Gujarat babus and the art of car maintenance Thursday, October 25, 2001
BY AMIT MUKHERJEE, TIMES NEWS NETWORK
AHMEDABAD: This is not a cost- cutting excercise and drivers of government vehicles are certainly not being laid off. But guess what Class I and class II gazetted officers in Gujarat are getting trained in these days? Well, many of them are attending a course on ‘‘basic auto mechanics and maintenance’’ to try and understand their vehicles better and learn to repair them if the cars break down in the middle of the road.
The government has sanctioned funds to train senior officers in ‘‘skilled driving’’ and enable them to attend to trouble with their vehicles when the officers are driving themselves. The training programme comes in the wake of instances in the past where senior government officers have either died or suffered severe injuries while driving their vehicles.
The proposal was mooted by commissioner of training (Gujarat) Fateh Singh Jasol, who is also the director of Sardar Patel Institute of Public Administration (SPIRA), in April last year. The programme was sanctioned in July last year.
SPIPA is currently running a single day-package programme which aims at imparting knowledge to all the gazetted and IAS officers about their vehicles and alertness on roads.
The programme is being run in collaboration with the Western India Automobile Association.
Officers who enrol themselves undergo a seven- hour complete programme which helps them associate with the vehicle better and improve their driving skills.
News Source : The Times of India [India's best Newspaper]
Convert vacant NRI seats to payment ones: HC Thursday, October 25, 2001
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
AHMEDABAD: The seats reserved for NRI students in engineering, pharmacy and technical institutes in Gujarat will have to be converted into the payment category seats if they remain vacant.
The seats will have to be offered by the Centralised Admissions Committee in the order of merit by charging fees as in case of payment category, and not that of the NRI category. The category of students as NRI will be defined as laid down in the Income-Tax Act.
This follows a judgment by a full Bench of the Gujarat High Court on Wednesday which upheld the earlier orders to this effect by a Division Bench. It also dismissed the batch of petitions filed and transferred from a single judge of the HC, to the full Bench, for seeking direction against the order of the Division Bench.
The Bench comprised of Chief Justice D M Dharmadhikari, Justice R K Abhichandani and Justice N G Nandi then dismissed the petition filed by Charotar Vidya Mandal for conversion of vacant NRI seats.
Earlier in a petition filed by advocate Amit Panchal, party-in-person, a Division Bench had issued an order that NRI seats should be made available only to genuine NRI students as per rules and as per the clarification issued by the All-India Council for Technical Education. It was also ordered that the unfilled NRI seats cannot be given to NRI-sponsored candidates or Indian citizen category students who are willing to pay NRI equivalent fees.
If the seats remained vacant, they were to be converted to payment seats. The admission on such seats was to be granted in order of merit. The High Court had also directed the chief secretary of Gujarat to see that the earlier orders of the court in connection with the admissions to the medical, engineering and other colleges in Gujarat should be complied with.
The court also dismissed the civil applications filed by the state for modification or clarification of the orders of the single judge, and a contempt petition for non-compliance of the single-judge's order were also disposed.
News Source : The Times of India [India's best Newspaper]
Jamnagar ::On-line facility in Jamnagar soon Thursday, October 25, 2001
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
JAMNAGAR: District telecom department is being computerised under dotcom computer system at an estimated cost of Rs. 1 crore, thereby giving the entire district on-line facility. District manager of telecom Kakkar said 95 computers system and server will be arranged to link up the entire district network to provide single window facility. The system will be commissioned in December.
Okha boat workshop
As Jamnagar is a coastal district, patrolling by Customs was essential to prevent smuggling and trespass by sea, said divisional Customs commissioner Mathew who visited proposed site for patrolling boat workshop at Okha port now nearing completion. Such a workshop existed only at Surat and one was needed in Saurashtra, too. Round the clock vigil and attending to calls to repair boats was the strength of this unit. Patrolling in this region would be intensified, he added. Mathew visited other ports, too.
Water supply reviewed
Collector R K Pathak reviewed the drinking water situation as many reservoirs have not received adequate rainwater. In fact, six reservoirs have limited storage and all their stock should be reserved for drinking purpose. So he suggested discontinuance of lifting water for irrigation so as to handle any adverse situation up to July. He is thinking of banning water for irrigation.
News Source : The Times of India [India's best Newspaper]
Social reflections on the changing patterns of Navratri Thursday, October 25, 2001
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
SURAT: From Nave nagar ni chunladi vapri .... to the latest numbers like Bumro bumro sham rang ...., Koi kahe kehta rahe ..., Navratri in this new millennium have traversed a remarkable socio-cultural distance, apparently fed on the images of the West. With undercurrents of a new social formation, the festival has been witness to the amalgamation of the 'kediyu' and jeans, while the body language suggests the urge to break-free to new social dimensions.
