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Skits for self defence…

…at Bhaidas Hall today, as the Mumbai Police continue its sensitisation programmes to curb increasing numbers of crimes against women.

Girl students from across the city are expected to attend a sensitisation programme organised by the Mumbai Police, to raise awareness about increasing crimes against women in the ciyt, as also how can defend themselves in times of an assault. The programme takes place today at Juhu’s Bhaidas Hall and will be a four-hour programme which will also see attendance from members of several Women Vigilance Cells in the city.

Interestingly, three skits are to be performed at the programme, organised by students of Mithibai College, police officers and by professional stage artists under the direction of renowned theatre veteran Makrand Deshpande.

Additionally, Bollywood actors Shabana Azmi and Rani Mukerji are expected to address the audience, as also State Home Minister RR Patil, Mumbai University Vice Chancellor Dr Rajan Velukar, and Mumbai Police Commissioner Dr Satyapal Singh.

(Picture used for representational purpose only) 

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Event

Fastest runner first!

Talent hunt to identify fastest youngster in the Under-12, 14 and -16 age groups was held in the city today. PT Usha judged the event.

The finale of ‘Speedstar’, a first-of-its-kind talent hunt to identify the fastest running sensation in India, was held at Ghatkopar today. The enterprise is the brainchild of KOOH Sports’, under the aegis of the Athletics Federation of India (AFI). A total of 76 finalists were selected to participate from amongst 12 cities in the country in three age categories –  Under 12, 14 and 16 – in a 100 meter sprint.

Six participants were adjudged the winners by legendary sprint queen PT Usha. (See names of winners below)

The finale was held at the Ghatkopar-based KJ Somaiya Sports Complex. The contest had been spread over a period of two months, with nationwide participation from around 800 schools and over 10,000 children.

The six winners of the grand finale will now head for a week-long intensive training in Australia (courtesy Griffith University), the official academy partner. Under the guidance of Sharon Hannan (the noted Australian athletics coach who trained Sally Pearson, gold medallist at the London Olympics, 2012), the winners will have an opportunity to gather insights of the professional athletic circuit.

“Initiatives like these will go a long way in cultivating the next generation of athletes in India. I am extremely delighted to be associated with this initiative and being instrumental in creating awareness on the importance of athletics to young Indians,” PT  Usha said during the event.

Adille Sumariwalla, President, AFI said, “The Speedstar initiative is indeed a commendable programme and it is heartening to see the private participation in the sector. We are confident that India will get the much-needed thrust at the grass roots level to create a pool of athletes while generating an attitudinal shift to pursue sports as a career.”

Winners:

Under 12: Girls – Shabnam Naik, New Delhi; Boys – Nilesh Batre, Mumbai

Under 14: Girls – Siddhi Hiray, Pune; Boys – P Siva (Hyderabad)

Under 16: Girls – Anita Das (Kolkata); Boys – MS Arun (Chennai)

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Listen

Rekha Bharadwaj and ‘Mehrooni’

We thank Sapna Bhavnani for sending us this video of Rekha Bharadwaj in truly sublime form. Listen, and be spellbound.

(Featured image courtesy avmax.in. Picture is a file image.)

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‘Drop gory details, start being constructive’

This was lawyer Flavia Agnes’ advice to the media at the 10th annual meet of women journalists that concluded recently.
by Shubha Khandekar

Over 80 women journalists from different media and languages across the country went into introspection mode for two hours of intensive debate, when a panel of six speakers from within and outside the media showed how improved coverage by media can help creating safer public spaces for women.

Offering her perspective on media’s constraints, Meenal Baghel, Editor, Mumbai Mirror, candidly admitted the lapses on the part of her publication in the past, while urging the Network of Women in Media (NWMI) to continue with its gender sensitisation training sessions for journalists in the newsroom. This was at the open session on ‘Women, Violence and the Public Space: How the media can tell that story better’ organised by NWMI in Mumbai on Saturday, February 2, as part of its three-day convention to celebrate a decade of its birth.

“Media’s voyeuristic appetite for gruesome details is insatiable,” pointed out Flavia Agnes, eminent lawyer at the forefront of the women’s movement. “This does nothing to help the victims, who do not wish to be labelled as victims all their lives. Media should end the hypocrisy of naming every single detail of the victim’s life except her name, and must help her in rebuilding her life after the trauma.”

The overall theme of the convention was ‘Women, Violence and the Media’, chosen for its topicality against the backdrop of the recent brutal rape-murder of a young woman in Delhi, which triggered unprecedented public outrage across the country.

