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The Hindu : TEJASWINI PAGADALA

The Jerdon’s Courser is known as Kalivi Kodi in Telugu.

…“ We used camera traps … to recognise the bird’s identity. The camera trap has a transmitter which transmits Infrared rays and there rays helped us recognise the bird.”

Keep me safe please: The Jerdon’s Courser

It is called the “Pride of Andhra Pradesh” and is an endangered species that lives in scrub jungle. It is commonly known as Jerdon’s Courser ( Rhinoptilus Bitorquatus). Jerdon’s Courser is a rare bird that is found at Sri Lankamaleswara Wildlife Sanctuary in Kadapa District of Andhra Pradesh.

It is also called Kalivi kodi in Telugu. Recently, at a seminar held by Asian Wildlife Foundation on this bird, P. Jegannathan talked about his research based on this bird. He is the first person to have done research on the Jerdon’s Courser.

This bird was identified by Mr. Campbell in 1900 at Anantapur. Even before Campbell identified it; W.T. Blanford discovered it in south India in 1867. After him, Dr. Salim Ali found out a few facts about the bird.

This is a nocturnal bird that has restricted distribution. They are generally found in groups. It has a short syllabic call that was first recorded in 2001. The call of the bird helps in surveys.

It has a yellow base to the black bill, a blackish crown and orange-chestnut throat patch. A narrow white crown stripe runs on top of the head.

In flight, it shows a mostly black tail and a prominent white wingbar. The Jerdon’s Courser is often confused with the yellow wattled lapwing and the red wattled lapwing.

Tough time

Dr.P.Jeggannathan says “Doing research on such a rare bird was very difficult. We had problems capturing the bird. Soil strips, soil collection and sieving the soil were part of our survey methods.

We used camera traps that enabled us to recognise the bird’s identity. The camera trap has a transmitter which transmits…More

The Hindu :

Katrina Kaif says playing a politician in Rajneeti has taught her what a tough job it is

Photo: PTION A NEW PATH Katrina Kaif

More than Prakash Jha, the producer-director of “Raajneeti”, to be released this week, Katrina Kaif had made news for her “non-glamorous” role in it. “It’s a misconception. I think glamour comes from a woman’s strength of character, the fire in her, and ability do something rare, and not by wearing a mini skirt. I think the role of a ‘domesticated’ woman is rather more unglamorous than the one I am playing in ‘Raajneeti’.”

As Indu in “Raajneeti”, she plays the daughter of a political financer; she is spoilt, wears trendy clothes and lives life on her conditions. “Indu is very outgoing, fiery, brash, and wants everything in life. She is quite shameless in love — in that, she goes to the person she loves, and pushes him to love her back. When it doesn’t get reciprocated, she’s jolted and realises she can’t get everything she wants. That way, my character is pretty glamorous. The so-called unglamorous part comes only when I am pushed to live a politician’s life.”

Pushing boundaries

Speaking “straight Hindi” has been one of the hardest practices for the film. She admits: “I’ve pushed my boundaries to do better; I hope I am accepted by the viewers.”

Incidentally, Jha had minced no words earlier that the film is on one of the first families of politicians in India, a statement he now refrains from.

Says Katrina: “I think I’m to blame, as I come from a foreign land and speak accented Hindi. This has made the media think I’m portraying Sonia Gandhi. It’s not her biography. I come pretty late as a politician in the film.”And to portray one, Katrina spent a lot of time with Jha, who is familiar with the politics of Bihar. She also watched videos of…More

The Hindu : y>

Taking comics To a whole new level

Comic JUMP, a monthly comic anthology is available in all major news stands and leading book stores across India. “Level10” is a comic journal that aims at showcasing the finest of India’s comic book talent. The 84-page compilation will carry three comics, each with very unique art styles and storylines and the target group is not only the kids.

