Indian Weekender #67

Indian December 16, 2011 Volume 3, No. 17

For Free DistributioN

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New Zealand’s first Indian weekend magazine

The Pulse of Kiwi Indians

Hrithik issexiest man

Bollywood | 23Auckland gears

up for kite fest

New Zealand | 5

of the silly season

Beat the challenges

School with a difference

End of an era

Pg2

Pg31

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2 Indian Weekender | December 16, 2011 | www.iwk.co.nz

IndianIndian New Zealand

Hare Krishna primary school in Kumeu, just outside Auckland, is a state integrated school run by the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON). Srila Prabhupada, the Founder Acharya of Iskcon, established over 108 temples throughout the world as well as numerous farming commu-nities and schools.

His schooling system is based on the principles of the ancient Gurukula system, which aims to empower children to maximise their individual potential and to develop positive character traits such as truthfulness, simplicity, obedience cleanliness, compassion and self-control.

The Hare Krishna school in Kumeu is also based on the Guru-kula system though it is not residen-tial. The school has two buses that go and pick up students from differ-ent parts of Auckland. Besides it has a van that goes up to Onehunga to pick up students.

There is a community of Hare Krishna devotees around the school and the focal point is the Radha Giridhari Temple, which is just next to the school. Everyday the students go for a run around the temple.

The school has Years 1 to 8 and full New Zealand curriculum is taught under the direction of the Ministry of Education. However, it is unique in several ways. While many schools may offer a second language to the pupils, Hare Krishna school must be the only one in NZ that offers Sanskrit. Similarly, while most other schools teach how to play musical instruments, this must be the only school that teaches ‘mri-dangam’ and harmonium.

The principal, Prana dasa, who is from Australia had joined Iskcon in 1985. When I first visited the school I was pleasantly surprised to see him

dressed traditionally in a ‘dhoti’. The staff are international (they come from the UK, India, Fiji, Ma-laysia not to mention New Zealand). Most of them are members of the Hare Krishna movement, but even the few who are not are worshippers of Krishna.

The school library, while it has books that one would find in any primary school library (easy readers, mystery and adventure etc.) also has books that are not found in any other school library in New Zealand such

as ‘Amar Chitra Katha’ (Indian clas-sics in comic form).

The library is just opposite the temple and it is not just a school library. It is called the Bhakthi Vedanta Resource Centre and Com-munity Library and it also has a complete collection of books by Srila Prabhupada and other books related

to ISKCON. Any one is welcome to become a member of the library by paying an annual subscription of $10.00 and borrow books.

I am told that often on Sundays devotees who come to the temple for worship also visit the library which is just across from the temple and borrow books. When visitors to Auckland go sight seeing, they sometimes come to the Hare Krishna centre. While I was there one day a bus load of new immigrant women came with their English teacher to

see the temple and they also visited the library.

At midday the pupils are given hot lunch which is cooked in the school kitchen. Hare Krishna devo-tees are strict vegetarians and they do not even use onion or garlic in their cooking. The children sit on the floor cross-legged on the mats

and they are served by the teach-ers. The women teachers are all addressed as ‘mataji’ (mother). I have seen the principal sometimes joining the children sitting on the mat, and having lunch with them.

In and around the school men and women are seen moving about in traditional Indian costumes – men in dhoti and women in sari – and many of them are not Indians. In school, following Hindu tradi-tion, shoes are not worn inside so they are left outside the classrooms.

Some of the boys also have the tradi-tional long hair (grown only in part and tied).

The school has a roll of just over a hundred children. So it is a small school and it has its advantages. The staff student ratio is better than in most schools and the children are able to get individual attention. I

was amazed at the reading ability of 5 and 6 year olds. I am told that they do equally well in writing. I have also seen their artwork which is remarkable.

Though the majority of the chil-dren are Indians, there are also Euro-pean and Maori, Islanders, Chinese, Filipino, Russian, American and Fijian. Apart from English, arts, social sciences, science, mathemat-ics etc. the school also has ‘sastra’ to develop a spiritual perspective in the children. The children grow up learning to respect everyone. So there are few discipline problems as the children are on the whole well behaved.

The school is partially funded by the Ministry of Education, which pays the salaries of the teachers. The Hare Krishna school was men-tioned, along with church schools, as an example of a charter school, which are in the news. A recent US study of charter schools concluded that 17 per cent were superior while 37 per cent were worse than the state schools.

Hare Krishna school, if it is to be classified as a charter school, cer-tainly falls in the superior category. There are two main reasons for this. One is the dedication and hard work of the staff. The staff student ratio and the attention the children get as a result also contribute to better quality.

Here the staff consider their work as part of their worship of Krishna. So the all round develop-ment of the children – physically, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually – is emphasised and their creative talents are nurtured. It is the philosophy of the administration (which focuses on Vedic culture) and the sincere efforts of the staff to implement it that make this school a truly remarkable school.

A State School with a DifferencePadmini Gaunder looks at the Hare Krishna School as the debate on charter schools heats up

The school has Years 1 to 8 and full New Zealand curriculum is taught under the direction of the Ministry of Education. However, it is unique in several ways. While many schools may offer a second language to the

pupils, Hare Krishna school must be the only one in NZ that offers Sanskrit.

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A moving, personal tributeLong time associate, friend and legal luminary Thakorbhai Parbhu spoke engagingly about Sir Anand at the evening, peppering his address with little known anecdotes that revealed many biographical and personal facets of the Governor General. Excerpts:

“Your connection with the Indian community goes back to your late Father – Dr Sati as he was affectionately called. He practised at 201 Ponsonby Road. He originally came from Fiji and on completion of his medical degree was supported by the Indian Association for residency in New Zealand. He was one of our first Indian doctors in New Zealand.”

“You are the by-product of a good family. Your late father and your mother Taraben were respected stalwarts and great supporters of the Indian community. You married a lovely girl – Lady Susan, a Legal Executive from the law firm of Cairns Slane & Co. and you both raised your lovely family.”

“My personal reflections over all these years are the dinner parties at our place, your place and your parents’ place; too many to mention. You and Lady Susan attended by grand-daughter Shaila’s first birthday at May Road Hall.”

“The hockey game you organised with the Justice Department and my tea, our frequent meetings in the Law Library and the dinner at your unit in Freeman’s Bay with David Lange who lived around the corner in Wellington Street are still fresh in my mind.”

“I try to keep in touch with your movements at the local gymnasium which you attend with our mutual friend Norman Elliott.”

“Your nature, disposition and character, your amiable attitude, your ability to relate to all ethnicity, your friendship and contact with people and organisations has made you a likeable and acceptable person in fitting with your high office. You have been a great bridge builder in New Zealand with the various communities.”

“Your dignity in difficult circumstances has stood you well. In the position that you have attained you have brought honour and respect to the Indian community not only in New Zealand but throughout the world.”

“You have walked into the pages of New Zealand history.”

Remembering a dear mate…

there were fewer than 10000, now there are more than 100,000 making Indians the second largest ethnic Asian group. The participation of Indians is huge. When I joined law, Indian lawyers could be counted on one hand now there is a whole roomful and more,” he added.

While being Governor General, he had the occasion to attend several functions with “an Indian dimension” throughout the country, he said. Among these he recalled Diwali in many parts of the country, the diamond jubilee of the Wellington Indian Sports Club, the 85th anniversary of NZICA in Palm-erston North and the NZICA Womens Conference in Wel-lington in 2008 that Lady Susan inaugu-rated.

Touching upon relations between Indian and New Zealand, Sir Anand acknowledged the current negotiations on the free trade agreement and the commitment of Prime Ministers John Key and Manmohan Singh. He said there was “real substance” in the negotia-tions and that the relationship between the two countries “ was becoming closer in a substan-tive way”.

Sir Anand described the Pravasi Bharatiya Award that was presented to him at Vigyan Bhavan in New Delhi was one of his most cher-ished. While it made him proud of his Indian heritage, it also reflected the greatness of a

country like New Zealand where it was possi-ble for a person of Indian, whose grandparents and parents were migrants, could stand proud with achievements as lawyer, judge, ombuds-man and finally as Governor General.

He said he looked forward to “restore the spontaneity and relative anonymity that comes out of stepping down from office.” He was car-rying a multitude of memories with him, he added, many of these were shared closely with

the Indian community.NZICA General

Secretary Raj Thandi said, “Sir Anand is a great New Zealander and distinguished com-munity leader. He is a fine example of a New Zealander who made good through hard work and a commitment to realising high goals.

“The Association was very proud to honour Sir Anand and his wife, Lady Susan. A special plaque, designed by myself was presented to Sir Anand that symbolised the respect that he deserves.”

About 200 members and guests, including representatives of the New Zealand Govern-ment attended the function. Sir William Birch, a former New Zealand Minister of Finance, Ramesh Patel, a New Zealand Olympian, Judge Ajit Singh, Auckland City Councillor Des Morrison and Member of Parliament Kan-waljit Singh Bakshi also attended the event among several other community luminaries.

New Zealand

The Pukekohe Indian Association celebrated its 75th Anniversary on Sunday, November 13. The Associa-tion was formed in 1936, following which many significant milestones have punctuated its colourful history.

The function was held at the Pukekohe Indian Association’s Com-munity Centre. Dignitaries and rep-resentatives from several branches of the New Zealand Indian Central As-sociation were invited and joined in the celebrations. All its members and past members outside of the region were also invited.

Close to 450 people attended the celebrations.

The pioneering forefathers started arriving in New Zealand from the early 1900s. The 75th jubilee was an opportune time for members to reflect on the difficulties and tribulations which they endured and on their foresight and their desire to succeed. This foundation has been built on by subsequent generations, allowing everyone to enjoy the life-styles and freedoms we have today.

The programme for the evening included a blend of cultural items, speeches from dignitaries, and rec-ognition of service, culminating with dinner. Celebration, entertainment, enjoyment and fellowship were the focus of the proceedings.

Auspicious occasions commence with Ganesh Puja, so it was appro-priate that the first item for the night was the Ganesh Aarti performed by senior ladies of the community as ar-ranged by Monaben Bhana.

Pukekohe Indian Association

President, Bhikhubhai Bhana then extended his official welcome.

The cultural items presented on the evening, particularly those in-volving young children and the youth of the community, are a tribute to the parents and families of these young people and to their own discipline, commitment and passion.

A candle dance was performed by the young children of the culture class and arranged by Jyotiben and Priyaben Kana.

Harshadbhai Patel addressed the audience in his capacity as Vice Chairman of the NZ Indian Central Association.

Classical dance takes enormous skill, dedication and hard work. Perfection is always the goal. We were privileged to enjoy the talents of three very accomplished young

ladies who happen to be sisters; Nikita, Ashlina and Shahani Kanji.

Dr Paul Hutchison, Member of Parliament for Hunua extended his congratulations and addressed the gathering

The audience then enjoyed the Des Rangila patriotic group dance organised by Devyaniben Jivan.

Councillor Des Morrison who was the next speaker added a local flavour to the evening, having at-

tended Pukekohe High School in the 1960s with a number of others in the audience. As head prefect in his final year he had shown early signs of his leadership abilities, before progressing to a career in manage-ment at NZ Steel and service to the community through local body poli-tics. He spoke in his capacity as the Mayoral representative to the func-tion.

The finale cultural item, ‘Puke-kohe through the ages’, was a tribute to the generations that have per-formed Garba dances over many years. It commenced with senior ladies and moved through the gener-ations culminating with the vibrant energy of our youth. Three genera-tions of performers took part, and up to 40 dancers were on the stage at one time.

Ishvarbhai Rambhai spoke on behalf of the Pukekohe Indian As-sociation Board of Trustees.

President of the Pukekohe Indian Association Bhikhu Bhana present-ed Life Membership Certificates to Ganges Singh, Narendrabhai Master and Ishvarbhai Rambhai by the. Each recipient in turn acknowl-edged their awards.

The cutting of the 75th Jubilee cake by the life members was fol-lowed by a vote of thanks from Mr. Kanail Badhan Secretary of the As-sociation.

The national anthems of NZ and India concluded the formal part of the proceedings after which dinner and fellowship were the order of the day.

Pukekohe Indians mark 75th year

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Indian New Zealand

The NZ Transport Agency has an-nounced two significant develop-ments relating to improvements on Auckland’s Northwestern Mo-torway (SH 16) as part of its pro-gramme of works to complete the city’s Western Ring Route.

It is calling for registrations of interest to upgrade the Northwest-ern Motorway’s causeway across the Waitemata harbour – a $270m project to widen and raise 4.2 kilo-metres of the causeway.

The NZTA also announced today that it will start preliminary work on the project in January when it builds a trial causeway parallel to the ex-isting motorway in order to measure the impact the project will have on an important marine reserve.

The motorway, and the 50 me-tre-long temporary causeway, are located inside the Motu Manawa – Pollen Island Marine Reserve.

The NZTA’s State Highways Manager for Auckland and North-land, Tommy Parker, says the tem-porary causeway will provide valu-able information to ensure that the construction footprint inside the reserve will be as environmentally light as possible.

“We will be working in a sen-sitive environment and building the temporary causeway is impor-tant for the overall success of the project,” says Mr Parker. “The trial will ensure that we’ve got the right approach and the right methodology

in place when we are ready to start construction.”

NZTA contractors will focus on monitoring plants and wildlife in the marine area to minimise the impact of building the improved motorway. Work on the trial causeway is sched-uled for completion in June.

Interested parties have until 21 December to submit their registra-

tions of interest for the project to deliver the design and construction required to upgrade the causeway and the Rosebank and Patiki inter-changes, widen bridges and improve

pedestrian and cycle facilities. Early next year, after registered

parties have submitted their design and construction records and skills, the NZTA will shortlist three con-sortia and start a rigorous investiga-tion of their bids before announcing the successful one in September 2012. Construction is expected to start in early 2013, with comple-tion earmarked for 2017 to match the extra capacity provided by the Waterview tunnels and Great North Road Interchange.

The $2b Western Ring Route is one of the government’s seven roads of national significance proj-ects to support and enable eco-nomic growth for the country. It involves extending the Southwest-ern Motorway (SH20) to link with the Northwestern Motorway at the Great North Road Interchange, together with additional lanes to increase traffic capacity along the Northwestern Motorway from the St Lukes Road Interchange to the new Hobsonville Motorway ((SH18) at Westgate.

Once completed, the Western Ring Route will provide a 48-ki-lometre alternative to SH1 and the Auckland Harbour Bridge through south, west and north Auckland. It will reduce congestion, provide more reliable travel times for both freight and people, and improve connections between the city and Auckland International Airport.

Steps to complete Western Ring Route

The $2b Western Ring Route is one of the government’s

seven roads of national

significance projects to

support and enable economic growth for the country.

“Give and you shall receive” goes an adage. SPROUT, which stands for ‘Sports, Recreation and Outdoors Trust’, certainly embodied this adage when they received an award for their inspirational community work in the Western Auckland area. The award is in fact recognition for community participation as Sprout is very much a community group “for” the community and “run” by the community members.

Sprout was awarded the winner in the ‘Sports and Leisure’ category at the Infratil Community Awards 2011, on Friday, 2nd of December 2011, at the Auckland Council Hen-derson Service Centre.

The Infratil Community Awards are catered for the voluntary groups and the volunteer based, not-for profit, organisations in the Auck-land Western Cluster Region. These prestigious awards celebrate the work undertaken in the past 12 months by the nominated organ-isations. As the Waitakere Ranges local board member Judy Lawley says, “We want these voluntary or-ganisations to come out of hiding so we can thank them properly for all the good things they do on behalf of others”.

The key criteria of the judging panel, under which Sprout was scru-tinised, were voluntary input, utili-sation of resources, initiative and creativity, effectiveness of activities and finally, the extent to which the

organisation's activities have im-pacted the local area/district.

Sprout is especially excellent in making a real mark in the hearts of the community at the grassroots. In fact, one of Sprout’s most admirable community brands, BollyworX, is now running in its 3rd consecu-tive year, thanks to the funding and support from Waitemata District Health Board.

Sprout was founded in Septem-ber 2008, and is a grassroots based, charitable, voluntary and non-prof-itable trust to make health a prior-ity in the South Asian community. Their aim is simple – to educate, empower, endorse and endow with opportunities in sports, recreation and outdoor pursuits, alongside a balanced nutrition, to achieve greater wellbeing for people of South Asian origin in New Zealand. Sprout is very much a community-focused group, run ‘by’ the commu-nity members ‘for’ the community members.

The friendly passionate volun-teering team at Sprout originate from a diverse range of backgrounds and experiences. Their comprehen-sive assortment of skills and talents amalgamate to help make Sprout the thriving community organisa-tion that it is.

Aparajita Goswami is SPROUT volunteer and BollyworX instructor at New Lynn

Award for SproutApArAjItA GosWAmI

It’s something Indian migrants in New Zealand have suspected for a long time, and now a major study by leading universities has found it is true.

Indian migrants face discrimi-nation by employers and as a result struggle to find employment, the report by Massey and Waikato uni-versities has found.

The study titled “Namaste New Zealand: Indian Employers and Employees in Auckland”, found "widespread presence of discrimi-nation and ... a general unwilling-ness to employ immigrants who don't as readily blend into New Zea-land's dominant Pakeha/European culture".

Indian migrants "arrive in New Zealand as well-educated and skilled newcomers", but unlike im-migrants from Britain and South Africa, "their employment outcomes are not that rosy", the report said.

More than 60 per cent of those interviewed had an academic quali-fication of a bachelor's degree or higher, but less than half said their present jobs made good use of their qualification.

Lead author sociologist Paul Spoonley said it was "disappointing" to see Indian migrants "struggling to gain employment or experiencing downward mobility in terms of em-ployment and income".

"They try very hard and just want to succeed, but they're not getting that first opportunity to prove them-

selves," Prof Spoonley said. "We've seen the same thing

happen to the Chinese and Koreans, but Indians are quite different because they speak English."

Indian migrants numbered 104,600, the second-largest migrant group behind the British, the report said.

Many experienced "considerable

downward occupational mobility", with recognised credentials but no suitable job opportunities and few business networks.

"When looking for a job, my

wife was told only white people will be given more of a chance," one participant said. "When I started in the real estate business, [someone] I knew wanted to sell a house. The Kiwi woman wrinkled her nose and said, 'I wouldn't list with you'. This was very insulting to me," another said.

Prof Spoonley said there was an "ongoing resistance" from local em-ployers to hire immigrants.

"To be honest, the lack of Kiwi experience excuse which employers use is not a very convincing one."

Three-quarters of participants had suffered workplace discrimina-tion; a quarter of employers and a third of employees reported "some discrimination" against Indians in the media.

About 40 per cent also said they'd experienced bigotry in the streets. But the report also found "persis-tence and resilience" in their will-ingness to stay, despite the barriers.

The desire to live in a country that was free from corruption, less stressful and offered their children a chance to grow up in a clean and green environment outweighed their settlement difficulties, participants said.

"My lifestyle is better ... cars were a luxury in India, in New Zealand cars are affordable. Leisure activities are affordable," said one respondent.

– NZ Herald / IW Online

Indians discriminated against: reportArvINd KumAr ANd LINcoLN tAN

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The Department of Labour is reminding employers that the law now requires them to keep signed written employment agreements for all their staff.

