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The Hindu : SUDHINDR A B

The proud winners of the Tata Building India Essay Competition speak of their dreams for the country.

High aspirations: Building a nation

The winners of the Tata Building India Essay Competition 2008-09 from the Southern region were felicitated at a function held recently. Anish Kumar Yadav of Kendriya Vidyalaya (MEG Centre), Mohammed Athal Hussain of St. Mary’s Public School and Vigneshkumar. R., of Madonna School have emerged the winners in the senior, middle and junior categories respectively from Bangalore.The winners are…

M. Tharani of Kendriya Vidyalaya (DGQA), Manavalam Gukan of Hindu Senior Secondary School and T. S. Srikkandh of Modern Senior Secondary School, Nanganallur, were the winners in junior, middle and senior categories respectively from Chennai region.

P. Dhanya Bhat of the Canara Girls’ High School and Sameeksha Shetty of St. Ann’s High School, Bolara were the winners in junior and middle categories from Mangalore region.

The winners from Hyderabad, Coimbatore and Kochi were felicitated on the occasion.

Jaya Vyshnavi Lal of Bishop Cotton Girls’ High School, Pallavi. S., of Air Force School, Hebbal and Aditi Viswanathan of Frank Anthony Public School were the runners up in the junior, middle and senior categories respectively from Bangalore region.

Lokayukta Justice N. Santosh Hegde gave away the prizes . He said he enjoyed interacting with children, and through them one could build a value-based society.

Mohammed, a Std. X student says that his vision was to make primary education compulsory for girls living in rural areas.Improving life

“The growth of villages is very important and I think women play a key role in rural development. Hence, making them literate is very crucial. Improving their living conditions too is important.

We can address this only by generating more employment opportunities for them,” he said.

Vignesh said that in his essay “Happy Country”, he had also pointed out some of the issues troubling the country. “Corruption is hindering…More

The Hindu : y>SOUND OFF! Jacintha Rassendren says parents put unnecessary pressure on children during school admissions

Come March and young parents will be marching their tiny prodigies to various schools for admissions. Tension runs high as the going gets tough. Parents line up for the all-important interview, a real test of nerves, not for the child but for the parents.

Gods cutting across religions are invoked as parents hope for the best. This situation makes one wonder about the differences between the two worlds— the cool-cat world of the child vis-a-vis the anxiety driven life of adults. Some children also turn into nervous wrecks as parents transfer their anxieties to the children. I notice one toddler repeatedly reciting “Apple, Orange, Banana”,as the parents assumed fruit names might be a special question for the youngster and had instructed the child to learn them well. This resulted in a funny incident when her kindly interviewer, the principal, asked the child her name. She promptly replied, “Apple, Orange, Banana.” Another was trained in polite behaviour to impress her future principal. Hence she began her salutations with a rendition of “Good-Morning-Sister-Good-Morning-Sister” from the corridor till she entered the Principal’s corridor.

When my four-year-old had attended theinterview, she was tutored to speak in full sentences such as “My name is…” and “I am four years old”. When the principal began interviewing us, my daughter feltignored and began with the routine “My name is… I am…”

Children always manage to employ creative ways of sorting things out. We, the anxious parents, may not be that intelligent.

Do you have anything to say? About the state of the world, the city, your angst?

Pen it stylishly and you might get it published.And dash off your piece with your photograph. Email it tobangmetro@gmail.com or post it to MetroPlus, The Hindu, 19 & 21, Bhagwan Mahaveer Road (Infantry Road), Bangalore 1.

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The Hindu : y>

A miraculous lost and found story involving a man, his best friend and the welfare organization that made it possible.

For one whole year, Saikat Pan suffered the agony of not knowing if his beloved dog Fermi was alive and if yes, was she hungry in a place where no one cared enough to toss her a scrap of food. Saikat’s adopted dog Fermi went missing in July 2008. The friendly canine was the centre of attention when visitors came and was accustomed to guarding her owner’s house when he was away at work. When Saikat came home one evening, he panicked to find that Fermi was missing. He rang the doorbells of everyone in the neighbourhood, rushed to the dog-catchers’ squad and even printed pamphlets and announced a reward. “Find my lost child”, it read but no one did.

A year later, Saikat logged onto Google and typed in “Dog Adoptions”, after deciding to give another rescued animal a happy home. He stumbled on bloggers-bark.blogspot.com and scrolled down to get the shock of his life- Fermi’s picture was in their adoption section. He contacted the blogger who directed him to CUPA’s Hebbal centre and the very next day, he came face to face with the dog he thought he’d never see again. The large, ecstatic dog nearly knocked over his long-lost owner.

