Excelsior... Nation

"Lack of fair deal" the reason behind Ash’s move

MUMBAI, Nov 15: Lack of a fair deal led Aishwarya Rai to opt out of Ketan Mehta’s magnum opus the rising , her US managers handling her international projects have said.

In an email communication to UNI, Simone Sheffield of Canyon entertainment said Ash, as the actress is popularly ,known met director Ketan Mehta in November 2002 who proposed the project story line to her. She wanted to read the script and said would like to do the film.

The email said that no documents were received until May 14 2003. Ash said that she will do the film based on mutually agreed terms. A deposit was sent to hold her dates but no dates were finalised till three or four weeks ago and no script was received until three weeks ago.

The producer Bobby Bedi did not answer calls and emails for weeks on end and we returned his deposit on October 17, 2003. Then all of a sudden - when Prince Charles was scheduled to visit the production bedi finally calls up asking ash to show-up for his visit. However, we still had no deal and ash was away working and could not attend the reception , Sheffield said in the communication.

As far as we (manager/agents) were concerned - once the deposit was returned, no final script in hand, no final dates, no final cast and most importantly - there was no binding agreement, we felt the rising was over , the E-mail said.

According to Sheffield, early November, Ash’s managers sent Bedi the requirements for Ash’s services. Ash’s price and international value have risen significantly in the past year, alone, making her price higher than a year ago, even a month ago .

When Bedi said he had no more up front money for the role - we offered to accept fees on the back-end for UK/USA territories. If the film did not make money internationally, Ash would receive only her flat fee. Bedi told me only Aamir was getting back-end . I found this unfair and unacceptable , she said.

Bedi thought he could put us in a tight spot by finalising the deal just days before filming , she said and added that Bedi has now cast Amisha Patel and we are sure she will do a wonderful job in the role. Ash is very happy for her getting this opportunity to make the film.

Business is business and fair is fair. Ash was not being treated fairly. It’s as simple as that , the E-mail said. (UNI)

Sands of Yamuna tell the story of Orissa

NEW DELHI, Nov 16: The silvery sand from the beds of river Yamuna has for the first time in the capital, been fashioned into the most unusual of structures, by the practitioner of a rare art form— that of sand sculpting.

Sudarshan Pattnaik’s 10-feet high sculpture at the Orissa pavilion at the India International Trade Fair, he told UNI, was a depiction of "the transformation of King Ashoka in the land of Lord Jagannatha".

Patiently and painstakingly carved out from around two truckloads of the fine sand brought in from the Yamuna bed, his sculpture shows the Pyramidal gateway of the Puri Temple with a 20 by 2.5 inch wide end-to-end carving of its entrance near the top and the gateway to the stupa in Dhaulagiri below it.

The faces of Lord Buddha, scholar Chanakya, the ancient state of Kalinga personified form the three supporting columns of the carving, the fourth depicts the caves of Khandagiri and Udayagiri.

The backdrop to this sculpture is formed by the foamy waters of the Bay of Bengal, interspersed with turtles, gharials and dolphins and varied sea life.

"I have used sand from the Yamuna for this particular sculpture because it is fine and silver in colour unlike sand from Puri which is golden. And people here wouldn’t believe it was made out of sand if it were of an unrecognisable hue," he said.

Predictably, it has turned out to be a crowd-puller.

An art form, that is almost a sporting event in many parts of the world, sand sculpting has few patrons and practitioners in India. Accolades for Pattnaik have come from outside. He won prizes at international sand sculpting competitions earlier this year— stood second at Valadoli in Spain, third in Berlin, fourth in Shanghai, where he was the only Indian selected for the event. He has also represented the country in around 20 competitions worldwide.

"It is only now that the Government has begun to recognise sand art. This is for the first time that my sculpture has been sponsored by the Orissa Government," he said.

A self-taught artist, Pattnaik said as a child he used to build sand castles for fun on the beaches of Puri, where he grew up. Slowly, he graduated to making images of Gods and Goddesses and his past-time developed into a passion and the gravel into gold.

He uses his bare hands for sculpting the images and carves out the relief features with his long finger nails. Huge mounds of sand are first pressed into shape. Artistes then stand on a scaffolding and start work from the top and gradually come down.

"Water is the only bonding agent and most sculptures will last for around 15 to 20 days," he said.

This particular carving at the IIFT, which took 52 hours to complete, was designed by Sonali Mohanty and Pattnaik was assisted by artistes Pragnya Paramita, Sumita Ghosh, Biswanath Panda, Jitendra Jagdev, Manas Sahoo and Sanjay Samal.

