a great reminder of why those games worked so well, and a brand new adventure well worth the hours upon hours (upon hours upon hours) that it takes to pick away at its secrets and its world.
GaMerevIeW
Pillars of EtErnity
G PLUS JUN 20 - JUN 26, 2015 21
PeRIPheRAls To mAKe youR lIFe eAsIeR
Check if your
router has not been hacked
DNS is an important part of Internet. When you try to access a website with its web
address, DNS helps in converting the request to its IP address. Actually, when you request for www.g-plus.in, it translates your request to its IP address to let you access the website. Your system or router knows how to contact DNS to properly serve your request. Your internet service pro-vider also have one which it use to configure as default DNS server for your internet connection.
But many malicious programs and hackers try to change the set-tings of your router to point it to wrong DNS. In this way, hackers can manipulate the requests to redirect you to wrong websites. This makes it easy to perform phishing attack by redirecting you to a fake website looks very similar to legit one. So, you must know how to check if your router was hacked.
Popular security firm F-Secure has launched an online router check-er tool that can check your router’s settings to confirm if it was hacked or now. You only need to open this in your browser and do not need to download anything in your system.
Here is the link : https://campaigns.f-secure.com/router-
checker
Just visit the website and click on “Start Now” button. In few sec-onds, it will show you the results.
Traditionally done with wires, connectivity has always been integral to human lifestyle. But the level of penetration of technology in our lives just makes wires an incumbrance. Everything in the world is
going wireless. As Sheldon Cooper rightly says, ‘Everything is better with Bluetooth’. Today we feature the accessories that will make your life easier and well, sometimes these handy things just make you look cool.
Most manufacturers these days are trying to diversify. With more than just one special product, manufacturers have left no stone unturned; Smartphone, Bluetooth speakers, NFC enabled gadgets, wireless chargers and the much in demand selfie stick.
Keeping mobility and your purse in mind, here are some good op-tions to invest in the next time you go electronics shopping.
Power Banks
With Smartphones drain-ing out your battery like sponge to water, a power
bank has become sort of an essential purchase. Whether you’re on the go, on the road or at a party and you’re running out of juice; a power bank acts as your safety net. The thing about a powerbank is that it’s not just for Smartphones but comes in handy to supply power to an array of devices including your PSP, camera,
iPods, Tablets etc. Many options are available in the
market including those with multiple outlets to charge devices simultane-ously. The prices have been slashed significantly by most manufacturers like Sony, Samsung, Asus, Lenovo and Mi. They offer multiple variants from 4000mAh to 16000mAh. The best op-tion however would be the Mi 10400 mAh because it fuels up your battery completely and then some.
Bluetooth Speakers
Now who wouldn’t want to have their music buzzing through the house without
going through the hassle of con-necting wires? It’s great to have Bluetooth speakers for that very purpose. One power switch and you’re all set.
I don’t have to give a grandiose introduction to Sony. It performs brilliantly provided you pick the right product. The SRS-BTM8 is an excellent choice in this matter. Priced just under `6000, this one
packs quite a punch. The speaker comes with NFC technology and has an inbuilt microphone. So apart from listening to songs, it’s good for mak-ing calls while occupied in the kitchen (yeah, practical). But the thing with such speakers is that they have better options if you can shell out more cash. Launched almost 2 years back, the Sony SRS-BTM8 is still in the race be-cause you get the brand value of Sony with decent pricing and not having to turn to Chinese products which have flooded the markets.
On The Go Cables (OTG)
Selfie Stick
Fitness Tracker
This is an excellent investment and its nifty design allows you to carry it around. What it
does is it enables you to connect ex-ternal storage units (pendrives/hard drives) and peripherals to make your life easier. It’s a very practical acces-sory with a Smartphone owing to the fact that we want everything on our phones.
OTG cables for Apple devices are best if bought from the authentic Ap-ple Store (online or physically). Many
small online sites claim working products but then have issues with file transfer, longevity or need jail-broken devices. The cable is priced just above `1200 at Apple Stores.
But with is definitely cheaper for Android devices. OTG cables are priced at just `199 for Micro USB devices and many variants are available. It’s okay to spend a little more because you don’t want to be stuck with a defective piece and whine about it later.
