All aboard the INS Sahyadri

Sydney’s Indian community were invited onto the Indian warship and enjoyed the authenticity of ambience and cuisine from back home

BY NIMA MENON

INS Sahyadri is the third and final addition to the Shivalik class of indigenously-built stealth warships, and was commissioned into the Indian naval fleet on July 21, 2012. While Sahyadri (the benevolent mountains) is the major hill range starting from the north of the Western ghats of India, Shivalik Hills is a mountain range in the Himalayas. Commanded by Captain Sanjay Vatsayan, with 24 officers and 250 sailors aboard, this antisubmarine warfare guided missile stealth Frigate, represented the Indian naval prowess at the International Fleet Review hosted by the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) in Sydney from October 3-11. A latest addition and the pride of the Indian naval arsenal, INS Sahyadri set sail from Vizag to Sydney and participated in various exercises along with naval ships from other countries.

On October 7, the captain and crew invited prominent members from the Indian diaspora in Sydney aboard the ship for some fauji style entertainment and dinner. The ambience was nostalgic and patriotic.

The evening was also attended by the High Commissioner of India Mr Biren Nanda; the Consulate General of India for Sydney Mr Arun Goel; and veterans from the Indian Defence Forces. Admiral Anil Chopra, Commander-inChief of the Eastern Naval Command addressed the gathering and welcomed the guests. He expressed his joy, and acknowledged the importance of this exercise in improving ties between India and Australia.

“Defence ties and cooperation between the naval forces of India and Australia have developed rapidly since the establishment of a Strategic Partnership between the two countries in 2009,” Mr Nanda said in his speech. “Earlier this year we had the first ever visit by our Defence Minister to Australia. A major outcome of the visit was to institutionalise maritime exercises between the two navies”. He further reiterated India’s dynamic pursuit in building strong ties with the ‘Indian Ocean littorals’. He concluded saying, “India and Australia share a global vision of peace, stability and shared prosperity based on sustainable development. Shared democratic values and commitment to human rights, pluralism, an open society and the rule of law underpin the strategic partnership between our two countries”.

Lieutenant Commander Jamie Watson was the Australian liaison officer aboard this Indian warship, and sailed with them from Fremantle to Sydney. When asked what was the difference in practice between the Indian navy and the Australian navy, he said, “Nothing much, except that I am woken every morning at 5am by the sound of the bugle!” He described his experience and interaction with the Indian naval crew as warm and friendly. He is no stranger to the Indian ways, as he has visited India before in his capacity as naval officer, as well as a tourist.

The captain of the ship, Captain Sanjay Vatsayan, was a host par excellence, making every person welcome in the true Indian and naval tradition. The Indian naval band entertained the guests with some peppy Bollywood numbers, and I had great difficulty restricting my dancing toes from moving onto the dance floor. There was a vibrant bhangra to add that extra zest to the evening.

The soup and the dinner were typical ‘mess’ style. I felt that the taste and texture of the yummy tomato soup, rotis and dhal makani had not changed in 15 years. On enquiring, it was revealed that all the ingredients for the meal, including the chicken had come from Vizag. It was the smell and the taste of the nation one had left behind, but still continues to be part of one’s identity.

The evening culminated very appropriately with the naval band playing Advance Australia Fair followed by Jana Gana Mana. An unforgettable experience, indeed!

Commanded by Captain Sanjay Vatsayan, with 24 officers and 250 sailors aboard, this antisubmarine warfare guided missile stealth Frigate, represented the Indian naval prowess at the International Fleet Review

A Christie’s employee surveys Indian artist Jitish Kallat’s Public Notice 2 (painted place on October 17 with no estimate or reserve prices

Madhya Pradesh stampede toll 111, Datia officials suspended

The toll in a horrific stampede at a Durga temple in Madhya Pradesh’s Datia on Oct 14 rose to 111, including 47 women and 33 children. The state government, which ordered a judicial probe, suspended four top district officials after the poll panel’s nod.

Sub-Divisional Magistrate (revenue) Mahip Tejaswi, who announced the toll, said search operations were continuing in the Sindh river in which a number of trapped people had jumped in a bid to escape the crushing throng.

The temple at Ratangarh is located in a forested part of Datia district, 390 km north of the state capital of Bhopal and 55 km from Datia town.

Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who visited the spot and the hospital where the injured were admitted, asserted that the guilty will be punished at the earliest.

“A judicial inquiry will be done... It will be completed in two months. Once the report comes, within 15 days, the guilty will be punished,” he told journalists. He said the commission has been appointed.

“Since the judicial inquiry report will take time to come, depending on the feedback, administrative responsibility will be fixed. We will seek the Election Commission’s permission so that we can take action against those found guilty,” he said.

The state government later suspended

District Magistrate Sanket Bhondwe, Superintendent of Police Chandrashekhar Solanki, Tejaswi and Sub-Divisional Police Officer B.N. Basawe after taking permission from the election commission, mandatory since the model code of conduct is in place ahead of assembly elections November 25.

The stampede at the Ratangarh temple on the last day of the Navratras was sparked by a rumour that the bridge to it had collapsed and police’s use of force to control the crowd. Women and children were trampled in the stampede while many people jumped into the river.

Datia’s Chief Medical Officer S.R. Gupta said post-mortems had been conducted on 109 of the dead and the bodies were returned to their families for the last rites.

Union Minister of State for Power Jyotiraditya Scindia also visited the area on Monday and met the victims. Attacking the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) without naming it, he said those doing politics in the name of god had killed off 300 people while the administration had only put the toll at 111.

He claimed the tragedy could have been prevented and attributed it to the incapacity of the government and the administration.

Chouhan later said that politics surrounding the tragedy is “unwanted” and that steps will be taken to avoid any such tragedies in future.

“The focus should be on attending to the injured and take steps to avoid any such incidents in the future,” he said in a comment on Twitter.

Relief work in full swing in north coastal Andhra

Relief and restoration work was in full swing in the cyclone Phailin-affected Srikakulam district of Andhra Pradesh, officials said in Hyderabad recently.

The rescue workers were busy providing relief to some villages inundated by the water from Vamsadhara River following heavy rains on October 12. The water level in the river is now receding.

All relief camps opened in Srikakulam, Vizianagaram and Visakhapatnam districts were closed as the situation has improved, said a statement from the chief minister’s office.

Over 1.34 lakh people were evacuated from 294 villages in the three districts from October 11.

Phailin, which crossed the Odisha coast, damaged crops, roads, electricity and communication towers in Srikakulam districts, while two others districts were not affected by the cyclone.

One person died in a wall collapse in the Srikakulam district. Officials said the damage was not on the scale anticipated earlier.

Clear weather prevailed in Andhra on October 14. Fishermen also returned to the sea as the Indian Meteorological

Department (IMD) withdrew its warning.

Officials said electricity supply to mandal headquarters was restored, with supply to all villages to follow, except in a few cases of villages being inundated. About 700 people were engaged in restoring power supply.

Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy reviewed the relief work with Chief Secretary P.K.Mohanty Commissioner, Disaster Management, T.Radha and other officials.

Officials said relief and restoration works were being completed on a war footing. All damaged roads were repaired and cleared of the trees which fell due to strong winds.

Drinking water was being supplied through tankers and medical teams were attending to the affected people. Officials from Coconut Development Board, Bangalore, are reaching Srikakulam to assess the damages.

As per preliminary reports, paddy was inundated with over 6,192 hectares. Over 555 hectares of maize and over 145 hectares of sugarcane were damaged. Over 3,219 hectares of coconut trees were damaged, with over 929 hectares of cashew damaged.

The district administration has constituted teams to assess damages to fishermen, agriculture and horticulture.

Food prices push inflation to seven-month high

Driven by high prices of onions and other food items, India’s wholesale price inflation surged to 6.46% in September, the sharpest in seven months.

According to data released by the ministry of commerce and industry, the headline inflation, measured in terms of the Wholesale Price Index (WPI), accelerated to 6.46% in September.

The WPI had increased 6.10% in August as against 5.85% in July.

The headline inflation was recorded at 8.07% during September 2012. The food inflation for the month under review rose to 18.40% from 8.06% in the corresponding month of the previous year.

Prices of vegetables shot up by 89.37% in September, from a 6.73% deceleration in the corresponding month of 2012.

The prices of onions soared by 322.94% in the month under review from a fall of 24.69%.

