Colourful Rakhis flood City markets

This story I got during my daily stroll to the new market area in the evenings in Bhopal. I was passing through the hordes of shops which were selling the variety of rakhi's that had hit the market in the month of August 2002. I had a look at some of them and asked them how mush these cost and then went back to the office to get my camera and shoot some pictures so that I could a write a small piece for the newspaper the very same night.

With the festival of Raksha Bandhan – celebrating sibling love- round the corner, the markets in the State capital are flooded with colourful rakhis catering to all tastes and age groups.
There are rakhis available for children, religious –minded, the modern and the trendy, the sober and the matured, not to mention even politically –inclined people, keeping in mind the forth-coming State Assembly elections.
The children can have a whale of time selecting the traditional bond of love as rakhis studded with Santa, Mickey, Donald ducks and the three witches props made of pencil scrapings and bead work are available. There are doll-studded rakhis, too.
The religious segment of the society can have a choice of rakhis studded with plaster idols of Lord Ganesh, Lakshmi and other gods and goddesses. These rakhis have colourful bands to give them a decent look.
To attract the youth, there are heart shaped rakhis, thin colourful threads interwoven into each other. For the elderly, the holy thread is available in simple and plain traditional forms in all colours.

The biggest attraction is the huge collection of ‘political rakhis’, which have been introduced this year keeping the Assembly elections in mind. They have made three designs, which have the photos of Congress president Sonia Gandhi, and of Prime Minister AB Vajpayee and one which ha the party symbol of the BJP (Lotus) with party colours as the wristband.
A shopkeeper in the New Market area says the rakhi market has seen a transformation this year. He said unless new looks are introduced, people might not be attracted. The price of the rakhis ranges from Rs 2 to Rs 50 for the trendy ones, while the children rakhis have been priced as RS 20 to Rs 40 while the political ones have fixed price at Rs 20 irrespective of the party.

Chief Secy - meets his nemesis in sports

This story I got to know through a good IAS officer friend in Bhopal. He called me to tell that the Chief Secretary along with some of some of the Principal Secretary will visit the Bhadbhada area to have some fun and also enjoy their weekend so that before the new government is sworn in they will be prepared to go to work with their minds fresh. So I quickly took a bath and left for the place only to be greeted by them and asking me if I too wanted to join them in their fun. Yes I did but not with out my journalistic cap on. So after the end of the day and with some special pictures stored in my Nikon D-100 camera I went back to the office in the evening after the fun with some of the top IAS of the state of Madhya Pradesh and narrated the whole story to the RE. He asked me to quickly file the story since it made a nice read for our readers.

With the elections just round the bend and political class busy with its constituents on the festival of lights, bureaucrats – often considered dour and colourless folks – got some breathing space, turned out in style and celebrated Deepawali in fine fashion.
Chief Secretary A V Singh was in the lead, treading the rough terrain on Kerwa reservoir road and going speed –boating in the brimming waters near Bhadbhada. But he met his comeuppance in Housing Commissioner Raghav Chandra when it came to kite flying of a bureaucratic kind.
Sporty Government officials of different departments made the Deepawali crackers and fireworks passé. It was some good ol’ fashioned outing near the woods for them this Deepawali.
Two teams vied for top honours. One led by top bureaucrat A V Singh and the other by State IAS Association secretary Raghav Chandra. The officials of the Sports and Tourism departments were in close quarters.
Reels of kite-strings – the sharp manjha that is used in kite contests – were brought out for the fierce competition. Chandra, who confessed to having flown one after a gap of 30 years, was immediately transported back in the past.

“It feels great flying kites once again. I feel much younger doing so,” he confessed, perhaps reminiscing about his kite –flying days of the youth. The Chief Secretary, a little laid back to suit the mood of a perfect weekend on a beautiful winter afternoon, let his team fly his kite.
But he was fiercely competitive, egging on the teammates to snap the line of Chandra’s kite. Chandra soon regained the touch of the old, maneuvering the kite with some skill and panache.
Soon, the line of his boss’s kite was snipped and it went adrift. As ecstatic Chandra called for his teammates to grab the Chief Secretary’s kite and the manjha.
Later he said that if the State Government permitted, he would like to hold a kite flying competition for the rural folks shortly thus enabling the best kite flyers of the country to be produced from the State.
The Sunday sojourn was organized by the State wing of the National Adventure Foundation & Tirupati Adventure Club. After the kite-flying, the Chief Secretary went off for a speed –boating near Bhadbhada gates accompanied by Principal Secretary, Tourism, K T Chacko.