Ah! Which one should I pick? It’s so hard, so confusing. No, I’m not talking about the de-
sign or the model. I’m talking about the hundreds of selfies that your front camera takes and leaves you in a di-lemma about the best one. So you see? Selfie sticks have become integral to a
lot of kids’ Smartphone needs. Apart from just taking pictures, the selfie stick allows mobility and creative photography. With a range of de-signs and almost universal support, the price of a selfie stick ranges from `300 to `1000.
Now this may seem futile a pur-chase to many, but it’s a great device to keep a track of your
daily activities and movement. I re-cently acquired the Mi Band, a fitness monitor unfortunately which does not come with a heart rate monitor. It’s an excellent device to monitor your movement. I don’t know how, but the Mi Band is intelligent enough to dis-tinguish between our jumping and
walking activities, but not intelligent enough to distinguish between a push-up or chin up. So it’s not the best fitness monitor but it definitely is an excellent activity monitor. It ef-fectively monitors sleep (deep state and shallow), vibrates as an alarm and has many other features. It is a great purchase if you’re on a budget, but a fitness monitor is a great acces-sory for fitness enthusiasts.
Tech Watch
Indrajeet Bhuyan is a 17 year old tech blogger and security researcher. He is pas-sionate about comput-ers and believes in sharing knowledge and information . He uses his spare time helping people and companies secure themselves. fb.me/indrajeet.bhuyan
G PLUS JUN 20 - JUN 26, 201522
entertainment
AssAmese FIlm ‘PAgolee’A new Assamese film titled
‘Paglee’, under the banner of Rimzim Films is being filmed
in various locations of Arunachal Pradesh, Dhemaji, Guwahati and Cherrapunji. The movie has been directed by Rupjyoti Borah and pro-duced by Prema Dutta, Biseswar Dutta and Nip Konwar and co-produced by Birendra Kr. Das and Uday Gogoi. The film’s story, script and dialogue have been penned by director Rupjyoti Bo-rah.
The story revolves around a sim-ple village girl who has fits of madness. It tells us of the situations that lead the protagonist to become ‘Paglee’. This movie is sprinkled with action, trag-edy and romance whose key roles have been essayed by Prastuti Parashar, Nayan Nirban, Ramen Tamuli, Ashim Baishya, Pradip Nishith, Pabitra Pran Borah, Kabita Duwarah, Bishal, Dhru-ba and child artists Liza, Nandini and Barbie.
The music of the film has been given by Arup Dutta and Ajay Phukan. And the background music has been given by National Award winner Anu-rag Saikia. The songs have been sung by Zubeen Garg, Kalpana Patowary, Priyanka Bharali and Rohit Sonar. The
choreographers are Deepak Dey and Rupjyoti, and the editor is Mrinal Haloi. Cinematogra-phy has been done by Jiten Boro, and the ac-tion has has been directed by Devaraj and B. Kumbang from Mumbai. This film is expected to give audiences a different type of entertain-ment.
hengool TheATReThe new seAson
Hengool Theatre, known for presenting realis-tic dramas with strong
social themes, is going to stage three plays in the new season.
The highlight of this season will be ‘Boliya Krishna’ written by Rajdweep. This is the second time he is writing for Hengool Theatre after ‘Aakou Edin’ which was staged last year. Directed by Sankalpajit Hazarika, ‘Boliya Krishna’, as the name suggests, is neither going to be an adap-tation from a classic mythology nor a typical love story. It isn’t restricted to a single plot. Sev-eral facts of Boliya Krishna will be shown by director Sankalpa-jit. The music will be directed by
North-East’s popular so-cio-cultural organization NEBCUS (North East Big
Cultural Society) in association with its sister concern, a popu-lar monthly magazine ‘Asomiya Sangbad-Xirkho’ has been con-ducting an award ceremony called ‘NEBCUS MEDIA AWARD’ for the past couple of years where artistes from the field of cinema, mobile theatre and television are awarded for their performances.
This year, the award ceremony
Palash Gogoi. The other two plays selected
for the season are ‘Chambalor Majnu’ and ‘Jooj’. The former de-picts a tragic love story and the latter is about a sweet love story.
