DK Ravi death case: Karnataka removes 3-month

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
Adm.Office: T.F.1, Nanakram Super Market, Ramnagar, Sabarmati, Ahmedabad-380 005. Gujarat, India. Phone/Fax: (079) 2757 3307 (M) 90163 33307
Email : [email protected]
Volume-01
Issue-244
•
Email : [email protected]
Dt. 08-04-2015 Wednesday
V.S. 2071
•
Website : www.garvigujarat.co.in
Chetra Vad-04
Page-04
Rs. 00.50 paisa
RBI keeps rates unchanged
Xiaomi ends
exclusive
partnership
with Flipkart
NEW DELHI: Chinese
smartphone maker Xiaomi
has ended its exclusive partnership with Indian e-commerce
giant
Flipkart.According to the
company, it has partnered
with online retailers
Snapdeal and Amazon too
to sell its devices. This
means buyers can now buy
Xiaomi products across
country's major online marketplaces: Snapdeal, Amazon and Flipkart. The company said that Mi Stores will
go live on Snapdeal and
Amazon starting today. Tony
Navin, senior vice president,
electronics and home,
Snapdeal, said, "We are
excited to partner with
Xiaomi to launch its highly
sought-after range of
smartphones and accessories to our customers across
the country. We believe that
the extensive delivery network panning across Tier-2
and-3 cities and towns of
India will be of great value
to Xiaomi in reaching out to
a segment of consumers seeking true value in their devices."
Fabindia bosses
fail to appear
before police
PANAJI: Goa Police on
Tuesday summoned
Fabindia CEO, MD and 9
other employees for
questioning in the Union
HRD minister Smriti Irani
'voyeurism' case. The
CCTV camera and digital video recorder (DVR)
from the store has been
attached by the crime
branch and sent to the
central forensic science
laboratory
(CFSL),
Hyderabad, for analysis.
Fabindia CEO and MD
failed to appear before
the investigating officers
on Tuesday. They have
sought more time to appear before the authorities. The four accused
persons, who were arrested by Calangute police after Union HRD Minister Smriti Irani was
filmed while trying out
some clothes at an outlet in Candolim, were released on conditional bail
on Saturday evening.
Irani, who was in Goa on
a two-day holiday, had
visited the Fabindia outlet at Candolim on Friday
along with her husband.
When Irani entered the
trial room to tryout some
outfits, she noticed the
CCTV camera focusing
towards the trial room
and capturing images
while trying some clothes.
Repo rate and cash reserve ratio remain at 7.5 per cent and 4 per cent respectively
New Delhi (Agency) : RBI
Governor Raghuram Rajan
kept the benchmark repo
rate or the rate at which the
central bank lends money to
banks, unchanged at 7.5 per
cent, in the first bimonthly
monetary policy review of
2015-16. The RBI also kept
the cash reserve ratio or the
proportion of deposits banks
have to keep aside with RBI
unchanged at 4 per cent. RBI
has already reduced the
repo rate by 50 basis points
(bps) so far this year, in two
unscheduled actions outside
of its policy meetings. How-
ever, this has not resulted in
banks passing on the benefits
to customers. Banks were hoping for a cut in cash reserve
ratio to cut interest rates.
"Transmission of policy rates to
lending rates has not taken
place so far despite weak
credit off take and the front
loading of two rate cuts. With
little transmission, and the possibility that incoming data will
provide more clarity on the
balance of risks on inflation,
the Reserve Bank will maintain
status quo in its monetary
policy stance in this review,"
RBI said in a statement. Going
forward, the accommodative stance of monetary
policy will be maintained,
but monetary policy actions
will be conditioned by incoming data, it added. First,
the Reserve Bank will await
the transmission by banks of
its front-loaded rate reduc-
tions in January and February into their lending
rates.Second, developments in sectoral prices, especially those of food, will be
monitored, as will the effects
of recent weather disturbances and the likely strength
of the monsoon, as the Reserve Bank stays vigilant to any
threats to the disinflation that
is underway. The Reserve
Bank will look through both
seasonal as well as base effects. Third, the Reserve Bank
will look to a continuation and
even acceleration of policy efforts to unclog the supply re-
sponse so as to make available
key inputs such as power and
land. Further progress on
repurposing of public spending
from poorly targeted subsidies
towards public investment and
on reducing the pipeline of
stalled investment will also be
helpful in containing supply
constraints and creating
room for monetary accommodation. Finally, the Reserve Bank will watch for
signs of normalisation of
the US monetary policy,
though it anticipates India
is better buffered against
likely volatility than in the past.
DK Ravi death case: Karnataka removes
3-month timeframe to save CBI probe
BENGALURU:
The
Karnataka government on
Monday went into damagecontrol mode after the CBI
turned down its request for a
time-bound inquiry into the
death of IAS officer DK Ravi.
It quickly issued a fresh notification asking the agency
to investigate the case at
the earliest. Earlier, the
government had set a threemonth deadline for the inquest to be completed. Chief
minister Siddaramaiah, who
was in New Delhi, said the
CBI rejected the request for
the probe to be completed
within 90 days, saying
there's no legal provision
for an investigation to be
finished within a given
timeframe. "So we decided
to send a fresh notification."
The CBI told the state government in a letter that it
has no power to fix a
timeframe. "The case is sensitive and complicated. It
may not be possible to com-
plete the investigation in
three months as we have to
start the investigation after
collecting evidence," the missive said. The government said
it set a deadline because some
ministers in the Siddaramaiah
cabinet were reportedly apprehensive the CBI may indulge in a political witch-hunt.
Superseding its notification,
the April 6, 2015 notification,
said: "The agency shall investigate the matter and take necessary action at the earliest."
The CBI told the state government it wanted a free hand in
investigating the case, which
triggered a political uproar.
SK Pattanayak, additional
secretary, home department, told TOI the new notification was sent to the
CBI headquarters in New
Delhi and to its local office
on Monday morning. "The
state government wanted
the report come out early,
but as the CBI didn't agree
to this three-month
timeframe, we removed it.
It wanted us to issue a fresh
notification without setting a
timeframe." The 35-year-old
IAS officer was found hanging
from a ceiling fan in his
Bengaluru apartment on
March 17. CBI sources said
the agency will check whether
to take over the investigation
or not. The decision to transfer the probe to the CBI came
after Congress president Sonia
Andhra and TN govts to blame for killing of
20 red sanders smugglers, Karunanidhi says
CHENNAI: Political parties in
Tamil Nadu expressed their
shock at the killing of 20 people,
including 12 Tamils, by the
Andhra Pradesh police for allegedly smuggling red sanders from
the Seshachalam forests in that
state. In a statement, DMK
chief M Karunanidhi said the
killing of 20 people was "deeply
saddening." "It happened due
to the failure of the Andhra
Pradesh and Tamil Nadu governments to resolve the smuggling of red sanders. I appeal to
both the states to end this," he
said. Terming the killing of the
20 people as a barbaric act and
highly condemnable, PMK chief
S Ramadoss said strict action
should be taken against the
responsible Andhra Pradesh
police personnel, including
deputy commission Kantha Rao.
Expressing condolences to the
bereaved families, Ramadoss
wanted a probe by a sitting
Supreme Court judge. He
wanted the Andhra Pradesh
government to pay a compensation of Rs 25 lakh to the kin of
each of the victims. In a statement, Ramadoss said, "Though
it is a known fact that red
sanders are being smuggled
from the forests of Andhra
Pradesh and there is no doubt
that those involved in it must
be punished, it is the duty of
police to arrest the smugglers
and make them appear before
the court and then punish them
according to the law. Instead,
they shot dead the smugglers
like crows and parrots which is
no way correct. It amounts to
murder." "Twelve people from
Tamil Nadu, who had been
engaged in crushing of stones
and cutting trees, were lured
to the forests by offering attractive salaries ranging from Rs
3,000 to Rs 5,000 per day. The
police version that the 20 people
were killed in self-defence is
not acceptable," Ramadoss said.
Taking a dig at the Tamil Nadu
government, Ramadoss said,
"There are more than 3,000
Tamils languishing in Andhra
Pradesh prisons on charges
of smuggling red sanders. A
government bus has also been
impounded on the same
charge. Despite all these, the
killings have happened only
due to an ineffective government functioning in Tamil
Nadu. The Tamil Nadu government alone should take
responsibility for the killings."
Gandhi wrote to Ravi's wife
promising a fair and transparent probe into the death. This
came after Ravi's mother reportedly wrote an open letter
to Sonia seeking an impartial
probe. Ravi's family had raised
doubts over the police claim
that he committed suicide,
saying that he was under
"political
pressure".
Siddaramaiah had said
there had never been a case
where an incident had
straight away been referred
to CBI immediately. In a federal set-up, the Centre could
not refer a case suo motu to
the CBI; it could do so on a
state's request. The state
government had maintained
that Ravi's death prima facie
seemed to be a case of suicide, but the opposition and
the family of the IAS officer
refused to accept the theory.
"In supersession of government order no HD 65 CID 2015
dated 24-03-2015, government hereby accords sanction
State champion boxer
Rishu Mittal forced to
work as maid
NEW DELHI: In a shocking development to Indian
sports, Rishu Mittal, state
level gold medallist boxer, is
forced to work as a domestic
help to continue her schooling. Whatever little she earns
by working at the nearby
bungalows is spent paying
her school fees. Rishu studies in class 10 and lives with
her brother who works at a
local shop. After she is done
with her job in the morning
she attends school and the
evenings are spent practicing
her skills as a pugilist. "This girl
has lost her parents. Her brother
is doing a low paying job.
for investigation into unnatural death of Sri DK Ravi ... The
department officers/officials/
others concerned shall hand
over data/information/records
as and when required by the
Central Bureau of Investigation and cooperate with the
investigation," reads the notification. * In 1988, the CBI
filed a case against former
Karnataka home minister RL
Jalappa for conspiring to murder Kerala lawyer Abdul
Rasheed. Jalappa resigned.
