3rd Test: Advantage India after 20-wicket day

RNI No. GUJENG/2014/57876
GARVI GUJARAT
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GARVI GUJARAT
(Published Daily from Ahmedabad)
EDITOR: ASHVINKUMAR KESHAVLAL RAMI
Regd. Office: 131, Dharmnagar Society, Highway Road, Sabarmati, Ahmedabad-380 005. Gujarat, India. (M) 93283 33307, 94266 33307, 98253 33307
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Email : [email protected]
Volume-02
Issue-115
•
Email : [email protected]
Dt. 27-11-2015 Friday
V.S. 2072
•
Website : www.garvigujarat.co.in
Kartak Vad -02
Page-04
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party that enabled the Drafting Committee to give full information about every Act in
the Constitution". The Congress chief also said it was the
Congress party which had
spotted the "unique talent
and capability" of Ambedkar
who had returned after
higher studies in US, UK and
Germany on political theory
and economics and was
passionately fighting for the
cause of the scheduled
castes and the oppressed.
She said on the morning of
26 November 1949, when
the Constitution was for-
mally adopted, Dr Rajendra
Prasad
complimented
Ambedkar by saying, there
could not have been a better
chief for the Drafting Committee. At a time when Pandit
Jawaharlal Nehru's legacy is
under attack, the Congress
President underlined that
Nehru was among the four
stalwarts that guided the Drafting Committee. The others
being Sardar Patel, Rajendra
Prasad and Maulana Azad. She
said of the eight committees
of the Drafting Committee, the
chairman of these were either
Nehru, Patel or Prasad. Azad
was a prominent member of
five of these committees. The
history of the Constitution is
very old and linked to the
country's freedom struggle
and that it why it is interlinked
with the Congress. She recalled that it was under Nehru,
the Congress in its Karachi
session in March 1931, had
brought a resolution on fundamental rights and economic
rights. When some BJP members sought to protest, she
pointed out to them that what
she is saying is history to which
no one could have any objection. She noted that there was
no doubt that the Constitution gave equal voice to the
poor and secular values to
the country, made democracy more representative
and government more accountable. Hailing the greatness of the Constitution, she
said that it happens very
rarely in the world that a
galaxy of stalwarts work in
unison to produce a document of such magnitude.
She said that the Constitution had proved to be flexible and had witessed more than
100 amendments in view of the
changing circumstances.
(Agency) NEW DELHI:
Home Minister Rajnath Singh
on Thursday took an indirect
jibe at actor Aamir Khan by
arguing in Parliament that
Dr B R Ambedkar never
thought about leaving India
despite facing criticism for
his political and social views.
"Even as he faced insults, Dr
Babasaheb Ambedkar never
thought about leaving India.
He kept on presenting an
objective point of view for a
unified India," Rajnath said,
forcing the opposition Congress to object to the remarks. Rajnath, who alluded
to the ongoing debate on
intolerance while making his
statement on the 125th birth
anniversary of Dr B R
Ambedkar, clarified that he
did not want to stir another
row on the occasion. In his
speech, Rajnath also raked
up the controversial addition
of the words 'socialist' and
'secular' in India's preamble
to the Constitution. "Our
founding fathers believed
that the preamble is the soul
of the Constitution and no
changes should be made to
that. The two words - secular and socialist - were
inserted later. I am not
saying I don't agree with
those words. What happened is past now," he
said. The two words were
added to the preamble of
the Constitution through
the 42nd amendment by
the Congress-led Indira
Gandhi government in the
1970s. "Why was the secular word added?" Rajnath
asked. As Congress Leader
of Opposition Mallikarjun
Kharge got up to object to
Rajnath's remarks, he
said, "Dr Ambedkar wanted
to insert those words in
the preamble, but he was
not allowed to do that by the
leaders of his time." Kharge
said Ambedkar belonged to
this land, "unlike the Aryans
who are outsiders". Rajnath
went on to say that 'secular'
is the most abused word in
contemporary political discourse. "If there's is any
word which is being misused
in Indian politics, that is
'secular'," he said, prompting the opposition leaders
on their feet again. "Secularism essentially means
panthh-nirpeksh (non-sectarian), not dharm-nirpeksh
(non-religious), which is why
Dr Ambedkar did not put it in the
preamble,"theHomeMinistersaid.
ous parts for this set were first
moulded in clay in Mumbai,
and then it was cast in plaster
of Paris. It took us about 40
days to assemble the pre-fabricated structures here,'' he
said. "And it will take us a
fortnight to dismantle it and
clear the ground back to its
original form,'' Cyril said.
Chartered flights carrying
Union minister Ravi Shankar
Prasad and Bahrain royal family landed on Wednesday. An
elaborate security blanket has
been thrown over Kollam.
Apart from 250 cops, the services of 350 private security
personnel have been hired.
(Agency) PATNA: Bihar will
go dry from April 1, 2016,
chief minister Nitish Kumar announced on Thursday. The
chief minister made the announcement - a part of his
election pledge - at an official
function to mark Prohibition
Day here. He said the poorest
of the poor had been consuming liquor, badly hitting their
families and their children's
education. Increasing liquor
consumption was also a major cause for domestic violence, particularly against
women, and had contributed
to a rise in crimes. "Women
are suffering more than anyone else due to increasing
liquor consumption," he said.
An official at the chief
minister's office said Nitish
Kumar took the decision after
a high-level meeting with officials here. In July, Nitish Kumar
had declared that prohibition
would be imposed if he retained power in the assembly
elections. Bihar excise and prohibition minister Abdul Jalil
Mastan had earlier said that
the state government would
soon take steps to impose a
liquor ban. BJP leader Sushil
Kumar Modi on Wednesday
vowed to support a liquor ban.
The decision is expected to
derail the government's financial health. The excise department went into an overdrive in
2007 following a new policy
and started issuing licences
for marketing liquor across
the state. The revenue collection of excise department registered a more
than 10-fold jump, from
Rs.319 crore in 2005-06 to
Rs.3,650 crore in 2014-15.
Constitution’s ideals, principles under threat: Sonia
Anonymous
replaces
ISIS website
with Viagra
ad
A group associated
with Anonymous has
hacked into an ISISsupporting website,
replacing it with a
message to calm down
alongside an advert for
an online pharmacy.
ISIS sites have been
moving onto the dark
web in an attempt not
to be discovered. But a
hacking group called
Ghost Sec, which is
related to Anonymous,
took the site down and
replaced it with a
message telling readers that there was
"Too Much ISIS."
"Enhance your calm,"
the full message read.
"Too many people are
into this ISIS-stuff.
Please gaze upon this
lovely ad so we can
upgrade our infrastructure to give you ISIS
content you all so
desperately crave."
The ad — which linked
to an online pharmacy
where payments can be
made in bitcoin, and
which appears to be
hosted by the hacking
group — would allow
people to click through
to by online prescription drugs, including
Prozac and Viagra.
Before the site was
taken down, it was
understood to be one
of a number of sites
that were sharing and
copying ISIS propaganda so that it could
avoid detection and
being shut down. Many
such unofficial sites
have been created on
the dark web, according to security blogger
Scot Terban, though a
large number of them
appear to be unofficial
and largely disorganized attempts. According to some
bloggers, ISIS supporters have been looking
to move their propaganda sites onto the
dark web because they
are less likely to be
discovered and shut
down. It is unclear how
closely associated the
site and the group are,
with much of its online
activity being done by
people who are affiliated with Isis rather
than directly associated
with the group. ISIS
supporters have been
attempting to publish
sites on the dark web
— a part of the internet
made up of pages that
are not publicly accessible and often require
users to be using tools
that provide anonymity.
Since the Paris attacks
earlier this month,
groups associated with
Anonymous have
renewed their "war"
with ISIS sympathizers
online. Attacks as part
of the campaign have
included spam attacks
and reporting Twitter
accounts, as well as
more sophisticated
hacking.
(Agency) New Delhi: Congress President Sonia Gandhi
today targetted the government on issue of intolerance
alleging that ideals and principles of the Constitution were
under threat and being attacked deliberately. "People
who never had faith in the
Constitution, nor had they participated in its drafting, are
now swearing by it and are
laying claim to it. "They are
now having a discussion on
commitment to it. There cannot be a bigger joke than this,"
she said, utilising the discussion in the Lok Sabha on the
commitment to the Constitution as part of 125th birth
anniversary celebrations of B
R Ambedkar to attack the BJP.
Insisting that whatever being
witnessed over the past few
months was "totally against
the principles" of the Constitution, she recalled Ambedkar's
warning to hit out at the ruling
dispensation, as she sought to
highlight the contribution of
the Congress in the drafting of
the Constitution and in the
freedom struggle. She said
Ambedkar had observed that
howsoever good a Constitution may be, if those imple-
menting it were bad people,
then the utlimate effect would
only be bad. At a time when
BJP is seeking to appropriate
the legacy of Ambedkar, Gandhi
also utilised Ambedkar's praise
of the Congress for its contribution in the drafting of the
Constitution, indicating that the
Congress could lay the rightful
claim on the document. Gandhi
said Ambedkar had said at
that time "I was surprised
when I was chosen as the
chairman. There were more
learned and better people than
me in the Committee. It was
the discipline of the Congress
The Chief Correspondent, International Finance, Ms. Henny Sender meeting the
Union Minister for Railways, Shri Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu, in New Delhi on
November 26, 2015. pib
Ambedkar never thought
of leaving India: Rajnath
55-cr wedding for NRI’s daughter in Kerala
Nitish announces
liquor ban in Bihar
from April 1
next year
( A g e n c y )
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A
Rs 55 crore wedding extravaganza, capable of surpassing
even the most spectacular
Bollywood sets, will unveil at
the Asramam ground in Kollam
on Thursday where NRI business magnate Ravi Pillai's
daughter, Dr Arathi, will wed
Dr Adithya Vishnu of Kochi.