They are students of the Golden Sand Art Institute founded by Pattnaik in 1995, to propagate this unique art form. (UNI)

Low agricultural growth due to confusing Govt policies

PATNA, Nov 16: Contradictory policies of the Centre and lack-lustre attitude of the Bihar Government towards giving a momentum to the agriculture sector are responsible for the tardy growth of the rural economy, according to bankers and officials engaged in the task.

Bankers pointed out that on the one hand they had been asked to keep the Non-Performing Assets (NPAs) level as low as possible and on the other, banks were expected to inject more funds to priority sector including agriculture.

For want of a collateral guarantee by the State Governments in all schemes aimed at boosting agricultural production, banks were shying from giving advances since recovery might be a problem later, bankers argued.

Bihar Institutional Finance Minister Ashok Kumar estimated the minimum annual short-term credit need in the agricultural sector ATRs 5,350 crore. He pointed out that main reason behind use of only 52 Kg of fertilisers per hectare of gross cropped area —which was nearly half of the national average — had been identified as arising from low credit flow from banks and other financial institutions.

The State Government had a limited role to play in augmenting credit infusion to the rural sector, he said, adding, subsidies were paid for procuring tractors, threshers etc and stood as guarantor against short-term loans like crop loans, advances for buying fertilisers and quality seeds.

Mr Kumar said that commercial banks and regional rural banks were operating through 1,251 and 1,302 rural branches repectively in the state, recording a credit-deposit ratio of 21.23 and 21.81 respectively.

Against the dismal performamce of commercial as well as rural banks cooperative banks maintained a high credit-deposit ratio of 89.84, he added.

The minister deplored that none of the commercial banks paving the rural network of branches could achieve the target set under refinance scheme by national bank for agriculture and rural development during 2002-03. Following the lukewarm response from banks to the State Government’s plea to effectively participate in resurgence of rural economy, the pernicious ‘Mahajani’ system had reared its ugly head, he observed.

High rate of interest against agricultural loans, levy of taxes on purchase of tractors on a par with automobiles and the cumbersome process to avail even short-term crop loans are other factors which were hindering credit inflow into agricultural sector, Mr Kumar observed.

According to agriculture department officials, plantation and horticulture crops covered an area of 10.64 lakh hectares with an estimated total production of 151.48 lakh tonnes. Credit inflow in the sector had been perennially low and all banks together extended paltry sum of loans in 2000-2002. Lack of post-harvest storage facilities, inadequate number of processing units and denial of remunerative prices were the main reasons responsible for failure of the sector to attract investments, the officials argued.

Benefits marked in the state budget for 2003-04 under agriculture and Rural Development Department heads are not likely to percolate to the targetted groups in rural areas with an inefficient administrative machinery lacking the basic infrastructure to ensure generation of economic activities through accelerated credit inflow into the priority sectors. (UNI)

Diamond valley turns into a dead town

HIRAKUD, WESTERN ORISSA, Nov 16: Hirakud, known popularly as the valley of diamond and an affluent town of western Orissa, has turned into a "dead town" following industrial sickness.

Even with a small town of just 15,000 population, Hirakud had occupied importance in the country’s industrial map with pictures of the place and its dam finding a place in the hundred-rupee note. However, now Hirakud’s inhabitants call the town a "dead town".

Once Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru had described the town as the "Temple Of Modern India", but over the years industrial sickness triggered several problems for the inhabitants, who dreamt for a better living.

It was also called an industrial town with the establishment of three Industrial Development Corporation(IDC)-run plants and two other aluminium-based private sector companies.

The Indian Aluminium Company(INDAL), an Alcan group of companies with international, suffered severe power crisis in the 1980s and was heading for a closure.

However, the management later installed a captive power plant of its own to get rid of the power problem. Since then, the plant was running with full capacity.

The fate of the four others plants, however, was just the reverse as industrial sickness had deprived the workers of their living.

The situation has come to such a stage that even the parents are unable to afford higher education for their children and meet their minimum requirement.

A science teacher in the Hirakud boys’ high school, Bamadev Sarangi, left the job to join Aluminium Industries(ALIND) for a better salary. But now he feels it was a mistake for him to switch over to the new job. The company has been closed rendering all the workers jobless.

The plant was closed in a manner unheard of in any industrial city. The management, on one fine morning, left the place forever. Even no arrangement was made to safeguard the company’s existing property worth crores of rupees.

The fate of Sarangi and hundreds of his colleagues could be well imagined. ALIND was one of the paying masters of the state with its pay scale being much higher than the Rourkela Steel Plant(RSP).