Prasenjit and Shyamantika will play the lead characters of all the three plays. The story of ‘Chambalor Majnu’ portrays the emotions of a dacoit with his shortcomings. The story has been penned by Abhijeet Bhat-tacharjya and will be directed by the playwright himself. Tarali Sarma will be the music director.
The third play ‘Jooj’ will also be directed by Sankalpajit. It has been written by Binoy Saikia. The music will be ar-
will be held at Rabindra Bhawan, Guwahati on Sunday, 28th June, 2015. NEBCUS’ editor-in-chief Gogonastom informed that this year the award ceremony will start from 5pm in the evening, and will be hosted by Assamese film industry’s leading actress, Barsha Rani Bishaya. NEBCUS’s cultural secretary Kalyan Kumar Kalita addresses the event every year.
This year NEBCUS will present ‘The Lifetime Cultural Achievement Award’ to the actor
ranged by Sibabrata Sarma. As the name suggests, ‘Jooj’ is about surviving fights in all aspects of life. ‘Jooj’ is demonstrated by highlighting the ups and downs of two families with a sweet love story. The others artistes in the cast are Sanjiv Sarma, Alokjyoti Saikia, Jiban Hatikakati, Biren Bhuyan, Debajit Borah, Sankar Rajkhowa, Dhrubajyoti Dhe-kiyal Phukan, Kasturi Phukan, Barnali Baruah and child artist Bikash Dutta.
The rehearsals will com-mence from June 29 at a camp set up in Mariani, Jorhat district and the season will start from August 19, 2015 at Bapuji Sta-dium, Mariani.
Bhabesh Baruah, ‘Assam Nait-yaratna’ to dramatist-journalist Dhrubajyoti Sarma, ‘Nrityatora’ to child-artist Diya Bora, ‘Best talented writer award’ to Polak-shi Doul Baruah and ‘Yuva kobi’ to famous poet Ranjit Patgiri. A number of programs have been lined up for the evening by singers and dancers. The event will also act as a launchpad for the society’s yearly magazine titled ‘NEBCUS’.
neBCus meDIA AwARD 2014-15
kALyAn kUMAR kALiTA
Hailing from the heart of Guwa-hati, the Vernacular (Hindi) rock band BLUE WINGS was formed
around the chilly month of November, 2011 with an ambition to create a new Hindi rock scene that is free from the so called “Stereotyped and Condemned’ mainstream music. Not being ‘genre-slaved’, these boys run wild with their compositions that have got the chops of Thrash metal and Alternative rock to the love ballads of the 80s Glam metal inva-sion. Blue Wings is better known for their energetic live performances and their abil-ity to deliver some extra-ordinary mo-ments on stage. It is their devotion to the fans and their well-wishers that has kept these boys rollin’ every single time.
The band was originally formed by Vocalist NJ, guitarist Dibakar Mallick (Disfigured Savior, DIOT-B) and Drum-mer Tinkle Das (Voyage, Wizards cross-ing and formerly of Eclipse) to explore the different musical ideas in the commercial music circle. They were later joined by guitarist Junak Gogoi (Voyage) and bass-ist Koushik Bharadwaj who completed the line up.
The first single that was released by Blue Wings was an acoustic ballad in English called “Another Dawn”. It was re-leased on 21st of July 2012 and it got a fair amount of downloads in the local com-mercial scene. Another single which gave the band huge recognition in the state was “Days gone by” and it turned out to be a crowd favorite with 289 downloads in its first month of launch in the social sites and Revervnation.
Their first Hindi song “Ek nayi sub-aah” was released on January of 2013 and it featured the “neo-classical” shredder Mihir Phukan. Ever since, these boys haven’t looked back and went on to play and headline many reputed commercial and college fests in and around North-East India.
Their major break-through and exposure came in August 2014, when they released two Hindi songs called “Tere saath hai yeh jahaan” and “Panchi Pukare” on 5th and 6th of Au-gust respectively. Both the songs became the highest downloaded songs (767 downloads) of the month in Guwahati. The songs were featured in Radio Gupsup on 15th of August 2014. On 7th of August, the song “Panchi Pu-kare” was officially declared as the theme song of the two biggest bikers associations of As-sam, “Discovery Bikers” and “Assam XBHP” for their ‘safe ride campaign’.