CUPA volunteers feel that the difficult work of watching accident cases, abandoned and suffering animals is justified when magical things like this happen. “Thanks”, says an emotional Saikat. “Fermi is my child”.

Hero of the week

Our hero this week is Nikhil Prashar. Nikhil rescued a one-and-a-half month old puppy from the streets and took the initiative to get her vaccinated. He is now trying to find the puppy a home. To adopt her or nominate a hero, emailpetpalsbangalore@gmail.com

This beautiful one-and-a-half month old female puppy was rescued and vaccinated. To…More

The Hindu : y>It is important to debate the insidious ways in which walls are springing up to not just divide people, but to keep some people in and some out, author Githa Hariharan tells Bageshree S.

Photo: V. Sreenivasa MurthyIntersecting selves Githa Hariharan: ‘I see myself as a complex of fluctuating identities’

“Don’t be ashamed of who you are. Don’t be ashamed of who you are not.”

Asad, an artist and a liberal humanist, tells this to his daughter Sara in Githa Harihan’s latest novel “Fugitive Histories”. But the world has come a long way from those days of idealist dreams. In post-Godhra times, narrow identities are assuming importance like never before.

As Githa’s novel opens, Asad is dead and his wife Mala is in rewind mode. She recalls the heady days of their youth and the divergent paths her children have chosen. The camera moves further back and we get a glimpse of her patriarchal, maternal home too.

The lives of many characters come into focus as the novel unfolds. Sara, the daughter of Mala and Asad, is struggling to come to terms with her complex identity and her creative impulses. In contrast, her brother Samar is longing for the certainly of a singular identity. Touching Sara’s life is Yasmin, a young girl she meets in Ahmedabad, trying to re-build her life after the carnage. As the narrator puts it, all these small, fugitive histories that pass for different lives actually form a “cunning chain.”

Excerpts of an interview with Githa Hariharan, who was recently in Bangalore for the launch of her book:

“Fugitive Histories”continues the preoccupation of your earlier novel, In Times of Siege. This too is talking of liberal spaces being under siege.

Yes, but “Fugitive Histories” looks at these familiar ideas in a more personal, private way. It presents a mosaic of lives that collide in unhappy ways, but also in ways that produce love, passion…More

The Hindu :

Karisma Kapoor gets into rewind mode

PHOTO: KAMAL NARANGALL poise Karisma Kapoor

The charismatic Karisma Kapoor, who was the reigning style icon for a long time, was at her glamorous best at the launch of designer Kapil and Monika’s first fashion store in Delhi recently. “Fashion to me is comfort, everything else is secondary,” said the gorgeous Karisma. Pretty as ever, the doe-eyed actor said, “Being in the industry for so long has been a great experience. My first film came out even before my 16th birthday. Since then, I have performed so many roles. I havebeen loved by my audience, and I have enjoyed every bit of it.”Sack-full of pressure

“Being a star kid is not as easy as it sounds,” noted Karisma, who hails from the famous Prithviraj Kapoor lineage. “Getting the first break may be less troublesome, but there is a sack-full of pressure and inevitable comparison, which is very unfair.” And in her case, it was understandable, where everyone in the showman’s family has made his or her mark in the industry. “My grandfather (Raj Kapoor) continues to be my favourite actor till date,” she maintained.

After her, her younger sister Kareena has made it big in the industry as well. “I am absolutely ecstatic about Kareena’s success. She has worked very hard, and she has evolved over the years. I really liked her work in ‘Chameli’, ‘Refugee’ and ‘Jab We Met’. She had her own share of struggles, but who did not have?”

“When I began my career, the struggle was much more, and its duration was much longer. Today the media is so big that one is always in the limelight, and to add to that, the promoters do a great job,” opined the star.Comedy is king

Karisma made her debut in the 1991 movie “Prem Qaidi”, which was a mild hit. Since then she has starred in…More

The Hindu : y>Hamlet The Clown Prince will be staged

“Hamlet – The Clown Prince”, based on Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”, will be staged at Kyra Indranagar, on August 5 and Rangashankara on August 6. The play will be staged at 7.30 p.m. on both days.

The play is in “English and gibberish” and without an interval. It is directed by Rajat Kapoor. The story is about a bunch of clowns who are putting up a show of “Hamlet”. They sometimes misinterpret the text and sometimes find new meanings in itDirector Rajat Kapoor says: “Hamlet is a play that has fascinated me for a long time. Of course we had to find a way to do it. Also my last few productions have all been creations not based on a text but something that was created during the rehearsals.That is how one thought of using the clowns to kind of interpret Hamlet.Log on towww.indianstage.in for bookings.