With a net worth of $2.8 billion, Ravi Pillai was ranked
first among the richest
Keralites in a survey conducted
by TOI in June. Pillai's RP Group
has a strong presence in Gulf
in construction, infrastructure
development, mining and edu-
cation, and has over 80,000
employees across 26 companies. Though wrapped in secrecy, sources associated with
the wedding plans told ToI
that the festivities, planned by
the production designer of the
multi-lingual top-grosser
'Bahubali', will showcase
dance performances by
Malayalam film actresses
Manju Warrier and Sobhana,
with a musical show conducted
by Stephen Devassy before
30,000 guests inside a 350,000
sq ft pandal modelled along
Rajasthan royal palaces. The
splurge on the wedding will
also include Rs 10-crore worth
charity initiatives planned in
Thiruvananthapuram and
Kollam districts in connection
with the wedding. A virtual
who's who of the Gulf and
several European countries
are expected. The guest list
starts with 42 global leaders including country heads,
CEOs, government reps,
politicians, film-stars, technocrats and diplomats. T P
Seetharaman, ambassador
of India to the UAE; Sheikh
Khalifa Bin Daij Al Khalifa,
president, Crown Prince
Office, Bahrain; Sheikh
Hamad Bin Khalid H A Al
Thani, Royal Family of
Qatar; Dr Essam Abdullah,
Saudi Royal Family; and,
Lebanese ambassador Michel
El Khoury have confirmed attendance.
Sources at
Thiruvananthapuram airport
said two chartered flights are
expected on Thursday. "But
we can accommodate more
as we only need a three-hour
alert to prepare for landing
and handling of special flights,''
sources said. The wedding
set, spread over eight acres,
has cost more than Rs 20
crore. The pandal was made
by a team of 200 professionals led by film art director
Sabu Cyril. "The design is
unique for this event. But
it's largely modelled on the
royal palaces of Rajasthan,"
said Cyril, who was the production designer for
'Bahubali'. He said that the
wedding set is larger than
the one he had made for
'Bahubali'. "The palace in
the film was set up on five
acres but this set will cover
40,000 sqft spread over
eight acres," Cyril told TOI.
While Cyril had to work for
two-and-half years for
building the 'Bahubali' set,
it took him close to 75 days
to create the Rajasthani
ambience in Kollam. "Vari-
Amid all the talk of the VCA
Stadium sporting a pitch not
worthy of playing a Test match
on, India and South Africa
dished out similar batting performances. After dismissing
South Africa for 79 inside the
first session, India were going
strong at 97/2, before a late
five-wicket-haul from Imran
Tahir dismissed them for 173,
and in turn setting South Africa
a huge target of 310 to win. In
reply, South Africa are once
again two wickets down, like
they were a day before. Coincidentally, even the unbeaten
batsmen are the same as
Wednesday in Hashim Amla
and Dean Elgar. A total of 20
wickets have fallen on day two
and it was one of the rare
occasions where a team has
batted twice in the same day.
Stiian van Zyl played a loose
shot to Ashwin, and South
Africa's decision of sending in
Tahir as nightwatchman backfired for the second time when
Amit Mishra removed him first
ball. Amla's team is 32/2 at
stumps, and need another 278
runs in order to level the series
and avert their first away series loss in nine years. Frankly,
on a surface that is extracting
some serious turn and bounce,
their chances of chasing anything in excess of 200, let alone
over 300 is next to nil. India's
batsmen applied themselves
well on a dust bowl-turnedminefield of a pitch. Sure,
there was enough purchase for
the spinners, something that
Simon Harmer and Co. would
have fancied, but no early signs
of Tahir gave India some respite. Morne Morkel gave
South Africa their first break-
through of the innings. Murali
Vijay edged him to Amla at first
slip and India were one down
for 8. Cheteshwar Pujara and
Shikhar Dhawan, alert to the
situation, took time and
adopted a cautious approach.
Scoring freely took some time,
but once it did, South Africa
were pushed to play catch
up with each run scored.
Pujara declared his intentions with consecutive fours
off Kagiso Rabada, who often drifted onto the
batsman's pads. Dhawan, in
search of runs, was uncomfortable at the start, but he
grew in confidence of his
partner at the other end - he
dispatched JP Duminy for
three boundaries in an over.
Both rotated the strike well,
in addition to the occasional
boundary that came along.
But their promising stand of
48 runs was cut short by a
straighter one from Duminy
that clipped Pujara's offstump
right after he had cracked him
for two boundaries. What was
baffling to see was the time
Amla took to bring Tahir to
bowl - the legspinner bowled
his first over in the 25th over
when India had already taken
a lead of over 230 runs. Why
was it baffling? Clearly because
of what happened once he arrived on scene. Three wickets
and four overs and all of a
sudden, South Africa were in
with a chance. Dhawan was
the first to go, opting to reverse
sweep Tahir. Virat Kohli was
next, lifting a catch to Faf du
Plessis at long-on. Ajinkya
Rahane, shortly after surviving
a close caught-behind shout,
landed an edge to point.
The Minister of State for Development of North Eastern Region (I/C), Prime
Minister’s Office, Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions, Department of Atomic
Energy, Department of Space, Dr. Jitendra Singh lighting the lamp to inaugurate
the Awareness Workshop on the online Pension Sanction and Payment Tracking
System ‘Bhavishya’, in New Delhi on November 26, 2015. PIB
3rd Test: Advantage
India after 20-wicket day
2
Ahmedabad. Dt. 27-11-2015 Friday
Editorial
Silence is not
an option
Since the days of Robert Burns in the 18th century,
best laid schemes of mice and men have often gone
awry. There is a minor interruption to the series on
media regulation that we have been carrying in this
column. It will resume next week. This past week,
our office was nearly snowed under with calls and
mails regarding the plan to reduce the age limit for
the civil services examination. The episode warrants a detailed clarification. The queries revealed
many things: that The Hindu is the most preferred
newspaper of civil services aspirants, that the
government has not fully thought through the
process of effecting a change in its examination
pattern without prejudicing the interests of the
candidates who are in the borderline age group,
and that there are limits to a responsible media
house in addressing the anxiety of young professionals who are civil service aspirants. While one
can empathise with the aspirants, some of their
suggestions relating to the coverage of the issue
are not feasible and would undermine the role of
the newspaper as a credible information provider.
Many felt that the newspaper should have withheld
this news item till the mains examination on December 20, 2014, as it had added to stress among
those who were preparing for the examination. I
feel it is quite the opposite. The report actually
alerts the candidates in the borderline age group to
be prepared for a new entrance examination regime, and to give it their best shot in this attempt,
possibly their last strike to make it to the all-India
services. One of the re p e a t e d q u e s t i o n s w e
received was this: what is the source of this
story? The answer is in the report, “Centre to
lower age limit for civil service aspirants”
(November 18, 2014), itself. The report attributes every detail to the official website of
the Department of Administrative Reforms and
Public Grievances. It also categorically states
that these measures were based on the recommendations of the Second Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC) and that it was almost
entirely accepted by the government. The government has not contradicted the story. A
report from New Delhi that was carried on the
same day reads: “Even as the Second Administ r a t i v e R e f o r m s C o m m i s s i o n r e p ort recommending reduction in the permissible age for appearing
in the Civil Services Examination and the
government’s stand on the issue have been in the
public domain for the past few months, the Department of Personnel and Training is yet to issue any
notification implementing it. But a senior government official said: ‘The very fact that the
government’s decision has been mentioned in t h e
report does not at all mean that it has been
implemented. This can only be construed as
indication of the government’s intention. It can
be implemented only by fulfilling mandatory
administrative requirements.’” Later, the government issued a clarification, which was published the next day. Accordingly, no change has
been made in the age limit/attempts for the
civil services examination, 2014. The official
statement, which does not talk about the future
limits on either age or number of attempts,
merely said: “The Group of Ministers (GoM) at
its meeting held on December 16, 2013, while
accepting the age of entry in the CSE to be 21,
discussed the upper age limit and decided to go
by the recommendations of the Core Group on
Administrative Reforms, which is 26 years for
the unreserved category, 28 for OBC and 29
years for SC/ST, and two years additional for
physically challenged candidates in each category. The GoM further decided to reiterate its
earlier decision regarding number of attempts,
i.e. three for unreserved candidates, five for
OBCs, six for SC/ST candidates with additional
two attempts for physically challenged candidates in each category. The above mentioned
decisions were noted for record and further
necessary action. However, before any action in
this regard could be taken, the government
further took a d e c i s i o n o n F e b r u a r y 7 , 2 0 1 4 ,
to allow two additional attempts to all
categories of candidates with effect from
CSE 2014, with consequential relaxation
of maximum age for all categories of
candidates, if required.”
