Japan nuclear disaster, Nature is supreme

Nature is supreme

CAMIL PARKHE
Wednesday, March 23, 2011 AT 07:59 PM (IST)
Tags: Chernobyl nuclear disaster, Japan quake, Japan tsunami, Jaitapur, Camil Parkhe
The news related to the nuclear radiation in Japan have revived my memories of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster which occurred during my visit to Russia and Bulgaria. The nuclear accident in April of 1986 at Chernobyl in Ukraine was kept a closely-guarded secret by the then USSR government. The communist nation was forced to acknowledge it only after some western nations reported sudden high discharges of radioactivity in the atmosphere. The accident, believed to be the most serious in the history of nuclear power, until last week's disaster in Japan, caused panic all over the world about the possible effects of the radiation. I, along with some Indian journalists, had arrived in Russia and later in Bulgaria for a completing a diploma course in journalism. Mikhail Gorbachev, who was then executive head of Soviet Russia, was yet to announce his glasnost (transparency) and perestroika movement of restructuring the political and economic systems of that country. So, it was not possible to know the exact number of casualties and damages caused by the Chernobyl nuclear mishap.
There were no English newspapers in Sofia where we were studying, and our translators would not dare to disclose what they had heard about the nuclear disaster. There were fears that we may not be able to fly back to Moscow en route to New Delhi and that we may have to take the alternative route of Rome. We were worried that we may already have been affected by the radiation. Our Bulgarian journalist teachers were tight lipped over the issue. It was then we really realised what Winston Churchill had meant when he coined the term 'iron curtain'.
Chernobyl nuclear incident was indeed an accident and the resultant radiation had long-term effects on thousands of people. The nuclear disaster in Japan has been caused by natural calamity of earthquake. While Chernobyl could have been averted, there was absolutely no way to prevent the earthquake which caused blasts at the Japanese nuclear reactors. The nuclear incidents in Japan have now raised question marks on the safety of various other nuclear plants, including the proposed Jaitapur project in Maharashtra, of the big dams and the high-rise constructions in the event of an massive earthquake. The Japan nuclear case has only once again underlined that we human beings are too small and too weak to resist or withstand the assaults of the nature, be it is an earthquake, tsunami or a flood.

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Education at doorsteps salespersons

Education at doorsteps

CAMIL PARKHE
Tuesday, December 28, 2010 AT 07:12 PM (IST)
Tags: Camil Parkhe
Daddy, that policeman has come again to arrest you,” announced my daughter after answering the doorbell. Grumblingly, I searched for a Rs5 coin and headed towards the door. “Your visits have now become too frequent,” I protested as I handed over the coin to the young man, shabbily dressed as a police constable. He was a member of the Bahurupi or the Rayran community which visits various houses, dressed as Shankar, Hanuman and nowadays mostly as policeman as it requires a minimum makeup. “Chala Saheb, there is an arrest warrant against you,” is how he greets the unsuspecting persons at each door and reaches a compromise with as little as Rs5 or Rs10 as his entertainment fee.
The bahurupi is among the scores of persons regularly ringing doorbells in my building. As an office-bearer of the housing society, I've been discouraging members from entertaining salespersons as a security precaution. There are notices displayed in our parking lot, announcing "Salespersons are not allowed."
I used to frown whenever I saw an elderly neighbour enjoying long conversations with salespersons offering a variety of products. “Aho Kaku, it is not safe to allow unknown persons enter our homes, they may be thieves on a recce mission,” I tried to explain to her.
Much to my chagrin, Kaku continued to evince a keen interest in what the salespersons had to say or sell although I never saw her purchasing anything from them. Kaku's family had shifted from a Satara village some years back and until recently, the family had not felt the need for modern gadgets like mixer, fridge or food processors. Then, why was she wasting time with salespersons at the risk of security, I wondered.
One day, I could not restrain myself when I saw Kaku, with absolutely no knowledge of English, flipping through the pages of a thick volume of an English dictionary brought by a young salesman. As was her wont, she did not purchase the salesman's product.
 “Kaku, why do you entertain these salespersons when you never purchase anything from them,” I asked her. “I've nothing to do when all other family members have left home either for work or for the school. Besides, talking to these salespersons, watching them demonstrating a variety of products, I'm introduced to a world I've never known before.”
Her answer stumped me. I had never imagined sales talk at the doorstep had this advantage. After that, I never objected to Kaku’s talks with salespersons.