For a start, Level10 is coming up with three stories. First is “Northern song”, which is a mythological adventure; “Shaurya”, a superhero story based on the Mumbai train blast. And the last is “The Rabhas Incident”, set in an alternate reality where our city has been cordoned off by the Government after an epidemic that has turned residents into Zombies. The comic is guided by its own imaginary character — ‘Zula’.

Shreyas Srinivas and Suhas Sundar, two engineering graduates from Bangalore who are successful corporates, set up Level10 Comics. For details please check www.level10comics.com

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The Hindu :

K. Sumathi was selected to the International Visitors Leadership Programme of the U.S. Department of Justice

Photo: R. RaguA LONG JOURNEY K. Sumathi

Not so long ago, in a land not so far away, there were very few women criminal lawyers. “And not just in colleges! If you wanted to join an office, you’d have to go all the way to Delhi or Mumbai,” says K. Sumathi, who stood in that minority, a little more than two decades ago. “But, the stipends in Delhi were so low that I’d have to work as a cook in the guesthouse where I was staying — wake up at 4.30 a.m. and cook, return from the office and cook.” In return, she would get one square meal a day.

But then, the clouds cleared a little, and she was called to an office in Chennai. She couldn’t have timed it better — they were defending the notorious serial killer Auto Shanker, and members of PLOT accused of murder. “Invaluable learning for a newcomer,” she says. And that was the beginning.

The unfair advantage

Sumathi has just returned from the U.S., — she was one of the two women from India selected to the International Visitors Leadership Programme of the U.S. Department of Justice. “In our criminal jurisprudence, the State pairs the victim with a prosecutor, while the accused gets to pick the lawyer of his choice.”

If you choose to file a private complaint instead, you lose the infrastructure of the State, such as help from the police.”

There must be an option to hire the prosecution of your choice. “Otherwise,” she says, “you’re giving the accused an unfair advantage.”

Sumathi has been fighting for gender justice too. She talks about 10-year-old Nujood Ali, who walked into a Court in Yemen in 2008, demanding divorce from her 34-year-old husband, who had been raping her since the wedding. She went on to…More

The Hindu : y>With the global market beckoning, Bollywood is on the cusp. Should it woo audiences with restrained productions or continue with melodrama? SUDHISH KAMATH finds out

EVOLVING TASTES What does the audience want? Bollywood filmmakers are in a quandary

How much of Bollywood drama can the world handle? And how much restraint will the local audience appreciate? Hindi cinema seems to be torn between the two worlds, its loyalties divided between two contrasting sensibilities. Over the last few years, films such as “Rang De Basanti”, “Rock On” and “Wake Up Sid” have been winning over urban multiplex audiences with their restraint and, at the other end of the spectrum, the soppy melodramatic “Saawariya”s and “Kambakkht Ishq”s have bombed at the box office.

As Karan Johar recently discovered, the twain don’t seem to meet. Though the melodrama in the first half of “My Name is Khan” was muted to appeal to the West, the contrasting soppy second half came under fire from critics all over the world. But when the film collects 17 out of its 39 million dollars from the West, who do you really make a film for?

“My Name is Khan” epitomises that conflict with its half-hearted change in sensibility. When Karan Johar brainstormed for titles for his “Stepmom” remake on Twitter, he realised that any Hindi sounding title made his film sound like a soap opera about motherhood. More recently, the Roshans and Anurag Basu met with extremely polarised reviews to “Kites”. While most Indian critics and audiences thought it was too slow, the foreign press remained in awe of the genre-bender, applauding it for changing gears from drama to comedy to action to tragedy with its song and dance narrative and compared it with the flamboyance of Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez.

For long, melodrama has been the staple of Indian cinema but with urban centres getting more and more used to Hollywood…More

The Hindu :

Jayashree Rajeev Kumar has enjoyed singing suprabhatams

MUSICAL JOURNEY Classical to fusion

Plants that are exposed to music grow healthier and produce better yield, say scientists. So, Jayashree Rajeev Kumar would certainly reap a good yield should she enter this field, for she is equally qualified in both: her CV flaunts a double PG, in agriculture and music.