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The Hindu :

Diya Mirza is happy being a part of multi-starrers

PHOTO: BHAGYA PRAKASH K.Pretty woman Diya Mirza

Diya Mirza has been living life out of suitcases, working on films back-to-back. There is “Kissan” lined up for release this month, “Acid Factory” in October and “Kaun Bola” in November. “All the characters are truly versatile,” says a cheery Diya Mirza during a chat. Her other films “Alibaug” and “Fruit&Nut” will hit the screens in 2010.

The actor was in Bangalore for the second season of Seagram’s Blenders Pride magical nights tour with designers Rohit Gandhi and Rahul Khanna and Raj Shroff and Neetu Gupta. “The films fall under different genres — romantic comedy, romantic drama, action thriller and a family drama,” adds the actor.

Ask her about being a part of the multi-starrer brigade, she says: “Films are not an autobiography, where everything revolves around one person. What I look for is the strength of the characters I get to assay. The story and your role is what matters,” she reasons out.

Her forthcoming film “Kissan”, which deals with farmers, she says, is one of a kind. “We have the largest population of farmers and the film talks about the growing number of farmer’s suicides,” she says. In “Kaun Bola” she is paired with Arshad Warsi. ‘“Fruit and Nut’ is a mad house comedy where I will be acting along side Boman Irani and Cyrus Broacha. In ‘Acid Factory’, there are six heroes and I play the female lead.”

Diya picks her cameo as Simran who prioritises good values and morals over money in “Lage Raho Munnabhai” as her favourite. “I would like to pick a film and not my role. ‘Lage Raho…’ is one of the films which I would want my children to watch, because of the content with which the film is made” she adds.

Her refreshing role in “Parineeta” as the beautiful daughter of…More

The Hindu : y>A series on the Badshah of Bollywood

Ringside view Shah Rukh Khan

Discovery Travel and Living will present an engaging series on India’s biggest superstar Shahrukh Khan. In this unique series, viewers will be taken into the private and exclusive world of Shahrukh Khan. For six months, cameras will shadow Shahrukh Khan in India and across the globe and will present viewers an opportunity to take a glimpse into thethe life of the superstar.

Shahrukhsays, “I look forward to welcoming you all into my life. The format of the series format isboth exhilarating and unique. It will showcase many aspects of my life that have not been seen in the public domain.”

The series is currently under production and will air on Discovery Travel and Living in India.

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The Hindu :

The nutrients our body requires may not always be present in the food we consume. That’s why we may need to take supplements

Photo: Murali Kumar K.A BALANCED DIET IS BEST But sometimes, supplements do help

Does your diet contain seven to nine servings of fruits and vegetables? Have you factored in supplementation for oxidative damage caused by the sun, the effects of other pollutants or even exercise? Do you know if you are getting enough iron, calcium or Vitamin D required for optimal health at your age? The answer is probably no!

Says Bill Dombrowski, Manager, Nutrilite Brand Experience, “When we analysed diets around the world we found there are very few people who eat the way they should. People are getting more calories. They gain weight, but don’t get the nutrients they need. Our body requires a wide range of macro nutrients (needed for cell regeneration and energy) and micro nutrients, besides proteins, carbohydrates and fats.”Depletion of nutrients

The food we eat will, therefore, not contain an adequate supply of minerals. Fruits and vegetables begin to lose their nutritional value soon after they are plucked. Cold storage also destroys nutrients. The longer one cooks vegetables, the lesser the nutrients that remain. Milling/polishing of grains removes 26 essential nutrients and much of their fibre.

Emphasising the need for nutritional supplements, physician Dr. J. Prabhakaran says, “Supplements provide nutrients such as vitamins, minerals, trace elements, fatty acids, amino acids and fibre which are often not present in our daily intake. However, commercially available nutritional supplements cannot replace a balanced diet.”

Those whose immune status is compromised or underdeveloped such as bottle-fed infants, elderly individuals, diabetics, patients suffering from liver or renal disorder, the HIV-infected, patients on chemotherapy and long-term steroids all need nutritional supplements.

Paediatrician Dr. Benny Benjamin says, “Children should normally get their nutritional requirements from a balanced diet.In rare circumstances such as convalescence, poor…More

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New fads Dolly presents her latest collection

Dolly Jhunjhunwala presents her latest collection at Raintree on August 4. The collection includes bridal lehengas, formal and semi formal saris, suits and kurtis, apart from bridalwear items.

Dolly is a fine arts graduate and an architect by profession. She decided her true passion lay in textiles and weaves and designing. She aims toexplore with different weaves and textures on fabrics from across the country. She combines these techniques with prints and traditional embroideryto create her ensembles.

The collection will be available at Raintree, No. 4 Sankey Road, (opposite ITC Windsor Sheraton), High Grounds today. Call 32723251 for more information.

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