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Join the Army. Or at least, go cheer

Indian Army concludes ‘Vijay Diwas’ celebrations at Shivaji Park today. The three-day event commemorated Indian Army’s 1971 win over Pakistan.

If you’re looking for some inspiration and a big dose of patriotism, head to Shivaji Park today. At 11 am this morning, the Governor of Maharashtra, K Sankaranarayan, will inaugurate the Army Mela at Shivaji Park. The Mela is part of the Indian Army’s ‘Vijay Diwas’ celebration to commemorate India’s military victory over Pakistan in the 1971 Indo-Pak war. Around 1,500 Army personnel from across the State will participate in the Mela.

Lt General AK Singh, General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Southern Command, Major-General Rajesh Bawa, General Officer commanding, Mumbai Sub area and other eminent persons will be there at the Mela, too.

The Mela showcases the Army’s equipment and has leaflets and brochures to exhort the youth to join the Indian Army. Once you’ve had your fill of the Mela, you can head to the Gateway of India, Chowpatty and Radium Mall where military bands will be displayed. Plus, there’s going to be a motorcycle display, sky-diving, mallakhamb and aero-modelling display by NCC Cadets.

(Image used is a file picture)    

 

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Who will set these wrongs right?

RB Sreekumar, Godhra whistleblower, writes to the PM asking for probe into IAS and IPS officers’ actions during the carnage.
by Humra Quraishi

Come January, the names for the Padma Awards would be announced. I’m not too sure how the eventual winners are selected, but one underlying factor seems to be that high-flying, glamorous people always find a place on the lists.

What about the men and women who have tried to flow against the tide? Why don’t such individuals ever find a mention? Why don’t we honour men who have had the guts to take on the political mafia, and done it persistently, such as the first whistleblower cop of Gujarat, former DGP RB Sreekumar, who tried exposing his own chief minister Narendra Modi .

The 1971 batch IPS officer wrote an expose on December 6, in which he jotted down 50 misdeeds of the Modi Government. When I met him years ago, he’d categorically stated that if one sees skull caps or long flowing beards and burqas in a Modi-sponsored meet, then one mustn’t automatically assume that the wearers of these garments are Muslims. “RSS cadres are donning all this, putting up the façade of the typical ‘Muslim look’, to fool the masses that Muslims are tilting towards Modi and his men,” he’d said.

This is a very recent letter that Sreekumar has sent to Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh:

‘Sub:- Request for study by LBS National Academy of Administration and SVP National Police Academy on the deviant acts of IAS and IPS officers during 2002 Gujarat riots.

Respected Sir,

Kindly find enclosed a copy of my representation to H E The Governor of Gujarat State, praying for initiation of punitive departmental action against State Govt. officials, who acted as collaborators to the planners and perpetrators of anti-minority carnage in 2002.

1. The riots enacted in nearly 1/3rd of geography of Gujarat, had left about 1,500 citizens killed, thousands injured, besides total destruction of many symbols of Islamic culture of medieval times.

2. IAS and IPS officers administering areas of high intensity violence had allegedly became patrons, promoters and facilitators to the planners, organisers, ground level mobilisers and foot soldiers of mass crimes against the Muslim citizens. These functionaries had, during riots, unabashedly and covertly dismantled the legal, administrative and regulatory architecture designed by the Criminal Procedure Code, Police Acts, Gujarat Police Manual and the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), streamlined through numerous Govt. Orders. Many officers have indulged in competitive sycophancy to carry out the illegal hidden agenda of the ruling party for achieving Hindu communal consolidation to get electoral dividends.

The State Govt. had rewarded most of them with out-of-turn promotions, post retirement assignments etc.

3. The culpable role of the enablers to brigands, who indulged in extensive manslaughter, taken by officials, has thrown up serious questions about the efficiency, quality and impact of training imparted to them by the LBS National Academy of Administration and SVP National Police Academy. Most of IPS and IAS officers are exposed to several skill acquisition programmes in affluent foreign countries also.

4. So far, no in-depth study, analysis and examination of the causative factors responsible for a series of deviant acts by IAS and IPS officers of Gujarat State, during riots and subsequently, have been done with the objective of recasting of their training agenda for re-motivating officers to be in tune with their oath to the letter, spirit and ethos of the Constitution of India, as envisaged in the Preamble and Article 51(A) of the Constitution. Currently many officers brazenly do pursue the unholy goal of self centered careerism at the cost of the Rule of Law.

5. In this context, I humbly request you to task LBS National Academy of Administration and SVP National Police Academy for urgently conducting an in-house exercise of comprehensive study about failure of a section of bureaucracy and police in Gujarat since the riots in 2002. The Apex Court had opined that, in 2002, the officers acted like “Modern Neros”, (Zahira Sheikh v/s The State of Gujarat) which had not only actualised widespread violence but also resulted in subversion of the Criminal Justice System (CJS) to deny and delay justice delivery to riot victim survivors.’