The CBI pinned charges on
him for transferring a DCP to
the area where the victim was
killed, and for partially hiding
information from the assembly. * In 1996, the CBI filed a
case in 1996 against former
Prime Minister PV Narasimha
Rao and his home minister
Buta Singh for buying JMM
votes to win a no-confidence
motion in 1993. Several Congress leaders from Karnataka
were accused of taking cash
from Bengaluru to New Delhi.
The Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir, Shri Mufti
Mohammad Sayeed calling on the Prime Minister,
Shri Narendra Modi, in New Delhi. (PIB)
Aviation minister Raju brags: ‘I carry
matchbox on flight, I am not frisked’
NEW DELHI (Agency):
Union aviation minister Ashok
Gajapathi Raju on Tuesday
stoked a controversy by admitting that he often carried
matchboxes on flights. And
what's more, Ashok Gajapathi
Raju went on to brag that
being a minister he was not
frisked any more and hence,
he could now save his lighters
and matchboxes. The minister questioned how matchbox
could become a security
threat. "You can't hijack a
plane with a matchbox," the
minister said, adding, "I
haven't come across any incident worldwide where a
matchbox had led to any
threat." "I am a heavy smoker
so my matchboxes came along
with me which earlier used to
get confiscated," Ashok
Gajapathi Raju said at a function of Bureau of civil aviation
security at DRDO Bhavan. Aviation rules do not allow anyone
to carry matchbox on board
flights. However, the minister later speaking to reporters defended his comments.
remarry. "The amount of maintenance to be awarded under
Section 125 CrPC cannot be
restricted for the iddat period
only," the court said, citing an
earlier ruling by a Constitution
bench. The clarification would
help divorced Muslim women
whose right to maintenance
was curtailed by a law passed
in Parliament by the Rajiv
Gandhi government in the
wake of the top court's Shah
Bano ruling. Though family
courts have over the years
whittled down the rigour of the
law to give relief to divorced
Muslim women too, the court's
ruling settles the issue that civil
law of the land would prevail
over any personal laws. "There
can be no shadow of doubt that
an order under Section 125
CrPC can be passed if a person,
despite having sufficient
means, neglects or refuses to
maintain the wife," the bench
said."Sometimes, a plea is
advanced by the husband that
he does not have the means to
pay for he does not have a job
or his business is not doing
well. These are only bald excuses and, in fact, they have no
acceptability in law." The court
said this in a case involving one
Shamima Farooqui from
Lucknow. She was ill-treated
by her husband Shahid Khan,
who later remarried. Her application filed in 1998 was taken
up in 2012. Khan was a Nayak
in the Army who earned
`17,654 per month, including
perks. The family court initially
granted her Rs.2,000 per
month and later Rs.4,000
per month after recording
that she had no other
means of supporting herself.
SC: Right to maintenance
of a wife absolute
NEW DELHI: The Supreme
Court on Monday said the right
to maintenance of a wife was
absolute and no exceptions
could be made, ruling that Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which embodies this rule, would apply to divorced Muslim women as well.
"If the husband is healthy, ablebodied and is in a position to
support himself, he is under
the legal obligation to support
his wife, for the wife's right to
receive maintenance under
Section 125 CrPC, unless disqualified, is an absolute right,"
a bench comprising Justices
Dipak Misra and PC Pant
said.SC clarified maintenance
under the section cannot be
restricted in any way for divorced Muslim women who
would be entitled to the allowance as long as they do not
Milk samples adulterated with sugar, edible oil ring health alarm
His Highness Prince Karim Aga Khan calling on the President, Shri Pranab
Mukherjee, at Rashtrapati Bhavan, in New Delhi. (PIB)
PUNE (Agency): Milk
samples collected from the
Pune administrative division and
tested were found adulterated
with sugar and edible oil, and of
substandard quality. A Food and
Drug Administration (FDA) report showed about 24% of the
408 milk samples drawn between April 2014 and March
2015 were either unsafe or did
not comply with the standards
set by the Food Safety and
Standards Authority of India
(FSSAI). FDA officials, who drew
the samples to check if they
were fit for consumption, found
15 to be unsafe while 83 failed
to meet the standard criteria.
They struck a cautionary note
on the eve of World Health Day
on April 7 which has 'make food
safe' as the theme this year.
The samples were taken from
milk collection centres, tankers, processing units, local dairies and vendors and tested at
notified public health laboratories in Pune and Mumbai. Officials have filed criminal cases
against suppliers found selling
unsafe milk. "Barring 15 samples,
wherein milk was adulterated
with sugar and edible oil rendering it harmful for consumption, the rest of the 83 samples
were sub-standard, but safe
for consumption. It means they
lacked the amount of fat and
solids-not-fat (SNF) as per norms
laid down by the law,"
Shashikant Kekare, joint commissioner (food) of FDA, Pune,
said. SNF refers to solids-notfat, comprising protein, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals
in milk other than milk fat. While
the sugar content in milk is bad
for diabetics with high sugar
levels, the oil is a worry for
those fighting obesity. "We
have strengthened our surveil-
lance. Safety of human lives is
of utmost importance and no
one will be allowed to play with
the lives of consumers," said
Kekare. As many as 12 of the
15 samples found unsafe for
human consumption were adul-
terated using sugar and the
remaining three had edible oil.
Consumption of such milk can
be harmful especially to diabetics and the obese, Kekare
added. The unsafe samples
found adulterated with mainly
sugar and edible oil were drawn
from Satara (4), Solapur (5),
Kolhapur (2) and Sangli (3) and
Pune (1). "Milk is the most
common food we recommend
to patients for its nutritive value.
Naturally, we don't consider the
presence of adulterants like
sugar and edible oil when we
do so. Consumption of sugarlaced milk on a regular basis will
be hazardous for diabetics or
people with elevated blood
sugar levels," said internal medicine expert Abhijit Joshi of Joshi
Hospital. "If a diabetic is following the prescribed diet and
medication, he or she may still
have less control over the sugar
level after consuming such milk
every day," he added. Clinical
nutritionist
Dhanashree
Karmarkar Jadhav said, "Every calorie counts for obese
or a diabetic person. Such
unaccounted for calories can
cause much harm." The law
underlines strict punishment for
milk suppliers whose samples
are found unsafe for human
consumption. Earlier when the
Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954 was in force,
FDA would file a case against a
supplier in the court of law
even if the sample had less
amount of fat and SNF. Now,
with the new Food Safety
and Standards Act, 2006,
the FDA officials can only
fine them for such offences.
2
Garvi Gujarat
Ahmedabad. Dt. 08-04-2015 Wednesday
Editorial
Perception
and performance
In the last one year the Bharatiya Janata Party has
experienced both exciting highs and depressing lows. From
being seen as a party that was pro-growth and pro-reforms,
the BJP is now struggling to fight off the perception that it is
anti-poor and anti-farmer. The dividing line was always thin,
and now it has definitively been crossed. After the spectacular victory in the Lok Sabha election in May last, the party did
extremely well in Assembly elections that followed in 2014.
But it tripped in the Delhi election and is now struggling to
contain rising opposition to the changes it has proposed in
the Land Bill. The national executive meeting of the party in
Bengaluru was thus an opportunity to reassess its own
performance in government and identify the reasons for
both its successes and failures. Unmistakably, the honeymoon period for the Narendra Modi government is well and
truly over: new promises are not enough to retain support
when old ones have not been kept. The challenge for Prime
Minister Modi and BJP president Amit Shah was to devise a
strategy to retain the support of an increasingly impatient
core group of the party with the Hindutva cultural nationalist
project as the agenda, and to live up to the expectations of
the new converts who were hoping the government would
deliver on the promise of jobs and growth and better living
standards. Between the Lok Sabha victory and the Delhi loss,
the BJP tied up with the Peoples Democratic Party in J&K,
agreeing to status quos and compromises on issues such as
Article 370 that have alienated its supporters in the rest of
the country. Also, on several occasions Mr. Modi and his
senior Ministers had to intervene to rein in some of the fringe
elements and junior Ministers who were indulging in hate
speech and communally divisive propaganda. All these did
not go down very well with the core Hindutva elements in the
party and the government, who were hoping to have a free
run as the BJP had a majority on its own. And, while the
government intended the changes to the Land Bill as probusiness measures, these were viewed as efforts to
marginalise the rural poor and the small farmer. The
national executive was thus focussed on correcting the
perceptions through closer coordination between the party
and the government. Party forums are important sources of
feedback and assessment for any government. But like the
government, the BJP too seems to have lost touch with the
people on some crucial issues. The national executive seems
to have identified the problem. The solution, however,
does not lie in a propaganda blitzkrieg but in performance.