She topped the Kannur University in the latter. And if dancing also helps plants, well, Jayashree might do that too, for she is an auditioned graded artiste on Doordarshan.

Talent to the fore

She has performed both Mohiniattam and Bharathanatya. Kalamandalam Saraswathy and Kalamandalam Vinodini were her gurus and Jayashree also had a national scholarship to study Bharathanatya. But she’s more into music these days, she says.

Her latest music CD brought out by Sargam, called “Bho Sambho”, is a fusion treat. Sargam also brought out a few of her classical music CDs, titled “Karuna Cheyvan”, “Amrithavarshini”, “Alaipayuthe Kanna”, “Siddhi Vinayakam”.

“I have composed the orchestration for my last classical album and this fusion one,” says the amiable mother of two, who is working with the Central Plantation Crops Research Institute as a subject matter specialist.

Jayashree’s voice has a rich timbre and the confidence shows, of 16 years of disciplined ‘sadhakam’. Based at Kannur, her guru is nagaswara Vidwan Pathur Sreenivas. Any kind of music comes easily to Jayashree for she has sung on several stages, be they kutcheris or bhajans, at the Surya Music Festival, Kalpathy.

“Once, when I sang at the Ernakulam Siva Temple festival, a person from the Ragabrahma Sangeetha Sabha in Guntur, Andhra, invited me to sing there, and I did,” she says, happy to have sung in one of the bastions of Carnatic music.

Incidentally, she is a B-High vocal artiste with Kozhikode Akashavani too. With more than 100 CDs in her kitty, Jayshree is happiest to have sung Suprabhathams.

She started her CD yatra in 2,000…More

The Hindu :

Empowered by education and employment, the new-age woman does not put up with a bad marriage. Reason why there are more women than men seeking a divorce

Photo: R.V. MOORTHYTHE DIVORCE ROUTE When comfort ends and turbulence begins

People breathless and jostling for space — the scene at a family court depresses, and the court seems like a place no one might want to go to.

But, people do — last year, over 4,000 cases of divorce were filed in Chennai alone. Sadly, people will continue to go — divorce rates are going up. So much so, additional family courts for the city are being considered.

Twist in the tale

Earlier, it was mostly men who sought divorce. But today, there are more women than men filing for divorce. The National Family Health Survey found Mumbai women at the top in seeking a divorce, while Chennai women stood second, among the four metros.

“I think 70 per cent of the divorce cases are filed by women,” says V. Balasubramanian, an advocate. However, advocate Sheila Jayaprakash puts the percentage at a little over 50. “The transition has been happening gradually over the last decade,” says Sheila.

And, the increase in the numbers tells us a tale of change. Though the reasons for seeking a divorce are aplenty — lack of tolerance and adjustments, mental and physical torture, priority to family over spouse, domestic and work pressure, husbands unable to come to terms with their new-age wife’s independence and professional success — the facilitating factors have been education and employment.

Changing times

“Because of their economic emancipation, women, who had earlier put up with a bad marriage, now take the divorce route,” says Vijay Nagaswami, psychiatrist and author of “The Fifty-50 Marriage: Return to Intimacy”.

Besides, more awareness about the impact of mental and physical cruelty on women has helped many a parent accept that the daughter need not put up with…More

The Hindu :

There is never a dull moment in television artiste Janaki Sabesh’s life

ENJOYING LIFE Janaki Sabesh

Janaki Sabesh has given her best and hundred per cent to her work and family. Her father was against her modelling or working in movies and told her she could do it only after her marriage but the best advice shegot from him was to never miss an opportunity in life and be committed. And so Janaki followed her heart.

She graduated in political science from Lady Sriram’s and did her masters in Mass Communication from Jamia Millia, Delhi. She had a wide range of opportunities, met all kinds of people and learned how to manage them effectively during her college days. And, when she was asked to assist Simi Garewal on her series on Rajiv Gandhi, she was more than willing. Married then, living in Mumbai, she travelled alone at odd hours and that gave her the confidence.

