Manu Kumar Jain on a visit to his school. (Image: Facebook/ManuKumarJain)
It is said going back to one’s roots is like looking in the mirror- you see a version of yourself that others have seen. Xiaomi India’s Manu Kumar Jain recently took a look in that mirror when he visited his old school in Meerut, UP. Documenting the trip to his alma mater were photos, nearly 15 of them, from Kumar’s classrooms, canteen and school ground.
Manu Kumar Jain with his teachers from school. (Image: Facebook/ManuKumarJain)
“I did my entire schooling from DMA (Dayawati Modi Academy) – from Nursery to class 12th. It was an amazing experience to go back to this wonderful institution after almost 20 years,” he wrote in a Twitter post.
And it wasn’t just the brick and mortar that pulled Kumar into nostalgia, but also his teachers and heartwarmingly, his school bus driver.
“Met Principal Mrs Ritu Dewan, our Hindi teacher Mrs Amita Tyagi, chemistry teacher Dr Lal and the entire staff. Even got a chance to hug our bus driver (Sharma Ji), who drove me to school for 14 long years,” Jain added.
source: http://www.economictimes.indiatimes.com / The Economic Times / ET Home> Magazines> Panache / ET Bureau / November 06th, 2017
Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee have come up with a new method for production of biodiesel from microalgae (‘kai’ in indi), which they claim is low-cost and more effective.
Elaborating on the research, professor BR Gurjar, head of centre for transportation systems of the institute said, “Microalgae are considered to be one of the superior resources for production of biodiesel due to the species’ ability to produce higher biomass and accumulate more lipids, which are the target material for biodiesel production. To increase the rate of production and to make it cost-effective, we used heterotrophic cultivation of microalgae using low-cost organic carbon-based feedstock such as agro waste, molasses, municipal and industrial wastes. This resulted in an automotive quality in biodiesel production.”
The cost of feedstock and expense of operation are two crucial cost components in biodiesel production. The cost of feedstock alone accounts for about 60–70% of the total cost while the cost of the substrate is also a huge factor. The method employed by IIT Roorkee considerably reduces the cost of the substrate.
IIT Roorkee researchers used the algal-based crude glycerol in the production, which is a low-cost organic carbon source and the main byproduct of the biodiesel production process. Crude glycerol works as a media feedstock for cultivation of microalgae, thereby reducing the cost of the substrate to a negligible point.
Research showed that the use of crude glycerol enhanced the accumulation of the total lipid in the algal cells. Various analyses after the production of the fuel proved it was better in terms of quality and quantity. The fuel was also comparable to the existing vehicular fuel standards.
“The method used by the team is beneficial to the environment as there is no biodiversity loss attached to it. Moreover, it minimizes waste production by using materials like agro-waste and is able to produce an enhanced quantity and quality of biodiesel,” said Richa Katiyar, an associate in the research project.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News> City News> Bareilly News / by Tapan Susheel / TNN / November 03rd, 2017
It is indeed curious how some remarkably important historic events can vanish from the collec tive memory of people. Not many remember that exactly 50 years ago, the daughter of the most powerful communist dictator of USSR, Joseph Stalin, had landed in a small village of India at the height of USSR’s global dominance and the Cold War.
Svetlana Alliluyeva spent three months in Kalakankar, a sleepy village right on the banks of river Ganga in Pratapgarh district.
However, hardly anybody in India knows accurately the events surrounding the remarkable journey of Svetlana, who gave up on the famous surname of her father.
It was during a boating expedition organised by UP Police down the Ganga till Kalakankar that somebody mentioned to me about the extraordinary real life story of Stalin’s daughter having come and lived there. Even after living for so many years in the state, I had never read or heard of those extraordinary events.
As I explored later, I found that Svetlana had carefully and beautifully written about her stay on the banks of the Ganga in her memoirs, originally in Russian, and later translated into English as `Only One Year.’ In the mid 1960s, years after Stalin was dead and even after Khruschev was `dethroned’, that this remarkable lady, who by that time had two grownup children from her previous marriages, came in contact with an old, idealist, romantic Indian communist called Brajesh Singh, in Moscow. Brajesh belonged to the rich landlord family of Kalakankar and happened to be an uncle of the then-foreign minister of India.
Under extraordinary circumstances, they fell in love and despite protestations and forebodings, were `married’, though the marriage was never registered under Soviet law.
Brajesh, who was already very ill when the two met, tragically died soon after and Svetlana decided to take the ashes of her late ‘husband’ to Kalakankar. After all, Kalakankar was his home. Once in India, tasting `freedom’ for the first time, Svetlana began to toy with the idea of never returning to USSR. After a lot of prevarications, she finally picked up the courage to defect to the west–something that must have been big international news in those days of peak Cold War.