The new music videos for the songs “Ek nayi subaah” and “Ab tu duur nahi” is expect-ed to be released by the winter of 2015.
Blue wings trying to go the distance
G PLUS JUN 20 - JUN 26, 2015 23
Citypedia
eMerGeNCy NuMBerSAMBULANCE
Ambulance 102Arya Hospital, Ulubari 2606888, 2606665
Downtown Hospital 9864101111, 9435012669GLP Social Circle 2737373
GGUMTA (Mirza) 03623-227109Marowari Yuva Manch 2542074, 2547251
BLOOD BANKArya Hospital, Ulubari 2606888, 2606665
Ganga Blood Bank 2454742, 2455029Lion’s Club of Ghy Central 2546611
Marwari Yuva Manch 2546470, 2547251Saharia’s Path Lab (24 hours) 2458594
24-HOUR PHARMACIESArya Hospital, Ulubari (2606888, 2606665)
DEAD BODY CARRYING VANGLP Social Circle 2737373, 9435047046Marowari Yuva Manch 2542074, 2547251GGUMTA 98640-16740
RADIO TAXI SERVICESPrime Cabs
0361- 2222233Green Cabs
0361-7151515My Taxi
0361-2228888Cherry Cabs8876222288
OTHERSFire Emergency 101State Zoo 2201363
GMC Carcass Pickup 9435190720, 9864047222
LPG Emergency/Leakage 2385209, 2541118
CINEMA HALLAnuradha Cineplex – 0361-2656968, 99545-44738
Fun Cinema (HUB)- 98648-00100, 98648-00200 Gold Cinema (Paltan Bazaar) – 98540-66166
Gold Cinema (Salasar) – 0361-2735367, 98540-77177Gold Cinema (Narengi) – 88110-01898
SP, Kamrup District: Ph- 2540278DGP Control Room: Ph- 2540242SB Control Room: Ph-2261511Police Control Room: Ph-2540138, 2540113Azara PS: Ph2840287Basista PS: Ph-2302158Bharalumukh PS: Ph- 2540137, 2731199Borjhar PS: Ph-2840351Chandmari PS: Ph- 2660204Chandrapur PS: Ph-2788237, 2785237Dispur PS: Ph-2261510Fancybazar PS: Ph- 2540285
Fatasil Ambari PS: Ph-2471412Geetanagar PS: Ph-2417323Hatigaon: Ph-2562383Jalukbari PS: Ph-2570587Jalukbari Out Post: Ph-2570522Jorabat: Ph-2896853Khanapara: Ph- 2281501Khetri PS: Ph-2787699, 2787220Latasil PS: Ph-2540136Noonmati PS: Ph- 2550281North Guwahati PS: Ph-2690255Paltanbazar PS: Ph-2540126Panbazar PS: Ph-2540106Pragjyotishpur Ps: Ph-2785237Women PS Panbazar: Ph-2524627
ELECTRICITY SUPPLY
Call Centre – 9678005171
Arya Hospital, Ulubari(2606888, 2606665)B Baruah Cancer Institute(2472364/66)Brahmaputra Hospital Ltd(2451634/678)Chatribari Christian Hospital0361-2600051, 92070-44374Downtown Hospital2331003, 9864079366, 9435012669Guwahati Medical College(2529457, 2529561)Guwahati Medical Collegeemergency (2263444)International Hospital0361-7135005
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HOSPITALS Railway Central HospitalCasuality (2671025)Redcross Hospital(2665114)Sri Sankardeva Netralaya0361-2233444, 2228879, 2228921TB Hospital(2540193)Wintrobe Hospital0361-2519860,98647-77986IHR-Institute of Human Reproduction0361-2482619,098641-03333
POLICE STATION
GNRC Hospital 0361 2227702GNRC Life First Ambulance 9401194011
Horoscope
Aquarius
Aries
Libra
Gemini
Sagittarius
Leo
Taurus
Scorpio
Cancer
Capricorn
Virgo
Pisces
This week has potential for fun, communication, and good company even though you may have to cope with minor irritations. The New Moon on Tuesday can be useful for launching a new online busi-ness, starting a marketing campaign, or signing important deals and documents. The more willing you are to interact with others, the more opportunities will come your way.