Graffitie unchecked despite EC ban

This story I had written without the thought that it would make to the front page of the Hindustan Times – Bhopal edition. When I was riding back after submitting the forms for the issue of election commission passes to cover the Madhya Pradesh elections in 2002 on 17th October, I happened to see the walls all over the city defaced with the political parties trying to get the better space on someone else’s walls by promoting and prompting the voters to cast their vote to their respective party. This I thought had been banned by the Central election commission and the State EC too. But the rules were being opulently flouted by the political parties and their candidates. So I came back to the office and asked my RE if I could go ahead and write the story, to which he readily obliged and guided me how to go about it.

Political parties may not have announced candidates for the forthcoming State Assembly elections but graffiti by their likely contestants has begun in right earnest. And this is happening despite clear guidelines of the Election Commission against graffiti for electioneering.
On the arrival of Samajwadi Party chief Mulyam Singh Yadav, party workers too to large-scale graffiti in the old city areas. And when they were removed at the behest of District Collector Anurag Jain, film actor Raza Murad in this typical style chided him for being partisan during Yadav’s rally.
“You can not rub off Mulyam Singh’s name from the hearts of the people. You can only scrub off our slogans from the walls but so it with the Congress slogans as well”, he said.
He seems to be right here. Slogans are being scrubbed off the walls but supporters of the Congress leaders like MLA from Bhopal (South) P C Sharma are writing new slogans seeking vote for the Congress after congratulating people on Diwali.
In the entire stretch from Roshanpura to Priyadarshani Park and beyond, three blocks of slogans – congratulating people on the Deepawali, seeking support for P C Sharma and then appealing for vote to the Congress – abound on both sides of the road. And is has happened in the past week even after Jain convened a meeting of all political parties and took an undertaking from them to desist from graffiti.
While talking to the Hindustan Times, Jain said that it has not been brought to his notice. But if graffiti is done on private property without the consent of the owner, he might well lodge an FIR with the police and prompt action would be taken. If walls of public property were defaced this way, he would take suo moto action.
Here lies the catch. Most of the buildings on this stretch are residential complexes with no single owner and public properties like offices and parks. On the other side of the road are shanties. In both cases, an FIR seems improbable though no consent was sought from anyone.
Jain said that in the case of private property action could only be taken when there is an FIR. “The Defacement of Property Act does not come into effect at the time of elections alone. Graffiti by anyone without consent of the owner is punishable in any case. But after model code of conduct came into effect, it has become my responsibility to ensure that there is no graffiti on public places and without consent of the owner private property is also not defaced”, he said.
He further informed that a decision was taken at the all=party meeting not to write fresh slogans on the walls and rub off all the slogans already written throughout the City.
“The Samajwadi Party workers had violated the rule during the visit of their party chief but slogans written then were immediately removed”, he said.
Jain said that a team of seven persons has been deputed at each of the police station areas to rub off the slogans and the process would pick up after the Prime Minister’s visit on Sunday.