Christmas is dual feast for City Church in Pune

Christmas is dual feast for City Church


http://www.sakaaltimes.com/SakaalTimesBeta/20101219/5127886616320126673.htm
CAMIL PARKHE
Sunday, December 19, 2010 AT 06:12 PM (IST)
Tags: City Church, Christmas 2010
PUNE: This Christmas will be of an added significance for the City Church, the mother of all churches in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad. It was on Christmas feast exactly 218 years ago that the Catholics in Pune had celebrated the first mass on a land gifted by Sawai Madhavrao Peshwa in appreciation of their services in the Maratha army.
It was on this land that the Church of our Lady of Immaculate Conception, popularly known as the City Church, stands today. This first church in Maharashtra (excluding the churches in Mumbai and Thane district) has been the mother of various Catholic churches which have come up in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad during the last two decades.
Today there are altogether 22 Catholic churches in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad.
The British, who took over power in Pune, gifted the adjoining three acres and 14 gunthas land to the church whose population has increased by then. A new church was built on this land in 1852. Exactly a century later, the church’s premises was extended to cater its parishioners whose strength by then had risen to 7,000.
Although the oldest church in the city, the number of parishioners of the City Church has been shrinking during the past few decades. This is because a large number of parishioners during this period have sold their houses in the local area and purchased more spacious houses in Fatimanagar and neighbouring areas, the church’s parish priest, Fr George D’Souza, told Sakàl Times.
As a result now, St Patrick’s Cathedral, the city’s second oldest church built in 1850, has the largest Catholic population of over 1200 families. Now there are around 300 Catholic families in City Church’s jurisdiction.
The church has derived its name ‘City Church’ as it stood at one of the entrances of Pune, the Quarter Gate, which had existed there.

Changing media

Changing media

CAMIL PARKHE
Friday, January 21, 2011 AT 09:51 PM (IST)

http://www.sakaaltimes.com/SakaalTimesBeta/20110121/5298012004879421511.htm


Tags: Media, Changing Media, Journalism
Naren, there is a phone call for you," a journalist said and unsuspecting Naren left his seat to answer the call on the landline phone. A moment later, he realised that he had fallen into a trap as his colleague had taken control of the lone typewriter in the national newspaper where we worked. This was the situation prevailing two decades ago when the age of computers had not yet dawned. And only a few days ago, my daughter wanted to know what a typewriter was! Her question left me wondering at the astonishing speed at which technology has evolved during the past three decades.
The first newspaper establishment in Goa where I worked had a hand composing mechanism for the Marathi newspaper and mono-typesetting for the English one. I remember participating in and leading a number of demonstrations of journalists to oppose automation in newspaper industry on the ground that it would render many people jobless. Of course, nothing of that kind happened as I saw many of the young and other hand compositors being trained and absorbed as computer typesetters. Besides working as a staff reporter, I had also doubled as a correspondent of a newspaper outside Goa. That newspaper had provided a post-paid telegram card of the telegraph department. I wonder if today's youngsters would even know what is a telegram or the fear associated with its arrival.
I remember journalists in a Pune newspaper were reluctant to give up the use of the rickety typewriters and turned to computers only after a fatwa was issued that only news stories typeset in computers would be used. We took to computers and then there was no turning back. Internet in the early 1990s revolutionised not only the newspaper industry but the whole world. Pagers which made an appearance for a brief period of a couple of years faded into oblivion as soon as the mobile phone arrived. This reminds me of those days when people had to be on a waiting list for a landline phone connection for years and of those categories of ordinary, urgent and lightning calls of the telephone department on which journalists relied for collecting news or for transmitting news to headquarters.
Today, journalists transmit stories and photos to newspaper offices with a click of the mouse. Blackberries too have brought many wonders. The transition in the technology during the last a few decades is just breathtaking and makes one wonder what lies in store in the next few years

Haldi Kumnku function for men

Haldi-kunku for men

CAMIL PARKHE
Monday, February 14, 2011 AT 05:59 PM (IST)
Tags: Camil Parkhe, Haldi-kunku ceremony, Women

http://www.sakaaltimes.com/SakaalTimesBeta/20110214/5213164191992375760.htm

The door bell awoke me from my deep siesta in the late afternoon on January 26, one of the rare holidays for journalists. The caller, a neighbour, had come to invite my wife and daughter for the haldi-kunku function that evening. The door bell had woken me up at the right moment as I detest long siestas on a holiday. The delivery of the invitation message immediately had the desired effects among womenfolk on various floors of the building. Hectic preparations began to get ready for the event, although the function was to be held in the same building.
Around 7 pm, my wife and daughter went for the haldi-kunku function. I too went downstairs, wondering what to do for the next half an hour, or more. In the parking lot, my neighbour, whose wife was hosting the haldi-kunku, was all set to leave for the badminton court. I turned my search to another neighbour so that we could gossip for a while. He too had left home after learning that his wife would be busy with the haldi-kunku programme.
Then it struck me: haldi-kunku was not the only occasion that enabled the womenfolk in the building and the colony to have a get-together. Holi is a festival to be enjoyed by all but over the past years, I have found, that it is only the children -- boys and girls -- who participate in the festival of colours. Women too enjoy for about half an hour the joy of splashing colours on each other in their building. However, for most men -- the office-goers and also those having a holiday on that day -- Holi festivities are a taboo. The same is the case with Garba dances in which only young boys and women of all ages are seen in large numbers.
The last get-together of our housing society, although attended by men and women in equal numbers, had soon turned into an affair dominated entirely by women who chatted excitedly and incessantly and laughed merrily while the men sat or stood around quietly, not knowing what was to be done. They fared miserably at the antakshari, singing and all other contests. I began to wonder why we men are becoming dull and duller.
That night, three of us neighbours returned to the building at the same time. While we were in the lift together, I asked them: “Shall we have a haldi-kunku function exclusively for men?” “Hey, we really need something like that,” was the instant response. Now we are planning one. Hopefully, men lose their stiff upper lip during that function.