Just in time
The smooth efficiency of Operation Rahat, once it got
under way, is the latest example of how India’s response
systems are at their best when they are put to the test. In a
matter of days, the Navy, the Air Force, and Air India were
able to rescue thousands of Indians from the heart of
Yemen’s war-zone, in an effort coordinated by the Ministry
of External Affairs. This has been done under trying conditions, navigating around Saudi Arabian air strikes and
negotiating clearances, Houthi firepower, and even alQaeda fighters in several areas. The fact that the evacuation
was controlled from a third country, Djibouti, where the
government’s envoy, General (retd.) V.K. Singh, is based, is
a matter of credit to diplomacy and the goodwill enjoyed by
India in the region. The government has shown magnanimity
by rescuing non-Indians of about 17 nationalities, including
Pakistan, a gesture reciprocated by Pakistani forces. However, there is a sense of déjà vu with the Yemen operation
that highlights the challenges faced by Indians across West
Asia post the Arab Spring. This was seen in Libya and later
in Iraq, and is now visible in Yemen. The government needs
to reflect on these before the next crisis hits a region that
employs more than six million Indians, as they become
vulnerable to such recurrent crises. As in previous evacuations, the need to launch a perilous operation at high cost has
come about because Indians based in Yemen refused to
heed government advisories issued since January 2015 to
leave the country. The reasons for staying back are largely
economic: many Indians would brave personal harm and
keep their jobs there rather than risk returning to a tenuous
future in India. In some situations, the problem is that their
employers hold their passports and wages. The Indian
government must negotiate better working conditions for
expatriates. If we can coordinate evacuation efforts with
Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal, what stops the
government from uniting SAARC countries to negotiate
collectively for their expatriates who form a large chunk of
the labour force in West Asia? It is also necessary to review
the early warning systems to anticipate a crisis quickly, and
to ensure early departure for Indians from war-zones. In
Yemen, as with Iraq, Libya, Lebanon and other such situations, Indians have not been harmed by either side in
conflicts because of a perceived neutrality on the part of
India. It is worrying to note, therefore, that in his conversation with Saudi King Salman bin Abdul Aziz, Prime Minister
Narendra Modi expressed a wish for an “early restoration of
peace and stability [in Yemen] under [King Salman’s] leadership”. Until there is a UN mandate for the external
intervention in Yemen, it will serve India’s citizens
better if the government retains its impartiality
on events in the region, which is riven with fault-lines.
2
A Persian handshake with promise
The signing of the “Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action
regarding Iran’s Nuclear
Programme” last week, between Iran and P5+1, is the
first definitive step on a road
that will be long and tortuous
but carries profound implications for the West Asian region as a whole. It initiates a
thaw in regional political equations that have remained frozen since the 1979 Islamic
Revolution when relations between the United States and
Iran ruptured. During the last
18 months, it had become
clear that within the P5+1, the
principal negotiator was the
U.S. and it sometimes faced
difficulties in keeping its Western partners in line. In 200304, the E-3 (the United Kingdom, France and Germany)
had come close to a deal that
would have constrained Iran’s
nuclear programme earlier,
but it could not materialise
because the U.S. was not at
the table. Both Saudi Arabia
and Israel, key U.S. allies in
the region are upset and tried
to scuttle the deal, but the
Obama administration was
resolute in pursuing the negotiations. On March 3, Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu addressed the U.S.
Congress in an unprecedented
example of political theatre to
criticise the deal even as he
faced an uncertain re-election
in his country a fortnight later.
Mr. Netanyahu claimed that
the deal “would not block but
pave the way” in furthering
Iran’s nuclear ambitions and
called for more sanctions
against Iran. U.S. President
Barack Obama, who had declined to receive Mr.
Netanyahu during his Washington trip, dismissed the
speech as “offering no viable
alternative to the current negotiations”. Mr. Netanyahu’s
address was followed by an
open letter — signed by 47
U.S. senators and addressed
to the Iranian leadership —
cautioning against signing any
deal that would not be approved by the Congress. While
Mr. Obama’s task of convincing the Congress about the
merits of a deal with Iran was
hard enough, Mr. Netanyahu’s
speech and the consequent
heightened polarisation only
rendered it harder. The U.S.
kept the Saudi leadership
briefed about the negotiations
but Saudi apprehensions remain. Hints have been dropped
that Saudi Arabia — and possibly other Sunni majority
states such as Egypt and Turkey — will demand the same
rights of accessing and retaining uranium enrichment technology as provided to Iran, a
suggestion that makes the
Western non-proliferation
lobby highly nervous. It is no
secret that the Pakistani
nuclear programme was
funded with generous Saudi
support and Pakistan Prime
Minister Nawaz Sharif’s recent visit to that country
promptly led to speculation
that Pakistan was being told
that the time was coming when
it may have to make good on
its nuclear debts. Mr. Obama’s
consistent position has been
that the U.S. will do whatever
it takes (a euphemism that
covers military means) to prevent Iran from obtaining a
nuclear weapon. The rationale for the talks is that in the
last decade, Iran has slowly
built up its capabilities and in
the absence of any deal, Iran
can move rapidly to develop a
nuclear weapon capability. In
November 2013, when Iran
agreed to freeze its
programme and engage in
negotiations, it was reported
to have a breakout time of
three months — in three
months, Iran would have sufficient, high enriched uranium
gime to detect any clandestine activity, accompanied by
a phased removal of nuclearrelated sanctions — all this
based on the assumption that
if this could be sustained for a
decade or more, it would lead
to a gradual moderation in
Iran’s behaviour. For Iran and
Mr. Rouhani, the stakes are
high. Iran’s regional influence
has grown with the U.S. exits
from Iraq and Afghanistan but
the low oil prices coupled with
the economic sanctions are
hurting. Mr. Rouhani had
handled the nuclear negotiations a decade ago and enjoys
a degree of credibility but space
for any manoeuvre is limited
and timing is critical. A failure
in the talks means that Mr.
Rouhani will not win the 2016
Majlis elections. While Iranian
for the new Assembly because
the Supreme Leader is over
75 and, reportedly, somewhat
frail. Mr. Netanyahu’s surprise
victory in his re-election last
month will raise the
brinkmanship in the coming
months when the negotiators
seek to hammer out the technical details by June 30. His
position is that Iran must be
stopped from having any capability that permits it to become a threshold nuclear
weapon state because the Iranian regime cannot be trusted.
Its nuclear infrastructure must
be dismantled, sanctions tightened and only a new regime in
Iran will moderate its revolutionary ideology. At this stage,
any sanctions relief will be
used by Iran to further
destabilise the region. How-
antees an absence of any clandestine activity. The framework announced on April 2
limits Iran to operating only
5,060 centrifuges of the old
variety for 10 years, places a
restriction of 3.67 per cent
enrichment for 15 years and
reduces the 10,000 kg stockpile of enriched uranium to
300 kg. No fissile material
can be introduced into the
secure facility at Fordow for
the next 15 years while the
heavy water research reactor at Arak will be modified
so that it does not produce
any weapons grade plutonium. Its existing core as
well as any subsequent spent
fuel will be shipped out of the
country. Most significant is the
opening up of the supply chain
that supports Iran’s nuclear
programme to international
accounting and inspection,
restrictions on centrifuge research, development and
manufacturing units, and uranium mines and mills, which
will remain in place for 25
years. There remain some
problem areas to be ironed
out over the next three months
— a dispute resolution mechanism, measures to resolve
concerns about earlier military aspects of its programme
possibly at Parchin which Iran
has kept out of bounds, establishing a dedicated procurement channel and, finally, a
phasing out of the sanctions
regime. Only nuclear-related
sanctions will be eased while
other sanctions pertaining to
ballistic missile activity, terrorism and human rights issues will remain in place. Mr.
Obama’s authority to waive
Congressionally-mandated
sanctions may face a challenge at home, though his
authority for implementing an
Executive Agreement is considerable. The agreed framework meets the test of a good
deal. It closes Iran’s route to
nuclear weapons, constrains
elements of its programme
that generate concern for a
decade and more, deters
breakout by introducing stringent monitoring, and helps
build confidence by phasing
out sanctions. Most importantly, diplomacy has achieved
more than what a military
strike could have achieved.
U.S. Secretary of State John
Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif’s
skills to manage a tricky process despite the disbelievers,
in evidence over the 19 rounds
of talks spread over 18 months,
and Mr. Obama and Mr.
Rouhani’s sense of conviction
and political leadership will be
on test in the coming months
as they seek to embed the
nuclear deal in a broader regional strategy against the
backdrop of increasing
volatility and nervous allies.
China appears to be on
course to reset the existing
global economic order dominated by the West. The setting up of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), a
multilateral financial institution,
is a significant step in this direction, challenging the long-held
dominance of the Bretton
Woods system. Formed largely
with Chinese capital and initiative, AIIB aims to fund infrastructure projects across Asia.
Indications are that this new
multilateral bank could rival the
World Bank and other longstanding international institutions established by the U.S.
and its allies. AIIB will have a
subscribed capital of $50 billion,
which will eventually rise to $100
billion. In comparison, the subscribed capital of the World
Bank and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) are $223 billion and $165 billion respectively. AIIB was formally inaugurated in Beijing on October 21,
2014 with 21 founding-members including China, India, Pakistan, Singapore and Vietnam.
Many other countries had initially declined the Chinese invitation to join the new bank,
with U.S. allies such as Australia
and South Korea allegedly under pressure from the U.S. to
keep away from the initiative. A
dramatic turnaround for the
bank occurred in recent weeks,
as the deadline to apply to
become a founding member of
AIIB, April 1, 2015, came close.
The U.S. was dismayed when
the U.K. announced its decision to sign up on March 12,
2015, but in the days that
followed, many other countries
including France, Germany, Italy
and South Korea joined as well.
Latest reports indicate that AIIB
has now received applications
from 47 countries to become
founder-members. These include Israel and Taiwan. China
will remain the biggest shareholder in the bank, while the
shares of non-Asian countries
will be restricted to 25 per cent
of the total. The U.S. and Japan continue to remain firm
about not joining AIIB. The
U.S. Secretary of the Treasury
expressed concern about
whether the new bank would
be able to meet the “highest
global standards” of governance
or lending. However, it is notable that even close American
allies queued up to join the
China-backed bank despite stiff
U.S. opposition. This is a clear
acknowledgement of China’s
growing economic influence in
the world. China’s large foreign
exchange reserves, which stood
at $3,880 billion in 2013, provide it the financial muscle to be
on the driver’s seat in the global
economy today. From 2001
onwards, China’s exports, especially of manufactured goods,
have been growing at a much
faster pace than its imports. As
a result, China’s current account
surplus — mainly, the surplus of
the value of exports over imports of goods and services —
has climbed sharply upwards.