Since 1 July all employers are required to keep signed copies of employment agree-ments or current terms and conditions for all employees, or they may face a penalty.

“Employment agreements are required for all employees no matter when they started work,” says Annie Newman, the De-partment’s Acting Chief Adviser of Employ-ment Relations.

“This affects all employees including those hired on a verbal agreement or employ-ees who do not have current written agree-ments in place,” says Ms Newman.

“Having a clearly written employment agreement helps reduce the risk of misun-derstandings and there are some provisions that must be included in employment agree-ments,’’ she says.

They must include the name of the em-

ployer and employee, a description of the work to be performed, the place of employ-ment, times the employee is to work, the wages or salary, and an explanation of ser-vices available for solving problems.

“It’s the employer’s responsibility to maintain and keep an up to date copy of each employee’s agreement and provide a copy of the agreement if an employee requests it,” Ms Newman says.

The Department of Labour has developed an Employment Agreement Builder to help employers through this process.

Failure to ensure an employment agree-ment is in place for all employees may result in a labour inspector taking a penalty action against an employer.

This involves a seven-day notice period to rectify the breach and if this isn’t com-plied with then penalties may be sought in the Employment Relations Authority of up to $10,000 for individuals and $20,000 for companies.

Employers must keep staff

Aucklanders and visitors will soon be able to enjoy enhanced and expanded Wi-Fi services, offering more wireless coverage and faster access to the internet across central Auckland and its fringes.

Auckland Council has entered a partner-ship with Tomizone, Australasia’s largest Wi-Fi services provider, which will see network expansion start immediately.

The expansion will offer economic devel-opment benefits to the region and provide an important service to visitors to Rugby World Cup and beyond.

“With 85,000 visitors expected during Rugby World Cup and more than 200,000 ex-pected from next year’s cruise season alone, visitors to Auckland will be able to step off their plane or ship and immediately access information about Auckland. For Auckland-ers, it means more and better wireless inter-net access for portable devices such as iPads,” says Len Brown.

The Wi-Fi zone will expand into areas such as Kingsland, the entire length of Queen

Street, Britomart and Queens Wharf, lower Parnell, northern Ponsonby Road, Mt Eden Village, Onehunga, key rugby training areas and selected transport hubs around Auckland.

The network will remain in place follow-ing Rugby World Cup and continue to expand to other parts of Auckland with re-investment of profits from the service.

“Auckland Council will retain control of the content, which gives it a flexible platform for the future,” says the Mayor.

Service will be offered at a guaranteed dis-count to benchmarked market rates, with free access provided to a number of websites offer-ing information about public services, RWC activities, tourism and transport services.

“This enhanced network coverage will be attractive to residents and our international visitors who want to use their Wi-Fi gadgets to roam around the city,” says Tomizone Ex-ecutive Director Steve Simms. “Many of our visitors will want to use their roaming account from providers such as Skype, iPass and Boingo which they can do on this network.”

Wi-Fi expansion for Auckland

New Zealand

Diversity forum will focus on mediaA multi-media study about Paul Henry and Hone Harawira is being presented by Wellington’s Centre for Applied Cross-cultural Research at next month’s 2011 New Zealand Diversity forum jointly hosted by the Human Rights Commission and the Hamilton Multicultural Services Trust.

Its work examines the intense public ar-guments around comments made by promi-nent media figures in 2010, such as Henry’s deliberate mispronunciation of an interna-tional dignitary’s name and then repeatedly laughing about it, and Harawira’s alleged racist comments about Pakeha. The forum will also include activities that tackle race

relations priorities identified in this year’s Race Relations Report, and feature the pre-sentation of the Annual Diversity awards. A parallel youth forum is being held at the same time.

The New Zealand Diversity Forum 2011 is being held at Hamilton on 21-22 August Also on the programme on Sunday at 3.30-5.00 pm is a forum on “Community Media and Diversity” hosted by the Community Access Radio Waikato Trust.

Attendance on Sunday and for individ-ual forums is free. If you are attending for half a day or more on the Monday the regis-tration fee is $50.

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Auckland gears up for Kite FestivalKite flying is one of the most popular fun sports in India. Vaishnav Parivar New Zealand has pioneered the event here in New Zealand and has been hosting it since 2005. The Parivar is organising this event not just for the benefit of the Indian community but also for the greater public of Auckland. The event even features in the Event Finder and Auckland City Council ‘City Events’ list.

Kites have a universal fasci-nation, no one can resist the ex-hilaration of using wind to defy gravity and make a manmade object fly. Kite flying goes back thousands of years and kites today have developed into many forms and uses throughout the world. Kites appear in the culture and history of many countries around the world. They have been worshipped as religious symbols, used as instruments of war, been developed as practical tools and simply provided a source of entertainment and enjoyment. Kites have probably been in existence for over twenty-five centuries and it is now thought that kite was probably flown in China around 1000 BC. Kites have spread quickly through out the Far East by the end of millennium they played significant roles in many different

countries and cultures. The kite flying tradition in India is known as the Makar Sankranti or the Basant. People from all background and ages, every year engage in flying kites. It

is generally celebrated on 13 or 14 of January. Traditionally

the kite flying is a sport where kite flying skills

are transferred from father to son. It helps strengthening

the family bond. Kite flying is also significant

to various cultures living in New Zealand such as Maori, Chinese,

Sri Lankans, Europeans, and Japa-nese.

From 2005 till 2010 Vaishnav Parivar NZ has organised this event locally focusing on Indian commu-nity. “However, the learning from the past five years of hosting this event and the presence of different cultures has made us think that if we collaborate with Kite clubs and Associations from Auckland, invite other cultures from within and outside Auckland to participate in this event it will be an opportunity for people from different cultures to come together and learn about kite flying,” says Parivar’s Jayesh Bateri-wala.

“Next year’s event is planned on January 7, 2012 at Avondale Race Course grounds and we expect ap-proximately 10000 visitors,” Mr Bateriwala said.

Remember the catch phrase: “What melts in the mouth swells in the stomach!”

Just as the Indian festive season fades away, along come Christmas and New Year. Party! Party! Party! Eat, drink and enjoy! Yes enjoy the festive season and the food but limit your intake and keep in mind that you can prevent putting on extra weight by doing exercise to work off that extra food. Go walking, jogging, running, cycling, swim-ming or aerobics. Regular exercise can become addictive and very en-joyable as well as healthy.

The Auckland Indian Associa-tion holds the following activities at the Mahatma Gandhi Centre:

Bollyrobix: Every Sat 7.30am to 8.30am ($2.00 fee for non AIA members)Pilates: Every Mon 6.30pm to 7.15pm. (Fees: $2.00 for members and $5.00 for non-members)Walking group: Most Sundays and Thursdays 8.00am start - freeWorkshops - free

Our aim is to help the commu-nity. Come and enjoy Bollyrobix (exercise with your favourite bol-lywood music) and Pilates. What is Pilates?

Pilates is a body conditioning routine that helps to not only build flexibility, but also strength, endur-ance, and coordination in the legs,

abdominals, arms and back (core). The original six principles were: concentration, control, center, flow, precision and breathing. The Pilates method teaches you to be in control of your body and not at its mercy.

Exercises suits people of all ages (men and women). You don’t have to be fit, young or healthy. You can ex-ercise according to your own ability and fitness and it is never too late, but sooner is better. It is an early start but the session will leave you refreshed and energised.

This year we had two very suc-cessful workshops on Osteoporosis and Cardiovascular Diseases. Early next year we will be running a work-shop on Stroke and Heart Attacks.

On behalf of the AIAI, I would like to sincerely thank ProCare staff specially Ella Kumar who is a trained and experienced Instruc-tor for our exercise classes and Purvi Chhichhia who is conducting workshops. “Your health is in your hands”.

There are a few dates to remember: 12th Dec 2011: Last date for Pilates 17th Dec 2011: Last date for Bollyrobix 14th Jan 2012: Restart of Bollyrobix 16th Jan 2012: Restart of Pilates

Finally, Merry Christmas and a very Prosperous Happy New Year. For more information please contact:Dhiru M Patel Chairperson - Health & Fitness Committee Ph: (H) 09 6266 134 Mobile: 0274 99 1947 Email: [email protected]

Ella KumarAIAI Health and Fitness ProfessionalPh: (H) 09 629 0660 Mobile: 021 0477642Email: [email protected]

Would you prefer to get Fitter or Fatter ? dhIru m pAteL


Hamiltonians, Yogijis is proud to be in your city!

Yogijis – the name that’s synonymous with quality produce and bringing you the best of India – is now in Hamilton.

We have been overwhelmed by your requests inviting us to your city to serve you, dear people of Hamilton and the Waikato.So having served our growing communities in Auckland and Christchurch successfully for years, we are now in Hamilton to serve you.

Now, you no longer have to drive all the way to Auckland for your favourite high quality Indian and Fiji spices, flour, confectionery,

produce, pickles, pappadoms and hundreds of items that are dear to you and you cherish so much.

As you well know, we get you the best quality at the best prices from the best merchants all the way from India.

We’re the same Yogijis you’ve known for all these years. Only, we’re now right at your doorsteps in Hamilton.

We invite you to visit our all-new store at 89, Greenwood Street, Frankton, Hamilton.

89 Greenwood Street, Frankton, Hamilton

Ph: (09) 6245757 • Fax: (09) 624575826/22 Carr Road, Mount Roskill, Auckland

Ph: (03) 372 3434569 / B Colombo St, South City Mall Car Park, Christchurch

A household name now in the heart of Hamilton

• INDIAN BULK FOODS AND GROCERIES • POOJA ITEMS• FROZEN FRESH VEGETABLES • INDIAN SWEETS

YOGIJI’S FOOD MARTChristchurch Branch

OPEN 7 DAYS – 10.00 AM TO 8.30PM

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• INDIAN SWEETS

Yogijis Food Mart opening this year soon in Hamilton

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After several years of experience in serving customers from Mt Roskill in Auckland and Christchurch Central, Yogijis Food Mart has now opened at 89, Greenwood Street, Frankton, Hamilton, to serve the people of this third largest city. Yogijis Food Mart is wholly owned by Rajesh Thakkar and his Wife Smita. They are a part of a success story of the Thakkar family, dating back to more than 75 years, when the first company was established in India. With expertise in importing and distributing a range of products on wholesale, the Company began retailing in New Zealand, encouraged by the growing demand from a growing number of customers.Yogijis is known for an extensive range of products including groceries, spices, rice, wheat, flours, confectionery and biscuits, pickles, spreads, pooja items and a host of other products, Yogijis is a complete shop for your family. Everything here is high- aesthetic ambience, quality and standard of service, except price.

A visit will convince you.Yogijis Food Mart 89 Greenwood Street, Frankton, HamiltonPhone: (07) 2117617 • Fax: (07) 8482310 Mobile: 021-550762

Our Other Branches Yogijis Food Mart 26/22 Carr Road Mount Roskill, Auckland Phone (09) 6245757 • Fax: (09) 624 5758

Yogijis Food Mart 9/B Colombo Street, ChristchurchPhone (03) 3723434 • Fax: (03) 3723536 Mobile: 021-235308

Namaste, Sat Sri Akal, Assalam Alaikum, Vanakkam, Namaskaram, Bhale PadhaaroWe welcome you with a smile










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Yogijis Food Mart opens its third retail store in New Zealand 89 Greenwood Street, Frankton, Hamilton


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Indian

Auckland Transport is planning to build a new Panmure Bridge for a future busway and a shared cycle/pedestrian path.

The proposed new bridge would be built on the northern side of the current one, which would remain open to provide the same number of lanes for general traffic.

It is one of the AMETI (Auck-land Manukau Eastern Transport Initiative) transport projects, which are aimed at dealing with congestion problems in the eastern suburbs to unlock the economic potential of the area. A strong focus is on giving people more transport choices by im-proving public transport, cycling and walking facili-ties.

Plans for the proposed new bridge, which are subject to consents and funding approvals, were shown at an AMETI informa-tion day in Panmure on Saturday which was attended by 200 to 250 people.

The new Panmure Bridge would have two busway lanes for the planned busway between Panmure, Pakuranga and Botany. It would also have a 4.3m wide shared cycle and pedestrian path, which would be separated by barriers from the busway.

All other vehicles would contin-ue to use the current bridge.

Construction recently began on the first AMETI Panmure project, realigning Mountain Rd and replac-ing the bridge over the rail line.

Auckland Transport Major Proj-ects Manager Rick Walden says a new Panmure Bridge is being pro-posed because the existing bridge has no room for the future busway.

“The planned urban busway would run between Panmure Station, Pakuranga and Botany. To provide

frequent services there needs to be dedicated lanes so buses aren’t caught in other traffic.

“Panmure Bridge is also the only place for people in the area to walk or cycle across the Tamaki River. At the moment it is unpleasant to walk and there no dedicated cycle facilities.

“A new cycle and pedestrian path would improve safety, as well as en-courage more people to walk or cycle between Panmure and Pakuranga.”

The start of construction is depen-dent on consent and funding approv-als. Auckland Transport is aiming to submit planning applications for the

new bridge in mid to late 2012.The NZ Transport Agency is a

major funder of AMETI.“AMETI easily meets our trans-

port objectives of helping create jobs and improve economic growth by unblocking congestion to provide better and more reliable journey times for freight and people,” says the NZTA’s Regional Director for Auckland and Northland, Stephen Town.

“It is an initiative that will improve connections between communities in east Auckland for those who drive, use public transport, or prefer to walk or cycle.”

At the information day Auckland Transport also updated the community on AMETI construction works in Panmure and on

plans for future AMETI projects. This includes major upgrades in the Panmure Station area, a new AMETI link road between Morrin Road in the north and Mt Wellington Highway, improvements at Panmure Roundabout and the future urban busway.

Auckland Transport will also be providing an update on plans for future AMETI transport projects. This will include plans for the new AMETI link road, improvements at Panmure Roundabout, Van Damm’s Lagoon improvements, Lagoon Drive and Panmure Bridge.

new panmure Bridge for busway and cyclists

With a majority of voters opting to keep MMP in last month’s Referen-dum on the Voting System, the Elec-toral Commission is now preparing to carry out the review of MMP pro-vided for in the Electoral Referendum Act 2010.

“The result of the Referendum on our Voting System means the Elec-toral Commission must now carry out a review of MMP to recommend any improvements that might be

made,” says Chief Electoral Officer, Robert Peden. “We are very keen to hear the views of the public and will be seeking to make it as easy as pos-sible for individuals and groups to have their say in the review”.

The review will have two stages. The Commission will call for sub-missions in mid-February and hold public hearings in April and May. The Commission will then release a proposals paper in August for public comment before presenting its final report to the Minister of Justice in October.

The review, as provided for in the Electoral Referendum Act 2010, will include:l What thresholds parties should

have to cross to qualify for an al-

location of list seats in Parliament,l Whether list MPs should be able

to stand as candidates in a by-election,

l Whether a person should be able to stand as a candidate both for an electorate seat and on a party list,

l Whether voters or political parties should decide the order of candi-dates on a party list,

l What should happen when a party wins more electorate seats than

it would be entitled to under its share of the party vote,

l The effects of population growth on the ratio of electorate seats to list seats, and

l Other matters referred to the Commission by the Minister of Justice, Parliament, or raised by members of the public.

Parliament has excluded Māori repre-sentation and the number of Members of Parliament from the review.

The Commission will publish a consultation paper in mid-February, and the public will be able to make submissions by post, email or online, as well as at public hearings. More information on the review and how to take part will be made available in early February.

MMp review time-table announced

The Commission will publish a consultation paper in mid-February, and the public will be able to make submissions by post, email or online, as well as at public hearings.

New Zealand

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Auckland Transport and car share service company Cityhop have launched an 18-month trial for car sharing using three designated on-street parking spaces in key locations, with a view of expanding to ten car park spaces. The parking spaces, on Hobson St, College Hill, and Williamson Ave, are signposted as desig-nated for car share vehicles.

By trialing the use of designated on-street parking for car share vehicles, Auckland Transport hopes to increase the uptake of car sharing in Auckland as a means of helping to reduce one person ve-hicles adding to the city’s congestion levels. Car sharing is well estab-lished in Australia, where the city of Sydney trialed 10 dedicated on-street parking spaces in 2007 and now supports over 4000 car share members through the provision of nearly 200 parking spaces.

Cityhop offers cars by the hour to members at multiple locations across Auckland and Wellington via a swipe card 24 hours a day. “Owning a car encourages you to drive. Car share is the ‘emergency wheels’ for those who use public transport and sometimes need a car when they are at work. It’s a lot more af-fordable and more flexible than a taxi,” says Cityhop co-founder Victoria Carter.

“Cityhop is an affordable solution for people to use a car when they need one, without the high cost of car ownership. People who car

share find they drive less and businesses find they don’t need fleet cars.”

Auckland Transport Parking and Op-erations Manager Eunan Cleary says: “Car sharing is a legitimate part of the transport mix, encouraging greater public transport use and reduced car ownership in a city which has an overabundance of vehicles. Auckland Transport is pleased to support the uptake of car sharing in Auckland through the provision of designated on street parking for car share services.”

As part of the trial, Cityhop will provide Auckland Transport with regular reports on membership uptake and usage rates for each car. Cityhop has over 450 individual members, over 10,000 registered drivers and over 70 corporate companies including government departments and universities. Cityhop recently won the Design and Innovation award at the sustainable business network convention.

Auckland transport, Cityhop to trial car share spaces

Changes to vehicle access on Maungawhau-Mt Eden come into place on Monday 12 De-cember. Heavy vehicles, including buses, will no longer be able to use the summit road and a new shuttle service is being added.

“This is a landmark change for Maungawhau-Mt Eden,” says Albert-Eden Local Board Chair Dr Peter Haynes.

“This is the first step to providing a greatly enhanced visitor experience, to pro-tecting a cultural and archaeological site of great significance, and to securing UNESCO World Heritage status for our precious vol-canic cones.”

Tour buses, once a familiar sight on the summit road, will now have dedicated access to a parking and drop-off area on the western side of the mountain.

“We have been working with bus opera-tors and the tourism industry on enhancing the visitor experience at Maungawhau,” says Dr Haynes. “We thank them for their coop-eration and look forward to continuing this work in the future.”

Visitors with limited mobility will be

able to make the short journey to the summit on the free electric shuttle, which departs at regular intervals from the historic Mt Eden kiosk building.

Auckland Council Parks, Recreation and Heritage Forum Chair Councillor Sandra Coney says Maungawhau and the volca-nic cones are an important part of Auckland’s landscape.

“Auckland’s volcanic cones are a defining feature and a re-gional treasure, and this council is committed to their protection.

“These changes on Maungawhau were signaled in the reserve’s management plan in 2007 and we are delighted to see them finally implemented,” she says.

Chairman of the Tāmaki Collective of mana whenua, Paul Majurey, says “This outcome is long overdue given the final Maungawhau management plan confirmed this outcome over five years ago.”

Mr Majurey welcomed this initiative as it sets an important marker for future man-agement decisions on the tūpuna maunga of Tāmaki Makaurau.