Quota for women

Mere crumbs of power

CAMIL PARKHE
Thursday, March 17, 2011 AT 09:05 PM (IST)
Tags: Reservation for women, Women-Politics, Maha govt, Camil Parkhe
It is nearly two decades since Maharashtra implemented 33 per cent reservations for women in local self-government bodies. The gender-based special quota was meant to politically empower women and to increase their participation in decision-making process in village panchayats, taluka panchayat samitis and zilla parishads. With the passage of the 73rd and 74th amendments to the Constitution, the 33 per cent reservation for women with quota for SC, ST and OBC women in local self-government bodies has come into existence all over the country. Ideally, the past two decades should have been enough to show positive results in women's empowerment. But that does not seem to be the case in Maharashtra or other states.

The 33 per cent quota has ensured a third of membership for women in these institutions. Many of them have occupied the coveted posts of sarpanche, municipal council presidents, mayors and zilla parishad presidents. In most cases, the nominations of these women came from politician members of their families. The sole intention was to retain the political power in the family. The tenure in these institutions should have served women as a training school for a never-before political career. Maharashtra's former chief minister and now Union minister, Vilasrao Deshmukh, had begun his political career as a sarpanch of Babhalgaon village in Latur district. Former Union home minister Shivraj Patil had entered the political arena as president of the Latur municipal council. Former chief ministers Manohar Joshi and Narayan Rane too had launched their political careers as members of the municipal corporation of Mumbai.

Some women politicians have risen from the roots to occupy high political posts. Shobhana Phadanvis, sitting BJP MLC and former Maharashtra minister, had started her inning as a member of the Mool village panchayat in 1968. She was elected as Chandrapur zilla parishad member in 1977. She won state legislative assembly polls thrice. Former minister of state for health, Shobha Bachchav, began as a member of the Nashik Municipal Corporation and director of Nashik District Central Cooperative Bank. Fauzia Khan, who took over as a minister two years back, is NCP's MLC from Parbhani. Most other prominent politician-women carry the political legacy of their families. They include MP Supriya Sule, daughter of NCP chief Sharad Pawar; minister Varsha Gaikwad, daughter of Congress MP Eknath Gaikwad; MP Pankaja Munde, daughter of BJP leader Gopinath Munde; and Priya Dutt, daughter of former Union minister Sunil Dutt.

The question is how many of the women who availed of the 33 percent quota and served as members of panchayats, municipal councils, corporations and zilla parishads or as sarpanches, mayors and zilla parishad presidents have graduated to the posts of legislators, MPs, state or Union ministers in two decades. The answer is disappointing. Hardly any women have been achieve that transition. The political parties which had elected them as members or heads of local self-government bodies did not find them good enough to nominate them to the higher posts in assembly, legislative council or Parliament.

Prithviraj Chavan is the 15th politician to occupy the chief minister's post in Maharashtra. It is sad that not a single woman has occupied this post since the formation of this so-called progressive state in five decades. Nor is there a woman claimant to the job even now. The women politicians, who came closest to claiming the post, were former revenue minister Shalinitai Patil, wife of former chief minister Vasantdada Patil, and Premlakaki Chavan, mother of the present chief minister. Premlakaki, a loyalist to Indira Gandhi, was president of the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee when Congress veterans, including Y.B. Chavan and Sharad Pawar, had left the Congress boat after the Emergency.

So far, only one woman politician in Maharashtra has risen high to occupy various political and constitutional posts. President Pratibha Patil was first elected an MLA at the age of 26. She has served as a minister, deputy chairperson of the Rajya Sabha and governor of Rajasthan. Patil's is an exceptional case. The number of women MLAs, MLCs and MPs has never touched the two-digit mark. Shalinitai Patil was the last high profile woman politician, and that was 25 years ago! At present, there are only two women ministers, both hold junior posts.
With this dismal picture, the increase in the women's quota in local self-government bodies is unlikely to achieve the desired goal of political empowerment of women. The rural elected bodies or the civic bodies in small towns hardly enjoy any political or financial powers. So the legislation to increase the quota of women will be supported by most political parties without any hesitation. The same political parties will, however, continue to vehemently oppose the passage of the long-pending legislation on reserving 33 per cent seats for women in Parliament and state assemblies.
The ruling and opposition political parties, all dominated by male politicians, know it all too well that real political power lies in state assemblies and Parliament and with ministers at states and central levels. The goal of political empowerment of women can be reached only with reservation of equal number of seats for women in state assemblies and Parliament. But in view of the strong and adamant stance of most political parties, that seems to be a very distant dream.