Garvi Gujarat
Soap opera
We still have great advertisements and brand campaigns. Of course we do. Just
the other day, I watched one
on TV. Beautifully shot, with
fine looking people doing important work. The thing is, I
can’t quite remember the entire ad. And when I tried to
look it up on YouTube, my
fingers hovered hesitatingly
over the keyboard. You see, I
couldn’t really remember what
this ad was selling. And so, I
typed something else instead.
Within seconds, it pulled up
familiar images, and this time,
I found yet another thing the
Liril campaign had done right.
The iconic Liril girl, she really
sold you the soap. As she
danced with abandon under
the waterfall, the ad stayed
firmly about Liril. It was the
soap that promised you those
few minutes of complete freedom and freshness. She
wanted you to know that it
was Liril that had put her in
this good mood. And who
wouldn’t want a bit of what
she was having? Granted, easy
access to a nearby waterfall
might be lacking, but maybe a
shower would do? And so, the
Liril girl sent you to the stores
to pick up this magic soap that
let you forget things and enjoy
your bath so thoroughly that it
felt like a significant event.
She made you look forward to
singing under the shower (a
familiar, famous tune which
gave you away quite obviously,
really) till your family began
mumbling of water shortage
and lack of rhythm. There was,
also, a sort of clean, fresh
sexual appeal to the ad, one
that never crossed the line
into sleaziness, nor did it make
you want to change the channel in mixed company. Even
then, the first Liril girl, clad in
her two piece swimsuit and
drenched by the water, was a
risk. It was 1975, and Alyque
Padamsee, the man behind
the campaign by Lintas, was
taking a gamble. Vivek Mohan,
who worked with Padamsee
on the campaign, handling its
filming, remembers that
Padamsee had been confident
of the campaign. “Hindustan
Lever was a conservative client, with their ads usually
aimed at the middle class and
hinterland of India. This was a
breakthrough, an ad that would
cut through the clutter and
stand out. Padamsee’s confidence convinced everyone,
and they trusted him.” And so,
when Hindustan Lever
launched their soap, one that
was meant to be a premium
one, it was this campaign that
they used. So far, soaps like
Rexona and Lux had dominated the market, but they
were advertised as beauty
soaps which would improve
complexion, make you fairer
and remove pimples. Liril didn’t
promise beauty. This, interestingly and tragically enough,
is quite ground breaking even
today. It didn’t show before
and after pictures, nor did it
claim to increase a woman’s
desirability to men. It did feature a beautiful woman, but
that was just her. The soap
increased her joie de vivre,
but she was, essentially,
just enjoying herself. What
the soap did promise, and
didn’t need to put into words,
was freshness. The carefully selected yellow and
green colour, the setting
and the mood, washed clean
and new by the flowing
water, were simple, perfectly synced concepts. Every aspect of the campaign
was important. From the se-
of Liril girls. Casting the face
was always a challenge,
Mohan remembers. “We
had to call these girls for
auditions which, involving
showers, etc, people would
perhaps find suspicious. We
held the auditions in Lintas’
guest house, near Sophia
College in Bombay. The word
spread in the college and many
lection of the Liril girl, to
the colours and the music
used, both Hindustan Lever
and Lintas aimed for perfection. “We were constantly experimenting. After the waterfall, we decided to break that further
and shoot in Nepal’s rapids.”
Mohan also remembers that
with the rapids came other
changes. “We wanted to retain the catchy tune that Vanraj
Bhatia had composed, but, in
today’s terminology, were
looking for a remix. So I came
up with the idea of picking
three music composers, keeping them anonymous, and asking them to compose the remixes. Then the team would
pick the one they liked, and
the name would be revealed.”
All went according to plan,
and a little known guitarist
who worked with Louis Banks
was picked. Today, he is the
famous music composer,
Ehsaan Noorani, part of the
Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy trio. Like
the music, the colours used in
the ad were equally important, and Mohan remembers
a particularly difficult but challenging times along the way.
“The 1992 Bombay riots meant
that most of our tailors, who
were Muslim, had fled the city.
So two of us stayed back to
find tailors who could stitch
bikinis the exact green we
needed, and we kept sending
them to Kathmandu for approval.” It was Anjali Jathar
who featured in the ad with
the rapids, replacing Lunel
after over a decade’s run as
the Liril girl. For some, including Padamsee, Lunel
still remains the original,
and the best of the long line
people showed up, accompanied by their families.” Every
time, the campaign opted for
a fresh, cheerful face. Each
girl brought a different note to
the campaign, while retaining
its essential quality. “I left the
campaign just as Preity Zinta
was brought on board on
Shekhar Kapoor’s recommendation. She had been working
on “Tara Rum Pum Pum” with
him, and had also done a small
Cadbury ad. Her look, chirpy,
bubbly, was exactly right for
pital emerged a clear winner
given the scale and diversity of
its operations. While Jury
members were unanimous
about its great work, K V
very same hospital. Environmentalist Sunita Narain felt that
it was very important to recognize the hospital's work at this
particular juncture when
HelpAge India and The Leprosy Mission Trust India. The
Jury was particular that instead
of describing the award as
shared, both should be named
Kamath, chairman of ICICI
Bank and Infosys, revealed that
many years ago he had been
treated as an outpatient and
got a small surgery done at the
healthcare is increasingly being privatized.In the NGO segment, the Jury felt that all three
finalists deserved to win but
ended up giving the award to
winners.They felt this was
critical to turn the spotlight on
the Leprosy Mission's work.
With leprosy cases again rising
in India -and given the stigma
Liril,” says Mohan. Over time,
the ad changed looks, introducing seconds’ worth of plots.
Preity Zinta played halfhearted, bored tunes on her
piano before her Liril moment,
Pooja Batra waited in the heat
and dust outside a railway
crossing and Anisha Dalal
dribbled a basketball mid-afternoon. Perhaps what’s interesting is that till we reach
1999 and Hrishita Bhatt, these
girls were solo acts, each ad
concentrating solely on them
and the soap. Then, with Bhatt,
the setting changed to an urban one, with billboards and
crowds; and for the first time,
men appeared— men who
looked and liked what they
saw. Something had changed,
and the Liril girl’s abandon
wasn’t just for its own sake.
She had an audience. Her act
looked almost purposeful now.
And this was not all. The next
one, in 2000, did away with
the natural look of the ad completely. This time, it came with
a warning to not try the stunts
at home. So far, the whole
point had been to try them at
home! Now, the Liril girl was a
deep sea diver, kicking off her
safety gear and frolicking with
the soap under water. And
watching these ads, put in one
place by fan on YouTube, you
notice another interesting
thing. Somehow, what started
with Karen Lunel’s bikini morphs into more conservative
clothes, moving from a sombre one piece swimsuit to
shorts and t shirts and skirts.
It’s off air now, and thankfully,
I don’t really remember the
ads which came after, the ones
which regressed as they went
along, becoming the run-ofthe mill ones that talked of
sexual desirability and attraction. They were indistinguishable from the hundred similar
products on the shelf, unexceptional, and unworthy of a
comment. But since it was
Liril, the comments came anyway. After all, we had all
known what it used to be.
2
With skill and
fairness towards all
Vahanvati was the counsel for government in what was
probably the most difficult time for any government before the
Supreme Court. How do you write a reminiscence of a great
lawyer friend upon his untimely death, when he was more lively
than almost all of his contemporaries and larger-than-life in his
grace, etiquette and court mannerisms? How do you remember
a soul who meant ill of none, who was poised and calm in the
most difficult of matters to defend, and who remained so
throughout his life? How do you not weep in your heart, but not
help a smile, thinking of the man who lived the “If” of Rudyard
Kipling, where it reads: If you can keep your head when all
about you,/ Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,/ If you can
trust yourself when all men doubt you,/ But make allowance for
their doubting too. Goolam was the former attorney general,
former solicitor general and former advocate general of
Maharashtra, but ask me and I will unhesitatingly say, Goolam
was more “general” than anything else. Ask the students of the
National Law Institute University, Bhopal, who were charmed
by what was probably his last public speech during the
valedictory of a moot court earlier this year, or junior counsels
who got to work with him, and they will readily tell you that
Goolam was a man who never lost the common touch. Goolam
made his way up through ardent struggle and with the sheer
dint of enterprise more than anything else. He was a hardworker — sharing briefs with him as an additional solicitor
general while he was attorney general, I could see how
meticulous his notes were, and how well prepared he would
appear. He was a man of fine detail and a lawyer of great
industry. For example, in Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia’s court,
even in “covered” income tax matters he would have the tax
effect, the assessment year and the nature of exemption
claimed or type of work done by the assessee on his fingertips;
no matter if he had over 25 briefs a day. While my association
with Goolam was rather short, the deep loss from his untimely
demise makes me feel as if I had known him my entire life.
