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PUNE, NOVEMBER 8, 2014 | www.goldensparrow.com
TGS LIFE
Pune brands go pan India
PUNE’S PEOPLE WITH A PURPOSE
SPORTS
Pune FC enter Durand Cup final P 16
Carrying the torch in the battle against cancer P2
Nat’l movement to promote marriages of choice gets going ‘Chayan’ promises to offer shelter, legal support and counselling to couples in case of outburst from families BY YASH DAIV @yash009
City subways are
&DESERTED
DEAD
Prominent social workers from different parts of the country who promote intercaste and inter-religious marriages have decided to establish a national movement called Chayan (Choice). This was decided at a meeting in the city on November 4-5 during a conference on ‘Right to Choice of Partner in Inter-caste and Interreligious Marriages’. Activists from the Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti (MANS), SM Joshi Socialist Foundation, Rashtriya Seva Dal and Muslim Satyashodhak Mandal along with the voluntary organisation, Dhanak from Delhi, were present at this meet.
the Special Marriage Act, 1954, which is complicated, different in every state and plagued with controversies. “A platform like Chayan can help modify such a law,” he said. Iqbal suggested that under the national platform one can create a secure place for couples who have mixed marriages. “We can offer them shelter, legal procedures and counselling in case there is an outburst from the families,” he said. Chayan would ensure the smooth functioning of the legal structure pertaining to marriage. Deepak Girme, president, MANS said society’s mindset have deep religious roots. Having worked with the late anti-superstition crusader Narendra Dabolkar for 25 years, he said any religious text should be questioned.
Six out of eight subways in the city are in a sad state of neglect and are closed to the public. Some are used as convenient urinating spots or as gambling dens. They are dirty, poorly lit and unsafe. Why can’t city subways be restored and made user-friendly for pedestrians? Also related is the complete avoidance of foot over-bridges by pedestrians. Why waste public exchequer and construct them if they are so very unpopular with the public? See Spotlight on p8-9
Pune’s hottest start-up, 2014 to get top prize today BY ISHANI BOSE @ishani_bose The Software Exporters Association of Pune’s (SEAP) annual mega event, PuneConnect 2014, that seeks to promote a culture of innovation, creativity and enterprise in the city is set to unfold today at Hotel Westin, Koregaon Park, at 9.30 am. At this event 2014’s hottest start-up from Pune will be selected from four finalists for the top prize. The entire galaxy of bodies promoting Start-ups in India is supporting this event and includes the National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM), The Indus Entrepreneurs (Tie, Pune), Software Technologies Parks of India (STPI), Mahratta Chamber Of Commerce Industries & Agriculture (MCCIA), PuneTech, iSpirit, IIM Ahmedabad’s Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship, SME Joinup, Hinjewadi Industries Association (HIA), IACC, and Pune Open Coffee Club. The four finalists for the top prize are: Scandid- a shopping technology start-up that enables shoppers to compare prices by scanning the product barcodes with one’s mobile phones; Framebench- a cloud based online collaboration, communication and feedback platform; Ecozen Solutions, started in September 2009 to promote awareness against poor energy management practices and elevate the Indian industry to the standards and expectations of a developed nation, and The Green Raddiwala which focuses on providing door-to-door services in collecting raddi or recyclable waste such as plastic, newspapers and the like. Founded by Sushil Chaudhari and Madhur Khandelwal in 2012, Scandid also helps consumers find latest online and offline deals. The company previously won the regional round of the Seedstars World- a global start-up competition.
2FRAMEBENCH
SCANDID THE FINALISTS ARE...