Light vehicles, which includes cars and vehicles under 3.5 tonnes and with less than 12 seats, are still permitted on the summit road. Emergency vehicles are also able to use the road.

The shuttle is a 12-month trial service. Auckland Council will carry out research into the demand for a shuttle and how it is used, with a view to establishing a perma-nent arrangement. The two 14-seater electric shuttles will be driven by mana whenua.

Changes at Mt Eden top

New Zealand

Photo: Dev Nadkarni

Photo: Dev Nadkarni

Indian

A major multi-million dollar Auck-land Council civic project at West-gate is a step closer with developed designs for a new library and town square approved by the Henderson-Massey Local Board yesterday.

The board’s approval is another milestone for the significant new

community facility, which will give heart to the local community as well as Auckland’s north west generally.

The next step for the $27 million library and town square develop-ment is for a resource consent to be granted and the board to sign off on detailed designs. Construction is ex-

pected to start in April 2012.A large regional three-level fa-

cility of about 3,500 square metres, the library will include a state of the art children’s ‘destination’ library, community meeting rooms and spaces, a Citizen’s Advice Bureau and a café.

It will be built using environ-mentally sustainable design prin-ciples and will be the first building of its type in the country designed to attain a 5 Star Green Star Certifica-tion using the New Zealand Green Building Council’s Customs Tool Framework system. It will feature a green roof as well as a green wall – a large living wall of plants.

The town square is a large, pe-destrian friendly civic space of 4,500 square meters featuring raised and sunken lawns and a variety of seating and trees as well as outdoor dining areas.

The library and town square are an integral part of the develop-ment of Auckland’s north west – the largest urbanisation project in the country. Auckland Council has in-vested more than $300 million in the first stage of the billion-dollar project.

The library and town square will be part of the exciting new, fully-fledged regional town centre being created at Westgate, one of the city’s eight key metropolitan centres and Auckland Council is partnering with New Zealand Retail Property Group (NZRPG) in that develop-ment.

“This transformation of the north west is vital to Auckland’s future,” says Deputy Mayor Penny Hulse.

“This project is key to achieving the council’s vision to make Auck-land the world’s most liveable city

and provides a major contribution towards helping the Auckland Plan meet the projected need for housing, business land and economic growth over the next 30 years. It will ensure regional growth along with social, recreational, environmental and transport benefits.”

Henderson-Massey Commu-nity Board Chairperson Vanessa Neeson says the library and town centre initiative will provide space for people to gather, conduct busi-ness and relax. “It represents all that is important to quality of life for our young people, other residents and visitors and to the future economic viability of whole region.”

At Hobsonville Point, a new community is being created. The Hobsonville Land Company is de-veloping the former RNZAF mili-tary airbase featuring 3000 new homes, two new schools, small areas of shops and offices and new parks.

Part of the harbour front will be developed for a public ferry termi-nal and the development includes the creation of a Marine Industry Precinct for super-yacht building.

An open day is to be held at Massey Library on Saturday, De-cember 10 from 10am to noon. Members of the public are welcome to come and view a variety of infor-mation and illustrations of the West-gate library and town square as well as the general north-west urbanisa-tion project.

Westgate civic project gets green light from boardNew Zealand

Photo: Dev Nadkarni

Indian


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Season’s Greetings from new Zealand tertiary College!

New Zealand Tertiary College (NZTC) would like to wish you and your family a safe and enjoyable summer break, and a prosperous New Year.

As a College we eagerly await all that 2012 holds for us- the year that we will celebrate 30 years of leading the way in the field of early childhood teacher training.

Before closing for the break we had our annual staff Christmas party with the theme

of “towards our 30th year”. We divided the staff into teams of three and issued creative challenges centred on NZTC’s four values: Vision, Heart, Competence and Spirit. The challenge for Vision was to write down per-sonal and professional goals for the next 30 years, while the Heart challenge was to paint a gift box for the Christmas gifts NZTC is sending to Jagriti Children’s Home in New Delhi, India. (NZTC has formally sponsored

Jagriti-a safe home for abused and orphaned girls- since 2009). For Competence staff were asked to design a 30th anniversary t-shirt and for Spirit staff were challenged to come up with some inventive games for young children to play.

Earlier we held a competition amongst the staff to create the most imaginative “30th year Christmas Tree Decoration” (pictured above).

The celebration was a great opportunity to

reflect on the successes of 2011 and to look forward to many more in the New Year.

The College will re-open on the 9th of January.

If you are interested in studying one of NZTC’s specialist early childhood programs in 2012, please call (09) 520 4000 or email [email protected].

Alternatively you can visit our website at www.nztertiarycollege.ac.nz.

Season’s Greetings from New Zealand Tertiary College!

Sanil Haria and Audrey Wang from NZTC’s International department

New Zealand Tertiary College (NZTC) would like to wish you and your family a safe and enjoyable

summer break, and a prosperous New Year.

As a College we eagerly await all that 2012 holds for us- the year that we will celebrate 30 years of

leading the way in the field of early childhood teacher training.

Before closing for the break we had our annual staff Christmas party with the theme of “towards our

30th year”. We divided the staff into teams of three and issued creative challenges centred on NZTC’s

four values: Vision, Heart, Competence and Spirit. The challenge for Vision was to write down

personal and professional goals for the next 30 years, while the Heart challenge was to paint a gift

box for the Christmas gifts NZTC is sending to Jagriti Children’s Home in New Delhi, India. (NZTC

has formally sponsored Jagriti-a safe home for abused and orphaned girls- since 2009). For

Competence staff were asked to design a 30th anniversary t-shirt and for Spirit staff were challenged to

come up with some inventive games for young children to play.

Earlier we held a competition amongst the staff to create the most imaginative “30th year Christmas

Tree Decoration” (pictured above).

The celebration was a great opportunity to reflect on the successes of 2011 and to look forward to

many more in the New Year.

The College will re-open on the 9th of January.

A team painting a gift box

If you are interested in studying one of NZTC’s specialist early childhood programs in 2012, please

call (09) 520 4000 or email [email protected]. Alternatively you can visit our

website at www.nztertiarycollege.ac.nz.

Sanil Haria and Audrey Wang from NZTC’s International department A team painting a gift box

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Tanay Arts & Entertainment (TAE) is presenting a first of its kind beauty pageant for men. Beauty pageants for men are generally not as popular as they are for women, but TAE plans to change that.

Male pageants have tradition-ally tended to focus mainly on bodybuilding. However, in the early

1990s, male pageants began to shift focus from muscle mass, looks and masculinity to the contestants’ intel-lectual capabilities, talent, physique and how he presents himself to the world.

“The connotation that contes-tants join pageants for ‘world peace,’ ‘self esteem’, etc, are not the main

reasons behind these real men. Reasons are actually diverse: some compete because they are naturally competitive, some join for money and any opportunities that come along, some for the title and the fun and experience gained from partici-pation, and others, for brotherhood and the idea of becoming a modern

ambassadors for men in this world,” says organiser Tanya Mehra.

“Mr World NZ has given the men of New Zealand an opportu-nity to represent our country and culture at the Mr World Pageant in America. These enthusiastic Men will go through all the elements and components, which take to be in the

contest. They have to go through photo shoots, fitness test and cat walk sessions many more,” she adds.About the event:Where: Epsom Girls Grammar /Hall When: 3rd of March 2012.Event Organiser: Tanya Mehra from TAE

Mr World NZ 2012 in March

Photo by Saya Design


Indian

Srinagar: Ever since former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah said “it's ripe time to open the cinemas and wine shops in the Valley,” separatists and other socio-religious leaders have been coming down heavily upon him.

Hurriyat hawk Syed Ali Shah Geelani had asked people to protest against this “vulgar” statement of Farooq Abdullah after Friday prayers.

People of Kashmir, especially youths, soon after Friday prayers came on to the roads in different parts of the Valley particularly in Srinagar and held protests against the recent statement made by the father of Chief Minister Omar Abdullah.

Soon after the eruption of mili-tancy in Kashmir two decades ago, all the cinema houses and wine shops were closed in the Valley.

Allah-Tigers, a popular militant organisation, headed by militant commander Noor Khan threatened the owners of cinema houses and wine shops of dire consequences and as a result, theatres and shops were closed down.

Syed Ali Shah Geelani speak-ing to this writer said Kashmir is a “sacred planet” and “immorality

has no place” here. “Do you think tourists come here for wine and cinema? No, it’s absolutely wrong. They are attracted to the beauty of this land and saying that tour-ists need wine and cinema is all foolishness and a move to degrade society. We will not allow such move,” Geelani said.

There are dozens of cinema houses in Kashmir Valley. Broad-way Cinema located in the high security zone of Batwara, Srinagar was made functional a few years ago. However, its owner shut it down because of poor patronage.

To give an impression that peace has returned in the Valley, the higher ups according to sources motivated the Regal Cinema owner located in the centre of Srinagar city to run the shows some 8 years ago.On the very first day, when people were coming out from the Regal Cinema, militants hurled a grenade on the yard of the cinema which resulted in the killing of many people.

Soon after the attack, the Regal Cinema was closed once for all and was turned into a shopping complex. Similarly, Neelam cinema was also operational for some time but during the last years' unrest, that too was closed down due to

heavy public pressure.Almost all the cinema houses of

Kashmir Valley have turned into nursing homes or wear a deserted look. Some have been occupied by the security forces. Palladium Cinema is in a shambles while Firdous, Neelam and Shah Cinema houses are under Security Forces occupation

The same is the case with wine shops. Only few shops at Dalgate and Batawara areas of Srinagar can be seen doing their business.

Ghulam Mohammad, a boatman, says majority of the people who visit these wine shops are locals, mostly auto and taxi drivers.

Majority of Facebook users are coming down heavily on Farooq Abdullah for his recent statement over the opening of cinemas and wine shops. Heated arguments can be seen on this social networking site between the friends.

Some are calling it a right step while most of the Kashmiri users condemn it.

Meanwhile, Omar Abdullah has come in support of his father saying that even in Islamic countries, cinemas are functional and there is “nothing wrong if we open them up in Kashmir as well.”

no place for ‘immorality’ on ‘sacred planet’

Kolkata: In a nationwide survey conducted amongst the youth of India, nearly 76 per cent of youth believe that social media empowers them to bring change to the world we live in.

They are convinced that causes for women and movements against corruption can be driven through this medium that is now growing as a source for information. In fact, as many as 28 per cent source information from social media sites whereas around 54 per cent prefer a mix of print, television and social media.

With a sample size of 1200 of India’s youth in the age category of 18 to 35 years covering the major cities of Delhi (NCR), Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad and Bangalore, the survey titled Youth in the day and age of Social Media conducted by Indiabiz News & research Services, clearly shows a trend in which the youth feel empowered by the ability to express themselves and make their own choices.

The respondents indicated that while they are primarily engage in this space to connect with peers and garner information, they feel that they almost equally influence con-sumer choice (28 per cent), human rights and social change, politics

and policy making and corporate governance.

What is interesting and in many ways rebukes those that think that the youth believe only in symbol-ism best described by clicking on the ‘like’ button of a Facebook group, about 70 per cent believe

that ground realities cannot change by merely being part of a group. A lot more on ground is needed, they have inferred.

These trends as indicated in the nationwide India Biz survey, are obviously turning into being areas of concerns of politicians and even corporations (who now engage a lot more in this space).

What would bother them is that Anti-corruption has emerged as the

most prominent social cause en-dorsed by 32 per cent of the respon-dents. If one takes issues such as protection of the girl child and vio-lence against women, 35 per cent of the youth saw it is a significant issue to voice their opinion on and take up as a social cause for change.

The power of this space, even though it cannot be measured in a comprehensive manner when it comes to causes and political debates, the fact is that the youth continues to increase the number of hours it spends there. An India Biz survey conducted a year ago stated that this age group spent about an hour on social media sites. Now the time spent is one to two hours.

And 82 per cent believe the advent of Smart-phones has helped increase connectivity.

What is evident from the findings is the growing sense of empowerment that the youth of India feel with social media.

They choose their friends, determine which group they should be associated, pick on information that they think matters to them, in-fluence public debate and reject or accept icons or leaders. This is best described with the finding that only 3 per cent follow icons!

As stated in one of the many comments, ‘Social media can always create revolutions - positive or negative is upon its moderator and how the debate evolves.’

Social media space for change: Indian youth

India

New Delhi: Union Information Technology and Communication Minister Kapil Sibal has said that his prime concern over the whole idea of censorship of online content was ‘not to protect Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress Chairperson Sonia Gandhi’.

Claiming that the material was ‘degrading, demeaning, vulgar and obscene, and unacceptable by any set of community standard’, Sibal told Karan Thapar on his show Devil's Advocate on Friday that he is really surprised and ab-solutely appalled at that because when the content was circulated to the networking companies, the content that they really objected to, was the content that would impact religious sentiments in India, no matter to what religion one belong - Hindu, Islam, Christianity.

Talking about the issue in detail, he said that the issue was raised on Sept 5 by circulating some of the ‘blasphemous’ and ‘demeaning’ content to the compa-nies and after ‘no response’ from them for three times, he added, that on the November 29, he called a meeting in which he told them that three months have passed and they still have to come up with some solutions so he want some-thing in writing and gave them one week's time along with fixing December 5 as the date for a final response.

The Minister also said that on December 5 the companies threw up their hands and they said they can't deal with any of this from

their end and they will apply US community standards.

Clarifying his stance on what he exactly wanted he said that there can be no pre-screening of content on the electronic and social media and that it would be madness to ask for it and he doesn't think any sane person would.

Apart from this, the 63-year old Minister said: “Whatever I have said in the press or during the interview does not amount to re-striction or regulation. It is evolv-ing a consensus that is acceptable to media. It is not my intent ever to interfere with social media in whatsoever form.”

He also plans to hold a round table meeting on Dec 15 with the majors of networking companies and other people to evolve guide-lines, in consensus with compa-nies, about such material not fea-turing on Internet.

On the way the issue will be dealt in the meeting he told that they will ask the companies for suggestions along with what kind of consensual guidelines should be evolved, which should be part of self regulation that they will enforce on their own terms. And if they do not enforce those regula-tions on their own terms, what the kind of actions the governments or other authorities or individuals can take against them.

Apparently, he also said that the meeting will be an open and transparent one, including the presence of press there.

Prime concern not to protect PM, Sonia: SibalvAtsAL vermA

The survey titled Youth in the day and age of Social Media conducted by Indiabiz News & research Services, clearly shows a trend in which the

youth feel empowered by the ability to express themselves and make their own choices.

NeyAZ eLAhI

Bhopal: On the occasion of Interna-tional Human Rights Day hundreds of survivors of the Union Carbide disaster in Bhopal last Saturday marched to the Raj Bhavan, the resi-dence of the Governor of the state, calling for protection against viola-tion of their human rights.

The five organizations leading the rally said that they were demand-ing the Governor’s intervention to stop the revictimisation and abuse of human rights of the survivors due to ongoing police atrocities.

The organizations launched a music CD that narrates the human rights abuse suffered by the victims of the Bhopal disaster at central library grounds at the starting point of the rally.

Representatives of the organiza-tions presented a memorandum con-taining six demands for protection of the human rights of the survivors.

They demanded immediate setting up of impartial and indepen-dent investigation in to the incident of violence on the 27th anniversary

of the disaster and called for with-drawal of criminal cases against 1500 to 2000 gas victims including charges of murderous assault leveled against Balkrishna Namdeo and others.

The organizations also demand-ed immediate stoppage of intimida-tion, illegal detentions and custodial beatings carried out by the police in Barkhedi – Aishbag area.

In a separate letter to the Chief Minister, the organizations have demanded that the CM keep his promise of correction of figures of deaths and injuries caused by the disaster in the soon to be heard cura-tive petition for compensation in the Supreme Court of India.

.The five organizations are Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Statio-nery Karmchari Sangh, Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Purush Sang-harsh Morcha, Bhopal Gas Peedit Nirashrit Pension Bhogi Sangharsh Morcha, Bhopal Group for Infor-mation and Action and Children Against Dow Carbide.

Bhopal survivors march for human rights

IndianIndian India

New York: Last week’s edition of TIME magazine has quite literally, left India shining, with three stories from the country featuring in it.

It seems that Anna Hazare’s an-ti-corruption movement hasn’t just caused a stir and awakening in the nation but it has also made it to the list ‘top 10 news stories in the world’ for 2011 by ‘Time’ magazine.

‘Anna’, who is now a name that every Indian can reckon with, is famous for starting his movement against corruption which brought together the entire country together after a very long time.

The story ‘Anna Hazare’s Hunger Fasts Rock India’ in the magazine says “Anna Hazare, a 74-year-old activist with a Gandhian air, com-manded something of the Mahatma's aura when he embarked on a series of hunger strikes in protest of the graft that his supporters say pervades all

strata of Indian society.”“Hazare's fasts — even the threat

of them — triggered mass demon-strations of support across India's

major cities and heaped pressure on the government to create an indepen-dent ombudsman body capable of in-vestigating the nation's political elites — even the Prime Minister — and bringing the corrupt to justice.”

The list, apart from Anna’s movement, also features the killing of Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan, President Hosni Mubarak end of regime in Egypt, the Utoya Massa-cre, Muammar Gaddafi’s end of dic-tatorship on Libya, Europe’s finan-cial crisis and earthquake that hit the northeastern coast of Japan, among others.

Not only has Anna’s movement, which included mass protest against corruption and hunger strike for Lokpal Bill, made it to the list but

Anna, Kolaveri Di in TIME Top 10

Panaji: Yoga Guru Baba Ramdev has launched agitation against illegal mining and high-level cor-ruption in Goa as he threatens to go on hunger strike before the state goes to polls next year.

Addressing a press briefing in the city last Saturday, Ramdev, who was holding a series of public meetings in the State, blamed State Chief Minister Digambar Kamat for rampant illegal mining.

“I will sit on hunger strike if the government does not clear its stand on illegal mining and corruption. Can we allow these looters to be elected in the assem-bly?” the yoga guru questioned.

“The Goa chief minister is also mining minister for the last 12 years and hence he should be held responsible for the entire mess.”

Baba Ramdev on Friday kick-started statewide Save Goa Cam-paign organized by the Patanjali Yog Samiti supported by Bharat Swabhiman Trust.

Shooting allegations against the politicians, the anti-corruption crusader said they are looting the State money and stashing the ‘black money’ abroad.

To a media question, Ramdev clarified his organization was not interested in contesting elections but it will ask all the political parties to come clean on various issues they are entangled into. “We want that people are freed from all the illegalities,” he added.

He stated Goa and other parts of India largely export ore produce to its enemy country China but the counterpart does not export even a single ton of ore from their country.

“We need to introduce mecha-nisms in which ore could be used within the country and the steel produced could be utilized for building India,” he suggested.

He asked as to why Goa, which was known for its beauty, has earned a bad image with polluted environment because of illegal mining, casinos and easy sex des-tination. He suggested that Goa needs to change its image.

Baba Ramdev threatens hunger strikejohN edWArds

even the ‘death of Sathya Sai Baba’ has been named as one of the ‘top ten religion stories’.

The death of the spiritual guru saw the entire nation in grief, includ-ing famous celebrities like Sachin Tendulkar in tears.