Curiously, we were advocate generals almost for a coinciding
period and moved to the Supreme Court almost at the same
time. I, however, had first met him at the Bombay High Court
when, as the advocate general of Madhya Pradesh, I had to
defend some very high-stake property disputes on behalf of the
state of MP. In our search for a fine counsel, we probably chose
one of the finest counsels ever produced by the Bombay Bar, the
then advocate general, Goolam Essaji Vahanvati. He had the
assets of sharpness and wit, and I was only ever awed by his
grace and charm in court. When I moved to Delhi, he had
recently been appointed solicitor general and was appearing in
all important matters. I remember vividly when we found each
other on opposite sides in the celebrated case of Air Vice
Marshal Harish Masand, who had been superseded. The
matter came up several times before the SC and the defence
ministry sought to put in all its might, but with Goolam as their
counsel, all that might was channelled as emphatic and
immensely polite arguments. It was a learning experience to
see how he presented the view of the government. When
realising that the court was not with him that day, he immediately switched to his capacity as the “counsel of the crown” and
felt it necessary to render the “fair point of view” as an officer
of the court. Even while disagreeing, he would make his
immense respect for the opinion of the court clear, and it is this
skill and fairness that made him counsel par excellence.
To live and to let go
Aruna Shanbaug is a name
that has hovered on the edge
of our subconscious for 40
years now. It blurs over and
then sharpens when an anniversary date comes up and
images of nurses cutting
cakes intrude into our drawing rooms. We pause a while,
horrified by the retelling of
her rape and assault that left
her a vegetable in a hospital
ward in Mumbai, then move
on to the other horrors that
life in India presents for our
regular consumption. Aruna’s
assailant sodomised her after
choking her with a dog chain,
not enough to kill her but
enough to cause permanent
brain damage, paralysis, and
cortical blindness. Journalistwriter Pinki Virani took up
her case. In 2010, the Supreme Court set up a medical
panel to examine Aruna and
declared her to be in a permanent vegetative state. In
2011, the Supreme Court
passed a judgment that clarified that passive euthanasia
was not illegal. It was a momentous step forward but
one that ironically kept Aruna
outside its pale because her
erstwhile colleagues, the
nurses in KEM Hospital who
cared for her, refused to let go.
And so Aruna lives on — unable
to see, talk, move or emote,
and fed through a tube in her
nose. I had forgotten most of
this sad hopeless story. Until I
was invited a couple of weeks
ago to watch Kahaani Karuna
Ki, a documentary by Chennaibased filmmaker Chetan Shah
on passive euthanasia. And
there it was again, overwhelming in the enormity of its horror.
Chetan’s film talks about passive euthanasia through the
Aruna Shanbaug story, but the
story would be incomplete without Pinki Virani, who became
Aruna’s patron, campaigner and
quite literally her voice. In the
film too, Pinki’s voice rings
through, passionately and
fiercely fighting for a body, as
she says at one point, that is
not alive but refuses to die. I
ask Chetan what moved him to
make the film and he says it’s a
topic that he has always felt
strongly about. “Death is a taboo subject in India,” he says,
“nobody wants to even talk
about making a will.” Death is
indeed superstitious for Indians, who consider the mere
mention of it inauspicious. This
means that when a person is in
a terminal illness or left brain
dead by an incident, there is
enormous pressure on the family to continue medical and palliative care so that they might
not appear uncaring or callous.
“Families feel a great deal of
guilt,” says Chetan, “to take
the decision to withdraw life
support.” Life support could be
a ventilator or, as in Aruna’s
case, a feeding tube. And passive euthanasia is the withholding or withdrawal of life support
or further treatment to a patient who is terminally ill or in a
permanent vegetative state.
Understandably, it is a traumatic decision for the family but
what is often left out of the
equation is the patient’s best
interest or right to live and die
with dignity. Finally, with the
2011 judgment, we saw clarity
on an issue that has haunted
thousands of families over the
years. The 52-minute documentary talks to the people
involved in that historic judg-
ment — the lawyers; Virani,
who initiated the case, her sister and husband, and her
former editor — and recounts
just how the case was prepared and fought. It also
points out that even with
the right to make end-of-life
choices allowed, people cannot exercise the right because the concept of a ‘living will’ is still not legal in
India. A living will is a directive in which a person expresses a desire to be allowed death rather than
be kept alive through artificial means. The Supreme
Court is at present considering the plea to allow it,
with the biggest objection
being the fear of its abuse.
“It is important,” says Chetan,
“because its absence leaves
both families and doctors
helpless.” Besides the emotional trauma, there is the
inevitable issue of finances.
There are hundreds of poor
families who cannot afford
prolonged life support.
Aruna’s family withdrew after the first years; it’s her
former colleagues who care for her.
When impact is measured by scale, scope, spirit & spunk
Adoctor couple who have
revolutionized the de livery of
healthcare to tribals in Naxalhit Gadchiroli district, a civil
hospital in Ahmedabad which
defies stereotypes about staterun institutions, a government
programme to take science to
children who live in the forgotten interiors of the country, and
a corporate's effort to bring the
girl child into the warm, nurturing embrace of education were
among the path-breaking initiatives and inspiring human
endeavours and that got the
nod from the high-powered
Jury that met to choose the
2014-15 winners of the Times
of India Social Impact Awards.
In its third edition, the SIA has
become the gold standard for
socially empowering work as
evidenced by its 1,100 entries.
The Jury, chaired by Naresh
Chandra, ex-Cabinet secretary, governor and ambassador to the US, had the unenviable task of choosing the most
deserving from among the 40
finalists shortlisted for their
consideration, after multiple
rounds of elimination. The Jury
rose to the occasion, spending
the next three hours in intense
discussions and even resorting
to a vote a couple of times. The
eight-member Jury, which
bonded over a light vegetarian
lunch before starting discussions, looked for impactful,
scalable work, especially in
remote corners of the country
or aimed at vulnerable social
groups like the girl child,
manual scavengers and leprosy patients. The tone for the
afternoon was set by Times
Group CEO Raj Jain. Welcoming the distinguished Jury, he
said, “We believe the Social
Impact Awards is the most significant professional work we
do at The Times of India.“ The
first category that came up for
discussion was Health. Justice
AP Shah, chairman of the Law
Commission, set the ball rolling by making the case for
Piramal Swasthya in the Corporate segment. He commended its work in the northeast, adding, “Many in India
don't even consider that region
part of the country .“ He was
supported by social activist
Aruna Roy who said the organization works “in a very difficult part of India, in difficult
terrain and is doing great
work“. In the Government segment, Ahmedabad's Civil Hos-
associated with the disease the Jury felt “strong signalling“
was necessary . As Justice
Shah said, “Leprosy has fallen
off the radar. We need to put it
back into the limelight.“ When
Education came up for consideration -Piramal Foundation
was again a contender -the
discussion veered towards the
merits of rewarding one organization multiple times as
against recognizing multiple
enti-ties. The country's most
socially conscious megastar,
Aamir Khan, was all for multiple
recognition for the same
personentity . “Multiple
awards will challenge others to
do better, pull up their
socks,“ he argued. Arvind
Panagariya, vice-chairman
of Niti Aayog, was of the
same opinion, and argued
for “merit over equality“.
The opposing point of view
was that spreading the
awards would incentivize
more people to do good. Finally , distribution won over
concentration with the Jury
choosing K C Mahindra Education Trust as the winner in the
Corporate segment for doing
stellar work in getting girls into
schools. While choosing the
private sector winner proved to
be contentious, the National
Council of Science Museums
was the unanimous winner in
the Government section for its
work in popularizing science in
rural areas. In the NGO sector,
Barefoot College was the
choice of seven of the judges the eighth, Aruna Roy , recused
herself as Barefoot is run by
her husband, Bunker Roy . She
had recused herself earlier
too, when HelpAge was being
considered, as she's closely associated with the organization.
The Environment category
generated much debate.
ONergy's solar solutions led to
an animated discussion on
whether solar energy is scalable in the Indian context,
whether it can actually be a
`mass' solution and how
costeffective it is. Aamir, in
fact, wanted to know from
other Jury members whether
the “cost of the things that go
into generating solar power is
higher than the price of it“.
Sunita Narain, a big believer in
solar's ability “to upscale energy access to the poorest“,
told him that while “initial costs
are high, long term it is low“.
She argued that “energy pov-
erty is a critical part of human
deprivation“, and that it was a
better option because “the
community has control over
solar which it doesn't have
over the grid“. Roy used this
opportunity to ask Panagariya
to hold a debate on India's energy problem, to which he
promptly agreed. Throughout
the threehour meeting,
Panagariya -till recently a renowned professor of economics at Columbia University mostly voted for candidates
who were “self-financing and
hence scalable“, staying true to
his calling. The Aga Khan Rural Support Programme India,
which works to provide safe
water in rural areas, and Jal
Bhagirathi Foundation, which
is involved in water rejuvenation through community interventions, were the joint winners in the NGO segment. However, the Jury decided to not
give an award in the Corporate
segment as the entries were
deemed “too small and lacking
scale“. In the Government category , the Indian Farm Forestry Development Corporation (IFFDC) was chosen for its
community-run forestry
programmes on barren lands.