The picture which shook MP State Congress Party

This picture taken by me on 9th April 2002, took the then ruling Congress party by storm and gave the much needed imputes to the main opposition in the state of Madhya Pradesh the Bharatiya Janata Party. Government School children from various poverty and drought struck villages from Madhya Pradesh State had been sitting right from 9 in the morning on the street leading to the Chief Minister Raja Digvijay Singh’s official residence in Bhopal.
Since I had gone there to cover the protest by the children sitting on the pavements in the noon, I asked a couple of policemen standing on guard if the Chief Minister had gone home for his lunch and afternoon siesta, they replied that he has left his office and was heading home. So even I waited for the Chief Minister, thinking that he would meet these children on his way home.
The motorcade of the Chief Minister Digvijay Singh came first ringing the shrieking siren that the Raja is following them shortly. I got ready with a wide angle lens and saw the Raja’s car approach the squatting children, so I quickly took some three frames, while the most of the fotog’s present there ran behind his car thinking he would stop and step out. But instead the car kept going and in a flash he had entered his home gates which were quickly shut behind him by the alert cops on duty. The whole number of fotog’s had missed a good picture. This same picture was xeroxed the next day by the BJP youth wing as they protested the apathy shown by Raja Digvijay Singh on these starving children, who had braved the summer heat waiting for him to hear their pleas.

The Caption: Chief Minister Digvijay Singh seeing, from his car, a sit-in by school children from various villages on Tuesday demanding that the State Government implement the free mid-day meal scheme ordered by the Supreme Court.

Aryans pen next album in - Bhopal

This story too was given to me by my good friend Ritu Raj Mate who called and said that Aryans who are a rage in the world of Hindi pop music were in town and sheltering in one of his friends resorts. I quickly asked him to check out from them if I could come to meet for which they readily obliged. Though I do not know much about Hindi music, Sadasivan and DJ Naraain helped me to understand it thorughly. The half an hour time frame meant for me turned into a two hour chat with them on the 13th of March 2004 during my stint with the Hindustan Times in Bhopal. They even told me how this was their third visit to Bhopal to pen their albums and on how they find the city very quite and romantic and that's why they love to visit the city of lakes to pen their albums.

Sadasivan and DJ Naraain – who have been rocking the country with their hit albums for some years now – are in the City of Lakes penning lyrics for their fifth album.
The duo is also working out a strategy for launching their fourth album – Hai Dil. Speaking to Hindustan Times, they talked of their long journey in the world of music.
The group plans to release “Hai Dil’ in April. The release will coincide with their tour of 16 cities across the country. They also plan to do a show in Bhopal in June.

In a span of two days the duo has penned lyrics for six songs. The album will have more of romantic songs. However, they will stick to Indian values and will not encourage any kind of vulgarity.
The duo has one more feather in their cap with IIT, Kanpur asking students to do a video project on the Aryans.
On doing remixes the duo said they will think about it only after they have launched eight to ten albums. But, they are quick to add that they will not like to remix anyone else’s albums.
Well remix or no remix the Aryans with one Dravidian in their team are all set to rock the country between April and July with their new album “Hai Dil’.

Power lesons your child will teach you

BESCOM spreads the message of saving power through school children.

This story was a sheer luck when I had gone to shoot some file images at the BESCOM (Bangalore Electricity Supply Company) office on the exhibition on how to save energy, for our Bangalore Mirror library purpose. As I entered the hall where the exhibits were on display a lady walked up to me and requested me if I would be kind enough to also cover their education programe for the school children. I obliged and spend some half hour during the special BESCOM session for the children and cam up with the story. When I reached office Niranjan Kaggere, the correspondent who cover the energy beat asked me if I have any story since he did not have any on 15th January 2008. I told him about the story I was going to write and he requested me if he could do the writing bit and we take a joint byline. I obliged with Niranjan since this was not our first joint story as we had written many before this. But sadly what is happened to today’s journalism is that the reporters have to be spoon fed by the photojournalist community who are on the field most of the time. Gone are the days when the reporter and the photojournalist worked ‘hand in glove’ situation. This is not a very good trend for journalism and may end up in favour of the ever active photojournalists who have been deprived of their dues.

Parents don’t be baffled if your children return from school one day and ask questions about the monthly spending on electricity in your home.
Their gyan comes from the Bangalore Electricity Supply Company (BESCOM).
For the last one month, Bescom has been imparting knowledge on power supply to the students. Specifically, the DSM Center (Distribution Efficiency and demand Side Management) at the Bescom’s corporate office takes students on a day long tour and conducts a workshop which explains how to save energy by using CFL’s (Compact Fluorescent Lamps).
Awareness programmes on energy conservation have been on in full swing. Unlike its earlier methods of creating awareness, this time the company has decided that children could be instrumental in bringing about a change. Hence the DSM center is organizing activities like exhibitions, workshops and lectures on methods to cut increased power consumption and the use of CFL bulbs.