The magazine says, “Sathya Sai Baba was the most famous guru in India, the most prominent of what are called "godmen," with millions of devotees, many prominent and prosperous, throughout the country and the rest of the world.”

It also says “And after his death, devotees flocked to his coffin and tomb to pay their re-spects and obeisance, believing he was still able to bless them from the great beyond.”

Even the song ‘Kolaveri Di’, which has broken all records in terms of its popularity, features in the edition of magazine.

The story on the song “India just can't stop listening” says that the song's lyrics are practically

gibberish, the country can't seem to stop listening to it. The catchy tune has generated nearly 19 million views on YouTube, to date.

At the same time, it seems that the feeling of song meeting such a huge success is yet to sink in the singer. In his recent tweets, the Tamil actor has been thanking his fans for receiving his song with such warmth.

He tweeted few days back “And to all my north Indian Kolaveri fans , thanks for receiving a Tamil song with warm heart and making it a global song. God bless.”

The magazine has come out with a total of 54 lists of ‘top ten’ hap-penings across the world in various fields like entertainment, sports, politics etc.

vAtsAL vermA

IndianIndian India

Kolkata: The Tata Group has announced TATA First Dot competition for best student entrepreneurs.

The contest, powered by NEN, is being claimed to be India's first national mentoring and recognition platform for student startups by the organizers.

The program has already attracted 200 case studies including business ventures in Technology, Science, Hospitality and Theatre and Arts.

As a part of this multi-strand initiative, two competitions for the Top 5 Student Ven-tures each will run nationally in parallel.

The first competition is Tata First Dot Na-tional Competition where a panel of eminent judges will judge the venture on business pa-rameters and select 5 best student ventures

after a process of validation and short-listing by NEN experts.

The eminent judges include successful en-trepreneurs, angel investors and Tata leaders.

The second competition is a People’s Choice competition based on national level online voting for determining 5 winners of Tata First Dot People’s Choice competition. The program values public opinion and their sentiments and encourages their valuable inputs to decide the winner through online voting.

Out of the 200+ validated nominations, 8 ventures are from the enterprising students of Kolkata and 1 project from Kharagpur across multiple sectors namely Education, It/Software/Internet Media/Entertainment, and Robotics Engineering.

Atul Agrawal, Vice President, Corporate Affairs, Tata Service said, “Tata First Dot recognizes and respects the brilliance of the young minds of India and we are happy to provide a launch-pad to these young entre-preneurs to turn their dreams and ideas into successful business ventures.”

Laura Parkin, CEO and co-founder, Na-tional Entrepreneurship Network (NEN) said, “Driven by the growing number of op-portunities opening up in the country, and supported by the entrepreneurship programs available on campus, more and more students in India are turning to entrepreneurship.

"If India is to grow into a strong, entre-preneurial nation, these efforts need to be encouraged and recognized. TATA First Dot powered by NEN, aims to uncover, showcase

and support these young entrepreneurs and is off to great start with the tremendous re-sponse we've received nationwide.”

Winners of the competition will be pro-vided professional mentorship via the NEN Mentoring platform for a period of 12 months and will also get networking opportunity with Entrepreneurs, Angel investors, mentors, experts and other student start-ups.

Winners will be felicitated in an award ceremony at the Tata First Dot Conference scheduled to be held in Chennai on 9th-10th January, 2012.

The Conference will feature talks by busi-ness leaders, mentoring sessions, and exhibi-tion of business ideas, amongst others.

Tatas to pick student entrepreneurs

New Delhi: As Delhi completed its 100th year this Monday, it seemed as though every heart in Delhi was, quite literally, swollen with pride, lost in nostalgia, and overflowing with euphoria.

To mark this historical occasion, a number of celebrations are ongoing and have been planned which will indeed make the city glow with a lot of zeal and fervour.

The food festival ‘Dilli Ke Pakwan’ orga-nized by Delhi Tourism was a huge success with a large number of people thronging the venue at Baba Kharak Singh Marg to dip in the delectable cuisines of Delhi.

The festival, apart from serving the tra-ditional street food from the capital, also had other attractions like cultural activities, handicrafts especially pottery and bangle making etc.

Rohit Chauhan, a student of Delhi Uni-versity, said, “The festival had every pos-sible speciality of Delhi. The paranthas of Chandni Chowk’s Paranthewali galli, Khan ke kebas, Bunty Singh’s fruit chaat and Janakpuri’s famous gol gappe- it couldn’t have been better to celebrate this momen-

tous occasion.” Even the Delhi’s history has been much

of a fascination to people and keeping this in mind, a week-long event ‘Dastan-e-Dilli’ including an exhibition and various other cultural programmes, is all set of kick-start on December 14.

This one is being organized by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) and the venue is the ICCR’s Azad Bhavan gallery.

The exhibition is titled ‘Timeless Delhi’ and will display the progress of the city from significant Indraprastha to an energetic 21st century metropolitan through photographs, works of art, lithographic prints by painters of the East India Company and accompany-ing texts from the pages of history.

The opening of the exhibition will be followed by 'Mehfil-e-Dilli', a dance per-formance by Shovana Narayan and thumri recital by Dr. Kumud Jha Diwan.

With all these events planned and many more to come, the city will indeed be cel-ebrating it’s 100th birthday in the true spirit of the occasion.

Delhiites celebrate city’s 100th birthdayBy vAtsAL vermA

New Delhi: As India plans to invest over one trillion dollars on infrastructure projects in the next five years, Chinese companies are gearing up to participate in the process.

Wang Xuefeng, Minister at the Embassy of China in India, said the country has several competitive advantages in manufac-turing and infrastructure construction. “The Indian government’s plan to invest one tril-lion dollars on infrastructure projects offers excellent opportunity for Chinese companies to participate.”

He was address-ing delegates at a roundtable confer-ence titled ‘India China Economic Co-operation: Win Win Situation’ organised by The Associated Chambers of Com-merce and Industry of India (ASSO-CHAM).

“In the past three years, Chinese enter-prises have complet-ed India infrastruc-tural projects with a total value of ten billion dollars. The two-way investment is also showing a booming trend. China’s ever-growing market also means huge space for Indian companies.”

Wang brushed aside fears of hike in tariff and non-tariff barriers on imports of some Chinese goods by India or a complete ban on specific items like power and telecom equipment. China has already raced past the United States, Britain and Japan to become India’s largest trading partner.

Trade between the world’s most populous nations with 2.5 billion people jumped 20-fold from 2.9 billion dollars in 2000 to more than 60 billion dollars in 2010. It is likely to cross

70 billion dollars this year and reach 100 billion dollars in the next four years.

Subramaniam Swamy, president of the Janata Party who did doctoral research on the Chinese economy at Harvard University, said India and China should identify complemen-tarities in manufacturing, services, innova-tion, research and development, banking and finance, energy, and environment.

For instance, he said, hydrogen fuel cells have a great future and can reduce depen-

dence on hydro-carbons. “We must create an atmo-sphere of negoti-ated settlements as stable economic co-operation requires complete and clear political under-standing.”

After the United States, China is the world’s second largest economy with a GDP of 5.6 trillion dollars in 2010 and growing at ten per cent in

the past five years. India is the fourth largest economy in terms of purchasing power parity and expected to become the third largest by 2040.

Indian exports to China jumped 68.8 per cent to 19.6 billion dollars in 2010-11 from 11.6 billion dollars in the previous year. The imports also increased 41 per cent to 43.5 billion dollars from 30.8 billion dollars in the same period.

Most Indian exports to China comprise of metals, ores, iron and steel besides cotton while imports are of electrical machinery and equipment, nuclear reactors and boilers, organic chemicals, fertilisers, iron and steel.

Chinese to bid for indian infrastructure

The two-way investment is also showing a

booming trend. China’s ever-growing market also

means huge space for Indian companies.

For enquiries please contact sunita0800 999 018 or 021 187 3391

[email protected], New Zealand

Indian India

Kolkata: While army helicopters hovered above the ground zero, knots of mediaper-sons, policemen and curious onlookers hang around the AMRI Hospital on Saturday re-minding the people how the modern day gas chamber killed 90 patients the day before in the south Kolkata's shiny facility.

From the blackened floors of AMRI's smashed window panes, mild traces of smoky black air could still be spotted on Saturday.

The basements from where the fire started from the illegally stored inflammable objects were not accessible to media on Saturday and a team of experts from the Bhaba Atomic Re-search Centre reportedly is visiting the lower basement from where there were fears of ra-diation leak from the oncology equipment.

But it is life as usual around the adjacent Panchanantala slums where youngsters nar-rated how they rushed to the rescue spotting the smoke and were prevented from entering inside till the situation went out of control and the noxious fumes killed the hapless patients.

"We cried fire, but the securitymen did not let us in. Around 4 pm, when the situation was out of control the hospital staffers fled. It was too late then," said Sujan Bachka, a slum-dweller.

Sujan said thick black some had engulfed the floors as the local people risked their lives to rush to rescue.

"We did not hear any fire alarm. We also feel that the hospital authorities first did not inform the fire brigade," said Bachka.

Another slum dweller Sujit Naskar said police resorted to lathicharge later and even some women were not spared, till none other than chief minister Mamata Banerjee came and took control of the situation.

While the affected building has been sealed off and the owners of the AMRI repre-senting the Emami and Shrachi groups were arrested, in the main AMRI building there are still some patients.

However, no new admission is made. "There are a few patients still inside," a

hospital employee said trying to be polite to the mediapersons gauging the mood of anger sweeping the city.

Many of the hospital staff had turned up and were waiting to know if they were suppose to join duty.

"I used to work as a security in the burnt building. I have come today to know what we should do," said a security woman who identi-fied herself as Rita.

Army helicopters are hovering above the ground zero keeping surveillance.

Several posters by the SUCI political party demanding punishment of the owners could be spotted on the windows and walls of the AMRI main building, while there were also

small makeshift memorials put up in the area to pay floral homage to the people.

The Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) has also set up a spot claim processing kiosk before AMRI.

Six directors of AMRI Hospital who were arrested on charges of culpable homicide were produced in the city's Alipore court on Saturday amid tight security.

Top industrialists, Ravi Todi, SK Todi, Radhyeshyam Goenka, Manish Goenka, Prashanta Goenka and Dayanand Agarwal, who serve as board members for the high

profile hospital, were arrested by the police with non-bailable warrants on Friday based on an FIR lodged by the fire department.

Though the FIR did not mention any names, it held responsible the governing body of the hospital (including the directors), its supervisors and security staff, charging them with attempt to commit culpable ho-micide, which carries a punishment of up to seven years in jail, negligence causing a fire

(punishable by up to six months in jail) and common intent.

Police teams raided the offices and homes of some of the AMRI directors, and soon after the authorities started receiving “feelers” that several of the board members wanted to surrender before the police, media reports quoting officials said.

The hospital, owned by two of East India’s top business families, the Todis and Goenkas, who control the Shrachi and the Emami groups respectively, was sealed and its licence was cancelled by the Kolkata Municipal Cor-poration.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Ba-nerjee, who is also the state's health minister, ordered strict action against the hospital au-thorities, whom she accused of “an unforgiv-able crime”.

As she managed the crowds in front of the seven-storey AMRI Annex 1 building that caught fire, Banerjee sympathised with outpouring anger over the shoddy safety ar-rangements in one of the city’s most expen-sive hospitals.

In a press conference, the AMRI Hospital authorities confirmed the death of 73 people, but the toll by Saturday rose to 90 as more succumbed from the fire that originated from the callously stored inflammable objects in the basement of the hospital which sports a swanky exterior.

Till Saturday 88 of the 90 bodies were identified and 76 were handed over to the families. Of the dead, four were hospital staff.

This is the second blaze at the premier private medical facility in three years which has been accused of illegal inflammable storage in the basement leading to the fire.

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From the Editor

Indian Weekender is published by Kiwi Media Group, 98 Great South Road, New Market and printed at APN Print, Ellerslie, Auckland Copyright 2010. Kiwi Media Group. All Rights Reserved.

Indian Weekender Volume 3 No. 17Publisher: Kiwi Media Group LimitedGroup editor-in-chief: Dev Nadkarni [email protected] editor: Arvind Kumar [email protected] Technical Officer: Rohan Desouza rohan@ indianweekender.co.nzDesign: Sonata Design Ltd - [email protected]: Giri Gupta - Ph: 520 0922, Mob: 021 221 1131. Email - [email protected] & Admin: Chetan - Email: [email protected] email original editorial contributions, community notices and pictures to [email protected] expressed in the publication are not necessarily of the publisher and the publisheris not responsible for advertisers’ claims as appearing in the publication

ten top stories on iwk.co.nz1. Unravelling PCOS2. Carrot Cake with lemon cream cheese icing3. National romps home to a second term4. Five reasons why National won and Labour lost5. No clues yet in Charanpreet’s death6. Rajinikanth's 'Rana' shelved ?7. Sarangi maestro Sultan Khan dies8. Screen legend Dev Anand is no more9. Indians discriminated against: report10. Mario Miranda – a very personal reminiscence

Most people around the world would probably be happy to see the back of 2011 in just over two weeks time and look forward to the January of 2012 being a harbinger of better times.

What a year it has been. Disasters of all kind – whether natural or financial – have befallen the peoples of so many nations around the world. A series of hugely destruc-tive earthquakes, massive flooding, tsunamis and dozens of tornados brought many parts of the world to the brink.

Most notable among these were the earthquake and tsunami that conspired to create a nuclear disaster, sending shock waves across the world. For us here in New Zealand, the early part of this year was eminently forgettable. The Pike River disaster and the Christchurch earthquakes are the worst this country has seen in its history.

As if natural disasters were not enough, the worst of the global financial crisis, unfolding slowly and menacingly since 2008, came to a head this year, with countries virtually going bankrupt. The situation has gotten so dire that what was one of the world’s wealthiest regions until a couple of years ago – the Eurozone – is on the brink of collapse.

At one time in the early stages of the global financial crisis, the euro threatened to dislodge the US greenback from its nearly five decade long reign as the currency of choice. What a sudden and precipitous fall this past year has been for what once was such a hallowed currency.

The US is heading for the worst of times economically. This year, its cities have seen the mushrooming of tent cities on the outskirts of many of its big cities – populated with increasing numbers of people who have been forced out of jobs and their homes into poverty. The country’s policy making machinery seems to be in a state of paralysis as the nation inches toward what undoubtedly promises to be an acrimoniously fought election.

Things haven’t been half as bad in Australasia as they are in the some countries of the developed world. Our banking systems have generally held up well against the global crisis. New Zealand’s saga of finance companies is a different story though. But the government has moved swiftly to put in place measures to prevent the repeat of such grief for mum and dad investors who have collectively lost hundreds of millions of dollars to the unbridled greed of dodgy finance company promoters.

Meanwhile, the world’s ordinary folk have grown sick and tired of what they see as a culture of unmitigated greed, fiscal irresponsibility, and unjustifiably high rewards among the powers that be – whether they are politicians, businesspeople or finance professionals. The “occupy” movements around the world have been spontaneous and have driven home a strong point – but have been no match for the entrenched vested interests they have been up against.

Chances are they will remain exactly that – just token protests. The solutions will have to come from the structures that exist within the world’s political and financial power systems. There are more flashes of realisation in the public discourse than ever before that there may be other far more inclusive ways of running the world and sharing its wealth and resources more equitably across its 7 billion denizens.

But this bleak year has had some incredible bright spots, at least for New Zealand – particularly in the latter part. And almost all of the good news came from the world of sport. For one, we won the Rugby World Cup, which we absolutely needed to win especially in such a horribly depressing year. It was a win 24 years in the making. How much the event boosted our economy is debatable but it did boost the Kiwi morale no end.

And last week, our Black Caps did us proud too. Imagine beating Australia on their turf after 1985 and winning a test against them for the first time since 1991! As we end the year, our economists are predicting a better year in 2012. Let’s hope for the best – and not worry too much about the Mayan calendar spook, of which we are bound to hear much more of as 2012 unfolds.

This is the final issue of this year and it has been great being on this journey with you, dear readers. From all of us here at Indian Weekender, Merry Christmas, happy holidays and a happy New Year to you and yours. Enjoy and stay safe.

. - Dev Nadkarni

Our sports people saved 2011 for usThe mining of uranium has itself long been a divisive issue for the Australian Labor party.

Over the decision to export uranium to India, the ALP’s recent national conference set minister against minister, and the grass-roots against some of the leadership. Prime Minister Julia Gillard was in favour of export-ing but it was touch and go whether she was going to get her way.

In the end the ALP split factionally. The right of the party is backed by a few over 200 delegates and the voting turned out to be 206 in favour and 185 against.

India has not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty, long considered the major treaty that stops proliferation of nuclear weapons. Hith-erto, the ALP followed a policy of not selling uranium to countries that were not signatories of theNPT.

UnDErMining trEatyTo many concerned about the spread of nuclear weapons supplying uranium to a non-signatory isseen as undermining the treaty. Another non-signatory nation, Pakistan, im-mediately said Australia should sell uranium to it as well.

The US, under the Bush Administration, decided that India should be supplied with nuclear fuel despite not having signed the NPT. It was given a specific exemption. A meeting of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, of which New Zealand is a member, agreed.

In return, India said that it would meet some of the requirements of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN agency that monitors the use of nuclear fuels and plants. In effect, India has placed its civilian nuclear plants under IAEA control,separating them from its nuclear weapons programme.

India has been meticulous about not sup-plying nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons components or knowledge to other countries. This is unlike Pakistan, one of whose scientists set up what amounted to a warehouse selling nuclear equipment and nuclear weapons tech-nical expertise.

Australia already sells uranium to China, a signatory of the NPT. Ms Gillard said that it was“not rational” to sell to China but not to India. She also considered it to be in Austra-lia’s interests to further the country’s relation-ship with India. She argued that India was not going to abandon its nuclear weapons in any case.

The fact that Australia would not sell uranium to India has been a major irritant in the relationship between the two countries.

Another delegate to the conference argued strongly that India was not a rogue state and that it was the world’s biggest democracy.

thrEE MinistErsThree ministers – Peter Garrett, of musical fame and now the minister for school edu-

cation, early childhood and youth; Anthony Albanese, minister of infrastructure and transport, and Stephen Conroy, minister of broadband – spoke passionately against the proposal to sell uranium.

Mr Garrett has long been an advocate of nuclear disarmament and believes that Austra-lia should not sell to one of only three coun-tries which would not sign the NPT. He thinks it is totally the wrong message and contradicts positions on nuclear weapons Australia has held in the past.

Mr Albanese argued that by supplying uranium for civil power production, Australia would enable India to free up other stocks of uranium for more nuclear weapons.

Mr Conroy, a member of the Victorian right of the ALP, nevertheless opposed the sale of uranium to India based on family expe-rience. He referred to the failure at Fukushima in Japan and said that neither the problems of proliferation nor of disposing of nuclear waste hadbeen solved.

Australia holds the third largest stocks of uranium in the world and may hold more. Mining and exploration have been restricted.

UsE is rEstrictEDUnder treaties Australia establishes with coun-tries to which it sells uranium, the uranium is to be used solely for civilian purposes. Sales to India are not expected tohappen for perhaps a couple of years while all the treaties are ne-gotiated.