Its foreign currency receipts
treasury bonds, despite the very
low returns they offer. For China,
these investments in U.S. debt
form part of a strategy to prevent the appreciation of its
currency, Renminbi. Because of
this, Chinese manufactured
goods remain competitive in
the export markets. For the
U.S., China’s investments in its
treasury bonds have been cru-
have soared too, due both to
the large export earnings and
the net inflow of foreign capital
into the country. China has invested a major part of its vast
foreign exchange assets in U.S.
cial to bridging its “twin deficits”, of the federal government and the current account.
China’s continued purchase of
dollar assets has also been vital
to maintaining the hegemony
of the U.S. dollar in the global
economy. So here is one of the
anomalies of our contemporary
world. China is a provider of
cheap credit to the U.S., although China’s per capita income is only a fraction of that of
the U.S. Chinese workers not
only provide cheap goods but
also transfer a part of their
hard-earned savings to the
Americans, so that the latter
can continue purchasing their
goods. No wonder, according
to Hung Ho-Fung, a scholar on
global political economy, China
has been ‘America’s Head Servant’ (New Left Review, November-December 2009).
Both China and the U.S. have
been seeking ways to break
away from their mutually dependent relationship, especially in the wake of the global financial crisis. China, on
the one hand, is trying to
shift from an export-led to a
more domestic consumptionled strategy for future economic growth. On the other
hand, China is also looking for
ways to strategically deploy its
large foreign exchange assets.
It is with the above objective
that China has been pumping a
part of its foreign exchange
reserves into the building of
new global institutions, including AIIB. Last year, China along
with other BRICS countries,
established the New Development Bank, with a subscribed
capital of $50 billion, headquartered in Shanghai. China is drawing up plans for a $40 billion
“new Silk Road’ project connecting Asia with Europe. Chinese currency is likely to be
recognised as an official reserve
currency by the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) by the
end of this year. This will be a
step towards reducing the global dominance of the U.S. dollar. The present international
financial institutions were created under U.S. leadership at
the end of World War II. The
U.S., Europe and Japan continue to wield enormous influence in them despite the relative decline of their economies.
For instance, the U.S. still has a
veto power on major decisions
made by the IMF and the World
Bank. At the same time, these
institutions have failed to give
due recognition to the growing
weight of China and other
emerging economies. China’s
massive investment and diplomatic efforts in recent years
have been directed at shaking
up the global financial architecture that has the U.S. at its
helm. No wonder, then, that
the U.S. and even Japan view
Chinese moves with anxiety.
India has done well to join AIIB
and other Chinese initiatives.
(20-25 kg) to produce one
bomb. Further, the likelihood
of a successful air strike
against the underground facility at Fordow constructed
during the last decade was
remote. The Stuxnet cyber
attack had slowed Iran’s enrichment programme, but
since then Iran had strengthened its cyber capabilities, both
defensive and offensive. The
changing political dynamics in
Iraq and the emergence of
new jihadi forces in the aftermath of the Arab Spring necessitated a fresh regional
approach. Political support for
sustaining enhanced sanctions
on Iran was eroding and Iranian President Hassan
Rouhani’s election offered a
window of political opportunity. The U.S. responded with
a new policy — a freeze on an
Iranian nuclear build-up, an
elimination of certain capabilities thereby increasing the
breakout time to a year or
more, a tighter inspection re-
Supreme Leader Ayatollah
Khamenei has given his blessings for the talks, the hardliners
feel that now is not the time
for compromises. More important, the hardliners do not
want the deal to signify a
movement towards a
normalisation of ties with the
U.S. but want its scope limited
to ensuring sanctions relief.
According to them, Mr.
Netanyahu’s re-election and
an Obama approaching the
end of his tenure is not a
combination that can deliver.
The hardliners have already
ensured the election of Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi as
Chairman of the Assembly of
Experts against former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi
Rafsanjani, widely seen as a
moderate and a Rouhani supporter. The Assembly is an
important body that guides the
Supreme Leader and also
chooses his successor. Its
eight-year term ends in 2016
and alignments are under way
ever, Mr. Netanyahu’s extreme
rhetoric troubles a significant
section of the Israelis who
believe that such an approach
jeopardises U.S.-Israel relations by introducing an element of polarisation in what
has so far been the U.S.’s
unconditional and bipartisan
support to Israel. Former
Mossad chief Meir Dagan, together with a number of former
generals, have stated that a
military option against Iranian
nuclear facilities is unviable
and the U.S. and Israel have
to work together to manage
Iran’s transition towards moderating its posture. They are
concerned that the U.S. has
dropped the linkage between
Iran’s requirement of low enrichment uranium and the
number of centrifuges needed
by conceding Iran’s intrinsic
right to enrichment but are
still prepared to live with a
limited frozen capacity provided there is a strengthened
inspection regime that guar-
Signing of ‘Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action’ closes Iran’s
route to nuclear weapons, introduces stringent monitoring, &
builds confidence by phasing out sanctions.
Dragon power on display
The case of the online intermediary
The jubilation with which
the Shreya Singhal case has
been greeted is justified on
several counts, most of them
to do with free speech jurisprudence
and
the
criminalisation of speech
through clumsily drafted laws
like the infamous Section 66A
of the Information Technology Act. On the other hand,
the Supreme Court’s conclusions about intermediary liability have been greeted with
mixed feelings. While the court
has read down parts of the
law to ensure that non-governmental parties cannot easily remove online content by
force, it has left the process
followed by the government
to block content largely untouched, with only a few statements that might force a little
improvement in the system.
What does the ruling really
mean for government-ordered
blocking of online content or
third-party takedown requests? Online intermediaries
may be Internet service providers who connect us to the
Internet; or online platforms
such as Facebook, Google
Search or InstaGram that enable us to publish and circulate content. Intermediary liability makes these bodies liable for user-generated content that they publish or circulate. Since these intermediaries deal in huge volumes of
content, it is impossible for
them to monitor it all individually. This is why the IT Act
grants them immunity from
liability for the content that
they circulate or publish. This
immunity does not apply to
intermediaries such as newspaper websites or curated
blogs or aggregation websites
that perform any editorial or
content-monitoring function.
Although requiring online intermediaries to monitor all the
content they circulate is unsustainable, the fact remains
that their co-operation is necessary for the removal of certain kinds of harmful speech
such as child pornography.
This is why most countries
have a system that allows them
to ask intermediaries to block
or take down specified illegal
content. The Indian IT Act created such a system, enabling
the government to ask for the
blocking of content and set up
a process for content removal
by intermediaries. The Supreme Court examined the
system to see if it lacked safeguards that would prevent
misuse resulting in blocking of
legal and constitutionally protected content. The court then
read down the Intermediary
Guidelines, which required intermediaries to take down
content at the behest of any
third party user. After the
Shreya Singhal verdict, nongovernmental parties will need
to obtain a court order to get
an intermediary to take down
content. This is progress, since
the old notice and take-down
system resulted in the removal
of perfectly legitimate content
by intermediaries in a bid to
avoid the risk of litigation. It is
a significant step for our jurisprudence that the Supreme
Court already recognises that
online content can be affected
by indiscriminate user-notices
because intermediaries lack
the constitutional legitimacy,
resources, or incentives to
identify which user-notices are
valid in law. However, amid
the celebration of the Shreya
Singhal verdict are notes of
dissatisfaction. These relate
It is creditable that
SC has attempted to
balance intermediary
liability with freedom
of expression in
Shreya Singhal case,
but new procedural
safeguards are
required.
to the way in which the Supreme Court has handled government-ordered blocking of
content. The court has declared that the blocking process has several safeguards
preventing its abuse. Some of
the safeguards that it has listed
were not apparent from a plain
reading of the law, so the
clarifications are a welcome
step. For example, the court
has read the Blocking of Access rules to mean that written reasons shall be provided
in each blocking order so as to
permit a writ petition challenging the order if necessary. Government blocking
orders have not offered written reasons consistently thus
far, so the obligation emerging from this judgment may
improve the process and may
allow intermediaries to reject
orders that do not list reasons
in writing. The court also read
Rule 8 to mean that the right
to a pre-decisional hearing
before issuing a blocking order extends to the content
creator or originator. This
right to a hearing for authors
of content was certainly not
clear from the language used
in Rule 8, so the judgment
potentially improves the accountability of the blocking
system by recognising this
right. Since Rule 8 requires
the government to make all
reasonable efforts to identify
such a person, this judgment
potentially opens the door to
challenges of particular blocking orders on the basis that
reasonable effort was not
made to offer the content originator an opportunity to be
heard. However, the Supreme
Court has placed a lot of faith
in an opaque government
process based on an erroneous understanding of the
capacities of the different
parties involved. For example, the government content-blocking safeguards
have been declared effective on the assumption that
the blocking system offers
a reasonable opportunity to
be heard and to appeal an
unconstitutional blocking decision. This is, however, misleading. It assumes that the
content-originator will be contacted and given a reasonable
opportunity to contest the
blocking of the content. In the
alternative, it assumes that
the intermediary will defend
the content adequately before
the government committee.