Friends, neighbors, family members, and partners all contribute to a positive, upbeat week. This is an excellent time to collaborate on plans and work with others as part of a team. If you can drum up enough support, you’ll be halfway to achieving your goal. Personal finances come into focus when the Sun dances into Cancer. You can be very canny when it comes to making money decisions.
Social influences are particularly strong now, making this a perfect week for networking, dating, and fun. You can hasten the progress of a budding romance by giving your love interest your undivided attention. One thing about you is that you know how to have a good time! Taking a significant other along for the ride can help you become more intimate sooner than you’d hoped.
You’ll have a lot of mental energy to put into projects this week, especially if they involve research or some form of study. By coming to grips with information and using it to support your cause, you can go far. The New Moon on Tuesday can speed your progress if you’re making travel plans, starting a journey, or even learning a new language.
The social theme continues, making this an ideal week for fun and celebrations. Dating opportunities seem plentiful, so it’s worth ac-cepting invitations and making the time to get out. Once the Sun moves into Cancer later in the week, you’ll have plenty of energy regarding moneymaking activities, but keep a firm hand on impulse spending.
Though you may feel impatient early on, you’ll radiate enough charm and charisma to impress all the right people. Someone may be drawn to you as a result, which could lead to a romantic tryst or even a lucrative deal. You may get an energy boost when the Sun glides into your health and wellness sector on Sunday.
Though it might be tempting to fritter away your money, it wouldn’t be in your best interests. Align yourself with the New Moon on Tues-day and commit to a new start. This is your opportunity to create a budget that enables you to enjoy life and save money, too. Consider taking out a loan or consolidating debts if you need to. A reunion may be long overdue.
Hopefully, you’ve reaped the benefits from taking time out to relax and recharge. With an emphasis on your spiritual sector, continue to watch your dreams, make time for meditation, and retreat from life when necessary. It’s crucial to you to enjoy some alone time, as doing so can help you take stock and make important decisions.
This week an innovative idea of yours could positively affect your career progress. The more people you can share it with, the more you’ll benefit. Tuesday’s New Moon in Gemini makes this one of the better times to start a job, attend an interview, sign a contract, or commit to a course of action.
If someone seems to oppose your plans, you’ll get your way if you use the right words. It’s the way you say things that can make all the difference to your ability to sell an idea. Business matters go well, with Tuesday’s New Moon helping out. This is an excellent time to seal a deal, collaborate with someone on a new business venture, or apply for a loan in order to finance a new venture.
Communication is emphasized in a way that provides answers to everyday dilemmas. You’ll likely be a mine of information at work, and your extensive knowledge will enhance your natural ability to sell an idea. Tuesday’s New Moon can be useful for starting a new job, committing to a contract, or starting your own business. Rela-tionships come into focus from Sunday.
Good news may come regarding publishing, education, or legal matters. You might also be invited to visit friends who live far away, or be visited by someone you haven’t seen in a while. Getting your house in tiptop shape could be a major priority. This can be a golden opportunity to remove clutter and make more space for creative activities.
sUDoKo
last
we
eK
so
lUtI
on
A Sudoku puzzle consists of 81 cells which are divided into nine columns, rows and regions. The task is now to place the numbers from 1 to 9 into the empty cells in such a way that in every row, column and 3×3 region each num-ber appears only once.
G PLUS JUN 20 - JUN 26, 201524
Printed & Published by Sunit Jain on behalf of Insight Brandcom Pvt. Ltd. and Printed at Arkashish Publications (P) Ltd., Katahbari, Garchuk, Guwahati and Published at H/no. 34, K. C. Choudhury Road, Chatribari, Guwahati - 781008, Editor: Koushik Hazarika. Phone: 0361 2737737, Email: [email protected], RnI no: ASSEnG/2013/52641
Catching up
Getting ready for the evening prayerPhoto: Adib Zamali
PICof theweeK
Emma StonE
RegRets Deleting All of HeR emAils
new galaxy ‘CR7’ is inspired by
Cristiano Ronaldo
Cristiano Ronaldo has inspired a group of astronomers to such an extent that they have named a new
galaxy which was recently discovered as CR7. A galaxy with the signature of first-generation stars was recently discovered and is believed to have been existing when the universe was just 800 million years old according to a paper published in The Astrophysical Journal.