According to senior officers, the programme will make children the instruments of change.
Speaking to Bangalore Mirror, Chethan D, coordinator of the DSM Center at Bescom, said, “Our concern is to educate all our stake holders, residents’ welfare association and school children. Over the years, there has been an increase in the annual load growth by six percent and there is no new generation for the time being except to manage efficiently with currently available power. This is one such method to create awareness among people.”
The center, which was inaugurated a month ago, is the brain child of KPTCL (Karnataka Power Transmission and Corporation Ltd) and all its five electricity supply companies envisages to focus on promoting energy-efficient devices and energy conservation. When asked about the financial grants and budget allocation for the programmes conducted through DSM centers, Chethan said, “Even though there is no separate funding for the programmes, the center being the joint venture of both the organizations, will make use of funds pooled in by both KPTCL and Bescoms.” Around 1,000 children and teachers in various batches have attended the programmes and the number might double during the days to come, according to Bescom officials.

Murali Krishnan, student of a private school who attended the workshop, said he would go back home and ask his parents to change their regular bulbs to CFL even if they cost a little more. Murali also added that he will explain in detail how the family can benefit and also that state electricity board from this small change of bulbs.
Another student, Preeti, said that at her home they have been using only incandescent bulbs and normal bulbs along with tube lights. “This workshop has taught me a lot and when I get back home after school, I will advice my parents on this and request them to change al the bulbs to CFL,” she added.
Students will also be taught about various gadgets, besides CFL’s that could cut the unnecessary consumption. Gadgets and accessories have also been displayed at the center. The center the first of its kind I the country, is not just working on its own but getting help from other prominent energy companies like ONGC (Oil and Natural Gas Commission). “The ONGC has agreed to provide us with resources and help us in conducting lectures by sending is resource persons,” Chethan added.

Doctor at your doorstep!

This story was given after I happened to attend a media briefing on the portal that the Bangalore city doctors had launched. Though I was not in a position to write anything great and since the Bangalore Mirror was very city centric I had to dish out some piece with a lot of information for the benefit of the readers. The health sector is an important one and hence I gave it a shoot and wrote some four odd words which were fine tuned by Anil Nair, a good friend and Senior Editor of the Bangalore Mirror. This was published in the Bangalore Mirror on the 5th of February, 2008.

It is something that almost all of us have gone through: the anxiety resulting from a nascent ailment, the travails that precede its diagnosis and subsequent treatment, when we are literally clueless as to the right specialist to consult, or, having at last identified someone, the whole rigmarole of setting up an appointment etc. Now, all that could be just a mouse-click away.
A newly launched portal www.consulturdoctor.com has an area and category wise directory that lists all doctors in various parts of Bangalore and provides a thumbnail of their respective specialties.
“Currently we will be providing a comprehensive list of all doctors, hospitals and clinics in Bangalore, with specific information like address, phone numbers, specialization etc. in due course we will also venture into setting up proper appointments for clients for doctors of their choice,” said Manohar K S, president of the portal, which was launched on Monday and was inaugurated by Dr Prabakaran the Vice Chancellor of the Rajiv Gandhi University for Health Sciences.
The portal is run by a dedicated technical team working for Ur-identity, a web and graphic design company offering internet solutions for both business and NGO’s.
“Of course, we will first seek the concurrence of the doctors whose names we list. As such, it is good advertisement for them. As of now, we are doing it free of charge but once we enhance our services, we may consider subscriptions,” Manohar, who has relocated from the US and has contemplated, launching this portal since 2003, said.
The portal is not concerned with ailments alone. It focuses on the wellness issue too. The site offers expert tips on fitness, on how to fight stress and on generally having a proper attitude towards work and life. To this end it also provides addresses of health clubs, fitness centers and yoga schools in various localities. Apart from this the portal also has various in-depth articles and research papers related to myriad health issues.