3 ECOZEN SOLUTIONS Framebench, founded by Rohit Agarwal, is a cloud-based online collaboration, communication and feedback platform. Framebench is a central workplace where one can store and share one’s creative assets. The company can help remote teams and
THE GREEN RADDIWALA clients to review, mark changes required on the assets and even host discussions on them in real time, which automatically gets documented for viewing later. This visual communication workflow allows for crisp & quick feedback. Ecozen Solutions run by Devendra
Gupta, Prateek Singhal and Vivek Pande was started in 2009 to promote awareness against poor energy management practices and elevate the Indian industry to the standards and expectations of a developed nation. It is with this view that this designed a pioneering and innovative micro Cold Storage- a solar powered cold storage system, which was primarily designed for the rural segment to serve their needs ideally. This innovative product can be suitably adapted for local conditions across the world. The fourth finalist, The Green Raddiwala has been established by Nikhil Pagare and Saurav Pasalkar to provide door-to-door services in collecting raddi or recyclable waste such as plastic, newspapers and the like. Green Raddiwala purchases the recyclable waste from households at market rates and sells it directly to recycling industries. This drastically reduces environmental pollution. ishani.bose@goldensparrow.com (See related reports on p3)
City takes lead over Delhi, Mumbai in the journey of product start-ups TGS NEWS SERVICE @TGSWeeKLY Pune has emerged as the nation’s second-fastest product start-up hub in the country. A close second to Bangalore, Pune has taken a lead over mega-metros like Delhi and Mumbai. This has been stated in the latest report by iSPIRIT, (Indian Software Product Industry Roundtable), a company mainly focussed towards the product industry. “Pune is significantly ahead of Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Hyderabad,” the report said while
noting the product start-ups activity in Bangalore at 33% of India, Pune (21 %), Delhi and Mumbai (about 1112% each) and Hyderabad at 9%. “Pune is definitely No. 2, which is excellent,” said Amit Paranjape, co-founder of Pune-Tech, an online tech portal for the tech and startup community in Pune. Addressing a recent press conference Paranjape spoke about Pune’s viable ecosystem, which has been developing tremendously to enable entrepreneurs to launch an enterprise.
Others who shared this thought were Gaurav Mehra, past president SEAP and managing director, Saba Softwares; Maneesh Bhandari, director, Pune Division, Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) at IIM Ahmedabad; Ashutosh Parasnis, president of SEAP and managing director of Qlogic; Ramaswamy Narayanan, vice president, SEAP; Vishwas Mahajan, president of TIEPune chapter and Navin Kabra, cofounder of Pune Tech. tgs.feedback@goldensparrow.com
(Left to right) MANS state secretary Milind Deshmukh, president Deepak Girme and Dhanak secretary Asif Iqbal at SM Joshi Hall in Navi Peth on November 4
After several brainstorming sessions that probed into legal, religious and humanitarian aspects of marriage, the group devised the concept of Chayan (choice). These organisations aspire to make Chayan a national movement. The conference began with an “oath of humanity” to promote the principle of non-discrimination based on caste, religion, language or gender. Madhav Bhavge, secretary, MANS said Chayan is the need of the hour. “It could be a national level movement which would give shape to the ideas and suggestions that we have expressed,” he said. Asif Iqbal, secretary, Dhanak, an organisation working for interreligious marriages since 2005, said the public at large was not aware of
“People blindly follow the vedic rituals. A person should be able to justify all his or her activities rather than following a tradition. If we are able to instil this attitude in the masses we will be able to eradicate class politics and in turn the problems of mixed marriages,” he said. Subhash Bhave, secretary, SM Joshi Socialist Foundation emphasised on the need for mass awareness. “People have a tendency to hide their marriages until the legal documents are ready. This attitude must be changed,” he said. It was suggested during the deliberations that there should be a group of five to ten people in every district who will promote and provide assistance if required, for inter-caste and inter-religious marriages. yashdaiv@gmail.com
CHILDREN’S DAY COMPETITION The 2014 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded jointly to eminent social worker Kailash Satyarthi in recognition of his crusade against child labour. As a tribute to him, we invite the Children of Pune to participate in
The Golden Sparrow’s Children’s Day Competition Children, send us your paintings, poems & essays on
CHILD LABOUR IN INDIA Mention your name, age, standard, school’s name and contact number in your entry. Last Date for Receiving Entries: Saturday, 22nd November Prize Winning Entries will be announced in this newspaper Entries may be sent to: The Golden Sparrow on Saturday, 1641, Madhav Heritage, Tilak Road, Pune - 411030. Tel: 020-24324332/33
For Details SMS/Contact: Prachi, Tel: 9822619858 or Yash: 9762884007