Dr. David Sobral from the University of Lisbon in Portugal, who led the crew
of astronomers which made the discovery, said that the name of the galaxy is Galaxy
CR7 — short for Cosmos Redshift 7 or CR7. This is because of the method used to date the distant objects in the universe.
But Dr. Sobral also said that the galaxy’s name was partly inspired by Cristiano Ron-aldo, who is popularly known in the football world as CR7. The Real Madrid star is called CR7 since his Manchester United days as it combines his initials CR with the jersey number 7 that he inherited when he was at Old Trafford.
It is believed that the galaxy CR7 has been travelling for an astonishing 12.9 billion years. The astronomers say that the galaxy is part of a lost generation of stars which carried light into the uni-verse after Big Bang.
The 26-year-old actress “cried for like an hour” after her per-
sonal email address and phone number were posted on WikiLeaks during the recent Sony hacking scandal before completely emptying her inbox because she was “just so freaked out” by the idea of someone reading her private messages.
The ‘Birdman’ star said: “I did one of the worst things ever, which was react really quickly.”
“In about a 30-second span, I hit ‘Select All’ and ‘Delete Forever,’ and thousands of emails, like six years of emails, are now gone forever. I was just so freaked out that someone was in there.”
“It was horrible. I cried for like an hour.”
Emma, who recently moved back to Los Angeles from New York City, decided to take ac-tion after receiving “probably five emails and five texts” from stran-gers, but regrets deleting many of the messages even though she was “so overwhelmed” at the time.
She said: “Most of the emails I’m mourning I can still talk to the per-son and get them back. But there’s others where the person is actually gone. It really sucks.”
munching on ‘chocolate’ helps cut heart disease
If you miss out on chocolate think-ing it’s not good for you health, then there is good news for you,
as a new study has claimed that eat-ing up to 100 grams of chocolate daily cuts heart diseases and stroke risks.
During the research, the EPIC-Norfolk participants were monitored for an average of almost 12 years, during which time 3013 (14 per cent) people experienced either an episode of fatal or non-fatal coronary heart disease or stroke.
Moreover, the research detailed that higher levels of consumption were associated with younger age and lower weight (BMI), waist: hip ratio, systolic blood pressure, inflammatory proteins, diabetes and more regular physical activity all of which add up to a favourable cardiovascular disease risk profile.
It was also associated with a 9 per cent lower risk of hospital admis-sion or death as a result of coronary heart disease, after taking account of dietary factors.
The highest chocolate intake was similarly associated with a 23 per cent lower risk of stroke, even after taking account of other poten-tial risk factors.
The researchers claim that cu-mulative evidence suggests that higher chocolate intake is associ-ated with a lower risk of future car-diovascular events.
The researchers conclude that there does not appear to be any evi-dence to say that chocolate should be avoided in those who are con-cerned about cardiovascular risk.
Guwahati
Gyan DID yOU KnOW?
The term Kharguli is derived from gunpowder that was found after the Sarighat war between the Ahom and the British in the 17th century. It is said that even several days after the war was over, the area had the smell of gunpowder. Kharguli, a locality situated on the south bank of river Brahmaputra is a riverside residen-tial area with parts of the locality having hilly terrain.
The area of Kharguli is significant for being, not just one of the oldest residential areas of the city but is also famous for being the location where the entire shooting of the first Assamese feature film ‘Joimoti’ was carried out. Kharghuli hilltop also provides a panoram-ic view of the city.
It was only after the establishment of the Assam Tannery by the East India Company when settlement of residents took place in the area which in today’s date houses the residents of some of the renowned faces such as Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, Jayanta Madhab, Nirupama Borgohain and several others.