Garvi Gujarat
3
New proposed particle may
help detect dark matter
The particle, which is
proposed to have 0.02 per
cent of an electron’s mass,
does not interact with light
and may not penetrate the
Earth’s atmosphere but will
be detected through a
space experiment. Researchers have proposed a
new fundamental particle
which could explain why no
one has managed to detect
the elusive ‘dark matter’
that makes up 85 per cent
of the universe’s mass.
Dark matter is conjectured
to exist as a consequence
of its gravitational effects
on stars and galaxies,
gravitational lensing (the
bending of light rays)
around these celestial objects, and through its imprint on the Cosmic Microwave Background (the afterglow of the Big Bang).
Despite compelling indirect
evidence and considerable experimental effort,
dark matter has never
been detected directly.
Particle physics gives
clues to what dark matter might be, and the
standard view is that dark
matter particles have,
researchers say, a very
large mass for fundamental particles — comparable to that of heavy atoms. Lighter dark matter
particles are considered
less likely for astrophysical reasons, although exceptions are known, and
this research highlights a
previously unknown window
where they could exist and,
with very general arguments from particle physics, derives some surprising results, according to researchers from the University of Southampton. They
have proposed a new particle that has a mass only
about 0.02 per cent that of
an electron. While it does
not interact with light, as
required for dark matter, it
does interact surprisingly
strongly with normal matter. Indeed, in stark contrast to other candidates, it
may not even penetrate
Earth’s atmosphere, researchers said. Earthbound detection is therefore not likely, so the researchers plan to incorporate searches into a space
experiment planned by the
Macroscopic quantum resonators (MAQRO) consortium, with whom they are
already involved. A
nanoparticle, suspended in
space and exposed directly
to the flow of dark matter,
will be pushed downstream. Sensitive monitoring of this particle’s position will reveal information
about the nature of this dark
matter particle, if it exists,
researchers said. “Our candidate particle sounds
crazy, but currently there
seem to be no experiments
or observations which
could rule it out,” said Dr
James Bateman, from Physics and Astronomy at the
University of Southampton
and co-author of the study.
“Dark matter is one of the
most important unsolved
problems in modern phys-
ics, and we hope that our
suggestion will inspire others to develop detailed particle theory and even experimental tests,” he said.
“At the moment, experi-
ments on dark matter do
not point in a clear direction and, given also that
the Large Hadron Collider
at CERN has not found
any signs of new physics
yet, it may be time that
we shift our paradigm
towards alternative candidates for dark matter,”
said Dr Alexander Merle,
co-author from the Max
Planck Institute in
Munich, Germany.
Home is where the stories are
Gautham Vasudev Menon
became a filmmaker at a time
when the Tamil heroe had already elevated stalking to an
accepted social principle and
moral policing of women became his fundamental duty. In
slow, incremental steps,
Gautham Menon began resketching the male protagonist
as a chivalrous and courteous
human being, who is respectful towards women. As a result,
he became a big hit with the
women. The liberal attitudes
and slick style that permeates
his films were deemed an ideal
foil for actor Ajith, who is also
identified as a stylish, dignified
and chivalrous human being by
his fans and the public at large.
After several unsuccessful attempts to team up, Gautham’s
third instalment of what is now
being called his ‘cop trilogy’
(the first two were Kaakha
Kaakha and Vettaiyadu
Vilaiyadu), Yennai Arindhal, is
ready for release on February
5. “I was asked if I could start
work on the film right away
while I was still working on the
Simbu film. Yennai Arindhaal is
perhaps the quickest film in my
career. And this is also a film
which was written for Ajith,”
says Gautham at Harris
Jayaraj’s recording studio.
Despite being explicitly asked
by Ajith to not include anything
to massage his ‘superstar’ status, Gautham guarantees that
there are at least five ‘applause’ moments in this film.
“In Arrambam, there is a moment when he looks sharply at
someone touching his shoul-
der. I have loved some of the
moments from his earlier
films. These are there but the
audience will forget they are
watching an Ajith film 15 minutes into it. This is by far his best
work,” he adds. The tension
between the desire to do a
movie with Gautham’s sensibilities and at the same time
contain the urge to exploit his
image was resolved, he says,
by incorporating real-life traits
of Ajith into the narrative. “I
know what he would do if there
was a woman walking beside
him towards a door. We have
put him in clothes that he would
probably wear in real life himself. In this way, the audience
doesn’t’ have to really suspend
their disbelief,” he reveals.
While he hesitates a bit before
admitting that the ‘cop trilogy
is complete’, he describes the
film as a biography of
Sathyadev from the age of 13.
“I can’t tell you what he plays
in the film because that is what
the film is about. Although there
is no scene like this, I would say
that it is the story of a 13-yearold boy who wanted to become
a doctor but ended up being
someone else,” he says. The
first two earlier cop films made
by Gautham — Kaakha Kaakha
with actor Suriya and
Vettaiyadu Vilaiyadu starring
Kamal Haasan — were runaway successes and instantly
caught the public imagination.
They are also now part of popculture. However, they also
attracted sharp criticism for
‘glorifying encounter and extra-judicial killings’. Suriya
plays a daring ‘encounter specialist’ in Kaakha Kaakha and
the film is said to have given
policemen a PR make-over.
Gautham defends his creative
decision: “There are good
people and bad people everywhere. There are people
within the system who are trying to change it and doing good
work. I understand that bureaucracy, hierarchy and managing politics is not easy. But I
respect the fact that they are
at least out there, doing stuff.
Also, I wasn’t trying to justify
encounters. I was presenting
a cop’s perspective and this
does not necessarily mean it
has the author’s endorsement.” He further states, “If my
tale has to revolve around a
protagonist and there is action
around him, I can only imagine
him to be someone from the
police or the Army. People like
us don’t encounter violence on
a daily basis unless they are in
a road-rage situation or are in
college fighting over a girl.”
While many would still disagree with his argument, it is
a fact that Gautham Menon’s
movies are regulated by a
matrix of strong middle-class
values. There is a ‘biographical’ element to all of his films
which, he says, can be traced back
to growing up in a middle-class
household. “Everything that I
write is mostly what I have experienced with my father, growing
up,” he declares. Specifically talking about the much-loved romance sequences in his films,
he credits his father for it.
“Most of the romance in my
films has been inspired by my
father. I have seen him holding my mother’s feet and talking to her. A lot of Neethane En
Ponvasantham, a lot of Vinnai
Thaandi Varuvaaya and a lot of
Vaaranam Aayiram came from
him. My knowledge of books,
the way I speak, have all been
from him. Vaaranam Aayiram,
in a way, was catharsis, my
way of holding on to his memories.” While this has been
Gautham Menon’s trademark,
so to speak, it has also been a
constant source of criticism. He
has been called out for being
cocooned in the comforts of the
middle-class, unwilling to look
at the harsh realities of life.
“That’s how I like it. Take romance for instance: My parents have never been a problem in my life. I had the kind of
father who would say ‘Don’t
stand and talk to the girl on the
street. Bring her home’. I have
never sat and analysed a scene
when I have to write a romantic one. It just flows,” he says.
Yet, he is well aware that he
has come to represent a certain kind of values through his
films. In the next 10 years,
Gautham Menon says that he
wants to move into a ‘different
zone’. “If people are expecting
only a certain kind of films from
me, I want to change that. I
want to make shorter films
(around two hours) — in different genres. I would have done
it with Dhruva Natchathiram itself, but Suriya didn’t let that
happen. But there are also
people who say that there are
takers for the way I represent,
for instance, women in my
movies. They say, ‘why are
you bothered about few people
who say they don’t like it?’ I
don’t want to be predictable,
but that doesn’t mean it is necessarily going to be about
people in the slums.” He reveals that he is already testing
waters with Yennai Arindhaal
despite the fact that he was told
that it might not go well with a
section of the audience. “I
have made a couple of bold
moves in this film, which is in
the modern space. Even
though we haven’t shown anything happening and it has
been left to the audience’s
imagination,” he hints. But there
are a few things he would never
do in his movies. “Even if I am
writing the character of a
woman who is a bad person, I
would never expose it to the audience,” he says. The next is the
obvious one: “I can’t take it when
fathers are being made villains.
Ahmedabad. Dt. 27-11-2015 Friday
Hidden histories: Taking
tennis to the people
The Chennai Open is
now a much-sought-after
fixture in our city’s calendar, replacing the annual
cricket test matches during
the week before Pongal. All
the action of Chennai Open
is
centred
at
the
Nungambakkam Tennis
Stadium, designed in 1995.
Not far from there, in
Egmore, stands the first
public tennis stadium of the
city, and in not a very good
state at that. Built in 1946,
the Egmore stadium owes
its existence to J.P.L.
Shenoy ICS who was the
Commissioner of the Corporation between 1944 and
1947. A keen sportsman
himself, he played his daily
quota of tennis at the Presidency Club, of which he
was a member. His ambition was to ensure a proper
facility for tennis enthusiasts, and top ranking players. At that time, almost all
the tennis courts in the city
were in private hands. The
oldest were those of the
Madras Cricket Club laid out
in 1883. By the time the
Madras Provincial Lawn
Tennis Association was inaugurated in 1926, several
other clubs in the city had
facilities, but none was
open to the public. Having
decided in 1946 that the
city needed a tennis stadium, Shenoy moved
quickly. He chose the
Egmore playground set up
by the Corporation in 1928
as a suitable site. He sought
the military’s help for quick
execution of his plan. Under the supervision of Corporation Engineer M.