Onion prices rose 244.62% year-onyear in August. Fruits became costlier by 13.54%, from 7.02% in the corresponding month of 2012.

Eggs, meat and fish became slightly costlier by 13.37%, from 13.22% recorded in September 2012.

Rice became costlier by 18.76% from 12.58% in September 2012.

Food inflation had accelerated by 18.18% in August on an year-on-year basis. In July, the food items became dearer by 11.9%.

Acceleration in inflation levels will make it difficult for the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to cut rates and bring in cheap funds for the sluggish economy to grow.

However, it may even go in for a rate hike to check increasing prices.

The RBI is scheduled to meet and announce its monetary policy October 29.

Durga Puja ends in Bengal with idol immersion

With tears in their eyes, scrambling to touch her feet one last time, devotees across West Bengal bade goodbye to their beloved mother goddess Durga as her idols were immersed in ponds, lakes and rivers on Vijaya Dashami recently.

The banks of the Ganga and other rivers wore a festive look despite the slight drizzle, as puja organisers came in colourful processions to the accompaniment of drums to immerse idols of the goddess and her four children, Lakshmi, Saraswati, Ganesha and Kartik.

Several huddled under umbrellas to watch the processions.

Hundreds of devotees, including the young, joined hands in gently lowering the idols into the river. An element of emptiness at the end of the biggest celebration in this part of the country overcame all and sundry, but they consoled themselves shouting “Asche bochor abar hobe” (see you next year).

Central Kolkata’s Babughat, a popular stretch on the Ganga, was the centre of attraction as it drew a large number of people, even from abroad, who soaked in the festive spirit. Most were clad in ethnic wear as they danced all the way to the ghat to the beats of the dhaak (drums).

Leading actors and actresses of the regional film industry were seen lending a hand to help the goddess during the immersion. Senior citizens played cymbals as the idols were lowered into the water while children splashed water on the submerging goddess.

The immersion ceremony symbolises the end of the goddess’s annual sojourn to her paternal home and she returns to her husband Lord Shiva at their heavenly abode in Mount Kailash.

Elaborate security arrangements by city police as well as civic authorities were in place on various ghats of the river to ensure that the immersion of the idols passed peacefully.

Officers of the Kolkata Police manned the riverfront to prevent onlookers from getting too close to the river. A special vigil was maintained from a watchtower near the ghat.

Cranes were deployed at certain ghats to lift and extricate the remains of idols from the river to avoid pollution. Additional lights have been put up at the immersion ghats and the flowers, levers and metallic weapons were dumped in separate vats to avoid polluting the river.

Other than maintaining law and order during immersion, the teams of river police and disaster management groups patrolled the river. Closed-circuit television cameras were installed at certain ghats, a senior police officer said.

More than 2,700 community pujas were organised in the city and their idols will be immersed in the river.

In the morning, married women smeared the goddess and her children with red vermilion and offered sweets and prayed for the well-being of their families and long lives of their husbands.

School students visited the marquees and kept their books and pens in front of the goddess, praying for her blessings for a good academic record.

As evening descended, large parts of the city got clogged as idols of big ticket community pujas were taken for immersion in big and colourful processions accompanied by a large number of devotees.

Late in the afternoon, however, most of the idols in residential apartments or houses of one-time zamindars were immersed after being carried manually as per tradition.

There were long queues before sweet shops as people started visiting relatives and friends to wish each other “Shubho Bijaya” (Happy Bijaya Dashami).

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee also extended Bijaya Dashami and Dussehra greetings to the people through her official Facebook page.

India questions IMF’s lowered growth projections

India has joined issue with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) over the paring down of its growth rate from 5.6% to 3.8% since July, saying India didn’t share “this pessimistic outlook”.

“I would like to ask, respectfully, what is the information that IMF has gathered between July and September, that we do not have, that has impelled the Fund to drastically change the estimate?” Finance

A Kantapada villager in Jajpur district, Orissa, rescues food bags on15 October 2013. India’s most powerful cyclone in 14 years left a trail of destruction along the eastern coast and killed at least 22 people. The biggest evacuation in the country’s history, involving a million people, was credited with saving many lives

Minister P. Chidambaram asked recently.

“We do not share this pessimistic outlook,” he said addressing the plenary of the Fund’s steering International Monetary and Financial Committee at the Fund-World Bank’s just concluded annual meetings in Washington.