Both assumptions are far off
the mark. The nature of the
Internet, with its anonymity
and geographic spread, makes
it likely that the content-originator may not be contacted,
may be in another country or
may lack the resources to
make her case. Intermediaries will not adequately defend
the content since they tend
to avoid spending resources
on defending third-party
content. This makes it likely
that the information that we
are able to access will continue to be affected unreasonably by government
blocking orders. The blocking process continues to be
shrouded in secrecy owing
to Rule 16 of the Blocking of
Access rules, which requires
that confidentiality be maintained around all blocking orders. This rule was challenged
in the Shreya Singhal case but
the Supreme Court left it untouched. For originators and
readers to realise that their
content has been blocked by a
government order, the hosting page should at the very
least carry a notification of the
government-ordered block
along with reasons. This is the
first time that the Supreme
Court has attempted to balance the legitimate usage of
intermediary liability with freedom of expression concerns.
Given the complex nature of
online intermediary liability,
this is a creditable beginning.
Yet, the nature of the Internet
requires the creation of new
procedural safeguards that will
enable users access to other,
more traditional, safeguards
such as a hearing and the
opportunity to appeal a bad
decision. In many ways, transparency and a notification of
blocking on the site are the
digital age’s version of the
written government notices
that support our rights in
the offline world. Our regulatory framework and our
understanding of fair process need, therefore, to
evolve to keep up with the
advances in the digital world.
3
Bengaluru shutterbug
captures rare Partridge
The photographer had gone to Arunachal at
the end of March to West Kamang district, where
more than 800 bird species have been spotted.
Garvi Gujarat
Sedate yet sensitive
3
V.P. Dhananjayan and students of Bharatakalanjali brought alive the spirit of Thooran’s verses.
Old is indeed gold -- as the
2015 Bharatakalanjali production, ‘Azhagu Deivam’ proved.
Not because it took the Tamil
compositions of Periaysamy
Thooran and set it to the tested
style of the Dhananjayans but
because tribute was paid to all
these factors by the students
of the guru who has guided
and trained them for several
years. And that is something
that cannot go wrong especially in today’s times when
nothing really lasts long. So
not only was it a tribute to the
lineage of the music and dance
but also to the system of
gurukulam. In this production,
the Dhananjayans had not only
chosen to pay tribute to the
beautiful language of Tamil
but took devotion-filled music
and compositions of a great
poet and lyricist to set it to
dance. Set to music by T.K.
Govinda Rao and Turaiyur
Rajagopala Sarma, the production was comforting in the
fact that there were no surprises, no gimmicks or anything other than strict adherence to the bani propagated
by Bharatakalanjali. And that
turned out to be the strongest
factor in favour of the production. With strong, impassioned
compering by Radhika Shurjit,
the programme began with a
The Wikipedia page
shows only a sketch for an
image. The International
Union for Conservation of
Nature (IUCN), which
categorises the bird as vulnerable, has only a colourful
painting — at least two decades old — as reference.
The Chestnut-breasted Partridge (Arborophila mandellii),
endemic to the Eastern
Himalayas, had eluded
shutterbugs, until immense
patience and a stroke of luck
granted Bengaluru-based
wildlife photographer Gururaj
Moorching a two-minute en-
counter with the rare bird.
There are nearly 45 different
species of partridges, of which
the Chestnut-breasted Partridge — which gets its scientific name from an Italian naturalist — is classified as a ‘hill
partridge’. IUCN estimates that
about 2,500 Chestnutbreasted Partridges live in
Arunachal Pradesh, Bhutan
and Lower Tibet along the
Himalayas. The photographer
had gone to Arunachal at the
end of March to West Kamang
district, where more than 800
bird species have been spotted. “The partridge had been
heard and seen before, but
somehow not photographed. I heard their calls
for three days, and I figured that they tend to cross
the road late in the evening,”
said Mr. Moorching, who
took to wildlife photography four years ago. After
squatting in silence on a
lonely stretch for over three
hours, he spotted a female
bird crossing the road
nearly 25 feet away. Before
the shy avian could scurry
away into the thicket, Mr.
Moorching clicked the firstever photograph of the bird.
NAGPUR: In what indicates a massive divide in
the armed forces, about
200 officers from services
(non-combat branches)
and other wings, apart
from infantry and artillery,
have joined a litigation
against the Army. After the
Armed Forces Tribunal
(AFT) issued a verdict
quashing a 2009 promotion policy till the rank of
colonel, the Army moved
the apex court. With the final
hearing due on April 15,
about 200 officers have
joined the litigation now to
be heard in the apex court.
The case was originally filed
at the AFT by a group of 30
officers. An official in the
lawyers' firm representing
the officers who had moved
the AFT confirmed the development. He said about 200
new applications to join the
litigation in the Supreme
Court had reached their office. The officers who challenged the promotion policy
were represented by Delhi-
based Meenakshi Lekhi, who
is also a Lok Sabha member. Some officers are joining the case through other
lawyers as well, which may
push the figure above 200.
The basic contention was
the command exit policy introduced in 2009. It called
for a shorter tenure for an
infantry officer to stay as a
battalion's commanding officer (CO). The post is held
after reaching the rank of a
colonel. As colonels exit
CO's post in two-and-a-half
years in infantry as against
four years in other
branches, it created faster
vacancies for those down
the line to take up this rank.
The petitioners, who were
from services, had claimed
the policy was heavily tilted
towards infantry, leading
to violation of the
Constitution's Article 14,
which guarantees equality.
This is probably the first
time that so many officers
have come together as a
single group to fight a law-
suit against the Army. "In
case AFT's decision is upheld in the Supreme Court,
joining the litigation may
bring them the benefit too,
especially if the ruling covered only the petitioners,"
said a source. "However,
apart from it, the officers
are also taking it as a show
of strength." The original
petition started with five
officers but the number
reached 30 when the case
finally reached the AFT.
This time even officers from
armoured and mechanized
infantry have joined the
case. The officers have already openly expressed
their differences in relation to the promotion policy
on social media. Personnel
from both infantry and services have been criticizing
each other on Facebook.
Those from infantry argue that it is they who
take the bullet and so
must get some privileges.
Officers from services
argue that war is a joint effort.
This album proves that the
Mani Ratnam-A.R.RahmanVairamuthu combination is still
the best.There are a host of
new singers in Oh Kadhal
Kanmani, but it’s the good old
Chitra who comes up trumps
as she sashays through the
melodious and lyrical Malargal
Keten with utmost ease. Struc-
NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday
said judges must not fear the
reaction of five-star activists
while discharging their "divine"
duty of dispensing justice as
per the Constitution and law.
"The judiciary is not as fearless today as it used to be ten
years back. Are five-star activists not driving the judiciary?
Are they not attempting to do
so? Judges fear what the reaction of five-star activists
would be when they render
justice as per law and as per
Constitution," Modi said in his
address to judges of the Supreme Court and chief justices of high courts in the presence of chief ministers. Chief
Justice of India H L Dattu rebutted the PM's perception and
told TOI, "Judges today are as
fearless as they ever
were."Inaugurating the conference of chief justices and
CMs for finding solutions to
problems faced by the judiciary, the PM said, "It is not
difficult to dispense justice as
per Constitution and law. But
while doing so, judges must
differentiate between perception (created by social activists) and fact." Modi's comments came in the wake of
Justice Dattu's decision to take
off two judges - Justices S J
Mukhopadhaya and N V
Ramana - from hearing activist Teesta Setalvad's petition
seeking a directive to Gujarat
Police not to arrest her for
alleged embezzlement of
funds meant for riot victims.
Setalvad's counsel had sought
replacement of the judges by
pointing out that they had invited the PM for the weddings
of their children. Earlier, Modi
himself was in the eye of a
Supreme Court case for three
years. With the help of
Setalvad, Jakia Jafri, widow of
former Congress MP Ehsan
Jafri who was killed by a rioting mob in 2002, had filed a
petition accusing Modi, who
was Gujarat CM then, of deliberately failing in his constitutional duty to protect innocent
minorities during the 2002 riots. After probing her complaint, an SC-appointed special investigating team had
given Modi a clean chit. Recently, Gujarat Police wanted
to arrest Setalvad accusing
her of misusing donations received by her NGOs for welfare of 2002 riot victims. It had
alleged that she had spent the
money on purchase of luxury
personal items and payment
of her credit card bills. She
had denied the allegations.
The SC has ordered stay on
her arrest and referred her
anticipatory bail plea to a
three-judge bench. The PM
also said other organs of governance - legislature and executive - had pronounced
checks and balances. Such a
system was not strong in the
judiciary. He said without such
a system, "the DNA of the
judiciary could go bad and hit
the supreme faith of commoners in the courts". "We as
representatives of people are
subjected to intense scrutiny
by media 24x7. News which
once found it difficult to get
into gossip columns is today's
breaking news. Apart from
media scrutiny, there are institutional checks like Election
Commission, RTI and soon the
Lokpal. These are necessary
to keep us on the right track,"
Modi said. "Judges do not have
that privilege. You don't even
hear criticism. Those who are
given death sentence also
come out and say they have
faith in judiciary. That is because judiciary through its tradition and character has created immense faith in the common people. This faith has
evolved, not injected. But how
do we keep it intact and make
it more impressive?"Judiciary
must have a strong internal
check system, in which government and politicians should
have absolutely no say whatsoever. If you do not put in
that system, then there is a
danger of the DNA going bad
which would hit the faith
people unconditionally repose
in judiciary. Moreover, if legislature goes wrong, it can be
corrected by judiciary. What
will happen if judiciary goes
wrong? There will be nothing
left," the PM said. Justice Dattu
told reporters that the SC and
HCs had strong in-house
mechanisms to keep a check
on misconduct of judges and
added that it was working well
and was closely monitored by
the CJI and chief justices of
various high courts. Quoting
Bhishma
from
the
Mahabharata, Modi said, "Respect for law is the key to unity
of the country. Judiciary is
getting powerful because they
discharge a divine duty. But it
must also strive for perfection." The PM said the NDA
government was committed
to provide necessary funds for
building infrastructure and creating more posts of judges to
deal with arrears. However,
he also said the alternative
About 200 officers gear up
for legal battle against Army
Ahmedabad. Dt. 08-04-2015 Wednesday
prostration to Lord Muruga –
he is the central deity of adoration and focus and Thooran
Thiruppugazh’s ‘Kuzhandai
Paruvathile’ showcased the
group dance and finished off
with a colourful cameo.