The plant’s workers, who were once the most affluent staff of the small town, have been turned into salesmen in the shops of Sambalpur town or roadside vegetable vendors.

Hirakud re-rolling mills, Hirakud industrial works and Hira cables-all three units of Orissa Government undertaking IDC had provided jobs to thousands of industrial workers.

However, the situation is quite different now. The re-rolling mill is closed, while the other two units are just running, but unable to pay salary to its workers.

The irony was that hundreds such units are functioning much better in Raipur in Chhattisgarh but the IDC and the Orissa Industries Department could not run the unit efficiently.

"Two other units of IDC could be just described as mere survival units," said L K Das, Advisor of Hirakud Industrial Workres’ union. He alleged that rampant corruption was the sole factor behind the precarious condition of the plant.

Central store, the main store of the Hirakud dam during its construction in the 1960s, was basically an industry as it was manufacturing main and spare parts required for the hydel projects.

Such units have a demand in the present day keeping in view the several hydel projects established in the state. But due to lack of will power of the senior officials, the unit was lying defunct, he said.

The locals attributed sheer politics, total mismanagement and corruption at the highest level to the downfall of this affluent town. (UNI)

Adivasi women bring socio-economic
revolution in Gujarat

DHARAMPUR, VALSAD, Nov 16: Conecpts like ‘women’s empowerment’ and ‘equality for women’ might still be unacceptable to the India’s urban elite but in Gujarat’s remote tribal belts of Valsad and Dangs districts they are a way of life.

Over 5000 tribal women in three different development blocks of Dharampur, Kaparada and Dangs are reaping rich dividends, because of the the Gujarat Adivasi Development Programme (GADP), that began almost eight years back.

"Under this project, 5000 women from more than 13,000 tribal families from 162 villages have been involved in self-employment schemes," said J H Mori, Project Coordinator of Dhruva (Dharampur Uttan Vahini), an NGO implementing the project.

‘Appreciating the unique tribal wisdom and custom locally known as ‘Wavli’, wherein women enjoyed exclusive rights over their income generated from backyard vegetable cultivation, activities like these were introduced," Mr Mori said.

"Women belonging to families owning land are involved in orchard (WADI) development, vegetable production and others activities. On the other hand, women belonging to landless families have been involved in vermicomposting, poultry and are also employed in cashew and mango processing units run by Dhruva," he added.

Speaking to UNI Mr Sunil Pandey, the public relations officer at NABARD said, "the financial assitance of Rs 55.5 crore is being provided to this project by Kreditanstalt Fur Wiederaufbau (KFW), Germany, spread over a period of ten years."

The whole programme is a result of the bilateral co-operation between of Germany and India. The programme phased for eleven years (1995-2006) was implemented through Dhruva, an operating arm of the Bharatiya Agro Industries Foundation’s (BAIF), Pune.

The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) has been assigned the task of monitoring and the dispersal of funds.

"Special emphasis has been given to women in this programme which is aimed at elevating the socio-economic conditions of the Adivasis inhabiting these tribals blocks. These areas also have a high percentage of labour migration and environmental degradation", Mr Pandey said.

"The women of families owning land are involved in development of the ‘WADI’ or orchard. ‘WADI’ in Gujarati means ‘a small orchard’, covering one or two acres of land," he added.

He said the participating families planted drought tolerant fruit-crops such as mango, cashew, amla, custard apple, and others on their marginal or wastelands while the interspace continued to be utilised for cultivating arable crops traditionally grown by them earlier.

"Forest trees and shrubs useful for fodder, fuel timber and herbal medicines were planted on the field bunds and borders. The fruit plants generated income after four to five years, while the forest species of trees took care of the families need for fuel and thus reducing pressure on the existing forests," he added.

BAIF Executive Officer H B Kharecha said the major achievement of the project is that tribal women have legally been given 50 per cent share of the profits generated from the family’s WADI.

"Women do 80 per cent of the labour in these WADIs and menfolks contribute only 20 per cent," Mr Kharecha said.

"This arrangement gave the women a sense of belonging which in turn ensured regualar maintenance of the orchard. Moreover, women earned handsome returns," Mr Mori said.

"One single group (ten members) of landless women employed under the scheme of vermicompositing last year managed to sell 35 tonnes of vermicompost manure and earned a total profit of Rs 17,000," said Ms Savita Thorat, the leader of the group about the vermicompost enterpirse.