Some observers are saying that India is un-likely to agree to all the terms that Australia willrequire.

Australia will also face competition in the Indian market from other suppliers of uranium.Canada already is well established as a supplier and has the advantage thatmost of India’s civilian power plants are of the Cana-dian CANDU design.

Although the national conference backed Ms Gillard over the sale of uranium most commentators do not believe that Ms Gillard’s position has been strengthened or the ALP revived. The Liberal Party opposition be-lieved that Australia should sell uranium and moving closer to the Liberal position will not please many within the ALP.

The lively and noisy debate over uranium sale may, to some observers, have given the impression of a vibrant party but ALP insiders have been arguing that the party membership is ageing and the party generally lacks lustre. The close vote means that the party remains split. The move may seem sensible to many Australians but the political beneficiary is likely to be the Greens.Stuart McMillan is an adjunct senior fellow in the school of social and political sciences at the University of Canterbury. This article is published courtesy of the National Business Review.

Sale of uranium to india splits Gillard’s partystuArt mcmILLAN

comment


Indian comment

Mario Miranda – a personal reminiscence

Mario Miranda never really liked to talk about himself or his work. But once during an assignment, when I pressed him on how he went about his meticulously detailed illustra-tions, he told me in his usual shy manner that he began at one corner of the blank sheet and put his scratchy

ink pen nib down only when he had fully filled up the whole sheet.

The maestro put his nib down one final time this week, having fin-ished with the extraordinary canvas of his life. And what an incredibly rich and unforgettable picture he has drawn for all of us in his seven decade long career. His drawings, with their filigree-like detail, are an endless source of joy: you find some-thing new in every illustration no matter how many times you’ve seen it before. That indeed was his genius.

I knew Mario as a fan, friend, colleague and client – as fan for a lifetime, the rest for more than two decades. My first ever introduction to Goa was through one of his il-lustrated books, “Goa With Love – by Mario”, a copy of which we still have in our collection nearly half a century later.

“Goa With Love” is Mario’s finest tribute to his most beloved Goa – it is completely illustrated, no copy except for an odd caption or two. It captures every aspect of Goa – the scenery, the people, the social mores, the cultural diver-sity, the oddly spelt Hindu names in Portuguese-influenced English, everything except perhaps the smell of feni.

I have lost count of how many times I must have pored over that book throughout my life. I remember spending hours on each page when I was a child growing up in Panaji – which back then was Panjim. I can still find things to laugh about in the drawings.

I first shook hands with Mario when I was perhaps all of five in my father’s office in Panaji’s iconic Secretariat Building – my father, Mohan Nadkarni, was the newly

formed union territory’s first infor-mation officer and was in charge of publicity, publications and PR. “This uncle here drew Goa With Love – his name is Mario,” I remember my father saying. I was excited because I had shaken hands with the man whose book I was so very fond of.

In later years I often ran into him in the Times of India building in Mumbai on my errands deliver-ing my father’s music reviews and columns to the newsroom on the third floor (no emails and faxes then). I’d reintroduced myself as his fan from Goa and chatted on some occasions about some of his illustra-tions from “Goa With Love” and his other work, which appeared regu-larly in the Khushwant Singh-edited Illustrated Weekly and the Evening News of India.

Our next significant encounter was at my first real job – as an assis-tant editor of the popular children’s fortnightly Tinkle at the India Book House. He was illustrating a chil-dren’s book, which my colleague Nira Benegal (noted film director Shyam Benegal’s wife) was editing. We settled down for a long chat and at the end of it, he handed two rather tired looking diaries to Nira.

I noticed Nira put away the diaries carefully in her bottom drawer. After a few days, knowing my respect for Mario and his work and my own ambitions to launch my cartoon strip, she let me have a peek at those diaries. I was amazed as I leafed through them.

They were diaries from Mario’s childhood. Most of us who kept diaries did so in long hand. Mario simply drew. On one of the pages the only words were something like: “walking back from the market I saw” and there was this amazingly stylised picture of a cow. He must have been 10 or 11 when he drew it – perhaps even younger.

The picture was greatly detailed. There were the blades of grass, the pebbles, the vegetable vendor, other trappings of the marketplace, a

carrera (those small rickety buses – now extinct – with about eight seats that packed in 24 people), the fisher-woman, everything on that A8 sized diary page. It left me dumbfounded. Nira let me borrow the diaries for the weekend and boy, what a weekend that was.

The Benegals and Mirandas were close friends. Shyam’s Trikaal – based on Goa’s liberation – was shot for the most part in Mario’s splendid colonial Loutolim residence, which is where he breathed his last.

Mario’s recognition as an il-lustrator par excellence grew and he was invited for assignments and exhibitions across the globe. The

world’s major cities invited him to draw their monuments and main squares. The volume of his pub-lished work grew and he was soon awarded both the Padma Shri and the Padma Bhushan, besides many other awards.

Then Karnataka chief minis-

ter Devraj Urs commissioned Dom Moraes and Mario to do a book on the state – and that’s another book in our collection signed by both Dom and Mario.

By 1987, I had a couple of weekly cartoon strips going. One appeared in the Sunday edition of the Indian Express and the other in the Sunday editions of the Econom-

ic Times between 1984 and 1990. The latter, called Doldrumms Ltd, based around office and business situations, was definitely inspired by Mario’s Miss Nimbupani and her cartoon colleagues.

In the middle of that year Mario and I were part of a delegation of Indian cartoonists who visited Europe as part of the Festival of India. Our works were exhibited for a week in Sierre in Switzerland. It was there that despite our great dif-ferences in age and stature, he took me on as a friend.

During those long wine filled nights, I got to see his melancholic side, which I had not seen before. On one such evening, I remember, as we were sitting on the deserted platform of the Sierre railway station after a couple of bottles of fine French Beaujolais, he told me the real reason why he left the Times of India – but not before extracting a promise that I’ll keep it only to myself.

Weeks later we reconnected in downtown London and spent a busy morning drinking some more – this time beer. Celebrated modern dancer Astad Deboo joined us for a while.

As editor of a publication for India’s first major amusement park Esselworld, I had the pleasure of commissioning some work from Mario. But what I’ll remember most is a one of a kind interview I did with him: we did a four-page cartoon strip interview. He drew the replies to my questions – how cool is that. He later told me how much he had enjoyed doing that.

Though I visited his home in Colaba, Mumbai, several times, I never really got to know his wife Habiba or his sons. At one time, I remember he had pet turtles clam-bering up and down the living room. Mario’s close friend and one of India’s finest humorists, Busybee (Behram Contractor), modeled two of the characters of his “Round and About” column – Darryl and Derrick, the two sons of the fabu-lously rich ‘my friend who lives on the 21st floor’ – on Mario’s two boys.

There will not be another car-toonist, illustrator or human being like Mario de Brito Miranda. His celebrity came in spite of his self-effacing and humble personality. He will be greatly missed by mil-lions of his fans.

One of the final pages of “Goa With Love” has an illustration of a Goan funeral. As well as a few weeping relatives around an elderly man’s bier there is also a lot of beer and feni flowing around. The young people are eyeing one another through their tears. There is one young lady by the man’s feet, a tear flying away from her thick eyelash-es, as her gaze meets a young man’s standing by the head of the departed gent. Her expression is an inexpli-cable mix of grief and expectation – there is a definite air of getting on with life once the grieving is over.

That’s perhaps the best way to lay the great soul to rest – celebrate his life more than grieve his passing.

RIP Mario Miranda.

One of India’s greatest cartoonists and illustrators, Mario Miranda, died earlier this week. Editor Dev Nadkarni, who knew him closely, writes a personal tribute

An illustration from the book "Goa with Love" by Mario.


Indian India

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New Delhi: The Indian Bureau of Mines (IBM) has suspended 152 mines

after inspection, said Minister of State for Mines (Independent Charge) Dinsha

Patel in Lok Sabha last week.Central Government through the Indian Bureau of Mines (IBM) has consti-

tuted Special Task Force for inspection of mines in endemic areas by taking the

help of satellite imageries. "As on 1.12.2011, the Special Task Force has conducted inspections in a total

of 434 mines in the States of Goa, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh,

Jharkhand, Orissa, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat," Patel said in a

written reply. "While IBM had suspended 152 mines after the inspection, suspension has

been revoked after compliance of the rules in case of 96 mines," he said.

IBM has further, recommended termination of 8 leases to the State Govern-

ments. 21 State Governments have constituted Task Force at State and District

Level for monitoring illegal mining.

152 mines suspended Recently State Government of Karnataka and State Government of Odisha had, inter-alia, suggested ban on export of iron ore with a view to conserve minerals and allow value ad-dition in the country, said Minister of State for Mines (Independent Charge) Dinsha Patel in Lok Sabha last Friday.

"Demand for ban on iron ore is not new and it has arisen in the past out of concerns on depletion of ore due to exports, need to con-serve the ore for future domestic requirement, leveraging domestic value addition capacity and inflationary impact of exports on domestic pricing," Patel said in a written reply.

"These concerns had been duly considered by the Government and it was felt that these

fears of depletion were misplaced and that though the Steel Industry needed protection, ban or cap on exports would not be the correct instrument, and the appropriate mechanism to control exports would lie in the fiscal mea-sures. It was also held that this position should be revisited after 10 years," he said.

The Government is also of the opinion that while exports of iron ore has increased in the last few years, these exports largely consist of Iron ore Fines (approximately 80%) which do not have sufficient domestic market, which if allowed to accumulate in the mines could pose serious environmental hazard apart from re-stricting production of Iron ore.

K'taka, odisha suggest ban on mineral export

Jammu: Indian Army, following a prohi-bition by Defence Ministry, will no more recruit men who have tattoos on their body, as soldiers in the defence forces.

According to an Army official, the circu-lation in this regard came last month and it claimed that permanent tattoos possess the

volatile risk of spreading certain diseases.Young men, who had tattoos on their

body, were turned away at open recruitment camps recently held at Akhnoor for five dis-tricts of Jammu region – Jammu, Samba, Kathua, Rajouri and Poonch.

Deputy Director General Recruitment (Punjab and JK) Brigadier Vinod Raizada said to a news channel that the instructions have been issued since November that any

person with tattoos anywhere on the body, except for the arms, cannot be recruited in the Indian Army.

He further said that as many as 30 out of every 100 men who came for recruitment had their bodies inked, thereby facing rejec-tion and majority of such men were from

Jammu, Samba and Kathua districts.At the same time, those who have tattoos

on their arms will only be recruited if they clear a medical examination comprising a blood test.

However, those who came and had to face rejection for this reason seemed to be quite unhappy as they had no prior knowledge about this.

Army prohibits men with tattoos

Seductive Sounds Inc in association with MTV Mumbai Studios presents a line up of the highest grade of international professional musicians on one stage. We are proud to announce our commencement of Bollywood Musical Entertainment tours in 2012. Bringing you to the world stage. We would like to welcome expressions of interest to the highest grade of singers to be the front line of this world class act at the biggest venues in New Zealand and Australia in 2012. USA and India tour dates have not yet been finalised. It is our pleasure to present for the first time the highest level of Bollywood Music Entertainment like you've never heard. From an array of the finest recording and touring artists from around the globe appearing together on one stage for the first time, this will be an experience never repeated. We will be running auditions in the coming months and with only the finest of the best being selected, we are signing singers who can demonstrate an advanced ability to perform and tour at major cities in the south pacific throughout 2012 at this stage. USA and India tours will feature the current top playback singers from Bollywood but we are open to giving an opportunity by contracting 2 singers for these shows as well if we can find the talent here. This is an opportunity to be on stage with the best so allocations will be made respectively to the best 5 who will be signed and endorsed. From therein we will negotiate on a contractual basis all appointments and payments. Only serious applicants by appointment only. For enquiries please email [email protected] or phone Dr Anand Tularam 61410649736

As many as 30 out of every 100 men who came for recruitment had their bodies inked, thereby facing rejection and majority of such men were from Jammu, Samba and Kathua districts.

Chandigarh: Indian spinner Harbhajan Singh is passing through a bad phase as he was robbed by a group of thieves near Karnal on Monday.

Singh lost his passport, driving license as thieves broke open his car and stole important belongings, media reports said on Tuesday.

Singh and his friend were driving to Delhi

when the attack took place near Karnal on the New Delhi-Chandigarh highway.

"Very upset, bag stolen at Delhi Chd highway. All imp documents in it. Pls courier my passport n driving licence, I'll ensure no action," Singh tweeted.

The Indian spinner has lodged a police complaint and frozen his credit card.

Harbhajan Singh robbed near delhi

Islamabad: A US House-Senate negotiating panel has decided to suspend USD 700 million in aid to Pakistan till the South Asian nation give the US an assurance that they would help them check the spread of homemade explo-sives devices in the region.

According to reports, the decision taken by the US House-Senate on Monday is likely to deteriorate the already strained US-Pakistan relationship.

The crucial plan of suspending the US aid was agreed as part of a defense bill that is likely to be passed this week.

US-Pakistan relationship has already wit-nessed significant downslide in recent times in the wake of the North-Atlantic Treaty Or-ganisation (NATO) helicopters attack on a checkpost in Pakistan-Afghanistan border that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.

US suspends $700 mn aid to pakistan


Indian Fiji

Fiji’s Shamima Ali Pacific Person of the Year 2011

The wall hanging in her office sums up Shamima Ali’s life as a women’s rights campaigner. “Stand up for what is right, even if you’re standing alone,” the wall hanging reads.

Twenty-six years of struggle aimed at breaking down a male-dominated and biased society and its varied systems does seem to bring its fair share of lonely moments. And most of the times, it seems like it.

All these years, she’s put up with name-calling and threats of violence directed at her and her family. In-vitation to weddings of family and friends have dried up as she was deemed a “bad omen” to marital alli-ances. So-called friends turned their backs on her. But Ali pressed on re-gardless.

For the courage to take on Fiji and the Pacific’s mainly patriarchal society and systems, for her deter-mination and battle to put women’s rights on the agenda of every politi-cal leader, for the tenacity and sheer stubbornness to take the fight right into the pulse of male-dominated institutions in the military and the police force, all the time never losing her common and compassionate touch for the abused, the poor and the downtrodden, Shamima Ali is Islands Business 2011 Pacific Person of the Year.

She is currently the coordinator of the Fiji Women Crisis Centre, a po-sition she was thrown into two years after a group of Suva-based women founded it.

From a one full-time person when she joined in 1985, the FWCC has today grown into a 40-staff organ-isation with four branches around Fiji, including a modern Australian government-funded headquarters in the heart of Fiji’s capital, Suva.

“As long as I have known Shamima (Ali), she has never lost her passion and enthusiasm for women’s rights,” Imrana Jalal, a long-time Pacific human rights lawyer, wrote in a United Nations nomination form in 2007.

“Her courage and commitment to human rights, democracy and the rule of law during the 2006 crisis has earned Ali a deserved place in Fiji’s troubled history.”

icOn anD BEacOn Of hOPEFiji’s former Vice-President, high chief and now legal adviser in the court of King Siaosi Tupou V of Tonga and a Truth & Reconcilia-tion Commissioner in the Solomon Islands, Ratu Joni Madraiwiwi was also full of praise for the women’s rights campaigner.

“Shamina Ali is an icon and beacon of hope to women in Fiji and throughout the Pacific for her tireless efforts in campaigning against vio-lence against women,”Madraiwiwi wrote in an e mail he sent Islands Business.

In March 6, 2007 when the US State Department awarded Ali its “Women of Courage Award,” then American Ambassador in Fiji Larry Dinger, wrote: “This award is in rec-ognition for your brave defense of freedom and human dignity in Fiji.

“Your advocacy of women’s rights over many years and your fear-less stance on behalf of human rights and democracy in recent months has been inspirational.”

As coordinator of the Fiji Women

Crisis Centre, this 57-year old woman who grew up in a largely sugarcane farming suburb and spent her Christ-mas holidays at a coconut estate in the largely Fijian indigenous domi-nated island of Nairai, one of a cluster of islands in the centre of the Fiji Group, then went to Fiji’s capital for secondary schooling and later gradu-ated from the University of the South Pacific as a science teacher, has an innate sense of justice and fair play.

achiEvEMEnts What she lacks in solid academic grounding, she makes it up with a deep sense of commitment for the respect of basic human rights and the rule of law.

In just a quarter of a century, Ali’s list of achievements is long and nothing short of impressive and ex-ceptional.

With unrelenting support from a women collective comprising some 20 to 25 women in Fiji and abroad and through her strategic alliances and networking, Ali has been able to:

Land foreign donor support for FWCC. Secure long-term funding for the Centre through AusAID and NZAid help.

Obtain AusAID funding for the construction of the FWCC headquar-ters in Suva.

Strengthen FWCC staffing from one paid employee in 1983 when it first opened to 40 women and men today.

Expand from one office to four branches around Fiji, with branches located in three towns in the main island of Viti Levu and one in the northern island of Vanua Levu with funding from NZAid.

Further expand FWCC into opening a new branch at the northern tourist town of Savusavu and for its first outer island outpost, in Kadavu, an island forming Fiji’s southern sea borders.

Break into male-dominated in-stitutions in the military and police force, as well as the Fijian adminis-tration comprising traditional leaders to offer gender sensitising seminars.

Secure Fiji’s police force help in introducing a ‘no-drop’ policy with regard to violence against women of-fences.

Help with the establishment of the Sexual Offences Unit in the Fiji Police.

Convince the authorities to intro-duce violence against women train-ing modules in the Fiji Police Force Academy curriculum.

Set up the Pacific Network on Violence Against Women.

Support the Male Advocacy for Women’s Human Rights regional training programme.

Be appointed civil society repre-sentative in the Pacific Islands Forum Reference Group on gender-based violence.

Lend a hand in the formation of Vanuatu Women’s Centre, modelled on the FWCC.

Earn the nomination of both Fiji’s Prime Minister and Opposition leader to be made a Human Rights Commissioner in 2004 and again in 2006. Courageously offer moral and counselling help to many victims of Fiji’s 2006 political crisis.

Assist in the formulation of Fiji’s Domestic Violence Decree.

Urge the suspension and review of the Fiji Government’s Fijian village

bylaws.Ali was born on January 8, 1954

from a Muslim father and a mother who was part Fijian.

She believes she got her gutsy fighting spirit, even a rebellious streak, from her mother.

“My working mum will do ev-erything...do the house work and organise every thing and everyone. The children have to be fed, clothed and my mum was rebellious in a lot of ways.”

In between living at the semi-ru-ral Nadi suburb of Nawaka with her grandmother, the two months of the year that she spent with her parents on Nairai Island and the time she lived with her uncle in Suva, Ali said she saw women relatives beaten and mistreated.

The subservient mentality of abused women and the eerie silence that accompanied the violence began to gnaw at her.

“I also have strong backing about standing up for what is right and so on from my parents.

“I was able to see that injustice very quickly. So I started looking at women around me and noticing their reaction to such injustices.”

That desire to right a wrong began to burn on the young Ali. She could still recall instances when she had to stand up for her female classmates in school and during her first two years as a secondary school mathematics teacher.