The statement issued by the NWMI at the conclusion of the convention strongly calling for more sensitive reporting, urges the media to be a part of the solution and not of the problem of women already traumatised by violence. The statement makes a special note of the thousands of girls and women all over the country who have been physically, sexually, psychologically abused and injured or killed, and appeals for due media attention to sexual violence perpetrated on dalits and adivasis, as well as women in militarised zones, where security forces are granted impunity by law.

At the public event on Saturday, Harish Sadani, who heads the NGO Men Against Violence and Abuse (MAVA), Nandita Gandhi, Co-Director of Akshara, Lina Mathias, Senior Assistant Editor with EPW, and Anandita Sengupta, feminist blogger at Ultraviolet, offered guidelines and practical suggestions on how the media can help a survivor of violence cope with and overcome the trauma , rather than titillate and pry into private lives which intimidate and alienate the victim.

The convention also held discussions on ‘Struggles for survival and violence against women: the role of the media’. Lina Mathias drew attention to the steady erosion of Mumbai’s robust  tradition of collective action to demand accountability, and pointed out that women cannot possibly remain safe if the social and political culture has degenerated, making everybody unsafe. In a session on ‘Revisiting media coverage of the 1992-93 Mumbai riots’ explored Pratap Asbe, former Political Editor, Maharashtra Times, Meena Menon, Chief of Bureau, The Hindu, Mumbai, and author of Riots and After in Mumbai, Jyoti Punwani, who has done extensive reporting on the riots and their aftermath over  the past 20 years, Shahid Latif of Inquilab and Sukanya Shetty from the Indian Express explored nuances of coverage by the English, Urdu, and Marathi media and discussed learnings for the future.

The session on ‘Virtual Violence: Are Sections 66A and 67 of the IT Act the answer?’ discussed such forms of violence on the Internet as virtual stalking, harassment, abuse, impersonation, or unauthorised transmission of private photographs, and whether the legal remedies available are useful and adequate.

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Event

Kashmiri MBA students create mock tourism company

CII event counselled Kashmiri MBA students on tourism and its career opportunities, at an event held in the city yesterday.

Today, the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) held the event ‘Udaan’ in association with Godrej, to address MBA students from Kashmir. The subject of the seminar was ‘Tourism, its scope and the career opportunities if offers’. This is an annual six-week programme.

The session was presided over by co-founder and director of Ecomantra, Ravi Goel. He was among 12 other speakers chosen to address the students, and he has taken the last three batches of ‘Udaan’. This particular batch had 36 MBA students (21 boys and 15 girls) from two top universities in Kashmir.

“It has been a very engaging two-hour session with the students. It was a pleasure sharing ideas with such bright students from Kashmir; I have always found them very committed and sincere. We are very impressed by Udaan’s initiative in creating a real learning experience for these students. (As part of the interaction), I made the new batch start a tourism company from scratch. Some of them came up with very good ideas and I was surprised by the quality of concepts they had. These kids were very, very good,” Ravi said later.

The interactive session required the students to create a tourism business plan based on concepts of demand and supply, dynamic pricing, etc. Earlier sessions had dealt with tourism and how Kashmir can do things differently, the idea of experiential tourism as against mainstream tourism, among others.

Udaan was a programme initiated to integrate Kashmir and its youth in the mainstream economy of India. It was conceptualised to address unemployment in Jammu and Kashmir and was launched by Union Home Minister P Chidambaram in 2010.

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Event

Maharashtra NCC cadets win PM’s banner for 16th time

They won for the fourth consecutive year at the Republic Day camp in Delhi recently; State Governor feted the cadets.

The Maharashtra Contingent of the National Cadet Corps (NCC) won the prestigious Prime Minister’s Banner for the fourth consecutive year at the Republic Day camp held in New Delhi recently. This win is the 16th for the Maharashtra NCC, a record on its own.

On Saturday, State Governor K Sankaranarayanan feted the victorious Corps at his official residence in Mumbai, the Raj Bhavan. Speaking on the occasion, the Governor congratulated the National Cadet Corps for shaping the character of the youth by inculcating in them discipline, patriotism and an urge for social service. He expressed the hope that the NCC would mould the character of several more youth in the country.

Maj General S Sengupta, Additional Director General of Maharashtra NCC, informed the gathering that the strength of the Maharashtra NCC is being increased from 1 lakh to 1.20 lakh cadets this year onwards. He also added that Maharashtra NCC has bagged the Champion Directorate Trophy for the 16th time during the last 22 years.

 (Picture courtesy Raj Bhavan, Mumbai)

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