Meeran, work on the stadium began on November
10, 1946 and was completed on December 30 the
same year. The facility,
creasing, Davis Cup tournaments began to be held
at a makeshift facility put
up on the Island Grounds.
The Egmore stadium continued to be used for training — this was where the
Amritraj Brothers were
taught the nuances by
with three tennis courts and
concrete galleries that could
seat around a 1,000 people,
was declared open on December 31, 1946, by the
Gaekwad of Baroda in the
presence of the Mayor of
Madras, T. Sundara Rao
Naidu. The Madras (later
Tamil Nadu) Provincial
Lawn Tennis Association
moved into the clubhouse
that was built alongside. It
was here that the Davis Cup
matches were played in the
1950s, all of them featuring the Madras-based international tennis legend R.
Krishnan. In the 1960s and
1970s, with crowds in-
famed coach T.A. Rama
Rao. With the SDAT constructing
the
Nungambakkam facility,
tennis moved away from
here forever. A vast
hockey stadium was constructed at the rear and
named after former
Mayor M. Radhakrishna
Pillai. It overshadows the
old tennis stadium, parts
of which, along with the
clubhouse, have been
taken over by the Tamil
Nadu Volleyball Association. What is left could
do with better maintenance as part of our
sports heritage.
Between reality
and illusion
On the desert fossil trail in Morocco, Amy Gigi
Alexander stumbles into the barren city of Ouarzazate,
and traverses through time at its Atlas Studios
At the end of a long arduous drive through the south of
Morocco on a journey to collect
ancient fossils, I was tired of
the view: sand, sand again,
sand yet again, and blurred
oasis. The heat was oppressive. And yet, even in the
middle of it all, one was not
alone. In the most barren dust,
a man in a brilliant azure
Tuareg costume appeared out
of thin air, holding a plate of
fake fossils for sale, carrying
his tray as though offering the
finest of desserts. I longed for
a place to simply walk and
drink in a different scene,
cooler air, and be uninterrupted by touts and sun so
strong it made me feverish. I
needed to linger, savour, wander. When one is in the same
landscape for days, it can
scramble the mind. It is hard to
know what is real, and the
desert, in particular, is relentless in its silence and constant
surreal glimpses of happenings around you. A woman,
bent against the wind,
swathed in black, slowly moving along the side the road
against a backdrop bereft of
human habitation for 20 miles.
The sight of three camels without their keeper, tied together
with red ropes and bells, unconcerned that you wait as they
cross the road. Ruins made of
buff-coloured earth and red
clay, half crumbling, small windows pitted out with ancient
eyes behind them. I needed to
look upon something different,
for the desert, which at first
had seemed inviting and intoxicating, wore me out with its
repetition. I chose a site just
outside of one of the southernmost cities on the fossil trail in
Morocco: Ouarzazate. Famous
for being a gathering place for
fossil hunters, as well as dealers, it had something else that
attracted me: the famous Atlas Studios, the largest movie
studio in the world. Created in
the early 1980s, the Studio
stretched across the South of
Morocco, spanning 3,22,000
miles, a landscape empty of
anything except a few villages
and, of course, an endless supply of sand. Ouarzazate is what
inspired the idea of the movie
Studios: the town was the setting for Lawrence of Arabia in
1962. I pulled up into the Studio lot. The gates were polished
and brassy, the letters ATLAS
spelled out in blue, and at the
entrance, there were no fossil-
selling touts. Instead, I was
greeted by men in theatrical
costumes: gladiators, soldiers,
Greek noblemen in togas, and
a mummy. Here was a surreal
scene I welcomed gladly, and
once inside, to my great joy,
there were gardens, lush with
fountains and swimming pools,
tangerine trees and green everywhere. I could have stayed
by that swimming pool all day
and waited for a peek at some
movie star leaving their hotel
room, but I wasn’t there to
catch a glimpse of Russell
Crowe or Leonardo DiCaprio.
I was there to be transported
to another place in time. And
not just one, but many. The
Studio tour began, and the tour
group was led from one film set
to the next. We began at The
Jewel of the Nile, and I was
rushed into the jungle by a rickety plane. Then I was thrust
into the world of Babel, where
the Studio seemed to have
combined crumbling sets with
an Egyptian theme and what
looked like old-world Greece.
Walking through double Tibetan doors of red and pink
with saffron scrolls, I found
myself on the set of The
Mummy, and wandered
through halls painted with hieroglyphics as I was watched
by a sphinx. Around a corner,
there was the set of Gladiator:
the arena where battles were
fought, the rooms of mudbrick where the gladiators had
slept, the cots still standing. I
could still hear the shouts of the
crowd watching the men fight
as I walked off the main sets
into what seemed be a wasteland of used sculptures and set
props. Suddenly, I realised that
this was no junkyard: it was the
set of Star Wars. As I walked
back through the set tour, the
idea that all of this was out
here, in this remote place was
difficult to believe: that these
structures, buildings and props
were actually solid stone. It
was then that I touched those
Tibetan doors again, and
realised they were Styrofoam.
I revisited every set, touching
each statue and wall, and each
time, my fingers gave way to
something soft and temporary:
jute, paper, plastic. Stairs could
not be climbed upon. Doors did
not open. Towns were flat
three-dimensional paintings.
Statues, which looked to be of
fine marble, were foam pitted
with sand. None of this was real.
3
Travel the
world
through pix
Do you know which are
the UNESCO World Heritage
sites in India? At least 10 of
them? No? Then maybe it’s a
good idea to peek into an
exhibition of photographs
‘UNESCO World Heritage
Sites in India and abroad’
which is on his weekend at
the Alliance Francaise.
Conceptualised and curated
by travel writer and photographer Susheela Nair, the
exhibition will feature about
125 photographs. “I’ve been
hosting such photography
exhibitions on the theme of
adventure sports for the last
two years. For a change, I
wanted to do a series on
heritage sites. But there are
so many heritage sites, so I
decided to zero in on UNESCO
World Heritage Sites. The
idea is to create an awareness on the 32 sites in India.
There are two in Karnataka
– Hampi and Pattadakal,”
says Susheela. She has visited about 24 of these sites
and ten of her photographs
also appear in the exhibition. Among the natural sites
featured from India are the
Manas
Sarovar,
the
Kaziranga National Park,
Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary,
the Greater Himalayan Region. The exhibition is being
presented across three categories — Cultural (Heritage)
Sites, Natural Sites and Looking Beyond India. The Natural Sites section includes
breathtaking photos of the
exotic flora and fauna of the
Western Ghats, Komodo
dragons in Indonesia, Great
Himalayan National Park, the
spectacular Nanda Devi Biosphere, etc. The exhibition
has photos from heritage
sites across 20 countries.
“We called for entries in
October 2014. Many of the
photographers were not
aware of the sites which
qualify. We got nearly 250
entries, and are exhibiting
125 of them. The tourism
boards of Indonesia and
Spain are also participating.
Some of the photographers
are amateurs, some professionals; most are regular
travellers. The idea is not so
much about competition as
it is about creating awareness. For example, the Kaas
plateau in Maharashtra, is
like the Valley of Flowers but
not well known because it’s
off the tourist circuit. Ashok
Mansur has sent in pictures
of the place.” Hampi, the
Chola Temples in Thanjavur,
the imposing hill forts of
Rajasthan, the ancient Mountain Railways, erotic panels
of Khajuraho, stately
churches of Goa, rock-cut
splendours of Ajanta and
Ellora, the stunning archaeological park in ChampanerPavgadh, are some of the
highlights in the cultural section. The ‘Looking Beyond
India’ section features pictures from the walled city of
Khiva in Uzbekistan, red
sandstone monuments of
Petra, the desert landscape
of Wadi Rum, Blue Mosque
and Hagia Sophia in Istanbul,
the sculptural extravaganza
of Angkor Wat, Red Square
in Melaka, incredible monuments of Spain, Golden
Temple of Dambulla, the Historic Centre in Macao and so
on. The exhibition showcases
photographs of photographers Amar Bhaskar,
Anuradha Nadipalli, Arun
Bhat , Aruna Chandaraju,
Ashok Mansur, B.S. Prasad,
B.V. Prakash, Charan Kumar,
Dr. B.R. Suhas, Devendra
Kumar, Dinesh Shukla, G.S.
Krishnamurthy, Indonesia
Tourism Board, Indrakumar
Dastaenavar, Jayaram K,
Jayan N.P., Judhajit Bagchi,
Kumar
Mangwani,K.
Nallatambi, Nagesh Hegde,
Prithwiraj Dhang, Rahul
Gajjar, Raj Kamal Sahu,
Ramakanth, Ranadeep
Bhattacharyya, Susheela
Nair, Satyanarayana C.R,
Shankar
Adisesh,
Shivananda Kumar, Shivu K.,
Sohil Laad, Spain Tourism
Board, Suresh Raman,and
Shashi Kumar. The four best
entries that have been
awarded prizes include —
first prize to Rahul Gajjar
(Baroda) – for his dramatic
picture, ‘Moon Rise at Saat
Kaman in ChampanerPavgadh’, second to the
Spain Tourism Board for the
picture ‘Between Walls in
Caceres’, third to Shivu K.
for his picture of school children in Pattadakal, and the
jury’s Special Mention Award
to N.P. Jayan for his stunning
landscape of the Silent Valley.
