Ambimama - India

Joint Entrance Engineering is a yearly entrance exam for IIT and students prepare for it for years.

Look at the careless way the Madras professor T S Natarajan, organising chairman, JEE 2010, said. “There was a minor error in the order of printing of the subject headings in the ORS. This was noticed immediately after the start of the morning session. The students and parents are assured that appropriate corrective action would be taken during evaluation of the papers,”

While he did not elaborate on the proposed “corrective action,” a source said that “the best of the interests of students will be taken care of during evaluation even if students had marked answers for Mathematics or Physics in the ORS under the same subject names.”

An error in the order of printing of the subject headings in the question paper and Optical Response Sheet (ORS answer sheets) in the IIT Joint Entrance Examination (JEE 2010) caused panic and confusion among a cross-section of aspirants across the country for a few minutes in the morning session on Sunday.

In Paper I, the subject names Mathematics and Physics were swapped in the ORS, baffling students for a while. However, authorities at the IIT Madras, which is the organising centre for JEE 2010, passed on instructions to students across in all centres to ignore the printing mistake and continue to mark the answers in the ORS according to the question numbers (numbered continuously in a sequence) in the question paper.

I have never seen a single mistake in any of the books published by the countries like USA or England. That sure is the success story behind them.

It was during yesterday’s match between Super Kings Chennai and Royal Challengers Bangalore that Gavaskar commented on the unwanted issues between the two states Tamilnadu and Karnataka. All of us in India know that we do not divide Cricket on any state, let alone in IPL. The unwanted issues and state based politics were brought by Sunil Gavaskar. What a childish act by a senior player! While we all support an IPL team based on a player, it is the narrow mind of Gavaskar which brought about those comments. I started muting my TV from there whenever Gavaskar was on commentary.

A right cricketing man would never comment like that. Commenting on two states’ problems of sharing the Cauvery water and other issues. I was enjoying Cricket in the purest sense when this dirty comments made me wonder, whether Gavaskar should be further included in the commentary box at all! He must not have included comments on state politics, when his own state has Sena politics. Well, I do not want to be like him, hence I close the chapter.

Already Ravi Shastri is boring and now Gavaskar has shown his mean mindedness. It is high time commentators were selected by the public who really are above politics!

Sushma Swaraj and Brinda Karat looked like intimate friends though they were the opposites in Indian politics. I always liked Sushma – she is more than a mother to me. Her boldness and the sweet smile on her face and the numerous speeches in Parliament and for elections always impressed me. I do not know much about Karat who is a communist. Sushma belongs to the BJP.
The women in India always hold the power in Home(s). This is true you can ask anyone who is successful in his life – a famous businessman, an employee or even a politician. We respect women and even the Gods we worship have given their halves to their wife and a place in the heart. But Newspapers and Media project our men cruel to women. So be it, but in Parliament I fully support women and will support Sushma, Karat, Mayavati or Mamata Banerjee.

Lalu is a bore.

World Comics India (WCI), a non-profit organization founded by political cartoonist Sharad Sharma nearly a decade ago, has conducted close to 400 comic workshops across India.
Today, WCI is represented by a motley group of people from urban as well as remote corners of the country, who are part of a movement to bring about change at the grassroots. All of them focus on issues that concern their daily lives. Says Sharma, We have mainly worked with small and medium NGOs in remote and conflict areas. We believe this tool can help people living there raise their voices and open a debate in society.

It doesnt take much to make these comics. As Sharma says, its not necessary to know drawing, just a willingness to do so and tell stories. Drawn on photostat paper and in black and white, its the message that ultimately matters. Many NGOs take the help of comic activists to spread awareness about AIDS, infanticide, pollution, etc. Some of the strips have been syndicated and used in local and regional newspapers . One single strip produced by a sarpanch in Rajasthan on water scarcity appeared in 50 newspapers in three states, says Sharma who would now like to make this service available in other states too.

A village in North India where uranium mines are found a change has taken place. Harmful uranium dust from the mines is no longer dumped into the fields. The villagers were not even aware how radiation from this dust was harming their lives. Thanks to Surendra Mohan Murmu who started an aggressive awareness campaign through wall poster comics, they were able to put an end to this dangerous practice.

Through development comics, activists talk about local issues and how to tackle them. Most are trained in the art of comic making. Ofcourse, these comics are nothing like conventional Archie or Tintin comics.

Tawna , a young activist from Mizoram, talks about deforestation and how its killing the fauna and flora of the area, thereby affecting their lives. He tells them about the importance of voting. Murmu too is quite active and his most recent campaign has been against Bt Brinjal in Orissa. For the activists, cartoons are a great medium to voice their concerns without resorting to protests and dharnas . Rajeshwari Saha, a trainer with WCI, wanted to be heard. She did it through comics. A native of Kolkata, Saha expressed her concern about the phasing out of trams in her comics. Another time, she questioned whether all the development centered around the Commonwealth Games would benefit anybody.

Also, he wants the comics to go mainstream. A comics anthology Whose Development is the first in a series that he is launching soon. It is a collection of work by 15 activists from across the country, each talking about an issue close to his heart. Sharma, who prefers to call himself a comic journalist, says, Comics anthologies are very popular in Europe and the US but we don’t have a parallel here. I hope this anthology will engage those who are interested in telling stories through drawings.

The words that had the nation all those years ago: ‘‘Miley sur mera tumhara, toh sur baney hamara?’’

Indians needed it and it was given by Doordarshan. A 16-minute film was launched without fanfare on August 15, 1988, and quickly slipped into nation’s bloodstream.

The 60th anniversary of the republic to being ‘‘mahaan’’ is a booster. Entirely re-filmed ‘‘Phir Miley Sur’’ records the new beats of India and it is sung by 69 icons instead of the original 26. ‘‘Phir Miley Sur’’, presented by The Times of India, and supported by Vodafone, Kingfisher Airlines and Taj Hotels, was launched on Monday — the eve of the 60th Republic Day — by Amitabh Bachchan. If Delhi’s fog prevented the I& B minister, Ambika Soni from doing the honours as scheduled, it was arguably the triumph of fitness over form.

The Big B represent Hindi cinema, the country’s biggest unifier, he was also the only icon from the original video to figure in the new one. Not just that, he is the only non-singer who has actually sung the opening bars himself, and then slipping his hands into his pockets slipped into his unmistakable oratory.

Bachchan is there, this time with Abhishek and Aishwarya. It is a continuum of the patriotism parampara and perhaps a link into ‘‘Phir Sur Miley’’, whenever that is made to record the next spike in the India balance sheet. Louis Banks, who arranged the music for this film, is there with his son Gino; Amjad Ali Khan with Aman and Ayan; Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma with Rahul; Zakir Hussain is there with his brothers Taufiq and Faizal Qureshi — and his eight tablas; L Subramaniam is en famille. And Deepika Padukone takes the place of her badminton ace father as she sings in the rain.

‘‘Phir’’ may have the same words but it is palpably, six packs-ly different. You can feel it in the cyber rush of A R Rahman’s finger board, unveiled here for the first time, in the throb of Shankar Ehsan Loy, in the musical tandava of Shivamani and the electronic twang of the instruments.

The timeless India of its religions, its monuments, its languages is as much on show as Rau Sahib’s stunning photography unfolds phir sey. .

You can check it for yourself on Zoom today, and clear for yourself the doubts expressed by one cynic who had asked its CEO, Suresh Bala, ‘‘Yeh item number key channel par Mother India kaisey?’’