But for an Indian, the real value and beauty of Svetlana’s memoirs is the insightful observations made during her stay in Kalakankar, her meeting with then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi–she had stayed in Kalakankar during an election campaign–and her description of public figures like Ram Manohar Lohia and Dinesh Singh. She also talks of people’s growing disenchantment with politics even 50 years ago.
Her evocative descriptions of Magh Mela, travel in a crowded general category train to Lucknow, her warm appreciation of simple-minded generous villagers, her genuine respect and praise for Gandhiji and Nehru and most of all, her beautiful imagery while describing the rural Indian landscapes have both literary and historic value.
After Svetlana emigrated to the US, she sent money, a part of her royalty, to build a hospital at Kalakankar that is now a school. It was her way of paying homage to the memory of her late husband and his country.
Today, Brajesh Singh and Svetlana and their story are largely forgotten but not entirely. The memory of that kind, humane spirit and those few months, 50 years ago, still somehow lingers among the local populace at Kalakankar, where Stalin’s daughter stood, or otherwise, how would I come to know of her footsteps on the sands of time.The writer is a Lucknow enthusiast and an IAS officer. He also likes to read, is a sports enthusiast, and is also a keen nature lover.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> News> City News> Lucknow News / by Partha Sarthi Sen Sharma / TNN / November 05th, 2017
Cricketer Suresh Raina was made the brand ambassador of the Ghaziabad Municipal Corporation (GMC) at a programme here on Sunday.
“It is a matter of pride for Ghaziabad that Suresh Raina, an international star, is the brand ambassador of GMC and also the brand ambassador of Swachh Bharat Mission,” said V.K. Jindal, Joint Secretary and Director of Swachh Bharat Mission.
Ghaziabad Municipal Commissioner C.P. Singh added: “I am grateful to Raina for accepting my proposal to be the brand ambassador of our Municipal Corporation.”
Raina is a resident of Ghaziabad. It is the only city among 16 municipal corporations in Uttar Pradesh which has been declared open defecation free.
Raina said: “I will offer my best services to the municipal body. I have been emotionally attached to this city. This city gave me strength so that we could win the World Cup.”
source: http://www.cricket.yahoo.com / Yahoo Cricket / Home / by Sahir Usman / October 29th, 2017
After a gap of three years, Lucknow University has introduced two medals this year. They will be awarded during its convocation on December 9. LU has received Rs 5 lakh each for the new medals which will be conferred to the high scorers in law faculty .
“The medals will be constituted in the name of former legislator late DP Bora and Justice (retired) BK Dhawan. The amount of Rs 5 lakh for each set by the university has been given by MLA Neeraj Bora and Daya Dhawan respectively,” said LU VC SP Singh.
He added that Neeraj Bora had given Rs 11 lakh to LU for the constitution of a medal in the name of his father DP Bora. While Rs 5 lakh was for the medal, the remaining amount will be used for development work at the university.
The medal in the name of Justice Dhawan will be awarded to the high scorer of LLB (three years).
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City News> Lucknow News> Schools & Colleges / TNN / November 02nd, 2017
Raid alert: As MD of Kanpur Electric Supply Company Limited, Ritu Maheshwari conducted raids on a regular basis to curb power theft / courtesy: Uma Maheshwari
The new collector of Ghaziabad comes with the distinction of having revived a debt-ridden electric utility.
The new district magistrate of Ghaziabad — among the slew of transfers in the Uttar Pradesh government last month — is difficult to track down. The little breathing space Ritu Maheshwari gets between meetings and team briefings is devoted to her son’s preparations for school exams. That this officer’s days are long and busy is nothing new, given that in her previous stint she was feted for successfully ushering in power distribution reforms in a country weighed down by an average annual loss of $16.2 billion due to power theft.
Maheshwari joined the civil services in 2003 after completing a degree in electrical engineering at Punjab Engineering College. She had her first major breakthrough in 2011, when she was posted as the managing director of Kanpur Electric Supply Company Limited (KESCO). The debt-ridden utility had run up losses of nearly 30 per cent, brought about by distribution losses, thefts, and tampering of meters. All that was about to change soon.
“I had just returned from maternity leave and had expected an easier posting, but when I got this (KESCO) instead, many of my peers advised me against taking it up. But I decided to go ahead. After I joined, I was told the company would soon be disinvested and I needn’t take on too much pressure. But I decided that it was still possible to turn this company around, and I worked on it. I wouldn’t say it was a complete makeover, but we made some headway,” Maheshwari says during a telephonic interview.