Janaki has worked in innumerable commercials on television, she hosts shows, gives motivational lectures, does pre-recording for the messages on phone for banks and commercial institutions, gives her voice for cartoons, and then acts in a few films a year which she treats as a holiday.

There is no dull moment at all. She is primarily a business manager for a company Real Image Media Technologies which markets technology to media and entertainment industry; her Company is the face of DTS in India and her job is to license the films.

Constantly travelling, she gives all the credit to her mother-in-law who is in her Eighties and manages the home. Janaki says there is nothing like seeing the children bond with the grandparents after coming home from work. She adds, “There are problems in every family but I make sure that none of them suffer — my home and career. My ego is on an all time high when my colleagues…More

The Hindu :

Engineer Sumanta Baruah uses cartoons to demystify ideas in science

There is an intrinsic connection between art and science, the two are not divergent streams of knowledge as the world perceives. Sumanta Baruah whose science cartoons are on display at the Indian Institute of Cartoonists (IIC), endorses the view. “Einstein played the violin, Homi J. Bhabha used to draw Bohr’s caricatures and Raja Ramanna was an accomplished musician… art and science are both central to the pursuit of knowledge.” Constantly fed with political caricatures, it is refreshing to see an anthology of science cartoons. V.G. Narendra, managing trustee of IIC observed that although “science cartoons are very rare in India,” their popularity is rising as they help create awareness about otherwise difficult scientific concepts. The intrinsic humour of this medium also brings forth the lighter vein of otherwise grave issues such as global warming, the extinction of endangered species, genetically modified crops, the ubiquitous Internet etc.

Sample one of Sumanta’s cartoons: The legendary ‘scientific’ apple falls on the ground and the present-day Isaac Newton’s counterpart is too enamoured by his electronic gadgetry to even pay heed to this ‘Eureka’ moment! While ones like this hint how the present scientific community takes for granted path-breaking discoveries of the past, there are others which are educative, making direct references to scientific laws.Some of his cartoons comment on society and the impact of science on everyday life. For instance, in one cartoon, two young lads wonder aloud, “why Newton and Einstein studied ‘Science’ but did not go to become a doctor or an engineer?” while in another cartoon, the computer keyboard has a “Think” option.

Being an engineer at Samsung, and sitting amidst an army of machines, it is all the more poignant and ironical when Sumanta jokes about our dependence on machines and technology in his cartoons. Besides, his cartoons have hues of his Assam home….More

The Hindu : y>

Keep pets indoors this summer

Temperatures are soaring and breaking records this summer. Consider the heat that we humans feel and then add fur to the equation! Our animals are at risk for a host of heat-related problems — sunstroke, dehydration and rashes, for example. Heatstroke can be fatal if not treated immediately, ditto dehydration.

An independent Mumbai-based volunteer worker reveals that a German Shepherd with its typical thick fur coat was left on the terrace by his owner in the blistering sun during the day. “Because of the extensive heat, the dog’s nose started bleeding and it kept bleeding through the night. It was the next morning when the owner got to know about this. They rushed him to a nearby animal hospital which is where I met him. The dog’s condition was disastrous and without wasting much time, we placed a tray filled with ice and cold water on his nose. After fifteen minutes, the nose stopped bleeding as the blood froze and this is the only way to stop bleeding in this scenario”.

Avoiding heat stroke involves following these rules — keep pets indoors preferably under a ceiling fan, provide 24/7 access to drinking water, take special care of foreign breeds (those that have heavy fur coats), don’t leave them in parked cars or vans even for a minute and keep emergency numbers handy in case the symptoms of dehydration and stroke are observed.

For more information on summer safety for companion animals, visit the Humane Society of United States (HSUS) website www.hsus.org and type “heatstroke” in the search box or ask your vet for a handy list of tips to follow.

hero of the week

Vasu, A. Das and John from CUPA are our heroes for rescuing a kitten that was stranded on the terrace of a house. The residents were on vacation and the door was locked, so they courageously climbed the…More