(Picture courtesy thehindu.com)

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Schools play rugby at Bombay Gymkhana

Colaba Municipal School, Yashodham High School win in the U-17 Boys and Girls category. A pitch report of the event.

Rugby is still not played as often and as intensely as it should in the country, but Mumbai is taking things to the next level – its schools are competing and winning big.

Yesterday, the Rugby Association of Maharashtra (RAM) hosted the seventh edition of the Mumbai Inter-School Touch Rugby Championship 2012 at the Bombay Gymkhana Ground, under the auspices of the Western Indian Rugby Football Union (WIRFU). Over 50 teams participated from across Mumbai city and suburb schools. Both boys and girls in the Under-12, Under-14 & Under-17 age categories participated. Actor and rugby player Rahul Bose was the chief guest for the event.

The U-17 winners were Colaba Municipal School (boys) and Yashodham High School, Goregaon (girls), while the U-14 winners were Lokhandwala Foundation School, Kandivali (boys) and St Mary’s Convent High School, Mulund (girls). The U-12 boys winners’ cup was lifted by NM Joshi Municipal School.

Speaking on the occasion, Nasser Hussain, Secretary, Rugby Association of Maharashtra said, “We were pleased to see the enthusiasm, participation and eagerness in representatives from schools across Mumbai, suburban and Thane district to adopt and support the game. There is no dearth of talent in these areas, and today’s Championship asserted that the next breed of national players will come from here. As flag bearers of the sport, we are committed to nurture new talent and simultaneously increase awareness about Rugby as a noble sport.”

The first Mumbai Schools Touch Rugby Tournament was organised in 2006 at the Bombay Gymkhana grounds for Under-14 Boys and Under-16 Boys age categories. The main purpose of the school programme was the grassroots development of the sport and to target the youth. In 2010, with growing interest, popularity and enthusiasm for rugby, the tournament was sub-divided into the Mumbai City Schools, Mumbai Suburb Schools and Thane district categories.

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Film

Censor ki (bleep) ki (bleep)

How do B-grade films with offensive dialogues and scenes evade the Censor Board’s scanner, if English films are often snipped?
by M | M@themetrognome.in

Bhoop, Goa City and “I didn’t do anything”. Put these random words together and what do you get? A film called Cigarette Ki Tarah starring a guy named Bhoop (I am serious), filmed in ‘Goa City’ (not State, mind it) who offends the Queen with every spoken work in English. Watch the promo of this film only if you’re up for a dare. This torture…err, film  will be released tomorrow.

What baffles me the most is how the Censor Board let a film out that has ‘Cigarette’ in the title, when on the other hand, visuals of a lit cigarette are blurred on television and in our films? It would have been rather funny to see what the makers of this film would have done if the Censor Board had decided to snip the word ‘Cigarette’ from the title.

That’s not all, in one of the scenes in the trailer, the lead actress gives the middle finger to, I’m assuming, Bhoop. With a name like that, and a face to match, he deserves it.

Another character played by Sudesh Berry, (best known for his role in Border. Remember him? No? Never mind), calls Bhoop a ‘Bloody assh**e’. The swear words are not bleeped out. The icing on the cake is the song with lyrics that go, Khadi hogi khaat, zindagi ki lag gayi waat.

Our Censor Board is very stern with English shows on television, but seems to be okay with dialogues and songs as good as crap on the big screen if it’s a Hindi film. Also, English films on the big screen are forced to delete scenes depicting the slightest nudity, despite being certified ‘A’. Apparently the scenes or dialogues in those films are objectionable and unfit even for a grown-up adult.

I was furious when The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo was not released in our country because a few of the Censor guys wanted three scenes removed. Those scenes, the filmmakers said, were very crucial to the plot, so they later shunned the cuts altogether and we had to see the film on DVD.

Words like ‘period’, ‘condom’, ‘breast’ et al are beeped out from sitcoms, so much so that sometimes you fail to understand the joke or catch the punch like because of the abrupt acoustics effect that replaces the offending word. English films on television suffer the most. Try watching The Departed on HBO next time it’s on. You will end up cussing more than Mr Wahlberg.

So, to return to my point, how do crappy B-grade Hindi movies, like Cigarette Ki Tarah and Hate Story end up on the big screen will minimal cuts and with all their crappiness intact? It’s actually quite simple. Allow me two examples to illustrate my point.

These are true stories.

Earlier this year, a song from a hit film was about the fun and frolic alcohol can induce at parties. It was expected to be in trouble, because it had words like ‘rum’ and ‘whiskey’ in it. The task to release the song for public viewing was tough, because the party pooping Censor Board would definitely rain on the parade. So the producers sent tapes of the song and a middleman to the Censor Board office, to “work things out”. Two days later, the song was all over TV and radio. Poochho kaise?