For social critics, the value system might be under constraints but the overall new equations necessitated with the emergence of migrant nuclear families and the individual aspirations reaching new highs, despite social odds (read restrictions), the younger generation in the city, representing varied social groups across the country with diverse cultural mindsets, are trying to create a fusion which could get translated into healthy social designs in the long run, according to observers of social change.
No wonder, for Priti (23), a career woman whose family migrated to this city eight years back from Indore, Navratri is an occasion to mingle with and understand her own peer group of both the sexes, without any usual hindrance. "The interactions might sometimes lead to intimate behaviour, but one gets to know the others, which helps to shape a healthy mindset," she said.
Take the case of 26-year-old Manish, a businessman. Though hailing from a well-to-do family, his exposure to intermingle with the opposite sex has been rare. Hence, to observe and know them in an environment which helps to melt away the barriers has been an experience worth appreciating. Educated enough about others, he now has a positive understanding which otherwise had been perverse due to the lack of exposure, believe several psychologists.
For scores of youths like Priti and Manish even age-old rituals like Navratri are fast becoming occasions of individual expressions, if the social behaviour reflected during these nine nights of wonder, fun and frolic is any indication to go by.
Moreover, changes in the society with assertion to 'self', primarily due to the lack of earlier social values which posed restrictions with a certain code of conduct defined for social interaction with the opposite sex. Here festivals like Navratri provide a platform for healthy interaction among the youth, according to sociologists.
News Source : The Times of India [India's best Newspaper]
Bright nights, dark nights, Navratri nights Thursday, October 25, 2001
BY RAJA BOSE, TIMES NEWS NETWORK
It's Navratri and the nights here are bright. They are dark too. As garba grounds overflow with the sound of music and dazzle with the colourful dresses. But, beyond the glitter, the scenes in shady, dark corners and beneath trees, sometimes behind buildings, may not be in keeping with the traditions maintained by the Sanskar Nagri. Democracy does offer us freedom and many have spoken out against "moral policing" by the state.
But, the question does remain - where does one draw the line? People moving around at night with families have been taken aback at young boys and girls under trees and inside cars. Though they cannot complain officially, people feel their sensibilities are hurt.
No amount of counselling has helped changed the scenario. And, as Navratri festivities help bind the city culturally, there exists a nether world, Vadodara's underbelly.
Of mega events and mega goof-ups
It's also time the city stopped boasting of its capability to organise mega events. Most organisers here have gone ahead organising huge garbas, claiming to be able mangers and organisers. But Navratri 2001 has exposed the clay feet of these self-proclaimed "super organisers". Within a couple of days into Navratri, and it was clear that most organisers have sold and distributed more invitations than they could possibly handle. At the big garba grounds, many invitees either stood left out, without having to get a glimpse of what was going on, or had to jostle for space inside.
As rude private security personnel heckled people at the entrance, onlookers complained that there was little space at almost every garba ground for all ticket and pass holders to watch comfortably.
Even the Vadodara Municipal Corporation seems to have turned a blind eye to the preparations with very few garba grounds following any fire safety norm. No fire engines can be spotted in front of any of the big garbas and with most of them using wood and jute sheets, most them are veritable death traps.
And, the fear has been compounded by the fact that a large number of people are thronging these grounds, perhaps more than they can comfortably accommodate. As these garba enthusiasts drive through clouds of dust to park their vehicles, then trek long distances to find their enclosures _ with no directions boards put up by organisers _ and jostle for space inside, a lot of questions are raised. People were heard discussing the way garbas have gone commercial over the years. "Gujarat is a enterprising state. Enterprise is nice but should the limit be stretched too far?"
Mayor does a window-dressing
From her coronation as the city mayor a year ago to the present day; from the grimy corridors of the Vadodara Municipal Corporation's Khanderao Market office to the recent press meet in the five star comfort of Hotel Holiday Inn, Bharti Vyas has come a long distance.
She's launched a virtual media blitzkrieg, laying a sumptuous lunch and handing every reporter her 'annual report card' _ listing the development work done by the VMC since she took over.
The report, that reminds that Vyas was the city's first woman mayor and goes on to elaborate on her achievements. But, what the ambience and the report could not hide was that the VMC has been far short of achieving the target it had set itself for the year. At the end, the mayor had to admit that the VMC's octroi collection may not exceed Rs 115 crore though the target was Rs 132 crore. It had ripped on property tax collection too.
It remains to be seen how long the window dressing can hold.
News Source : The Times of India [India's best Newspaper]