She and other women utilised the bio-degradable wastes and dung to ensure that a new vermicompost bed was produced every week to meet the growing demand for the black gold. "This enterprise has helped us greatly. Our families, till recently, were dependent on casual labour generated from agricultural fields here or we used to migrate to the Vapi industrial belt with our families for a period of 4-5 months," Ms Thorat said.

"Now, migration is thing of the past," she added.

Mr Kharecha said Dhruva had formed a network of co-operatives for the villagers to ensure that they are not cheated by local traders and get the proper market price for their produce.

"The families of these women, who own land, use the same manure in their orchads as a cheap and safe alternative to artificial fertilisers," Dhruva Women Coordinator Kalpana Patel said.

Women in these tribal belts conduct their daily acitivities thorugh the Self-Help Groups (SHGs) that they have formed and where they can avail micro-credit to meet their consumptive and production needs, she added.

SHGs were promoted as a platform for organising women, she said.

"This also helped the women to have their own identity and economic independence," Ms Patel said.

"However, community health was a major concern for the tribal women. Primary health care was improved by providing training of local ‘dais’ (midwives) and by creating a network of local ‘Bhagats’ (traditional healers) to take part in community health care programme," Ms Patel explained.

"The women have become more aware about family health care, especially child care," said Urmila Gaekwad a local hgealth worker who in working as community health monitor under this project.

"The SHGs also took up the responsibility of organising ‘Anganwadis’ (kindergarten schools) by training local girls who had studied up to secondary school," Ms Patel said.

The success of the project can be gauged by the action of KFW, Germany, which had presented the WADI model as a replicable model for poverty alleviation at the UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) forum of ministers for poverty and environment, New York in 1999. This unique model was also showcased at Expo 2000, hannover in Germany. (UNI)

India has high neo-natal mortality rate due to
deliveries at home

NEW DELHI, Nov 16: India has high neo-natal mortality rate of 64 per cent as two-third of all deliveries are being done at home by untrained personnel while 1.2 million of the total 26 million children born each year die before attaining the age of four weeks due to poor health care facilities.

These perturbing facts were brought out at a "symposium on new born health in India" organised by the National Neonatology Forum of India here to mark the new born week held every year between November 15 to 21. It called for greater role of allied agencies in curbing high neo-natal mortality rate in the country.

The high neo-natal death was attributed to casual handling at the time of birth that leads to birth asphyxia — inability to breath and neo-natal sepsis or infection at birth. Poor health care facilities for mother and child and lack of awareness and false beliefs and rituals were the other major reasons for this high mortality rate, according to experts participating at the symposium.

Forum Secretary J P Dadhich stressed the need for the imminent need to implement effective interventions to check neo-natal deaths.

He said, "though infant mortality rate has declined gradually over the past 50 years, neo-natal mortality still remained at around 60 per cent. Although the tenth five year plan has laid special emphasis on providing a better health for new borns in the country and we need to chart out a concrete implementation strategy and define roles of all involved bodies, taking cognizance of the perspective of international agencies."

The thrust of the symposium was on achievements, needs and future perspective in health of newborns and formulation of a comprehensive and common strategy to deal with high neo-natal mortality. Detailed regional profiles of the status of neo-natal health in each state was one of the important presentations at the symposium which embarked upon the minute details of the broader strategy outline.

The symposium, attended by senior neo-natologists from across the country, called for a greater role of various other professional bodies like the breastfeeding promotion of India, Federation of Gynecologic Society of India, trained Nurses Association of India and many NGOs working in the field.

Many startling facts about the status of neo-natal health care facilities were discussed at the symposium.

Forum Joint Secretary and consultant neo-natologists at Ganga Ram hospital Satish Saluja said, "contrary to the general perception that the health care infrastructure in urban areas is better, it is just the opposite in case of neo-natal health facilities. Whereas we do have a well established infrastructure in rural areas for delivery of health care, we lack a similar thrust on infrastructure in urban areas."

Elaborating further on the despicable and sorry state of affairs in neo-natal care in India, Dr Dadhich said that the national family health survey II report submitted in 2000 by the Mumbai based Indian Institute of Population Sciences has revealed that utilisation of health services in India was a meager 12 per cent. Putting up infrastructure would not help unless the focus was on improving its implementation by charting out effective interventions in neo-natology.

The symposium was attended by representatives from Union Health Ministry, Indian Council of Medical Research, Indian Academy of Pediatricians, NIHFW, Nippcd, Indira Gandhi National Open University and Indian Medical Association. Representatives from international organisations like World Health Organisation, UNICEF, SNL, UNFPA, care, World Bank and USAID also shared their global perspective and targets. (UNI)