SUNDAY TIMES OF INDIA, AHMEDABADAUGUST 31, 20144 TIMES CITY

HOME, SWEET HOMEAshwin Sadhu

A pair of birds in the safety of their nest on a cloudy day

With cases of water-borne diseases rising in the city, municipalcommissioner Guruprasad Mohapatra has directed AMChealth department to conduct raids in hotels which are oper-ating without licence in Lambha and Ghodasar wards. On Sat-urday, Satnam Guest House in Lambha and Calcutta Café inGhodasar were sealed by officials.

Mock parliament at GNLU ends today: The second edi-tion of mock parliamentary debating tournament at the Guj-arat National Law University (GNLU) will end on Sunday. Thecompetition promises a prize money of over Rs 2 lakh. AndreKua from Singapore and Daryl Isla from Philippines, two of thebest debaters in the Asian circuit, are among the chief adjudi-cators of the event. The tournament is based on the British par-liamentary style of debating, wherein each round consists offour teams with two members each, arguing on behalf of thegovernment and opposition, on important policies. The motionfor each round is given 20 minutes before the round and rang-es from politics to current affairs to movies to social issuesthat pertain to not just India, but the world.

‘Over 12L unregistered labourers in state’: Majdoor Ad-hikar Manch held a meeting to discuss problems related to la-bourers working at construction sites in the state. The manchhas revealed a data claiming there are more than 12 lakh un-registered construction labourers in the state. It said only 6,000labourers are registered with the Shramyogi Kalyan Board.Members said that in last five years, 400 workers died and onlyseven families got compensation from the state government.

IIT-Gn to host TEDx: IIT-Gandhinagar will on Sunday orga-nize a TEDx conference, which will feature speakers from di-verse domains. TEDx is an offshoot of the popular TED confer-ence, which began with talks on technology, entertainmentand design. However, it has grown to encompass all sorts ofideas. TEDx events are independently organized by localgroups. The event will feature eight speakers on subjects thatrange from spirituality, healthcare and design, to music andarts. TEDx events are not-for-profit conferences that host shorttalks by people who are successfully living their ideas that areworth spreading. These events are organized under licencefrom internationally renowned conference organizer TED,whose programmes have been viewed more than one billiontimes either live or online.

CITY DIGEST

Illegal hotels sealed

Ahmedabad: The Gujarat highcourt has been uncompromis-ing in its stand against peoplemaligning the judiciary’s imagewithout any basis. The courtgives such people a chance tosubstantiate their allegationsbut when they are unable to doso, it takes them to task.

The latest example of this iscity-based lawyer, Maulin Barot,who has been asked by the highcourt to seek pardon from for-mer metropolitan judge BJ Ga-natra whom the lawyer had ac-cused of corruption.

Earlier, Ganatra had upheldthe clean chit given by the SIT to

then Gujarat chief minister Na-rendra Modi in the 2002 riotcases. Barot, however, had writ-ten to the chief justice of theGujarat high court and other of-ficers alleging that Ganatra hadasked him to do ‘vahivat’ to get afavourable order.

At this, the high court hadasked Barot to furnish evidenceto support his allegation but thelawyer was unable to do. Thecourt then initiated contempt ofcourt proceedings against himand asked the lawyer to seek par-don from Ganatra.

Barot’s fate will be decidednext week when the high courttakes up his case for furtherhearing.

Like Barot, there are manylawyers and litigants who are introuble for making baseless alle-gations of corruption and mis-conduct against judges of thelower judiciary.

In the last one year or so, thehigh court has, suo motu, initi-ated contempt of court proceed-ings against numerous litigantsand lawyers who had shot off let-ters to the high court chief jus-tice making baseless allega-tions. Most of the accusers hadto tender unconditional apologyand pay fines.

Interestingly, the judges ofthe lower courts pardon their ac-cusers in all cases when the highcourt seeks their opinion.

HC stands up for lower judiciaryTIMES NEWS NETWORK

Gandhinagar: Chief Minis-ter Anandiben Patel an-nounced the celebration of‘Gyan Saptah (knowledgeweek) on Saturday from nextweek to celebrate Teachers’Day.

Patel wrote a blog to ex-press thoughts on the presenteducation system. She wrote:“The disappointing reality is,today we see education only asa tool to earn livelihood and

not as a means of shaping lives.Because of this, education of girlchild is not seen as a priority inour society. Such beliefs need tobe uprooted. At times I wonder,is it the same society which in-herited the legacy of womenscholars like Gargi and Maitrai,whose prowess was no less thantheir male counterparts. Todaythere is a dire need to work sig-nificantly towards spreadingawareness for higher educationand promoting girl child educa-tion.”