4
Garvi Gujarat
Ahmedabad. Dt. 27-11-2015 Friday
Dang leads jump
in child sex ratio
Ahmedabad: There is
some good news for save the
girl child campaign in the
state. Civil Registration System (CRS) data which reflects annual birth fi gures
registered in the sta te shows
that the child sex ratio in the
state has remained over 900
girls per 1,000 boys for five
years consistently. Gujarat
recorded 901 girls per 1,000
boys in 2013, while in 2012 it
was 902. In 2009, CSR was
recorded at 905 per 1,000
boys. The CRS data released
by the census of India reveals that the child sex ratio
at birth has jumped from 824
girls in 2004 to 901 girls per
1,000 boys in 2013. Ironically,
Ahmedabad and Surat are at
the bottom of the list. Surat
has recorded the lowest ratio
of 854 girls per 1,000 boys,
while Ahmedabad recorded
880 girls per 1,000 boys, better only than Surat. This is clo
sely followed by Bhavnagar,
Rajkot and Vadodara. The
state capital Gand hinagar
has also figu red as the six
lo west dis trict in terms of
sex ratio in the state. Of the
12.68 lakh births registered,
there were 6.67 lakh boys,
while 6.01lakh were girls.
However, once again the tribal
district of Dang is heading
the list with a ratio of 1,040
girls per 1,000 boys. Dang is
the only district where more
girls were born as compared
to boys. The state had some
more reasons to cheer as
Gujarat has bettered the national average. While the national average is 898,
Gujarat has a ratio of 902.
The report adds that 13 of
20 major states have
crossed 90% registration
of births. Gujarat has
100% registration of births.
‘Make affidavits a must
for civic poll candidates'
Ahmedabad: In the
recently held civic polls
in Bengal, Karnataka
and Delhi, citizens had
logged on to their respective state election
websites to download
affidavits of contesting
candidates to browse
criminal cases against
them, education and
wealth. In Gujarat,
there has not been any
such move by the state
government. Surprisingly, the state wanted
to remain at the forefront by making voting
compulsory for citizens,
demanding accountability from citizens
while it faltered on
transparency of candidates. None of the contesting candidates in
the civic body elections
in the state has to file
affidavit to reveal
hisher credentials before the public. Nagrik
Sangathan member
Roshan Shah told TOI,
“We have written to the
State Election Commission (SEC) requesting
it to make filing of affidavits compulsory for
all candidates.The state
has enough bandwidth
in its prevailing GSWAN
network to make these
affidavits available to
citizens,“ says Shah. The
SEC has also refrained
from implementing NOTA
along with the compulsory voting provision in
this election. It was only
after the high court order that the NOTA option
was included in the civic
polls. “Filing of affidavits
for background checks of
candidates is a huge task
and requires a robust
network to hold that data.
The government has to
make requisite provisions
to include affidavits into
the process,“ says a senior official in the general administration department.
Average thali turns
pricey treat
Ahmedabad: Bharti
Patel, a homemaker in
Vastrapur is finding it
difficult to maintain the
family's monthly budget
which has gone up by at
least 25-30% in the past
one year. Her monthly
budget for food, including the groceries which
was around Rs 5,000,
has now gone up to Rs
6,500 with everything
becoming expensive especially pulses, vegetable, milk and other
items. Like Bharti, several middleclass women
are finding it difficult to
keep the regular thali
nutritious enough in the
wake of increasing
prices. “First, it was onion and now dal. The
prices have soared like
anything this year. If you
look at the prices, even
paneer is cheaper than
tur dal,“ said Swati
Shah, a homemaker in
Motera. Amardeep Singh,
who runs a grocery shop
in Ghatlodia, said, “Until
last year, moong dal was
costlier than tur dal but
now things have reversed. Tur dal has been
replaced by chana and
masoor dal in the
thali.Even desi chana,
which is a regular in
Gujarati thali, has got
costlier by 30%. The
sales of tur dal have
fallen by over 50%.“ The
average thali of has become expensive by 2540% (both Gujarati and
Punjabi thali) in the last
one year owing to rise in
prices of items and other
costs. “In case of Gujarati
thali, prices have increased
by at least Rs 20 while the
Punjabi thali has shot up by
Rs 30Rs 40. Besides input
costs in terms of vegetables, the electricity and
labour charges have also
increased,“ Dilip Thakker
of Gopi Dining Hall. However, the prices of
wheat, rice, groundnut
oil and cottonseed oil
have remained almost
unchanged over one year
providing some respite
to people. To meet rising prices of vegetable,
families are also cutting
down on other expenses.
“Earlier, it was onion and
now tur dal whose consumption has gone severely low. We now have
other dals though my children aren't much fond of
it,“ added Shah. Retail food
chains and upcoming
online grocery shops are
making the most of the opportunity by offering discounts over bulk buys. For
example, one kg of tomato
costs Rs 40 per kg in the
regular vegetable market
whereas a retail food chain
is offering at Rs 32-34 per
kg and prices go down further during the weekend.
GU committee to permit
inter-disciplinary changes
(Corspondent)
Ahmedabad: The academic
council of Gujarat University
has formed a committee to
permit inter-disciplinary
changes in the faculties for
students wishing to switch over
to arts from science or
viceversa. Citing an example,
an official of GU said: “A student who has graduated with
chemistry as his main subject
in BSC can opt for Master of
Commerce with Economic or
even Master of Arts psychology or any other subject of his
choice. The student will have
to take a six-month bridge
course to switch over from
science to commerce or art
stream. Vice chancellor of GU,
MN Patel, said that “The committee which has been formed
p will lay down rules in which
subject changes v can be permitted and also duration of
the f bridge-course for each
subject,“ he said. p Academic
council of GU has also decided
that toppers in respective faculties will now have a say in
the functioning of the board of
studies. Sources said there is
a provision to include toppers
in the board but GU had failed
to implement this till date.
Members of the academic
council also asked GU authorities to set aside funds to promote startups by students. The
state government has recently
decided to allocate funds for
various universities in the state
to promote startups. However
GU is not among these univer-
sities. Council members sta
ted that once GU begins promoting startups, they would
then approach the allocate
funds to GU and also government to allocate funds to GU
and also have a GU as nodal
agency. The council also decided to set up a council within
GU for monitoring students'
research work and promote quality research in the university.
Over 15% increase
in dengue cases in Oct
Ahmedabad: The city
registered an increase of
15.8% in dengue cases in
October this year as compared to the same duration last year. According
to a bulletin released by
the Ah medabad Municipal Corporation (AMC),
the city recorded 293
cases this year while 253
dengue cases were reported in October 2014. A
total of 1,180 cases were
registered last year.But
from January 1 to October 31 this year, private
and AMC run hospitals
have already regist e r e d
1,331 dengue cases. Of
this, October accounts
for 22% of the patients.
Dengue scare continued
in the city on Monday ,
with various government and private hospitals registering nearly
15 ca ses. This year,
five persons have died
of dengue in the city
since July 1. The dengue viruses that have
gripped the city this
season are Den 2 and
Den4 viruses. There are
four types of dengue
s t r a i n s , t h e other two
being Den1and Den3.
PhD degree to be
awarded within a month
Ahmedabad: The academic council of Gujarat
University (GU) has decided that students will
be awarded PhD degree
within one month of the
submission of the thesis
to the university . The
decision was taken at the
council meeting held at
the GU on Monday . The
meeting was convened as
council officials found
that over 250 odd thesis
submitted in the last 18
months have not been
reviewed or the authorities have not conducted
the final viva. The council has now made it mandatory to complete the
process within one month
of the submission of the
thesis.T h e c o p y o f t h e
thesis will be sent on
email to the expert who
is not from the university and the expert w i l l
have to give his report within 21 days of
the receipt of the copy
. Once the report is
received, the GU authorities will have to
conduct
the
viva
within three days.
High court issues notice
to SEC on PIL against polls
(Agency) Ahmedabad:
Gujarat high court on Thursday issued notice to the State
Election Commission (SEC) in
response to a PIL that has
demanded cancellation of the
upcoming local body elections
on the ground that the SEC
was not doing its duty properly . The petitioner has said
that the commission was keeping voters in the dark as it has
not uploaded the affidavits submitted bythe candidates. Accusing the SEC of inaction, the
petitioner has claimed that the
Supreme Court directive on
making these documents public was issued in 2002. The PIL
also submitted that the SEC
had not even uploaded affidavits of candidates who had
contested the civic body elec-
tions in 2005 and 2010. Justice A G Uraizee sought reply
from the SEC and Ahmedabad
district collector after an NGO,
Gujarat Nagarik Sangathan,
through its advisor Roshan
Shah, accused the election
commission of being a puppet
in the hands of the ruling party
. The petitioner argued that
since the candida tes' affidavits had not been uploaded,
voters were not aware of the
antecedents of the candidates.