By the time she left KESCO, the losses had almost halved. During her 11-month stewardship, she replaced nearly one-third, or 1.6 lakh, of the mechanical meters with smart ones. She credits the turnover not to any big moves, but rather small actions instead. “We went on regular raids. The office staff was made to understand that it wasn’t okay to sit idle and turn a blind eye to instances of power theft.”
Nearly 8.4 million of UP’s 29 million households have non-metered power supply, while another 11.2 million have no electricity, according to a Bloomberg report. Distribution companies do not want to upgrade grids without recovering current losses. Recently, a tender was floated for the purchase of five million smart meters for UP and Haryana. The public-sector Energy Efficiency Services Ltd, which aims to halve distribution losses to 15 per cent across India by 2019, was in charge of the international bidding process. Maheshwari was heading this project until July 2017.
She believes that technology is the best defence against power theft — if the systems are seamless, and the processes automated, accountability will increase and it will become that much harder to steal. “I feel that while there were checks against power theft earlier too, the automatic meters made a world of difference by bringing in transparency,” she says.
A reduction of even one per cent in distribution loss translates into a profit of $10 billion for the company, so a difference of 15 per cent was nothing short of extraordinary. Maheshwari was also involved in the development of Urja Mitra, an app that gives real-time information on power supply across the country. After a successful trial run in Kanpur, it was rolled out countrywide in April 2017.
“After I got involved, many power companies are putting up their audited sheets on a three-month basis, where the public can find out how much power has been consumed, and the losses incurred by the companies,” she says. As the distribution losses fell, the company was able to improve supply too.
Such drastic reforms, unsurprisingly, were met with opposition initially. Consumers in Kanpur protested when forced to take up legitimate connections and fall under the revenue net. The powers-that-be weren’t pleased either. “I did face resistance from the political milieu, and had to pull up employees who had become corrupt. Some took money to tip off violators ahead of raids against power theft… they would remove the illegal power hooks before the team arrived. We countered this with surprise raids.”
In 2014, Maheshwari’s work inspired filmmakers Deepti Kakkar and Fahad Mustafa to produce a documentary titled Katiabaaz (Powerless), focusing on the power situation in Kanpur, a seat for leather industries, which require heavy-duty electricity.
After Kanpur, and stints as the district magistrate of JP Nagar, Ghazipur, Pilibhit and Shahjahanpur, Maheshwari wants to focus on fighting pollution control in her current posting at Ghaziabad.
So, how did she tackle the bullies and naysayers at work?
“My degree has stood me well all this time. There have been times where I’ve had to tackle patriarchal attitudes at work, but people realise that I have good knowledge of this [power] sector, and it isn’t easy to hoodwink me. I think, eventually, anyone trying to do some good work is given the space to do so.”
source: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com / BLINK / Home> Cover> BLINK / by Payel Majumdar Upreti / October 06th, 2017
Ginger Hotels, the dominant budget hotel chain from the Taj Group, has opened a property in Lucknow.
“Ginger Hotel Lucknow is a 72-key property located within a short drive from the airport and railway station.
Ginger is the pioneer and the largest chain of branded budget hotels in the country,” Ginger Hotels managing director and CEO Rahul Pandit said in a statement.
source: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com / Business Line / Home> Companies / PTI / Mumbai – October 03rd, 2017
“Lucknow produces some of the finest talent,” said Anubhav Sinha Rishi Kapoor photographed in Mumbai.
Filmmaker Anubhav Sinha has cast 12 actors from Lucknow in his upcoming movie Mulk. Actors Ashok Lal, Ekram Khan, Jitendra Awasthi, Mahendra, Narendra Panjwani, Padam Kirti, Prafulla Pandey, Naval Shukla, Raju Pandey, Rubal Jain, Dayveer Singh Yadav and Vinay Ghoshal will be joining the existing cast and crew of the film. “I was always inclined towards giving back to the place that I call home. I understand the road blocks one faces when you are trying to break through into the metros when you hail from a smaller city,” Anubhav Sinha, who is from Uttar Pradesh, said in a statement.
“I faced a lot of struggle when I was new to Mumbai and wanted to make a foray into the entertainment industry. Bharat Jha, the casting director of Mulk, showed me some screen tests and I was blown by what I saw. Lucknow has an effervescent theatre industry and produces some of the finest talent, and it’s only fair to give everyone a chance,” he added.
He will commence shooting on October 12, which also happens to be the 16th birthday of his son Shlok.
“The day Shlok came into my life I bagged Dus and that film was a game changer for me. Just like Mulk, it was a multi-starrer. My son will always be my lucky mascot and Mulk is a project that is very close to my heart so, everything is done keeping in mind auspicious aspects. Since I belong to a small town, this film’s content is relatable to my childhood days of growing up in Benaras,” said Anubhav Sinha.