She wrote: “Gyan Saptah is asmall step towards a new begin-ning, towards realizing a bigdream. Our dream is to makeGujarat an international Knowl-edge Hub. With this goal inmind, let us work together. Gov-ernment alone can’t achieve thisgoal; nor can any other institu-tion. Only collective efforts canmake this possible. On the occa-sion of Teachers’ Day, I pay myrespect to a great teacher andformer President of India, DrSarvepalli Radhakrishnan.”

Celebration of ‘Gyan Saptah’ announcedAhmedabad:A Bopal resident has regis-tered a complaint for cheating of Rs58,800 with Gujarat University police. Ac-cording to a complaint by Kaushik Lim-bachiya, a resident of I&AD Colony, Bo-pal, accused Pawan Bansal took him inconfidence and used details of his debitcard for online shopping of Rs 58,800 be-tween 7.30 am and 8.30 am on Thursday.

“We have got a phone number and de-tails of the online shopping on the basisof which we are trying to locate thefraudster,” said an investigator.

Bopal resident dupedin online fraud

Ahmedabad: Of the threesites where whale sharkshave regular sighting, Man-grol and Veraval along theGujarat coast have shot tofame. These two places havebeen the best suited sites forwhale shark tourism as thevisibility of this sea animal isbetter here.

This was stated in the re-port ‘Gujarat Gentle Giant-Conservation of Whaleshark’. The report was a partof the conservation pro-gramme taken up by the Guj-arat forest department andWildlife Trust of India (WTI),along with an industrialhouse based at Mithapur.

The report further statesthat whale shark tourism de-pends on good visibility andonly deeper areas far from theshore show a good visibility ofthe giant fish. The report statesthat of the three sites surveyedas a part of the project — Vera-val, Diu and Mangrol — it wasrevealed that Mangrol showedgood visibility compared to Ve-raval. However, Veraval had abroad range of visibility. Diuhad the lowest visibility.

The report further saidthat of the 15 fishermen whowere surveyed during the con-servation programme re-vealed that the probability ofsighing a whale shark is high-er in the coast of Dhamlej andMuldwarka villages. The max-imum sighting occurred be-tween November and April.

Movement of sharks:Awhale shark which was taggedin Sutrapada in March 2011

had moved 130km away fromSutrapada. Thereafter, itshowed movement towardssouth Maharashtra, Mumbai,Gulf of Khambhat, followed byDiu. Later it was located 25kmfrom Sutrapada. Then thetagged shark spent most of itstime in Gulf of Khambhat. Da-ta analysis of one more whaleshark revealed that the sharkhad moved nearly 287 nauticalmiles in seven days and it had

gone into the depth rangingfrom 24 metres to 3,800 metres.

Whale shark pup:In March2013, the first whale shark pupwas caught in the nets alongGujarat coast. The same year,there were four sightings ofpup which ranged from 60cmto 100cm. These were foundalong Sutrapada coast and inone incident, it was buriednear the beach.

Veraval: The giantmammal wonderland

Ahmedabad: The city-basedstartup ‘G-Auto’, an on-call au-torickshaw service, has beenawarded the Grand MobiPrize,constituted by SMART at theUniversity of Michigan and anautomobile major, recognizingit as an innovation in globaltransportation practices. Theawards were announced by theorganizers of the event that had135 entries from across the globe.

Nirmal Kumar, founder ofthe organization that covers15,000 autos in five Indian cities,says that the award is recogni-tion for the effort that goes intobringing professionalism into ahighly unorganized sector. TNN

G-Auto winsaward

Ahmedabad: A team ofSarkhej police caught eightin connection with cowpoaching in Ahmedabad dis-trict and have also seized anSUV used to ferry the ani-mals. The arrested includetwo Gram Rakshak Dal(GRD) jawans who helpedthe gang.

According to Sarkhej po-lice, they had found an illegalslaughter house at a desolat-ed spot on Sarkhej-Juhapuraroad a fortnight ago. At that

time, they had got names ofsome of the accused in thecase. Working on informa-tion, they caught Rafiq Ajm-eri and Zahiruddin Momin,both residents of Vejalpur,along with other accused inthe case. “The arrested alsoinclude Asif Memon and Im-ran Pathan, working withAslali police station and ru-ral LCB. The duo not only pi-loted the vehicle ferrying thepoached animals but alsoprevented the arrest of theaccused for long,” said an in-vestigator.

2 GRD jawans heldfor poaching cows

PrasantaKumar.Sahoo@timesgroup.com

In January 1982, Gandhian Narayanbhai Desai came to Vedchhi in Tapi district for the second time with an aim to carry on

his constructive work among villagers. His aim was to raise a second line of Gandhian workers.

He set up Sampurna Kranti Vidyalaya, or Insti-tute for Total Revolution. “I came back here from Vara-nasi as I realised that my roots are here,’’ says Desai. Now, the vidyalaya is man-

aged by his daughter Sanghamitra Gadekar,a medical doctor. Sang-hamitra is assisted by her physicist husband Surendra Gadekar. The Gadekars moved from Varanasi to Vedchhi in 1989 after Narayanbhai lost his wife Uttara Choudhury.