‘Ennenna Vilayaadalamma’,
ragamalika, was performed
by Sreelatha Vinod with quiet
kind of a varnam, one of the
celebrated pieces of the
Dhananjayans, ‘Aadum Mayil
Vaahananaam,’ ragamalika, is
a dance infused conversation
young Muruga or AzhaguDeivam, an incredibly beautiful child – the simple Kavadi
steps leading the Little Lord to
the prayer and wonder of the
bhakta (played with simplicity
by V.P. Dhananjayan). This
was followed by a sprightly
competence and sans drama
– which is a good thing considering how this Gurunatha can
take many forms but the energy is still quite the same. It
is tempting in such pieces to
make it dramatic to drive home
this point. The Nrityopaharam,
between two sakhis – like a
sawal/ jawab where one
plays the Devil’s advocate to
test the extent of love. It was
simply rendered despite the
fact that Thooran has used
puns to highlight the play of
words to deepen the nature
Oh Kadhal Kanmani: Classical yet cool
tured in the form of a kriti,
with a tambura running in the
background, this is easily one
of the best songs of the album. More importantly, for
those who heard the
Alaipayuthe kriti in the film
and fell in love with its simplicity, Malargal will be a newage keerthana. If simple is on
Air India pilots who fought inside
cockpit at Jaipur airport derostered
offer, complex isn’t far. Of
late, Rahman has constructed
some intricate melodies that
require some attention to
grasp and Naane Varugiraen
by Shashaa is the latest addition to that list. The tune construction is quite complex, the
sangathis quite laboured…it
might take you quite a few
listens to get into the groove
with this one! Theera Ula starts
off with a lot of auto-tune but
once the female vocals
(Darshana and Nikita Gandhi)
kick in, the blend of classical
and cool is quite charming.
Kaara Attakara has a catchy
stock line, but beyond that,
this conversational number
would be better heard with
visuals playing on the big
screen. Parandhu Sella Vaa is
slow, sensuous and almost
like Sillunu Oru Kadhal’s Maja
Maja in terms of feel. But when
Karthik breaks into the
Nanaindhu Kollava phrase at
the middle of the song, it feels
like all is okay. What follows is
some musical bliss. Aye
Sinamika sees singer Karthik
do what he does best – dishing out a breezy tune in his
inimitable style. The two
versions of Mental Manadhil,
the tune of which is already
popular, are sure to click
with the masses, especially
youngsters. Young A. R.
Ameen also gets in a small
number in Maula Wa Salim.
This album is ample proof
that the Mani RatnamA.R.Rahman-Vairamuthu
combination is still the best
in the business. The musical assortment that is Oh
Kadhal Kanmani is delicious
to the ear!
of love and the steadiness of
intent. Performed by
Pavithra Srinivasan and Divya
Shivasundar, the music was
set by Rajagopala Sarma exclusively for Bharatakalanjali
in 1974. ‘Ariyaparuvam’ in
Kedaragowla was a gentle
padam performed by Tulsi
Badrinath. This padam is
from Thooran’s musical opera ‘Kaadal Valli Kanda
Murugan.’ ‘Nalla Kanna’ in
Kharaharapriya showcased
the nayika who dreams of
Azhagan Murugan and narrates it to her sakhi - executed with elan by Shobana
Bhalchandra. In the purely
devotional ‘Muruga Muruga’
in Saveri, a popular composition of Thooran, the bhakta
craves the mercy of Muruga
for redemption and grace.
Done with bhakti and in the
manner
that
the
Dhananjayans are famous
for, it was good to watch
Dhananjayan take centre
stage. The rest of the evening
comprised ‘Vandanoru
Vedan’, a short scene from
Bharatakalanjali’s ‘Valli
Thirumanam
Natya
Natakam, performed by
Gopukiran Ashin Mathew and
Mahalakshmi Balaji; ‘Azhagu
Deivam’, the Kavadi Chindu
mettu in Chaturasram, a group
dance that dealt with the lovely
Kavadi Chindu tune so integral
to Muruga worship – the highlight being the way the Child
God
transforms
into
Arumurugan, metaphorically
speaking. Decent, consistent
quality of dancing combined
with the right amount of dexterity in footwork and bhava a
trademark
of
all
Bharatakalanjli productions saw to it that the production
was enjoyed by all present in
the audience. On t h e
nattuvangam was Shanta
Dhananjayan. Vocals by
Murali Parthasarathi and
Gnanaprasuna was adequate, while Vedakrishnan
on the mridangam/percussions, Sreedharan on the
edakka, T.K. Padmanabhan
on the violin, Sunil Kumar
on
the
flute
and
Lakshminarayan on the
tambura provided good support. Lights and audio by
Venkatesh and Murugan
completed the ensemble.
LHC cranked up, to
reach into the unknown
NEW DELHI: Air India has grounded the two pilots involved
in a tiff on its Jaipur-Delhi flight on Sunday evening. As reported
by TOI, the commander of that flight (AI 611) had complained
that the co-pilot had misbehaved and hit him when the aircraft
was in Jaipur and being prepared for the flight to Delhi. "Both
the pilots have been derostered (means taken off flying duty).
An inquiry has been ordered into this," AI spokesman G P Rao
said, while adding that there was no violence in the cockpit.
The captain has reportedly told AI that he would not like to fly
with the co-pilot again, who has allegedly misbehaves with
some other commander in the past too. The commander of AI
611 has given a detailed note of what happened on the flight
to the airline operation and despatch units. The trouble had
begun when AI 611 was getting ready to fly for Delhi. The
DGCA is also likely to probe this issue. "AI and DGCA should
examine this latest problem in the cockpit. If the complaints
about the said co-pilot's behavior are found true, then in the
interest of aviation safety the authorities must act," said a pilot.
Don’t fear 5-star activists, be fearless in
giving judgments, PM tells judges
dispute resolution mechanism
was the most attractive
method for the poor, who could
no longer afford the litigation
cost in courts. He requested
the CJI and judges of the Supreme Court to discuss
whether hundreds of tribunals set up to lessen the work
load of HCs had yielded any
tangible results. The PM also
said obsolete laws must be
scrapped as soon as possible.
"I have got Cabinet approval
to do away with 700-odd obsolete laws. But I am told there
are another 1,700-odd. My
resolve to scrap an obsolete
law a day in the five-year term
will be fulfilled."He said increasing use of information
technology in judiciary was
key to speeding up justice dispensation process and praised
Allahabad HC chief justice D Y
Chandrachud for "excellent
work" in digitizing court
records.CJI Dattu said judiciary was not averse to full
computerization, but asked
whether it would leave out
certain sections of the population which were still computer
illiterate.He also expressed concern over the low salary of judges,
which is equivalent to the first
salary drawn by students graduating from national law schools.
CERN, the European Organisation for
Nuclear Research, reported that particle beams
were successfully pushed around the LHC.
CERN scientists restarted
their “Big Bang” Large Hadron
Collider (LHC) on Sunday in a
bid to probe into the “dark
universe” they believe lies
beyond the visible one. CERN,
the European Organisation for
Nuclear Research, reported
that particle beams were successfully pushed around the
LHC in both directions after a
two-year shutdown for a major refit described as a
Herculean task that doubled
its power and its reach into
the unknown. “It’s fantastic to
see it going so well after such
a major overhaul,” CERN Director-General Rolf Heuer told
delighted scientists and engineers as the beams moved
round the tubes of the 27-km
underground complex. But it
will be two months before
particle collisions — mini-versions of the Big Bang primordial blast that brought the uni-
verse into being 13.8 billion
years ago — begin and at
least a year more before any
results can be expected. Study
of many billions of collisions in
the LHC’s first run from 2010
to 2013 produced proof of the
existence of the Higgs boson
by 2012 and its linked force
field, a long-sought mechanism that gives mass to matter. But that was part of the
40-year-old Standard Model
of how the universe is believed to work at the level of
the fundamental particles that
make up everything in it, including life. With its capacity
to smash particles together at
almost the speed of light and
at a collision energy twice that
of its first run, scientists hope
that the revamped LHC will
produce evidence of what has
been dubbed “New Physics”.
Among elements of this concept are the “dark matter”
thought to make up some 96
per cent of the stuff of the
universe while being totally
invisible, and super-symmetry, or SUSY, under which all
visible particles have unseen
counterparts. “If I had to bet
on what we will find, I would
go for SUSY,” said Oliver
Buchmueller, a scientist on
one of the four machines
around the ring that records
each collision. “But we could
also find something very, very
unexpected,” he added. “This
is what makes life on the energy frontier so exciting.” But
CERN will only gradually move
towards applying the full energy now within the power of
the LHC, mindful of a helium
leak in 2008 that forced postponement of the machine’s
first run for two years, and an
electrical fault that put off
Sunday’s start-up, originally
set for last month, by two weeks.
4
Ahmedabad. Dt. 08-04-2015 Wednesday
Garvi Gujarat
Fire at pesticide unit
near Vapi injures 11
Civic authorities have laid open the footpath on Dadhichi Bridge for repairing
electricity cables making the passage unusable for pedstrains.