Even when she married sociolo-gist Vijay Naidu who had to go to England to pursue his doctorate in 1981, Ali remembered resenting playing the role of a “third world wife”.

rEBElliOUs strEaKThis rebellious streak, the urge to change the status quo was vividly demonstrated when she returned from England with Dr Naidu in 1985 and was recruited as a radio an-nouncer for Fiji’s first commercial radio operator, Communications Fiji.

By then, Ali had viewed herself a feminist having spent four years in England reading up and educat-ing herself on feminism and women rights movement.

On arrival in Suva, she was intro-duced by a friend, an Anglican priest, Reverend Eugenie Nicole, to the women’s collective that had begun the Suva Crisis Centre two years earlier.

“I think I sort of revolution-ised radio presentation at that time because I started talking about women issues, families, rights, etc.

“I remembered the first time I had a doctor as guest on the show and she talked about vagina and reproductive health, my boss (William (Parkinson) had to rush to the nearby room to

signal to me from the glass window, ‘you are on-air live!’

“The first woman I interviewed on my show was (the late) Adi Kuini Bavadra.

“She was on the verge of leaving for Nairobi for the first Women UN Conference and she was working then for the Ministry of Information.

“The next woman I interviewed was Mere Pulea, a jurist, that was another long lasting relationship.”

It has not been smooth sailing for the activist. Talk to her and she will explain at length the arduous struggle and painful battle she and her small team of supporters had to battle through.

The fight for the rights of women was on several fronts, covering all strata of society, both modern and traditional.

For the first few years, the FWCC was run by donations from individual women supporters.

Ali said each supporter would volunteer to pay for the phone, another would settle the power bill while another the monthly rent.

Then, when they were able to pay for a secretary, the appointee did no one any favour when she disappeared with the centre’s money.

The fight to secure donor funding was met with a lot of resistance and disappointment, Ali remembered.

Just as there were many disap-pointments in those early days, Ali said she was equally blessed to have a strong and stable collective of women supporters.

There was Rev Nicole of the Anglican Church in Suva, she also remembered the late Adi Kuini Bavadra, former Fiji high court jurist Dr Mere Pulea, retired Director of Energy Suliana Siwatibau, former Director of Women Alefina Vuki, a cousin and human rights lawyer Imrana Jalal, Carol Carter, Ofa Gut-tenbeil Likiliki of Tonga and Edwina Kotoisuva, deputy FWCC coordina-tor. Even when she got expelled from Suva’s Dudley Secondary, Ali re-membered it was the Assemblies of God Principal Shiu Narayan who had faith in her.

She also was grateful to her English teacher Shiu Singh who re-kindled her love for English litera-ture.

Singh went on to work as a radio journalist for the state-run Fiji Broad-casting Commission, retiring years later as its Deputy News Editor.

Her brief teaching career offered Ali the chance to repay her mentors by assisting one of her “very bright” students at her first posting at Gau Secondary on Gau, an island next to Nairai.

That “bright” student is Dr Joeli Veitayaki, a recognised marine sci-entist at the University of the South Pacific. Ali was Veitayaki’s maths teacher.

Big BrEaKA big break for FWCC was in 1991 when it secured AusAID funding for the very first time.

Ali said it was mainly due to the sterling help of two women friends she met in Australia; Elizabeth Cox and Dr Juliet Hunt.

“I met them in 1989 and they as-sisted me with proposal writing and how to get multi-year funding.

“One grant, the first big one, came from AusAID in Fiji in 1989, and for

that I had to go to Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne where I also met with MPs and influential people.

fighting OnTwenty-six years of fighting the es-tablishment has come at a huge cost to Ali.

Two failed marriages and two recent battles with breast and lung cancer later, the human rights cam-paigner is not slowing down.

“You know the fact is that once you start doing this work, you cannot have what you are telling other women not to stand for, you must not stand for those things.”

Ali was never detained by the au-thorities for her work during the 2006 crisis but she was stopped once from leaving the country.

She challenged this travel ban in 2007 and was awarded financial com-pensation in an out of court settle-ment. Because of her brave, humani-tarian work, Ali won the American Government’s ‘Women of Courage’ Award in 2007.

It was a recognition she was not comfortable with, mainly because she felt the award should have gone to women who had been incarcerated and mistreated during the coup.

“I wanted to return the award but my friends said ‘no, you have to take it because at this point in time, it is important for the recognition of human rights defenders’.

It was not to be the first of such accolades for Ali.

Rotary Foundation named her a Paul Harris Fellow under the Rotary International Award. Amnesty In-ternational of New Zealand crowned her with its inaugural Human Rights Defender Award in December 2010.

Her expertise has also been snapped up by the United Nations as then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan named her a member of the UN Expert Group on Girl Child in 2006.

She was also named among the top 100 influential women and men in Fiji over the last century in the book 20th Century Fiji.

grEEnEr PastUrEs?So is Ali considering moving to greener, perhaps safer ‘pastures’ any time soon?

“I’m not going to move, this is my country. I’m going to stay here. I do tell my family, ‘don’t tell people you’re related to me if you’re apply-ing for a job.’

“I know some of my friends par-ticularly in the civil service are not friendly to me anymore because they fear for their jobs not because they dislike me.

“I understand that, that’s fine. But we manage because we continue working with the government, we are involved in various dialogues.”

Ali said she continued to lobby government ministers, the most recent being the Crisis Centre’s protest against the ill-treatment of women and young girls through the proposed Fijian Village bylaws.

When reports of how some women were manhandled to wear a certain type of dress or adopt a certain hairstyle, Ali called on the intervention of the Prime Minister’s office.

Implementation of that proposed law has consequently been shelved, for now.

Every December Fiji based Pacific Islands current affairs magazine Islands Business selects its Pacific Person of the Year on its cover. This year the respected 40-year-old regional publication has chosen women’s rights activist Shamima AlisAmIsoNI pAretI


IndianIndian Fiji

‘ozone layer protection’ award for Fiji

Suva (FBC / Pacific Media Watch): Communications Fiji Limited has been censured for misleading the public during its coverage of the 2011 Rugby World Cup by the Media Industry Development Authority.

CFL broadcast numerous ad-vertisements, saying they were providing live commentary of the Rugby World Cup when Viti FM rugby commentator Malakai Veisamasama was in fact sitting in the CFL radio studio.

He was watching the game on television and providing com-mentary based on the TV cover-age.

In a letter to CFL managing director William Parkinson, au-thority chairman Subramani says an explanation by CFL news di-rector Vijay Narayan that radio commentaries had broadcast the event as it happenned in real time "off tube" without commenta-tors being actually present at the game was considered.

However, Subramani states that the Fiji public was not aware

of the new means of communica-tion, leading them to believe that commentators were watching the game live in New Zealand and reporting from there, therefore misleading them.

Subramani says it is impor-tant for commentators to state their location clearly. The author-ity says in such broadcasts in the future, CFL is expected to adopt the practice of identifying accu-rately the location from where the broadcast is being made.

When contacted, Parkinson denied receiving the letter.

"Well as far as I am aware we haven't had any correspondence at all on this matter from MIDA or anybody - we have received zero correspondence from MIDA on this subject right from the be-ginning of it - so I have no idea."

Attempts to get comments from Subramani proved futile.

The Fiji Times, Fiji TV and FBC were the only media organ-isations that sent a reporter to New Zealand to cover the World Cup.

CFl 'Guilty' of Misleading the public

Fiji is among 22 nations of the South Asia and South East Asian countries that received Achieve-ment Awards for complying with the zero consumption of harmful chemicals.

The award received from the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and Multilateral Fund (MLF) was for successfully meeting all the requisite for 2010 compliance guidelines for zero consumption of two chemicals that are harmful to the Ozone Layer.

This includes chloroflurocar-bons (CFCs)- which was once used in the old refrigerator systems, air-conditions and halons.

Fiji signed and ratified the Vienna Convention on the pro-tection of the ozone layer and the

Montreal Protocol on substances that deplete the ozone layer on October 23, 1989.

According to UNEP, the Fijian Government through the Depart-ment of Environment was a success story within the South Pacific since the ratification.

National Co-ordinator for Na-tional Capacity Self Assessment (NCSA)] Selevasio Tagivuni paid tribute to Government’s contin-ued resolve to be part of the global forum and technical practitioners to save the thinning ozone layer upon receiving the Achievement Award on behalf of Government.

“This Achievement Award is indeed a testament to our Gov-ernment’s commitment to be an active player in phasing out Ozone

Depleting Substances use. It has been indeed a challenging journey; however due acknowledgement and tribute ought to be rightfully given to all those who had been part of this journey,” Mr Tagivuni said.

He said the Ministry of Local Government, Urban Develop-ment, Housing and Environment, through the Environment Depart-ment must be commended, espe-cially the National Ozone Unit for its commendable and unmovable policy and Action Plan of Imple-mentation in complying to the 2010 compliance deadline.

“They are rightfully the silent champions of this global Achieve-ment Award,” Mr Tagivuni said.

Vanua levu to get its own new portFiji’s second largest island, Vanua Levu, which has a population of about 130,000, is finally set to have its own new port, helping boost investment on the island as well as facilitate export of its produce. Plans to build a port have been in the offing for more than a decade.

The Fijian administration, as part of the country’s long stand-ing “Look North” policy last week earmarked US$4.8 million in the national budget to con-sturct a port facility in Naduri, on the island. Labasa and Savusavu

are the two main centres on the verdant Vanua Levu.

The first substantial port in the country’s Northern Division will help exporters by offering swifter access to their markets in around the region as well as outside. It will also help inward investment according to the island’s admin-istration. The island will be in a position to receive vessels directly instead of overseas freight being routed via the main port in Suva. The new port is expected to drive down the cost of doing business in the Northern Division.

new HCFC control protocols for industryThe Fijian administration has said it will start the implementation of its HCFCs (Hydrochlorofluoro-carbons) Phase-out Management Plan (HPMP) project from next year. This was announced at an event to discuss the national strat-egy for implementation of what is known as the Montreal Protocol

The Protocol is an internation-al treaty to protect the ozone layer by phasing out the production of a range of chemicals believed to be responsible for ozone depletion, signed on to by several countries.

HPMP surveys conducted last year showed that in Fiji the domestic air conditioning sector had the second highest consump-

tion of HCFCs when compared to tourism, food processing, fishing industry sector and re-exports to other Pacific Island Countries.

The strategy document passed by Cabinet in August this year has a sub-component on Retrofit Incentive programme, whereby a technically feasible option that can be adopted by other stake-holders in the industry will be demonstrated through this pro-gramme.

Based on the technical Working Group’s trials, the Ret-rofit Incentive Programme will offer options for retrofitting resi-dential air conditioning systems will be implemented.

AMA sells below market price December is “Buy Fijian Made” month and what could be more ap-propriate then to kick-start the cam-paign by buying some locally grown fresh produce.

The Agricultural Marketing Au-thority, a statutory body tasked with marketing locally grown produce that cannot be exported, has devel-oped a weekly road sale that locals can take advantage of.

AMA sales and marketing manager Alivereti Yaya said they conducted the road sale every week where they sold export rejects at

competitive prices.“We sell at reduced price the

export rejects for cassava and dalo and also we sell other commodities that are available with us like home grown honey, local potatoes, veg-etables and sometimes coconuts,” he said.

While the word “reject” might sound negative, the fact is that commodities for export must be of highest quality to meet international standard.

The dalo and cassava are sourced from farmers in the interior of Viti

Levu, Vanua Levu, Koro, Gau and Kadavu- basically places that do not have an easy access to markets.

“The role of AMA is to market agricultural produce for farmers who do not have easy access to markets.” Mr Yaya said.

“Farmers who want AMA to sell their produce can get in touch with our offices in Nausori, Nabouwalu, Savusavu and Taveuni

“AMA will then arrange pick up of these commodities and pay farmers off at farm gate at very competitive prices.”

Fiji’s Prime Minister Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama last week at-tended the International Sugar Or-ganisation (ISO) conference and International Sugar Council (ISC) meeting in London, where he ad-dressed attendees on Fiji’s progress toward the 2014 democratic elec-tions and developments in sugar industry reform.

The ISO is an intergovernmental body committed to improving con-ditions in the global sugar market through – as defined on their site – “Debate, Analysis, Special Studies, Transparent Statistics, Seminars, Conferences and Workshops.”

Addressing the Council on na-tional policy, Prime Minister Baini-marama highlighted the contribu-tions of the sugar industry to Fiji’s socio-economic development, as nearly 200,000 Fijians, or 25% of the nation’s population, is somehow reliant on the sugar industry.

Noting the years of political and unionist maneuvering that proved of great detriment to the industry, the Prime Minister reaffirmed Gov-ernment’s commitment to institut-ing measures of accountability and transparency to ensure increased production through sustainable so-lutions.

Faced with tremendous de-clines in efficiency – and therefore

production levels – Government initiated major reforms, injecting $123.5 million to upgrade mills and setting aside $49 million to addi-tional improvements for 2012.

As part of these reforms, Prime Minister Bainimarama reported on the positive results achieved through the creation of a Land Bank system, which facilitated the productive utilization of idle land to benefit both farmers and landown-ers.

At the conclusion of the Council

meeting, Prime Minister was unanimously elected to the ISC Vice Chairmanship, nominated by both Brazil and India; India being elected to the ISC Chairmanship for 2012.

Recognition of the Bainimarama Government’s attention to develop-ment of the sugar industry points to larger scale efforts in optimizing – and protecting – Fiji’s natural re-sources for immediate benefit, and sustainable growth – for Fiji and its global industry partners.

Bainimarama is vice-chairman of global sugar body

Indian Fiji

Figures released by the Bureau of Statistics show that more than 72,000 international visitors arriv-ing into the country for the month of July surpassing the figure for the same period last year.

The actual 72,067 total repre-sents a 7.1 per cent increase over the 67,263 figure recorded in 2010 and effectively takes Fiji's 2011 sev-en-month total to 374,801. Accord-ing to Tourism Fiji, this in itself represents an 8.6 per cent increase over the 345,017 recorded for the January-July period in 2010.

Australian visitor arrivals again increased, rising by 7.1 per cent to reach 34,263 in the process eclips-ing the previous July record of 31,986 set in 2010.

Tourism Fiji CEO, Josefa Tuamoto said while the ongoing strong Australian dollar was playing a role in maintaining ongoing growth from this key source market, much of the growth could be directly correlated with the highly targeted campaigns un-dertaken by Tourism Fiji's Austra-lian office along with key airline partners, including Air Pacific, Virgin and Jetstar, retailers and wholesalers.

Feedback received from these partners, he said indicated some very healthy forward booking pat-

terns which would play a major role in Fiji maintaining projected 2011 targets of some 660,000 interna-tional visitor arrivals.

Figures from New Zealand jumped too with July 2011 arrivals showing a very healthy 11 per cent increase to reach 15,693, a 1553 in-crease over the 14,140 recorded for the same period last year.

While visitor arrival figures em-anating from other key markets – the US, Canada and UK – remained more or less stable registering only slight fluctuations, the biggest monthly percentage increase was again achieved by Chinese visitor arrivals, up an impressive 77.1 per cent from 1334 in July 2010 to reach 2363 this year.

Mr Tuamoto said he was ex-tremely gratified with the China result which he said was solid justi-fication for the increased efforts the national tourist office,

Air Pacific and industry part-ners combined have mounted in several key Chinese cities in recent months.

The release of the July visitor arrival statistics coincided with figures released by the Fiji Islands Hotel and Tourism Association which show average length of visitor stay in July has increased from 9.2 days to 9.3 days.

Arrivals on track for strong 2011 resultEnd rights abuses, Fiji told

New York (Human Rights Watch / Pacific Media Watch): Fiji’s mili-tary backed government should end attacks on critics and lift cen-sorship, Human Rights Watch said today in a joint letter with the In-ternational Trade Union Confed-eration (ITUC), International Fed-eration of Journalists, and Front Line Defenders.

The letter was sent on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the 2006 coup d’etat by Commodore Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama, who has since assumed the post of prime minister.

Over the past five years, Fiji’s military government has aggres-sively curtailed Fiji Islanders’ rights to freedom of speech, press, peaceful assembly, and associa-tion, the groups said.

The military and police have arbitrarily arrested and detained human rights defenders, jour-nalists, and labor and religious leaders.

“This anniversary is a sad re-minder of the abuses Fiji Island-ers have faced under this military government,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The government needs to stop making empty promises and respect basic rights.”

At the United Nations Human Rights Council in June 2010,

Fiji’s ambassador, Peceli Vocea, pledged that the government would improve its human rights situation.

Eighteen months later, the gov-ernment continues to curb basic freedoms.

Rather than embracing the important role that civil society, human rights defenders, and trade unions play in good governance, the Fiji government has system-atically repressed such groups, the organisations said.

The four organisations called on the government to address the ongoing crackdown on civil society and to stop renewing the 2009 Public Emergency Regula-tions.

The regulations restrict free speech, assembly and association, and grant the military sweeping powers of arrest and detention.

Despite promises to lift the reg-ulations, the government continues to renew them and used them as a pretext to harass and detain those perceived to be critical of the gov-ernment.

The government has also ag-gressively sought to dismantle the labour movement.

For instance, the Essential In-dustries Decree issued in July – the latest in a series of regressive laws that sharply curtail the rights of unions – voided all existing col-

lective bargaining agreements and essentially eliminated the right to strike in any industry the govern-ment designates “essential".

“This year, the military regime has engaged in an all-out assault on trade unionism in Fiji, by brute force, detention, threats, and out-landish executive decrees,” said Sharan Burrow, ITUC general sec-retary.

“These steps have undermined the ability of trade unions to defend the fundamental rights of workers on the job, and more, have sown a climate of fear and impunity.”

The groups also called on the government to cease media cen-sorship. The government contin-ues to assert control over published media content, stations govern-ment censors in newsrooms, and punishes journalists for material deemed anti-government.

The Media Industry Devel-opment Decree (Media Decree), which took effect in June 2010, forbids publications that are “against public interest or order” and restricts foreign media own-ership. The human rights, trade union, justice and news organisa-tions signing the letter urged the Fiji government to make a public commitment to take all necessary measures to protect human rights in Fiji.


IndianIndian

The Guru of the world is still online

Despite 1000 years of foreign rule in the case of India, we see a preserva-tion of an incessant Indian culture continuing for more than 5000 years till today. This wouldn’t have been possible without solid foundations.

India with her wisdom founda-tions has been acknowledged as the Guru of the world for centuries to-gether. However, the wisdom of the Guru got forgotten in the allure and glamour of the 19th century indus-trial revolution and the flashy capi-talism that followed. But today the increasing rationality and reasoning is overturning dogmatic stereotypi-cal notions about ancient cultures.

The forgotten Indian wisdom is being discovered in the very coun-tries by researchers and scholars that witnessed a boom of post world-war-capitalism. Many have discovered India as the wisest of civilisations for the philosophy, sciences she pro-duced and the values she imbibed and imparted to others. The dis-covery mainly uncovered a secular nature of India’s search for truth that treats everyone as a part of one family.