For the past 25 years, the Gadekars have been engaged in training people in self-reli-ance and self-sustenance. Called Gramin Kar-yakarta Prashikshan, the training they give enables people to go out and live a life in a rural environment where there is no regular source of income. And what do they teach? “From weaving and spin-ning to making dyes, and from making organic agri-produc-es to building houses with locally available materials — we teach our students basic livelihood skills,’’ says Sanghamitra. According to her, people from a var-ied range of educa-t i o n a l b a c k -grounds come there. “From school dropouts to PhD hold-ers,’’ she says.

Narayan Desai’s Experiments With

Gandhism Continues At Vedchhi

‘Banyan of Vedchhi’

Jugatram Dave is known as ‘the Banyan of Vedchhi’. The

Gandhian sage, born in 1892, came from Surendranagar and joined Swaraj Ashram, Vedchhi, founded by Mahatma’s disciple

Chunibhai Mehta. Mehta soon entrusted the responsibility of running the ashram on Dave. It was because of

Jugatram that Narayanbhai Desai came to Vedchhi for the first time in early 1947 and lived there till 1960. Narayanbhai and Gandhian Mohan Parikh, with the help of Jugatram, set up a Prathmik Shala at the ashram. Later, a primary school, a high and higher secondary school came up there. At the ashram, Jugatram groomed over 50 freedom fighters. Those trained by him went out and set up institutes anchored on the Nayee Taleem concept of Gandhiji. Today, there are 223 such institutes in South Gujarat. When Jugatram died in 1985, he was cremated in the ashram premises and a banyan tree was planted on the same spot. The tree has now grown to be 29 years old, reminding people of Jugatram’s tentacles of constructive work.

Activist inspired by Bapu

KSahadevan came from Kerala to Gujarat on a cycle

yatra in 1992. After he came in contact with Narayanbhai Desai, he was so influenced by the Gandhian way of life that he lived in the premises of Sampurna Kranti Vidyalaya for the next 15 years. He collaborated with the Gadekars to learn how to do research in issues like anti-nuclear movement. He has participated in campaigns against Kakarapar and Kudankulam and given voice to people. Sahadevan has translated into Malayalam Narayanbhai’s four-volume work ‘Maroon Jeewan Aj Mari Vaani’, the first biography of Mahatma Gandhi written in Gujarati. He shifted his base to Bangalore seven years ago but at least twice he keeps coming to the vidyalaya.

Narayanbhai Desai first came to Swaraj Ashram, Vedchhi, in 1947

Lighting lamp of knowledge

In Vedchhi, almost every family has a teacher, thanks to the revolutionary initiative in education taken by

Naraynabhai Desai and Jugatram Dave. The guiding light that the duo showed in dispelling the darkness of illiteracy changed the lives of tribal people over a period of time. Villagers understood the importance of education and many voluntarily chose to be teachers. The three schools in the

premises of Swaraj Ashram provide not just education but groom children in their all-round development. “Uttar Buniyadi Higher Secondary School has produced politicians, IAS officers, doctors and forest officers,’’ says Khansukhbhai Bhabhor, the principal of higher secondary school.

Satyagraha outpost still standing

Livelihood from bamboo

Ashok Kotwalia makes beautiful furniture from bamboos. Trained at NID, Ahmedabad,

during a fortnight-long workshop a few years back, Kotwalia has developed the entire range of furniture at Sampurna Kranti Vidyalaya. The vidyalaya which lays great emphasis on making best of use of locally available resources

encourages artisans like Kotwalia in making bamboo

products and promoting their use for various purposes like building low-cost

houses. Such is the suitability and cost-effective usefulness of bamboo that the vidyalaya built 200 bamboo houses in Rapar, Kutch, after the 2001 earthquake.

Narayanbhai Desai

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Ahmedabad:WTI has taken up a coral reef protection project inMithapur with the assistance of a local industrial house and hassigned a memorandum of understanding to further strengthenthe programme for the restoration of the coral reef there.

To conserve the reef, WTI roped in the industrial house’semployees and schools students. Usually high speed boats andships overturn coral in shallow waters as they pass. WTI hastrained volunteers to go into shallow water and turn back the reef,which can be revived if immediate action is taken. TNN

Youth to be trained in protecting reefs

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Area Year2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

➤ Sutrapada 26 13 20 20 34 5➤ Veraval 32 50 29 7 14 7➤ Dhamlej 16 7 8 11 11 1➤ Mangrol 2 2 5 1 0 0➤ Diu 0 0 0 0 0 0➤ Muldwarka 0 7 5 0 0 0➤ Total 76 79 67 39 59 13

RESCUED WHALE SHARKS