Profit margins depend
on the damage
Ahmedabad: What use
would be of a torn Rs 100
note? For the enterprising
business community of walled
city, this is a perfect opportunity to earn Rs 50! In the bylanes of Manek Chowk and
Dilli Darwaza exists the largest business of torn or damaged currency notes. `Fateli
Noto Lenar' -the colloquial
board says, advertising the
business that is dominated by
20 main traders operating in
walled city with 500-odd
agents across the city. Damaged currency worth Rs 15
lakh is circulated and exchanged daily here. It is a
largely silent operation as not
a word is exchanged between
the client and trader. A person
passed a tattered note, gets
money in exchange. No questions asked, no replies given.
Profit margins range from 5 to
50% depending on the damage. “If the note is torn into
two pieces, we give the per-
son Rs 95 back. If the note is
torn into three or four, then
profit margins range from
40-50%,“ says Jaikumar
Choksi, third generation family member managing the
silver and gold jewellery
house in Manek Chowk that
pioneered the business of
torn notes. Profit margins
range from 5 to 50% depending on the damage. “If
the note is torn into two
pieces, we give the person
Rs 95 back. If the note is torn
into three or four, then profit
margins range from 4050%,“ says Jaikumar Choksi,
third generation family member managing the silver and
gold jewellery house in
Manek Chowk that pioneered
the business of torn notes.
“We used to get a lot of torn,
damaged currency from
share bazaar. Since share
brokers were our clients, my
grandfather Nanakram
started this business to help
them out,“ says Jaikumar.
Jayesh Shah, who runs a shop
in Delhi Darwaza, has a philanthropic take on his business. “It is a social service of
sorts. Imagine a person would
have to go to a bank and
queue up for hours to exchange a single note. Many
banks do not easily entertain
such requests. We charge a
small commission and do their
job with much ease,“ says
Jayesh. Interestingly, maximum currency notes in the
city are damaged by termites!
“Majority damaged currency
we receive are eaten up by
termites when stashed for
years inside drawers of
wooden cupboards. Notes torn
by children and sometimes in
anger also land up at our
table,“ says Ramesh Shah, in
the business since 40 years.
Apart from the city , walled
city businessmen receive bagfuls of damaged currency from
Unjha, Gondal and Rajkot as well.
5-member inter-state gang
held for credit card fraud
Vadodara: An inter-state
gang that used to cheat peo
ple by extracting their cred t
card details was busted by
he cyber crime cell of the
detection of crime branch
DCB) on Sunday. The cops
have arrested five people
ncluding a minor from Del hi
and brought them to Va
dodara. The accused told
police that they have conned
hundreds of people n many
states across the country and
siphoned off akhs of rupees
by posing as bank employees. The cyber crime cell un
der supervision of DCP crime)
H R Muliyana began racing
the accused after about 17
people approached t with
complaints of credit card
fraud worth Rs 1.66 akh some
days ago. “We got complaints
that some per sons used to
call up and dentify themselves as em ployees of ICICI
Bank. They used to win confidence of he customers and
extract important informa-
tion like credit card number,
CVV number and one time
password from them. The unsuspecting customers were
told that they will be getting
gifts or their credit card limits
would be increased,“ said
cyber crime cell police inspector Vijay Rathod. When the
customers gave their credit
card details, the accused used
the information to recharge
mobile phones through different websites and sell off the
recharge coupons to people.
“The accused knew that if they
do online shopping the
chances of tracking them down
would increase. It's difficult to
track down the IP addresses if
recharge is done through
websites. We tracked them
down through the numbers
that they used to call the victims,“ Rathod told TOI. The
accused have been identified
as Ashrafali Sheikh, Sunny
Jajoriya, Balajit Singh Sindh,
Indrajit Murugan and a minor,
all residents of Delhi. The cops
Board official to
monitor exams at
Khokhra school
Ahmedabad: The Gujarat
Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Board has
grown wary and is taking extra precaution after question
papers of SSC English and
HSC semester IV biology
leaked before the exams recently . For the first and the
third semester examination of
Class XII science stream examinations, the board has
decided to post an official at
Jay Somnath School in
Khokhra and change the
school's entire examination
staff. The biology paper had
leaked from this school.
Further, the board has deputed one board official to
each of the seven examination centres in the area.It
has also decided to send to
each centre an official who
has to arrive there before the
question paper comes. The
officer will then check each
and every bundle of question
papers to check whether the
seals on question paper pack-
ets were intact.He will also sit
in the examination hall for
three hours, continuously
monitor CCTV feeds and also
go for physical verification in
the classes. Sources at the
GSHSEB said that the specially
deputed official will stay at the
centre till the papers are
sealed after the examination.
After signing each and every
bundle, the officer will dispatch the papers and only then
can he leave the centre.The
sources further said that on
Saturday they had also decided to scrutinize the results
of the past three years of Jay
Somnath School.GSHSEB officials suspect that someone
from the board and the school
staff had joined hands to leak
papers. It has been alleged in
some quarters that the school
staff had been leaking papers
for the past three years. The
board is now trying to find out
how many students from the
school had got more than 80%
marks in the past three years.
have seized 11 mobile
phones, two computers, 17
walkie talkie sets and 21 sim
cards from the accused.
Pramod Yadav, who used to
supply names and details of
credit card holders to the
accused, is yet to be
arrested.According to the
police, Ashrafali, who is mastermind of the fraud, had set
up a small call centre in Uttam
Nagar area of New Delhi. “He
had hired some people to
make the calls. They used to
make about 100 to 200 calls
daily but only three or four
persons used to fall in their
trap due to increased awareness of such scams. We are
now trying to find out if any
bank employee is involved in
the fraud.The accused admitted that they had committed frauds in Madhya Pradesh,
Delhi, Rajasthan, Mumbai and
Gujarat,“ Rathod added.The
cops feel that the credit card
data may have been stolen
through courier agencies.
Education tribunal
judges not paid
salaries for a year
Ahmedabad:Three judges
appointed in Gujarat Education Institutions Services Tribunal by the state government to judge on service conditions like promotion and remuneration issues have not
been paid salary and allowances for nearly a year. This
information was provided by
the Tribunal's office last month
in response to an application
under the RTI Act filed by
advocate Vinod Pandya. Retired judge of city civil court D
V Zala was appointed as president of the tribunal, whereas
retired principal district judge
G N Patel and retired IAS officer S A Gholakia in May last
year.The tribunal's reply stated
that the salary and allowances
have not been paid to these
judges because terms and
conditions of their employment
have not been decided. Even
the maintenance and stationary expenditure would be finalized once the terms are
finalized. Till date, the office
has incurred Rs 27,315 towards petrol expenditure
of the tribunal's staff car.
Surat: Eleven persons suffered burn injuries when a fire
broke out at a pesticide manufacturing factory in Sarigam
GIDC, some 30km from Vapi,
on Sunday . According to officials, the fire broke out due to
leakage in an under-maintenance phosphorus pipeline of
Sabero Organics Gujarat Ltd.
The company was earlier a
subsidiary of Coromandel International and was merged
with the parent company last
year. Six of the injured were
admitted to Hariya Hospital in
Vapi. They were identified as
Bhavik Koli, Anup Singh,
Digamber Unde, Altaf Shinde,
Khenderao Bhanede and
Parasnath Shah. All of them
have suffered 10% to 33%
burn injuries. It is likely that
those with more severe burns
may be shifted to Mumbai.
The factory is located close to
the Gujarat-Maharashtra border on Sarigam-Bhilad main
road of Sarigam GIDC.
Sources said that the pipeline
flowing phosphorous was leaking and repair work was being
carried out on Sunday in the
PCL-3 plant. “It was during
this repair work that there
was some blast at around
3.35pm. This resulted in fire
and those standing nearby
suffered burns,“ an official of
Gujarat Pollution Control
Board (GPCB) told TOI.Satya,
a company official confirmed
that the incident took place
during the ongoing maintenance work. The company
staff had a get together on
Sunday and the incident took
place in the afternoon. GPCB
officials said that they will
conduct a detailed inquiry
and take necessary action
for the safety of workers.
4 held with 145 bogus
Aadhar cards
Surat: In a startling revelation, 145 bogus Aadhar cards were
recovered from four Swaminarayan devotees who were caught
by police trying to enter the temple complex to cast votes in
Vadtal sect temple management committee election held on
Saturday . Police have arrested and presented them before the
court for remand. According to the Katargam police officials,
four diamond workers tried to enter the complex of
Swaminarayan temple at Dabholi cross roads to cast vote. While
checking, they were found to be possessing multiple Aadhar
cards. The people were identified as Hasmukh Patel of Kapodra,
Ashwin Kumbhadia of Jamunanagar Dabholi, Pravin Waghni of
Katargam and Dinesh Dhanani of Nana Varacha. P K Diyora,
police inspector of Katargam police station said, “We want to
find out if there is a bigger racket of bogus Aadhar card. It is
important to identify who made these cards and who pressurized them to use these cards.“
3 miscreants kill 41-yr-old
man in Surat
Surat: A 41-year-old man was brutally murdered by three
unidentified persons in Parvat area of the city on Sunday.
Jayanti Chana Rathod was rushed to Surat Municipal Institute
of Medical Education and Research where he died
during treatment. Limbayat police station Limbayat police
station officers said Rathod was a resident of Panas area
of City Light. He had gone to watch a cricket match at
Parvat when he was attacked there multiple times with
rods on his legs, hands, head and stomach by the
miscreants. Police said names of the suspects were not
known as yet, but the attack stemmed out of old enemity.?
AAI employees pedal 2,225km
to connect with people
Ahmedabad: In a unique initiative, 72 cyclists belonging to
Airports Authority of India (AAI) pedalled 2,225 km across five
states in a step towards connecting with people.The journey
began with 12 cyclists from Kolkata on February 17 and after
travelling through six sectors (12 cyclists per sector), 12 cyclists
reached Ahmedabad airport on Sunday morning from Indore.