In fact, even during the industrial revolution, the famous British his-torian Arnold Toynbee (1852-1883), asserted that

“It is already becoming clear that a chapter which had a Western be-ginning will have to have an Indian ending if it is not to end in self-destruction of the human race. At this supremely dangerous moment in human history, the only way of salvation is the ancient Hindu way. Here we have the attitude and spirit that can make it possible for the human race to grow together in to a single family.”

By the word ‘Hindu’, Toynbee doesn’t mean a dogmatic creed that has strange obsessions but about the wisdom traditions with eternal law (Sanatana dharma) as the base, which he discovered in India during his lifetime in the 1800s. He is talking about the philosophical search into the truth that is sustain-ing everything.

Just like Toynbee and the other non-desi scholars discovered, it is not difficult to discover how the headquarters for this insight into “Truth” is India. A study of the continuous Indian culture, which is fashionably called as ‘Indology’ or ‘Indic study’ shows a dispassion of a civilisation towards material wealth as it embarked on an honest search for the truth. So much so, that even great Emperors like Chandragupta Maurya and Emperor Ashoka retired at the height of power and became renunciates to search and abide in truth.

India had kings like Paari Vallal, the legendary 9th CE Tamil Chola king who gave away his golden chariot to an ordinary wild-jasmine creeper (‘mullai’ in Tamil). As it so

happened, Paari Vallal was going through a forest on his golden chariot and stopped near a stream to quench his thirst. On his return he found that a mullai plant (a wild jasmine creeper) had entwined itself around one of the wheels of the chariot. He did not have the heart to disturb the creeper and to avoid breaking the vine of the creeper; he decided to give away his golden chariot to the plant and walked back to his palace.

How many emperors or Kings would do that at the height of their glory?

This is not some large-hearted philanthropy of a billionaire but of a mind that is dispassionate about the riches and an intellect that has taken shelter in the search for truth. Later on Paari was known to become a sage in his dynasty. There were many rulers throughout India like Paari and also governing councils that made wisdom as a foreground

for governance, which wouldn’t have been possible unless mate-rial prosperity is transcended. Such rich rulers also patronized arts and music as an expression of truth, built temples like the Brihadeswara temple & universities like Nalanda and Taksasila, funded monasteries like Ajanta & Ellora and gave forest sanctuaries to seekers and seers who had a direct insight (darshan) about reality.

India was an example of non-han-kering for power, non-subjugation of other cultures because a civilisa-tion that is mature and content turns itself towards higher things in life. Though India was the land of abun-dance for many a merchants, traders, looters, scavenging invaders, India considered her riches, success, power and everything material ab-solutely mundane. Talking about India’s material achievements, Grant Duff, the British Historian of India confirms, “Many of the advances in the sciences that we consider today to have been made in Europe were in fact made in India centuries ago”.

Even a brief reading into the Indian past shows why India was the magnet for seekers for centuries. But today’s India has lost much of her ancient glory due to self ignorance, self unconsciousness and lack of vi-sionary leadership.

Philip Goldberg, the Interfaith Minister, author of ‘American Veda: How Indian Spirituality Changed the West’ recently commented on the Huffington Post in his post titled ‘Obama Should Have Thanked India’ that “What we’ve imported in return is far more subtle, but perhaps even more profound. Ages ago, the vast subcontinent (India) birthed explor-ers and innovators who focused on the inner realm. Those geniuses — spiritual sages or scientists of con-sciousness, depending on your per-spective — gave us, through a series of modern translators and adapters, insights that have profoundly influ-enced religion, healthcare, psychol-ogy, the arts and other areas of life. The way we understand ourselves and the universe has been shaped by India more than we can readily ap-preciate.”

So how does one get online with this Guru of the world. the great mystic Osho asserts

“For me India and spirituality are synonymous…Only India has established that God is within man, only India has given man the capa-bility, the dignity and the beauty of he himself becoming the temple, the shrine…India is the only land in the whole world, strangely, which has devoted all its talents in a concen-trated effort to see the truth and to be the truth…. If you try to catego-rize it with other countries, you have already missed the point, because those countries don’t have the spiri-tual aura…the mystic is India’s mo-nopoly…If you come here just as a tourist, you will miss it…there is a spiritual part. Your cameras cannot photograph it; your training, your education cannot capture it…If you come here with a little bit of a medi-tative mind, you will come in contact with it…”

To get online with real India may be a book like ‘India my Love – Fragments of a golden past’ by Osho is a good start.

Fijiheritage

How many civilisations have survived a foreign rule or a religious hegemony without cultural carnage or genocide? The extinct civilisations of native Americans, native south Americans and Africa is a case in point. Imagine a civilisation at gunpoint with political slavery to outside forces for over 1000 years and ravaged in every way possible? What do you think would happen to that culture, lifestyle, language and traditions after centuries of foreign rule?

rAm LINGAm

India is the only land in the whole world, strangely, which

has devoted all its talents in a concentrated effort to see

the truth and to be the truth…. If you try to categorize it with

other countries, you have already missed the point, because

those countries don’t have the spiritual aura…the mystic is

India’s monopoly…If you come here just as a tourist, you will

miss it…there is a spiritual part. Your cameras cannot pho-

tograph it; your training, your education cannot capture it…

If you come here with a little bit of a meditative mind, you

will come in contact with it…”


Indian

The Guru of the world is still onlineMumbai: Ranveer Singh, who hit the jackpot with his first film Band Baaja Baaraat is returning with his second film Ladies Vs Ricky Bahl where he will be seen conning girls.

When asked about his second movie experience, Ranveer told Komal Nahta on ETC Bollywood Business: “After the success of Band Baja Baaraat, meri iss movie mein band bajj rahi hai. Everyone is considering this movie as my litmus test to justify my potential.”

Ranveer Singh has been in con-stant media scrutiny, since his first hit, for his relationship status with multiple female actors.

Discussing his reaction to such news Ranveer said, “When such news comes, it really ruins my day. May be media thinks that I am new and a soft target.”

Anushka Sharma who has once again teamed up with Ranveer ex-tending their crackling on-screen chemistry, commented on her expe-rience with Ranveer in this movie, saying, “He was more calm and composed in this movie.”

Commenting on her relation-ship with Ranveer, Anushka said, “I have a good on and off screen relationship with Ranveer. We have a very good and comfortable rela-tionship.”

Anushka, who kicked off her career in Bollywood with Rab Ne bana di Jodi, feels she had not re-ceived the expected response from the industry and audiences. Elabo-

rating further, she said, “Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi ke baad meri jitne expectations thi for myself… didn’t materialize. As a matter of fact I had to struggle a bit after my first hit!”

Hrithik Roshan named Sexiest Asian Man Mumbai: Bollywood star Hrithik Roshan has emerged as the World’s sexiest

Asian Man in 2011.

According to a survey conducted by the Eastern Eye Weekly, Hrithik, 37,

beat many high profile stars to top the 50-strong list.

The popular A-list actor won by the largest margin in the history of men’s list,

to topple last year’s winner Ranbir Kapoor, who finished sixth.

Hrithik, who was third last year, got votes from all over the world from fans of

different ages and cultures via social networking sites like Twitter.

Described by many as a Greek God, Hrithik went back to his winning ways in

2011, playing the lead role in the mega-hit movie ‘Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara’ and

also had his wax statue added to the Madame Tussauds museum in London.

“He has acted in the most anticipated ‘Agneepath’ remake, featured as a

judge on the hit TV show ‘Just Dance’ and signed up for the eagerly awaited

superhero movie sequel ‘Krrish 2',” the weekly said.

“Hrithik is a worthy winner; a leading man with a global appeal. This year,

there was a massive gap between Hrithik and the rest of the competitors. He

is the perfect ambassador for India and someone who could take on anyone in

Hollywood in terms of looks, talent and likability,” said Asjad Nazir, Eastern Eye

showbiz editor.

Media think i am a soft target, says Ranveer

Bollywood

Mumbai: Saregama India Ltd, India’s flagship music and enter-tainment company, has announced the launch of a new platform for highly talented and popular main-stream artists, to reach iconic heights in the music world called Saregama Icons Nxt with UTV Bindass.

Saregama Icons Nxt with UTV Bindass will seek to identify great new talent and promote main-stream artists to revive Mainstream Popular Music and fashion them into the Next Generation Music Icons.

Saregama and UTV Bindass search for the country’s finest and most talented artists has so far yielded five young acts that guaran-tee a massive fan base.

This gamut of artists will be showcased on UTV Bindass in a variety of contemporary genres, with each Iconic figure redefining a style. The hugely popular artists

being featured are of the likes of Samar & Sanam, Phoenyx, Nasha, Paapi 4 and The Dhol Factory.

Apurva Nagpal, MD, Saregama India Ltd. said, “There has been a huge vacuum in the Pop genre in

India for many years. This is an en-deavour to resurrect the genre.”

Keith Alphonso, Business Head – UTV Bindass, said: “To create the next generation of music icons we are pleased to partner with Saregama Icons Nxt to promote the country’s finest and most tal-ented young musicians. Through this partnership we look forward to further strengthen our connect with music and thereby with our audi-ences too.”

David MacDonald, Head of YouTube Partner Operations, Asia Pacific, said: “India is home to many talented singers and YouTube is a democratic platform that pro-vides a unique opportunity to every individual to express themselves and pursue their passion online.”

Flipkart, one of the largest online shopping stores has come on board to promote and retail the artist albums with heavy online support across platforms.

Saregama, UtV Bindass to revive music

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1. Applicable to money transfers to Fiji from 01 November 2011 to 31 December 2011. For other amounts and fees please contact your local Western Union® Agent location. Western Union also makes money from currency exchange. Subject to applicable taxes, if any. © 2011 Western Union Holdings, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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IndianBollywood

I was a hard-core Dara Singh fan. I looked forward to watching his films and imi-tated his wrestling style in scuffles with local kids. I did

not actually consider him a great actor though. I told him so when he came to my small town for a free-style wrestling show. I was in class fifth then.

I graduated to become a Dev Anand fan around the time I was in class 6th. That is when I began to understand the idea of romance. I considered him an actor par excel-lence. I somehow had developed the capacity to compare the works of our film actors and always felt that Dev Anand was the only one who lived his roles. None could deliver a well-written speech more spontane-ously, passionately, and fluently than him. And when he romanced his heroines in front of the camera, he actually romanced them and when he sang a song, it seemed he actually sang them. He was not very good at crying though. He cried like a child while doing grown-up roles and people laughed to the extreme indig-nation of his hard-core fans like me.

There has been this constant attempt by some to run down his acting prowess and present him as a mere style icon, and as a man full of energy and zest for life. They ignore his extremely nuanced and believable performances in films

like “Baazi”, ‘Kaala Pani”, “Kala Bazaar”, “Guide”, and “Tere Mere Sapne”. He played his complex char-acters naturally and seamlessly. He was not into ‘acting’ a scene out in a theatrical manner.

During my college and universi-ty days my rousing speeches as a big time student leader also had a hint of Dev Anand’s style. Like all his fans I hated it when he faltered in later years and made those terrible films and behaved awkwardly in awards presentation ceremonies.

If I ever wanted to meet a film star on my first visit to Bombay, it was Dev Anand. And I once went to his office, a dilapidated building in Santacruz. I could just get a glimpse of him as he walked into the room of his assistant with whom I was sitting; he issued rapid-fire instruc-tions to his assistant, threw a quick glance at me, and then walked out. I had first seen the Reliance head honcho Amit Khanna in the same office. Dev Anand talked to his as-sistant in his trademark and much-imitated style in which he delivered his film dialogues. It was 1981 or 82. He was thin and fragile even then.

Years later, around the time he was going to release his film “Main Solah Baras Ki”, I met him again, with my friend Anil Shergil, in his penthouse at his Pali Hill office and studio. We were with him for more than an hour, talking about films. He

commended my passion and energy. We had tea and biscuits with him and listened to gems of his wisdom. He did not want to show his film to distributors and he had an ironclad argument, “My film is my point of view. Only the audience can validate or invalidate it and not a distribu-tor or any other middleman.” What could anyone say to him after that?

This time again he was speak-ing the way his characters talk in his films, passionately, and sincerely. I am sure when he wrote a letter and put words like ‘yours sincerely’ or ‘yours truly’ in the end, it was not just a formal thing for him. He actu-ally meant it.

When he announced his films like “Mr. Prime Minister” or “Chargesheet”, he probably started with the resolve to do some path-breaking work. However, as we all know, making movies is as tough as fighting a war. You need a competent team around you and it is a constant battle. Some give up. His younger brother Vijay Anand did when he realised he could not make films his way. Dev Anand did not. Though the odds did not favour him any more, he carried on like a lone ranger, frail and fragile, taking failures in his own stride, with no intentions to give up till his last breath.

He paid for his failures largely out of his own resources while none dared to dampen the fervour of a child by reminding him of his obvious stupidities. Doing so would have been a criminal and callous act.

There are people you like being with for hours. You can discuss ev-

erything in the world with them without getting tired. Dev Anand was one of them. His press confer-ences were so enjoyable. He spoke sincerely and enthusiastically, meaning every word he spoke. He never fudged answers, and interact-ed with childlike enthusiasm with everyone. More than being a great star, he was essentially a very good man, a rarity in the film industry. He was as open a book as he could be.

And he was certainly a man of conviction. He stood up against the might of Indira Gandhi in 1977. While the entire film industry was crawling at the feet of an authori-tarian regime, the Navketan camp

joined the whole nation in condemning the misdeeds of Indira Gandhi. One recalls seeing the group photograph of Dev Anand, Vijay Anand, Shatrughan Sinha, and the rest of the Navketan campers, standing on a stage at Shivaji Park, their hands raised in support of the newly born Janata Party. They demonstrated in that singular act that film folks are not 'Bhands' whose sole job is to tell harmless stories and entertain their political masters. They have their own mind and political and eco-nomic thinking and they have the guts and gumption to stand up for those views. He formed his political

party much later. It is not true that he did not attend

funerals. He did attend his younger brother Vijay Anand’s funeral and stood very close to the pyre, feeling its intense heat, as the ashes from it flew into air and settled on his jacket. He had also cried on that day in full public view. Immediately after that, instead of standing at the Santacruz crematorium to accept the condo-lences of people with folded hands, he got on to a small platform and gave a speech in his fervent style exhorting everyone not to mourn his brother’s death and move on with life. He had that capacity to move on, in spite of setbacks and betray-als.

I met him again about a year ago in his tiny makeshift Khar office along with the editor of a leading trade weekly. This time we talked about the industry and the reigning trends in cinema. We again had tea and biscuits. He said he wanted to meet me later some time. It did not happen and he is gone now. He died in his sleep peacefully according to reports. I saw how someone dies of a sudden heart failure in Goa recently. You are fully active one moment and in the next you go into a deep

eternal sleep. That is how good and beautiful people leave the mortal world. The only regret is that there are not many good people around us and they leave a big void after their departure.

Mumbai filmmaker Rajesh Kumar Singh writes a personal tribute on the man who he admired most

From an eternal

Dev AnAnD

BollywoodIndian

Mumbai/London: The style-icon of Bollywood, Dev Anand, passed away on Sunday, leaving a deep vaccum in the world of Indian cinema. He was 88 years young when the end came. His son Suneil was near him.

The man who thought ahead of his time and had revolutionized Bollywood in a way with a film like Guide featuring a live-in relation-ship with a married woman in 1965, passed away in a London hotel after suffering a massive cardiac arrest. He is survived by his wife and chil-dren.

Known for his spontaneous acting and unique style that can be compared some of the Hollywood greats of yesteryear, critics and his fans have often compared him with Hollywood icon Gregory Peck. The sparkling eyes and the romantic appeal made him the heartthrob of B-town.

Dev Anand was a powerhouse of energy and youthfulness till his last days and as filmmaker Karan Johar sums up as as the man who epito-mized all that Bollywood gave us.

When asked what motivates him

to work so hard even today, he had told our correspondent recently: "I want to take the world with me. Absolutely that’s the way I feel and that’s why I am living. And there’s no business like show business….it’s beautiful."

"Dreams should never die. When the dreams are dead, you are dead. After fulfilling every dream, I realize there is a new dream that dawns. I used to dream about the Hollywood people…my inspiration is Hollywood in 1950s," he said.

Dev Saab, as he was affection-ately known, was born Dharam Dev Anand on Sept 26 1923 in Shakar-garh Tehsil – District Gurdaspur now Narowal district of Pakistan] as the second of four offspring of a rich lawyer of British India Kishorimal Anand.

After entering the film industry he had fallen in love with the leg-endary Suraiya. He played second fiddle to her in 4 of the 7 movies starring her but had by then become a heartthrob of every woman.

Despite gifting a diamond ring worth over Rs.3000 [an emperor’s ransom in the early fifties] and ro-mancing the actress, he could not marry her due to differences in religion – she being a Muslim and neither willing to convert.

Suraiya remained single throughout her life.

Paired with Kalpana Kartik in Baazi produced under the banner of Navketan in 1951, Dev had truly arrived as an actor with a distinct

style in dialogue delivery and a sexy swagger that sent audiences squeal-ing with delight.

A few years later Dev married Kalpana who also had tried his hand at acting briefly.

He was honoured with the Padma Bhushan in 2001 and the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 2002 for his contributions towards Indian cinema.

Apart from acting Dev Anand had equal amount of brilliance and knowledge in film-making.

The actor, who introduced some of the most beautiful and glamor-ous heroines of Bollywood like the classic beauty Waheeda Rahman and the 70s sex symbol Zeenat Aman, after graduating in English Literature from the Government College, Lahore (now Pakistan), left his hometown and came to Mumbai in the early 1940s.

Recalling the association to a TV channel, Waheed Rahman said breaking down: "He was my first hero. He was one of the finest and most decent man in the industry. We are all going to miss him. I am really very sad."

"We have to learn so much from him. He had so much energy in him. I used to call him an Eveready battery.

"I used to feel very secure with him," said Waheeda, adding that the actor was not into smoking or drinking, she said.

In an earlier interview to TWF-IBNS, Waheeda Rahman said how

Dev Anand was happy when she got all the critical acclaim for acting in Guide.

"Dev (Anand) called me up and said: 'Waheeda, jo bhi threatre se bahar aa raha hai, woh hi baas 'Rosy Rosy' kar raha hai. I am feeling very bad...I am the producer, hero...I am the Guide, but all are praising you.'," Waheeda recalled.

India reacted to the death of their favourite icon on Sunday as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said: “Dev Anand was a great artiste who entertained generations of cinema lovers over five decades. He was an embodiment of long passion for acting and film-making. I join mil-lions of his fans in mourning his death.”

"There was no pack up for Dev Anand in life," said filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt about the legend of Indian cinema.

He joined his older brother Chetan as a member of the Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA). He was soon offered a debut as an actor by Prabhat Talkies to star in their film Hum Ek Hain(1946).

He struck a friendship with another legend, Guru Dutt, and his famous onscreen heroine was Suraiya. He was honoured with the Padma Bhushan in 2001 and the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 2002 for his contributions towards Indian cinema.