The film, a social thriller, is based on true life events.
Mulk also features Rishi Kapoor, Taapsee Pannu, Prateik Babbar, Ashutosh Rana and Neena Gupta.
The film will be shot in Varanasi and Lucknow and is scheduled to release early next year.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
source: http://www.ndtv.com / NDTV / Home> Entertainment / Indo-Asian News Service / October 04th, 2017
Kushal Tandon posed for us with his pet dog outside his home on Ashok Marg, Lucknow (BCCL/ Aditya Yadav)
Like every year, actor Kushal Tandon took a day off from his shooting schedule to be with his family in Lucknow on Diwali. Kushal, whose show ‘Beyhadh’ went off air recently, celebrated Diwali with his parents and sisters. “I am in Lucknow on every Diwali and Bhaiya Dooj. So this year was no exception. While I don’t like bursting crackers, I had to do it since I had my nephews over at home who are really fond of bursting crackers,” said Kushal.
Quite happy with the appreciation that he received for his show ‘Beyhadh’, Kushal says, “We were never after TRPs; our show was meant for the urban class. Thankfully it did get good TRPs and will always be remembered as a cult show. It had been a beautiful journey for all the team members. Before ‘Beyhadh’ happened, I had just done one fiction show, which was ‘Ek Hazaaron Mein Meri Behna Hai’. This show showed my real acting talent. My work was really appreciated and I got calls from a lot of people in the industry for my acting. So it really felt nice. It was really hectic too as ever since the show went on air, we had been shooting continuously and we didn’t have a bank of episodes. In that sense, it was a roller coaster ride.”
Now that the show has gone off air, Kushal is working on a web series. “Ever since it was announced that ‘Beyhadh’ is going off air, I have been getting a lot of offers for everything — movies, serials and web series. All I want to do is the best. So finally, I have said yes to a 20-episode web series produced by Ekta Kapoor. I can’t discuss the concept as of now, but just like my previous two shows, this too will be different,” he said.
Web series is the future for entertainment feels Kushal. “Gone are the days when actors used to be a part of web series just for creative satisfaction and not money. I am getting paid double the amount of what I was being paid for TV. So of course there is money involved too,” said he, adding, “And as far as watching paid content on the internet is concerned, people are paying and watching good content — whether it is Hindi or English shows. In times to come, television will be dead. Everything is now on the internet. People are always on the internet. A single episode of Beyhadh used to have million views in just one night on the internet. That’s crazy! The younger generation doesn’t have time to sit at home in front of the TV and watch shows. They prefer watching it on their mobiles now.”
Enjoying the high in his professional life, Kushal says he is in no mood to make his personal life happening by getting committed. “I am happily single now and everybody is my friend now. It’s been three years that I have been single and I am enjoying my life a lot now. Love is definitely beautiful but life besides love is also very beautiful. Right now I am working on myself and I don’t have time to fall in love,” he says.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News> City News> Lucknow News / by Akash Wadhwa / TNN / October 28th, 2017
About five years back, environment crusader Ajay Krantikari has launched ‘cycling campaign’ in a small village of Patti block of Pratapgarh district to spread message that cycling keeps one healthy and fit and also protects environment. Now, more than 10,000 people, particularly students, have joined his cycle campaign club in Patti, Mandhata, Belha, Shivgarh, Sadar, Laxmanpur and Gaura blocks of the district.
As on daily routine, Krantikari visits government offices, commercial establishments, educational institutes and other public places, urging people to be a part of cycle campaign to protect the environment from vehicular pollution. He interacts with people and apprise them about the benefits of cycling.
Krantikari said, “In 2012, I and some students had started cycling campaign at Ram Raj Inter College in Patti. Within a short span of time, hundreds of youngsters joined my club named it Green Transporting Club (GTC).”
In next two years, around 3,000 people, mainly students became the members of the club. They encourage their friends, relatives and neighbours for cycling at least once a week.
On every Sunday, young members of the club go out for cycling mission in villages and mohallahs, appealing people to adopt cycling at least one day in a week. They said that it it would help in saving petrol and diesel and also protect environment from vehicular pollution.
The campaign got a boost when the authorities of nagar palika, Behla decided to turn the nagar palika area into green zone and encouraged its employees to come on bicycles.
Executive officer, Behla nagar palika, Awadesh Kumar said, “I have urged the employees to spread the message of environment protection and come to office on bicycles. Many employees have started to come on bicycles.
Krantikari said that the rising number of vehicles are increasing air pollution even in small towns. He claimed that people from neighbouring districts like Allahabad, Jaunpur Kaushambi and Sultanpur have joined the club in order to protect environment.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News> City News> Allahabad News / by Kapil Dixit / October 29th, 2017