Another film was in a similar soup, where it’s famed item song had a desi alcohol name in it; the song was positioned as the highlight of the otherwise grim movie. At first, the Censor Board acted tough, but things miraculously resolved themselves and poor Chameli was allowed to drink and dance to her heart’s content.

It’s such a weird connection between Bollywood and the Censor Board. Your mind boggles at some recent Censor Board decisions, because you’ve tried applying their logic and objections universally, and come up with several inconsistencies. That said, who’s up for some cigarettes tomorrow?

Sharp as a tack and sitting on more hot scoops than she knows what to do with, M is a media professional with an eye on entertainment.

(Picture courtesy koimoi.com)

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Event

Archeology Day and a long-term demand

The CEMS celebrated Archeology Day and is now pushing for an Archeology Department at the University of Mumbai. A report.
by Shubha Khandekar

Lay enthusiasts, school and college students, curious onlookers and history and archaeology scholars alike, numbering close to 3,000, thronged throughout the day at the Archaeology Day celebrations organised by the Centre for Extra Mural Studies (CEMS) yesterday at the CEMS premises in Vidyanagari, Kalina, to coincide with the birth anniversary of the late Professor HD Sankalia, whose name is synonymous with Archaeology.

The celebrations were inaugurated by Dr DB Deglurkar, President of Deccan College, a premier institution for Archaeology in India, and Rajan Welukar, Vice Chancellor, University of Mumbai, who spent close to two hours examining all the exhibits.

Making a strong recommendation for the University of Mumbai for setting up a full-fledged Archaeology department in its fold, Dr Deglurkar pointed out that being one of the three oldest universities of Mumbai, it was appropriate that academic study of the past, a huge part of which is accessible only through Archaeology, must have pride of place in the University.  “CEMS has taken a commendable step by being the first institution in India to commemorate Prof Sankalia’s birth anniversary in such a memorable and constructive manner,” said Dr Deglurkar.

“The range of activities shown at the Archaeology Day celebrations and the energy of enthusiastic volunteers promises to carry forward the work that Prof Sankalia had begun more than 50 years ago. I wish every success to this venture by CEMS and assure you of every support and help from Deccan College,” he added.

Promising every effort in setting up an archaeology department at the University, Welukar said, “The progress made in Archaeological studies by the use of scientific methods is quite amazing.”

“We are trying to create awareness and interest for Archaeology among every section of society, and particularly among students,” said Mugdha Karnik, Director, CEMS. “This will now be an annual feature at CEMS and we appeal to all like minded individuals and institutions to join hands with us in this effort.”

Visitors to the Archaeology Day celebrations were particularly excited with the opportunity given to dig, under the supervision of expert archaeologists,  in a mock trench created at the venue. Other activities that drew large crowds were live demos of pottery making and stone tool making, exhibition of fossils, a KBC-style quiz for school-kids, the writing of names in Modi, Kharoshthi  and Brahmi by students of epigraphy, and a film on Chandore where CEMS has been conducting excavations for the past two years under the directorship of Dr Kurush F Dalal. Cartoons on archaeological themes were also put on display.

“There is so much that’s new and exciting,” said Anjali Inamdar, a visitor. “Such events must be held more frequently and in multiple locations.”

“I enjoyed it very much and learnt a lot. Fantastic effort, congrats to everyone who was involved,” said Rajashree Khalap, another visitor.

INSTUCEN and Sathaye College were collaborators on the event, while the Anjaneri Institute of Numismatics from Nashik, Archaeological Survey of India and the Thane Oriental Research Institute also put up stalls and exhibits.

Shubha Khandekar is an author, journalist, translator, editor and cartoonist and writes on a wide range of topics in English and Marathi. 

 

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Rally around for human rights

NGO to hold rallies, informal meetings and lectures to spread awareness of human rights violations. Human Rights Day was yesterday.

The Students’ Islamic Organisation (SIO) of India’s Mumbai chapter yesterday held a meeting to brief the press and the public about its programme to spread awareness of human rights violations, both in India and abroad. A major talking point for the meeting was the ongoing crisis at Gaza, and the numerous reported human rights violations happening there.

As per a member of the SIO, Mumbai, “On the occasion of World Human Rights Day, we decided to hold a meeting to discuss the ongoing human rights violations in Gaza, as well as the State-sponsored imprisonment of several Muslim youth in jails on the wrongful accusation of them being terrorists. Besides this, we are also addressing such issues that affect the society in terms of education and employment, as also the effect of extremist speeches and writings on people and the loss of personal liberty.”

The SIO plans to implement its programme through a series of events, such as public lectures, essay writing competitions, lectures in colleges, youth meets, ‘corner meetings’, discussions and analysis of the Human Rights Charter, displaying human rights posters, and human chains at various points in the city.

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