His fans will always remember him for his sparkling performance in films like ‘Hare Rama Hare

Krishna’, Aage Badho’, ‘Bombai Ka Babu ‘, ‘C.I.D’, ‘Kalabaazar’, ‘Love Marriage’,’ Guide’,’ Paying Guest’, ‘Jewel Thief ‘, ‘Kala Pani ‘, 'Prem Pujari', Hum Dono’,‘and 'Tere Ghar Ke Samne’.

The songs of his films have touched generations for ages.

In recent years, the busy ‘ever-green’ actor of B-town kept himself engaged in making new films. ‘Censor’ was one such production he had made. However, the film flopped significantly at the box-office.

But following his own tradition, he used to give chances to young actors in his films and he kept on doing it in his later year movies.

A user of micro-blogging site ‘Twitter’, he used to communicate with his fans quite regularly.

With his death, his account will no more be seen buzzing with his oneliners. His last tweet was made on Dec 2, his account ‘itsmedeva-nand’ showed.

His last film ‘Chargesheet‘ had hit the silver screen in Sept, this year.

The year 2011 will go down in the history of Indian entertainment industry as one of the darkest year as it witnessed the passing away of so many legends that include- Shammi Kapoor, Bhupen Hazarika, Jagjit Singh and now Dev Anand.

– Supriyo Hazra with inputs from Sreya Basu, TSV Hari and Sujoy Dhar

dev Anand: the Guide bids farewell

Indian

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Kolkata: Bharti Airtel, India’s leading telecommu-nications company, last week released its annual survey of customer preferences – Airtel Mobitude 2011.

This is the only annual survey of its kind that cap-tures customer preferences through their mobile usage patterns and trends among customers across India.

Summarising the findings of India’s “mobile attitude” for the third consecutive year, Airtel Mobitude reflects the verdict of the Indian masses based on in-depth study of data capturing all content downloaded round the year by its over 170 million plus mobile customers in the country.

This survey is compiled at the end of every calendar year and brings out results across various categories including top cine stars and sports icons, most down-loaded songs, various sports, music downloads etc.

A new trend that is fast gaining popularity is the significant increase in consumer desire to interact with the movie stars, favorite singers and cricketers through platforms like Talk2me and Live Concert.

N Rajaram, Chief Marketing Officer – Consumer Business, Bharti Airtel said, "It clearly highlights the rising demand for data services being driven by tech-nologies like 3G and proliferation of smart phones. Today, the mobile is a major source of entertainment and information – be it a user in a large town or small village.”

According to the survey, in the entertainment

space, the ‘Kolaveri Di’ song has topped the Indian mobile charts within 18 days of its launch. The song has beaten all previous record holders like ‘Munni Badnaam Hui ‘and ‘Tere Mast Mast Do Nain’.

In the Bollywood segment, Katrina Kaif and Shah Rukh Khan maintain the leading position in the cat-egory of images downloaded this year. Despite several new entrants in Bollywood – Imran Khan and Jacque-line Fernandes were the only new comers to feature among the top 5 categories.

In the Hollywood segment, Kim Kardashian and Michael Jackson hold the top position in the category of images downloaded.

Amongst sport stars, Sachin Tendulkar clearly continued to be India’s favourite, followed by Indian cricket team captain M.S.Dhoni. Sania Mirza climbs to the fifth spot followed by Maria Sharapova.

According to the survey, approximately 20 million images and wallpapers were downloaded by Airtel mobile users in the last one year.

Katrina, SRK most downloaded celebs

Mumbai: Singer Sonu Nigamhas has said he had lots of affairs and relationships in his life.

Sonu recently shared a candid conversation with Komal Nahta on ETC Bollywood Business.

Talking about the role of his parents in his success, Sonu said, “Main apne maa baap ka sapna hu. Whatever money I earn, I give it to my father. He has invested my money smartly and secured my

entire life. He has asked me that if I ever want to stop working, I can. I won’t become poor.”

Sonu struggled his way up to the music industry with no godfather.

Speaking about one of his experi-ences, Sonu said, “In my struggling days I sang two songs at T-series Studios … I had a lot of expecta-tions for its selection. A month later, when I went to their office, I got to know that the song was given to

S.P. Bala Subramaniyam and Manu Chitra. Main T-series ke office se nikal kar phoot phoot ke rone laga. Main already hatash tha,thak gaya tha main, dhakke kha kha ke, logo ki galiyaa sun sun ke.”

Elaborating it further he said, “In those days male singers were mostly very flirtatious in nature. Isiliye sabse zyada struggle male singers ko karni padti thi.”

On the personal front, Sonu re-

vealed that, “I’ve had lots of affairs and relationships in my life. There were times when my dad used to ac-company me to a concert or tour and … there always was some girl I had to meet! Har jagah pe ek ladki hua karti thi.” Sonu recounted, bursting into laughter. Sonu went ahead and confessed that ‘I am scared of cock-roaches’ and ‘Flight me koi movie me emotional scene chalta hai, toh main ro padta hu.’

Had lots of affairs: Sonu nigam

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Chennai: Even as the nation sings paeans of the fresh commercial success of the screen rage The Dirty Picture, an environment friendly national award winning Kannada film is also scaling newer heights in the south.

Not many realised in the southern me-tropolis that critically acclaimed director P Sheshadhri was mouthing the same lines as

well known Bollywood producer Ekta Kapoor elsewhere in India over the success of his dark horse celluloid offering ‘Bettada Jeeva – Man of the Hills’.

“The success of my award winning film in terms of monetary gains is a pleasant shock. As a creative person, this plus will augment my creative instincts even more in my next as it will inspire our team,” Sheshadhri told jour-nalists during an interaction with journalists here.

‘Bettada Jeeva' has bagged the national film award for best film on environment con-servation/preservation.

“The simple life of Gopalaiah and his wife Shankari and the story of Gopalaiah’s spirit of adventure form the crux of the storyline. The film is about human relationships and about people living in the hills and forests, their

innocence, hospitality, native wisdom and culture,” Sheshadhri said.

“During the dark days of colonialism, people who inhabited the Western Ghats were warm to everyone and accommodative to ev-erything. That perhaps had emboldened the foreign powers to apply their variety of chutz-pah to capture India. It is this aspect that is

the unique selling point of the film as au-dience’s tastes are changing,” Sheshadhri observed.

Based on Jnanpith Award recipient Dr. K. Shivarama Karanth’s Kannada novel by the same name that highlighted the generosity of India’s poor in a moving but simple story line, the film has received rave reviews and critical acclaim for national award winning actor H.G. Dattatreya, who also played the male protagonist in the film.

“There is a wrong belief that arty films are commercial failures. That is a thing of the past. Though we are in no way compa-rable to the commercial success of better

promoted films, the fact that we not only recover our costs but also trigger a return on investment to the extent of 300% is a good in-centive,” Dattatreya said.

Sheshadhri is a postgraduate in Kannada Literature and a diploma holder in journalism.

Beginning his movie career in 1990 as Screenplay and dialogue writer, Sheshadhri ventured into documentaries, soaps and tele-films.

His bow into filmdom as director in 2000 with MUNNUDI (Preface) won him serious critical acclaim.

All the other offerings viz. Atithi (Guest), Beru (Root), Thutturi (Bugle), Vimukthi (Lib-eration) made in 2001, 2004, 2005 and 2008 respectively won him national awards making him the first in the industry to achieve such a feat.

A “clean picture” too makes waves

Bollywood

tsv hArI

A scene from "Bettada Jeeva - Man of the Hills"

ArNAB chArKrABorty

MoVie ReVieWthe charming con manRanveer-Anushka Jodi is back in theatres after Band Baaja Baarat in the latest instalment from the Chopra house- Ladies Vs Ricky Bahl, and this fun filled paisa vasool movie is a must watch for Ranveer fans and also for a certain black bikini scene.

thE BacKgrOUnD

Ranveer is the con man with stunning abs, lots of sweet words and a factory of names. He preys on females ranging from the hapless damsels to the powerful tigresses of the society making a lot of money with his innovative schemes. After one particular heist three of his victims try to elicit revenge by hiring Anushka Sharma to con the con man.

ThE stOry- 3/5

A tad predictable but still has some real con-viction to it. It seems that after months of lack-lustre scripts (and a certain disastrous science fiction attempt) Bollywood is finally able to create proper story lines. For the first hour of the movie the innovative schemes will keep you hooked but the story gets a little predict-able in the second half with reminiscences from a dozen other loves stories.

But don't let the obvious happy ending pre-diction let you down, because Ladies Vs Ricky Bahl still has a lot of goodies and gags to keep you occupied.

The characters itself are believable and ladies beware, this suave “chor” will surely catch your attention with his moves and looks while boys Anushka makes up for the lack of stellar intellect with some steamy hot scenes.

The rest of the characters, especially Dimple (Parineeti Chopra) are believable and ab-solutely enjoyable.

thE DirEctiOn anD tEchniqUE – 2.5/5

It’s the Band Baaja Baaraat(BBB) team and direc-tor who have gathered together to make another enjoyable rom com and to most extents they have succeeded. What director Maneesh Sharma also reused apart from the cast and crew was Ranveer’s energetic image, only this time there is the obvious slickness that re-vamped Ranveer’s previous image from BBB.

The only flaw apart from the slightly predictable romance was his inability to recreate the fantastic screen chemistry of Ranveer and Anushka that had made his last venture such an endearing watch.

Also the pace of the movie is rather erratic and it slows down quite a bit in certain parts making it a tad boring. On the whole however half thumbs up!

thE acting – 3.5/5

Ranveer is a find. He is brand new exploitable merchandise for our future viewing pleasure

and for this flick he appears on screen to blast your senses away. This conman wants to win and he does so in style (with all of his packs blaring).

Ranveer doesn’t bore you as the protagonist

and manages to exude the right amount of flair to make his character come alive on screen.

Anushka however pales in comparison to the dude when it comes to the screen presence department but she doesn’t fail in the oomph department. Still she will not leave as lasting an impression as she had left during her last venture with Ranveer.

But it isn’t only about the cool boy so “Ladies” don't fret. Show’s not over until we mention the trio- Parineeti Chopra as Dimple Chaddha, Dipannita Sharma as Raina Parule-kar and Aditi Sharma as Saira Rashid. These three occupy a fair share of the screen time and with mesmerising effects. They keep the gags rolling and make the movie much much more eventful.

thE MUsic – 2.5/5

The songs are mostly dance masti type party tracks that will get you feet tapping in no time but apart from that they are forgettable.

The background scores work and flow smoothly with the storytelling.

On thE WhOlE

Ladies Vs Ricky Bahl is a movie to enjoy and forget. There are no hidden meanings and so no use in searching for them but on the whole the movie is a nice watch.

So if you are in the mood for trying out something light with an amusing storyline and believable cool characters then this movie is for you.

If not then you can give this romantic con man a skip.

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Anushka Sharma has changed her profession…she is no longer the wedding planner from Band Baaja Baaraat, but a con woman all set to floor Ranveer Singh in Ladies Vs Ricky Bahl . Correspondent Sreya Basu in conversation with the actor in Mumbai days before the film’s releaseYour film Ladies Vs Ricky Bahl re-leases this Friday. Is there too much pressure? The film is releasing Dec 9…so things are hotting up for sure. It’s all happening…as we are getting closer, the intensity is increas-ing…the pressure is there, but the excitement is higher. And let’s just wait and watch…fingers crossed.

This is the second time you are pairing up with Ranveer Singh post Band Baaja Baaraat success. Do you think you can cope up with peo-ple’s expectation from your pairing with Ladies Vs Ricky Bahl?We have shot Ladies Vs Ricky Bahl with as much dedication as we did Band Baaja Baaraat, we promoted the film good…as much as we did for Band Baaja Baaraat and all our films. I think what happens before a film releases is exactly the same for every film…you work that hard. You don’t say before Band Baaja Baaraat there was not so much pressure, but now let’s work hard. It doesn’t work that way. But what happens post the film’s release, is left to the people who decide the verdict. We are hoping that the verdict will be a positive one.

What effect did Ladies Vs Ricky Bahl have on your on-screen relationship with Ranveer?We have become a lot more comfortable with each other. Ranveer and I are very different actors where the approach to scenes is con-cerned. In our first film together (Band Baaja Baaraat), we could not adapt ourselves with each other’s approach to acting. And it would trouble us so much…I used to wonder: What the hell is he doing? And he used to think: What the hell is she doing? We just could not get over that. He used to do rehearsals and

kapal bharti before takes, while I don’t re-hearse much…I am a more spontaneous actor. But with this film (Ladies Vs Ricky Bahl), we have gained a lot more respect for each other. We worked better as a team in this film than Band Baaja Baaraat.

What does Ranveer has to say about your equation with him?That you have to ask him. But he keeps saying that he doesn’t know much about equations as he kept failing in chemistry throughout his life. And when I came in his life, he passed with flying colours. That’s Ricky Bahl for you ladies…pakhandi. (Laughs)

You are doing a film (Matru Ki Biwi Ka Mann Dola) with Vishal Bhard-waj?Yes, I am going to do Vishal Bhardwaj-ji’s next film and I am really excited about it because he is one director I always wanted to work with. I always admire his work, the way he thinks and the way he portrays his think-ing on cinema.

You are also going to work with Katrina Kaif in Yash Chopra’s di-rectorial next. Now do we expect some cat fights since things are gen-erally not very smooth when two pretty girls work together?I was watching Zindagi Milegi Na Dobara sometime back, and there’s a scene where she (Katrina) is sleeping…and the camera goes over her face…and I exclaimed: Wow…she looks so beautiful when she is sleeping. Katrina is stunningly beautiful and more than that she has managed to make a place in everybody’s heart all over the country. And people love her…children, old people…all adore Katrina Kaif.

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recipe By Ruby Dhillon

health

METHODSeparate the whole cauliflower into small florets.In a bowl mix curd, cream, ginger paste, tandoori masala, red chilli powder, salt and gram flour mix well.Marinate cauliflower florets with the mixture, cover and keep it aside for 45 minutes.Skewer the cauliflower or just place the marinated florets directly on the barbeque grill and cook all the sides till it acquires a light golden brown colour.Serve hot with chaat masala on it and a dash of lemon juice.

TANDOORI GOBHIINGREDIENTS1- whole cauliflower1/2 cup- curd (Greek yoghurt from any su-per market as it is thick and nice to marinate)¼ cup- cream2tbsp- gram flour (besan)1tsp- ginger paste2tsp- tandoori masala 1/2tsp- red chilli pow-der 1tsp salt or according to taste1or 2 lemons cut into wedgesChaat masala Wooden skewers

The next time you wish to tell your kids that they will become fat if they are not active, you will have to think twice!

We often believe that inactivity leads to fatness. However, a recently published study does not believe this to be true. On the contrary, the re-searchers found that fatness leads to inactivity!

Childhood obesity is a major cause of concern in a number of countries today. Obesity occurs due to an imbalance between intake of energy (in the form of diet) and expenditure (in the form of physi-cal activity, basal metabolic activ-ity rate of the body etc.). A number of initiatives have been taken up by the UK government to promote ac-tivity in children in schools as well as at home in an attempt to control obesity.

A study was carried out to test the association between fatness and physical activity level in children. A total of 307 children of 5 years of age were selected from different schools in the UK for the study. These chil-dren were examined once a year when they reached 7 years till they completed 10 years of age.

Physical activity was measured for a total of 4 times in each child during the study with the help of an instrument called the Actigraph ac-celerometer. The physical activity was measured for at least 5 consecu-

tive days including a weekend day each time.

As a measure of fatness, whole body fat percentage was measured using dual energy x-ray absorpti-ometry. Body mass index and waist circumference were also measured.

From the selected group, 202 children completed the study.

The study found that, in general,

girls have a higher body mass index, waist circumference, body fat per-centage and are less physically active than boys. In both, boys as well as girls, body mass index, waist circumference and body fat percent-age increased with age, just as physi-cal activity declined.

The study confirmed what was earlier known - that physical activ-ity and fatness are inversely related.

Based on statistical analysis, it however states that fatness is more likely to affect future activity rather than a decrease in activity affecting fatness. Body fat percentage was predictive of changes in physical ac-tivity, but physical activity was not predictive of changes in body fat.

Similar results were also seen in adults in other studies.

The results of this study should however not be interpreted as physi-cal activity being useless. Physical activity definitely has a positive in-fluence on health and should be en-couraged. This study mainly high-lights that only increasing physical activity is not the answer to control-ling childhood obesity in various government programs.

Several explanations have been suggested to explain why increase in fatness may lead to physical in-activity. Fat children may perceive their bodies negatively and therefore avoid taking part in sports. Exercise in obese children may cause muscle pain, breathlessness and fatigue faster than in children of normal weight.

Further large-scale studies are required to establish these findings and find out the exact reasons for the same. In addition, since diet has been successful in various studies in controlling obesity, studies should probably focus on this aspect in con-trolling childhood obesity.

Fatness cause not effect of physical inactivity

The study confirmed what was earlier known - that physical activity and fatness are inversely related. Based on statistical analysis, it however states that fatness is more likely to affect future activity rather than a decrease in activity affecting fatness.

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Christmas is a time for celebration and fun, time to dig in to all the pud-dings and treats which are presented to us laden with love and cream, even before we realize, our current wardrobe might face a risk of a com-

plete makeover. The season links strongly with

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Our social outings and family g e t - t o g e t h e r s are significantly higher during this season causing a double jeopardy - more treats and no time for the gym - a lethal combina-

tion which is a snag that one needs to be mindful about during this season.

If unable to hit the gym without an increase in your usual food intake, there is a good chance that you will

manage your weight but if you dig in to the ‘Oh So Yummy - Aunty’s pudding” or such other delicatessens each day the outcome is clearly spelt out, it may be hard to fit in to your clothes……sounds frightening !!!

So some key areas to focus this season are:l When eating out choose healthier

options – salads, greens etc. are good to fill your plate with.

lGrilled is good, with the sun at its full glory, summer is a perfect excuse to have BBQ’s – A great way to catch up with friends and relax too!!

l Fruits are great – Fruit and fruit salad add color to your plate and are very refreshing during summer – this should be your first choice over any dessert.

l Green vegetables add a delight to any meal – stir fry, bake or even add them to your salads - go for it.

l When attending events or parties, compensate your intake at other meal times – Go light before the party.

l Think Healthy – train your mind to pick and choose the right food.

l Go slow with alcohol, choose to add tonic water or dilute it with a

low-caloric beveragel While enjoying a drink, be

mindful of the snacks, nibbling at chips and nuts add a lot.

lWhile enjoying dessert, look for options, pick a fruit based dessert and definitely avoid adding extra cream or syrups for toppings.

l The more you see, the more you want - Stand away from the serving table.

l Get moving whenever possible, park your car at a distance and walk to the venue. Add as much physical activity to your days whenever you can.

Remember this is the perfect time to relax and spend with family and friends, do not feel starved or de-prived, have a safe, joyous and healthy Christmas.

This article is a general guideline ONLY, if you have any medical con-dition and for individual conditions you should consult a health profes-sional or your medical practitioner immediately.

Varsha Asrani is a New Zealand registered clinical dietitian, for personal consultations, queries, suggestions and feedback she can be contacted on [email protected]

Silly Season… beat the challenges!!!vArshA AsrANI

It is again that time of the year when you want to just eat, drink and be merry.

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Indian Weekender #67

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