The electorate do not know
about the education qualifications or the criminal cases
pending against these candidates. In such cases, voters
cannot decide whether or not
to re-elect a person because
they do not have any information on the candidates.
Ahmedabad: Gujarat high
court on Thursday permitted
a toilet construction scam accused in Narmada district to
contest the taluka panchayat
elections. Laxmanbhai Vadvi
was suspended as taluka
panchayat member on September 1, 2012, by the
Narmada DDO and set up an
inquiry against him over
charges of misappropriation of Rs 1.21 lakh in construction of toilets under the
Sampurna Swachchhata
Abhiyan. When Vadvi chal-
lenged the order of inquiry
before the state government,
the appellate authority revoked
his suspension, but inquiry into
graft charges continued. While
the inquiry was pending Vavdi
filed nominations for the member of 13 Ranipur taluka
panchayat, an electoral division for the post of member of
Sagbara Taluka Panchayat
in Narmada district. When
the scam was brought to
the notice to the election
officials, Vadvi's candidature was rejected.
Toilet scam accused allowed
to contest taluka polls
SEC seeks 110 paramilitary coys
Gandhinagar: Despite the
recent Patidar quota stir violence the central government
has allocated only 70 companies of para military forces
against the demand of 110 for
local body polls of Gujarat.
The State Election Commission (SEC) had expressed concerns over law & order situation and demanded more force
from the Centre. The SEC held
a series of meetings with the
state home department officials to review security arrangements on Thursday .
The state election commissioner also held a video
conference with district authorities to review law &
order situation. In six municipal corporations 4,984 polling booths have been declared
as sensitive and 1981 have
been declared as the highly
sensitive which is almost 50%
of the total polling booths. In
Ahmedabad 14 companies of
paramilitary forces, seven
companies in Vadodara, 17 in
Surat, 6 companies in Rajkot
an one company each in
Jamnagar and Bhavnagar 1-1
companies have been deployed so far. Total 72,000
persons have been detained
as part of preventive measures and the state home
department has seized 4,114
licensed weapons so far.
Sreekumar urges CM to release
Nanavati commission report
(Agency) Ahmedabad: Former DGP R B Sreekumar requested Gujarat chief minister Anan diben Patel to re lease the
final re port of the Justi ce Nanavati Mehta commission which
probed the 2002 riots. The commission submitted its report on
the post-Godhra violence to the state government in November
2014, but the state government is yet to table it in the assembly
. The panel's first report on the Godhra train burning incident
was submitted to the government earlier and was duly released
then. The state government has been facing criticism for its
inability to quell the violence after the Godhra carnage.
4
British doctor turns to India
with parenthood dreams
Ahmedabad: Consultant of
United Kingdom's National
Health Scheme (NHS), that
caters to medical needs of
British citizens turned to India's
surrogacy capital Anand in
Gujarat for an answer to childlessness plaguing him and his
wife. Apart from infertility ,
the doctor's family also had a
documented rare genetic mutation, Col4a1, affecting connective tissue that predisposed
the family progeny to genetic
disorder characterised by
causing stroke, hemiplagia,
hydrocephalus, mental retardation with poor or absence of
speech, dystonia and host of
other complications involving
the retina, kidneys and
brain.Recently , the doctor and
his wife became parents to a
baby boy . The child was special not only because it had
come after 14 years of desperate wait, it was also chosen to be free of the faulty
genetic inheritance of the family . “I was never able to conceive. Not natural ly, not after
five cycles of IVFtwo of which
were done using donor eggs.
It was complete despair that
drove us to come from UK to
Gujarat,“ says the doctor's
wife. Fertility specialist Dr
Nayana Patel said geneticist
Dr Salil Vaniawala and
embroyologist Dr Harsha
Bhadarka helped crack the
case. “Once we identified the
faulty gene, the next step was
to perform Pre-Genetic Diagnosis on the embryos to identify and rule out abnormal
embryos at the implantation
stage itself,“ said Dr Salil.
Embryologist Dr Harsha said
that five embryos were found
abnormal while three were
normal. “The process of taking out material from embryos
for genetic testing is challenging.“ “A doctor employed as a
consultant with the National
Health Scheme (NHS) coming
to India for treatment is a sign of
trust people put in the Indian
medicalservices,“saidDrNayana.
(Corspondent)Ahmedabad:
Shaherkotda police solved the
case of the murders a woman
and a youth in a basement
parking on Naroda Road with
the arrest of three youths.
Investigators said that the trio
-addicted to charas -had got
into a tiff and killed the youth.
As the woman had seen them
commit the crime, they killed
her too. According to
Shaherkotda Police, Viram
Rabari, a security guard at
Fruit Market near Mangal
Girdhar ni Chali on Naroda
Road, reported finding two
bodies in the basement of
Kishan Dayal Complex near
the market. He identified the
victims as Shardaben Lakhara
(Marwadi), a woman in her
forties, and Raju Parmar, a yo
uth in his twenties. Both
worked as labourers in the
fruit market. Both victims had
head injuries and strangulation marks. S M Chaudhari,
inspector of Shaherkotda police, said that they learned
that a few drug addicts frequented the basement, which
was used by Lakhara and
Parmar as a place to sleep
for the last few years.
“Based on that information,
we started questioning a
few people in the area,
which directed our investigation to Ramesh Rajput
alias Kallo, 23, a resident of
Kalapinagar,“ he said. Investigators said that some ten days
before the incident, Kallo had
tried to show Shardaben a
blue film, but she protested
and told Parmar about the
incident. The duo had a tiff
over the issue and Parmar
asked Kallo not to return to the
basement. “On October 30,
Kallo and two of his friends
came to the basement after
midnight and consumed charas. They got into an argument, which woke Parmar up.
He abused the trio, and they
got enraged and attacked him.
Kallo then allegedly strangled
Parmar,“ said Chaudhari.
Ahmedabad: Customs officials arrested a crew member of an international airlines
for smuggling 1.17 kg gold
worth Rs 31.24 lakh at Sardar
Vallabhbhai Patel international
airport. The accused, Huzefa
Khuzem Mamuwala, a resident of Surat, who is a crew
member with Qatar Airways
had concealed gold bars in his
socks and trouser pockets.
Investigators said that
Mamuwala had earlier
smuggled gold on four occasions in connivance with customs officials. “Involvement of
three customs officials and
another employee of Qatar
Airways is being probed in this
case,“ said a source in customs department. Following
this incident, a superintendent
of customs department who
was posted at the interna-
tional terminal was suspended
on Wednesday while two other
superintendents were transferred for their alleged involvement. Mamuwala had arrived
from Doha in Qatar airways
flight
QR-534
on
Monday.“Huzefa earlier denied carrying any dutiable
goods.On frisking, we found
10 gold bars of 10 tolas each
in his socks and pockets of
trouser,“ said a customs official. Mamuwala was produced
before metropolitan court and
was granted bail. Sources said
that Huzefa used to work fivedays a week and on his off
days he used to smuggle gold.
He had done so four times in
the past. Since January 2015,
39 such smuggling cases have
been detected at city airport
and around 46.05 kg of gold,
worth Rs 12.34 crore has been
seized by customs and DRI
officials. This year alone, 41
smugglers and carriers have
been detained. This is the second such case of smuggling
where an airline employee's
involvement has been found.
In July 2013, a team of DRI
had busted a gold smuggling
racket, seven men were
caught including a passenger
and six airline officials with
3kg gold.The four officials
were of Air Arabia and two of
Cambata Aviation, a company
that used to do ground handling for Air Arabia. Earlier
this year, needle of suspicion
had pointed towards customs
officials after special operations
group of city crime branch had
held five people with 60 kg gold
worth Rs 16 crore outside that
city airport leading to the transfer of a senior IRS official.
Three caught for Naroda
Road double murder
Airline crew member
held with 1.16 kg gold
Private seven-seater
SUVs spared annual
fitness tests
Ahmedabad: The state
government seems to have
given a Diwali gift to the private owners of the sevenseater SUVs. Now, the owners will need to get vehicle
fitness test done every 15
years, instead of the earlier
one year. This change has
been enabled by the introduction of an amendment in the
Gujarat Motor Vehicle Act
which came into effect from
November 1.However, owners of commercial SUVs in the
same category will have to
adhere to the earlier norm of
undergoing fitness tests every
year. The amendment introduced by the state government, for privately-owned
SUVs with seven seats and
more, has expanded the stipulated timeframe for mandatory ve hicle fitness test to 15
years. While this comes as a
a reprieve for private SUV
owners, the amendment
will also bring respite to
RTOs across Gujarat which
had to deal with the mammoth task of con ducting
the test for all SUVs till date.
Assistant Regional Transport
Officer (ARTO), JB Rao, said:
“the govern ment had in October intro duced the amendment in the Act which expands
the time of the fitness test for
the private SUVs with seven
seats or more to 15 years.
The fitness test is conducted
to check whether these vehicles are in optimum working condition.
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and Published from 131, Dharmanagar Society, Highway Road, Sabarmati, Ahmedabad - 380 005. Editor : ASHVINKUMAR KESHAVLAL RAMI