The cyclists were felicitated by airport director R K Singh at
terminal 3 in a function held on Sunday . The 38-day journey
began at Kolkata and in the first leg covered 482 kms in eight
days and reached Gaya in Bihar. From Gaya, another 12 cyclists
peddled 378 kms to reach Allahabad in six days. The journey
continued from Allahabad to Kanpur (200 km, 4 days), Kanpur
to Bhopal (565 km, 9 days), Bhopal to Indore (200 km, 4
days) and lastly Indore to Ahmedabad (400 km, 7 days).
According to AAI, the objective of the expedition was
`Steps towards connecting the people'. The Kolkata
sports board vice-president and secretary were also present
at the closing ceremony to encourage the participants.
Crocodile trapped in net
near Parul Campus, freed
Vadodara: A four-and-half-footlong crocodile was rescued
by animal activists from near the campus of Parul Group of
Institutes (PGI) here on Sunday. The reptile was entangled in
a net which was laid out by the Parul authorities to capture
crocodiles. Security authorities of the educational institute had
noticed crocodile movement in Piparia village on Saturday night
and so had laid a net near the campus. Activists said two ninefoot-long crocodiles were there in the pond of Waghodiya
taluka. The security personnel of PGI alerted the crocodile
rescue teams on finding the baby crocodile in the net. The
crocodile was taken away by the forest department officials and
it will be released on Monday. A recent crocodile census
revealed that the water bodies in Va dodara region had around
450 crocodiles. Vishwamitri river that flows through the heart
of the city is home to over 260 crocodiles alone.Just last week,
a 58-year-old woman had saved her 19-year-old daughter
from the jaws of a crocodile in a village near Padra. Crocodile
sightings in public places near Waghodia has also become common.
Gujaratis opt for faith, line
up for Chaar Dham Yatra
Ahmedabad: A large number of pilgrims from Gujarat
will be leaving for Uttarakhand
this year to make the Char
Dham Yatra as the safety situation has improved considerably in the hilly state. In 2013,
flash floods during the pilgrimage season had killed several
thousand people. No wonder,
next year in 2012 barely 1000
pilgrims from Gujarat visited
Uttarakhand. However, over
the last two days, the tourism
department of Uttarakhand
took around 15 tour operators
of Gujarat on an inspection
trip to Char Dham to make
them aware of reconstruction
and new facilities. The tour
operators say that around
10,000 advance bookings for
Char Dham Yatra have already
been made which is likely to
begin from third week of April.
On an average, 80,000 to 1
lakh pilgrims from Gujarat used
to visit Uttarkhand for the Yatra
every year before 2013. Giving an account of the visit he
had made to Uttarakhand with
other tour operators, Bhaskar
Rao Babul kar of Radheshyam
Travels said they boarded a
helicopter from Rishikesh and
reached Kedarnath in 45 minutes. “Indian Army officials and
those of Nehru Institute of
Mountaineering (NIM) which
is overlooking the reconstruction work, briefed us about
the safety measures taken. A
pucca road has been built on
the Kedarnath route and accommodation for at least 500
people has been readied near
the shrine along with the government canteen for food. Also
Garhwal Mandal has also set
up a food stall,“ said Babulkar.
Following the 2013 tragedy,
the Ut tarakhand government has made registration
compulsory for all visitors.
4
IIM-A incubates
love stories as well
Ahmedabad: They are
among the top brains in the
country but when it comes to
matters of the heart, many students of Indian Institute of
Management, Ahmedabad
(IIM-A) are lucky to find their
true love while studying on the
campus. At IIM-A 's 50th convocation held in March this
year, Ajay Banga, president
and CEO of MasterCard and an
alumnus of the institute said
that the institute possesses the
“alchemy for matchmaking!“
Banga was referring to his own
experience at IIM-A, where he
first met his wife of 31 years,
Ritu Banga. “This school gave
me a great education, a family
. I met my wife here and that
meeting produced a lifelong
partnership that is the bedrock
of my joy and happiness. It also
gave us the most precious gifts
of all--our two daughters. So,
not only does IIM-A rank among
the world's elite business
schools, it also possesses the
alchemy for matchmaking,“
Banga said. Other well-known
alumnus of IIM-A including
Chetan Bhagat, Harsha Bhogle,
Bharti Gupta Ramola also
found their respective spouses
while pursuing business administration degree at IIM-A.
“In the last four years, I have
received so many wedding invitations from students who
were dating while studying at
IIM-A.It makes me happy that
IIM-A is not only getting its students plush jobs and hefty pay
packages but also life partners,“ said a faculty member,
here as compared to going
out in the market,“ said
Parida. Students give credit
to the beautiful, red-bricked
campus for its no-interference policy .“As compared to
any other campus, there is a
lot of privacy here to explore
who did not wish to be named.
Biswajita Parida, who is pursuing her PhD from IIM-A currently , met her would-be
groom Priyadarshan Gupta, an
IIM-A graduate of 2014, while
on campus. The couple is set
to be married in June 2015 after Gupta's parents met Parida
at his convocation last year. “It
was difficult to convince my
parents as we belong to different castes and states but I was
very clear that I will not marry
a stranger. The crowd at IIMA is filtered, has similar aspirations, are likeminded and
have a different mindset from
the mainstream. That is why
people prefer getting a match
each other. The relations
between a student and professors are very professional
and the institute does not interfere in anyone's personal
life. The campus plays a vital
role in bringing people together,“ said Parida. According to sources, live-in relationships are common on
campus. “When I was a student, there were about 12-15
female students in my class
of 180 and most of them
found grooms from the
batch or married seniors,“
said Nayan Parikh, of the
1981 batch and president
of the IIM-A alumni association, Gujarat.
Vadodara: MS University
now has collaborations with
as many as 28 foreign universities. It recently collaborated
with two US, one South Africa
and one Africa-based universities with which the total number of MoUs that it had signed
has increased to 28. In the
United States, it has signed
MoUs with James Madison
University (JMU) and South
Carolina University (SCU). It
also signed MoUs with Fort
Hare University (FHU) in South
Africa and Kenyatta University
(KU) in Kenya. The MoU with
1908 founded Virginia-based
JMU is for a period of five
years for project development
in the areas of mutual interest, grant funding development, collabora tive scholarship, curriculum development,
international conference, cultural exchange projects, ex-
change of centre institute, instructional faculty, administrators and staff, exchange of
information, academic materials and publications and exchange of students. SCU is
one of the only 40 public universities of the US to earn the
Carnegie Foundation's top tier
designations in research activity and community engagement. “This 115year-old
university's vision is inspired
by Mahatma Gandhi.The first
web page of SCU's official
website cites the message of
father of our nation and the
university is keen to engage
with us in community work,“
said director of MSU's Office
of International Af fairs professor Sharad Bansal, adding
that currently the process to
establish students exchange
programme for field work exposure and learning of third
year or final year graduate
students of SCU's College of
Social Work is on. “Like SCU,
South Africa's UFH is also keen
on joint community engagement projects,“ said Bansal.
UFH, which is a public uni
versity in Alice, Eastern Cape,
has signed MoU with MSU for
exchange of students from
either university , exchange of
faculty andor other staff, ex
change of publications, promotion of scientific, academic and
cultural activities, community engagements such as short courses,
full courses, seminars, and workshops and conferences of mutual
inter est. “While SCU is impressed
by the community programme
carried out by our Faculty of
Social Work, UFH is impressed
by the community outreach
programmes conducted by our
Faculty of Family and Community Sciences,“ said Bansal.
MSU ties up with four
more foreign universities
Now, hashtag switch for
your electronic appliances
Vadodara: Now you can
make your cup of coffee from
a machine, switch on your air
conditioner or television set
and control your remote controlled home appliances by
using a hashtag on a microblogging site! Socio Villa -an
innovation by Rishabh Shah, a
class 12 student, uses
microblogging sites in an innovative way. Shah says this
technology can be very useful
for the elderly and disabled
people who can operate home
appliances using their mobile
phones as a remote. The
project was one of the many
innovations exhibited at Maker
Fest, an event that was a platform for innovators, creators
and artists to share their inventions with the public on
Sunday. Shah along with his
team has developed a device
that uses arduino technology
an open-source electronic
prototyping platform that allows the user to create in
teractive electronic objects.
“This device needs to be in a
room where the electrical appliances are kept. By using a
hashtag like `#ACoff ', the
user can control the appliances. The hashtag works
for appliances that function
through a remote control
like air conditioners, audio
systems among others,“
said Ahmedabad-based
Shah, 16, who developed
the device along with Dhairya
Parikh, Meet Mehta and
Sayujya Vaishnav. “A person
can control different appliances by using a specific
hashtag. The hashtag function will not work for appliances that do not have a close
proximity to the device. The
device can help in controlling
multiple appliances in the room
where it is installed,“ Shah
added. Students, innovators,
engineers, artists, entrepreneurs and educationists from
cities like Delhi, Surat,
Ahmedabad and Jaipur participated in the Maker Fest.
Robot-making workshops,
puppetry, making musical instruments from waste were
some of the many workshops
that were held as a part of the
fest. “We had 12-year-olds to
60-year-old innovators in the
event. Having experienced a
tremendous response, we
plan to make the Maker Fest
a yearly affair in the city,“
said Kannan Bharadwaj,
mechanical engineer and
member of the organizing committee of the fest.
Birds search for a meal in a field in the hot sun.
RNI No. GUJENG/2014/57876 Printed, Published & Owned by AJAYKUMAR RAMANLAL PRAJAPATI and Printed at Vansh Corporation, A/8, Shayona Golden Estate, Shahibag, Ahmedabad - 380 004
and Published from 131, Dharmanagar Society, Highway Road, Sabarmati, Ahmedabad - 380 005. Editor : ASHVINKUMAR KESHAVLAL RAMI