Noting that in some cases IMF projections have been revised downwards significantly in the very next update and have in the past often been at divergence with final growth numbers, he also stressed the “need for reviewing the methodology for growth projections”.

“There is no doubt that the Indian economy has suffered from a significant downturn this year,” Chidambaram acknowledged while pointing out that India has “taken several measures to put our economy on a sustainable growth path”.

Steps have been taken to ease supply constraints and improve the investment climate, and necessary measures have been initiated to contain the fiscal deficit and the current account deficit, he said.

Committed to the path of fiscal consolidation, the Indian government would not allow the red lines on the two deficits to be breached under any circumstances, Chidambaram said. “We are prepared to take difficult decisions in this regard, should the need arise,” he added.

Projects amounting to more than $64 billion have been cleared in the last few months. Once these projects come on stream, they should have an all-round salutary effect, he said.

Describing persistent inflation as another major challenge facing the Indian economy, he said India has taken measures to bring inflation down through a mix of demandside and supply-side policies.

At a press briefing recently, IMF’s Director, Asia and Pacific Department Anoop Singh had said IMF lowered its growth forecasts for India as “there has been fallout from recent stress”.

However, he acknowledged that corrective policies are being taken and “as a result, we expect growth to pick up in India next year”.

Asked about India’s disagreement with the IMF assessment, Anoop Singh suggested there wasn’t a “huge difference” between the growth projections and “the issue simply is how quickly the economy responds”.

“Going by historical evidence, it will take several quarters, and the economy may only fully recover next year,” he added by way of explanation. “I certainly hope that we are wrong and that the economy recovers faster and the lags are shorter”.

IIT-Roorkee working on easy-tear packaging, best healthcare models

Do you find it frustrating tearing open small ketchup sachets or other air-tight plastic packets? IIT-Roorkee is embarking on an innovative packaging technique that will not only tear easily, but will be bio-degradable.

Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee (IIT-R), situated in the hilly state of Uttarakhand, is also embarking on two other projects, providing the best of healthcare at affordable costs to remote villages in the hill state as well as effective water harvesting and waste water management in the hills.

Three centres of excellence are being developed by students and faculty of the premier institution - Centre for Urban Design and Development, Centre for Packaging and Centre for Healthcare Engineering.

“I call these centres of excellence because they are very different from the academic entity. It is how we can leverage the strengths of our researchers and then reach society and help them,” IIT-Roorkee director Pradipta Banerji said recently.

Elaborating on the packaging technology, Banerji said: “Whenever you have to open ketchup packets it is difficult to tear them and the contents spill out. We are working to develop easy and flexible packaging for the Indian market. It will be a blend of paper pulp and polymer technology”.

IIT-Roorkee is the only IIT that has pulp and paper technology and polymer science departments.

“The centre will bring together the students and teachers to create biodegradable innovative and flexible packaging,” he said.

“The Indian market is in dire need of easy packaging technology”.

Banerji said he is keen to take the best of healthcare provided by speciality hospital chains to remote villages in the state.

“We want to deliver the best and affordable healthcare to the remotest villages, like in Mana, which is situated in Chamoli district. Our effort is to be able to deliver the same healthcare which Max Hospital in Dehradun delivers,” said Banerji.

The centre will also be working on a design for a hospital setup, complete with proper sanitation and a well-planned structure of construction and hospital management. It would work as a basic design for setting up future large healthcare centres in the state.

Researchers from the department of nuclear science, electrical engineering, chemistry and biotechnology will work to develop an effective healthcare model, he said.

For optimum water utilisation in the hill state, IIT-Roorkee is also working on rain water harvesting, waste water recycling and water management. This would help farmers with irrigating their terrace farms.

The Centre for Urban Design and Development will bring together students and teachers of architectural planning, civil and electronics engineering and the departments of earth and earthquake sciences to develop models for waste management, he said.

“We are also looking at a couple of villages as pilot sites around which these water management projects will be developed. However, this project will be taken forward only after close interaction with the people of the region so that their wants and aspirations are fulfilled,” he said.

The director is hopeful the institution will be able to deliver on the projects.

From dancing to drums and everything in-between, the festival was a huge hit!