A Gush of Innocent & Honest Emotions

July 19, 2017

As a 13 year old she made her own short film. Fifteen years later she, and her band of children film-makers, under the banner of Purple People Labs, are travelling across the country listening to children’s stories and mentoring them to take those stories to the screen.

Today Shweta Parakh, who runs “Cinema School in a Sandook”, which she describes as a “film school out of a bag!”, has a motley of 120-odd school going children from Mumbai and Chandigarh hooked on to short films as a passion. Their five years of efforts, during which they have produced 200 short films that have been screened across 37 international film festivals, have paid off big time !

PHOTOS BY: LIFE IN CHANDIGARH

Interacting with media persons at the Chandigarh Press Club on Wednesday, Shweta, Founder & CEO, Purple People Labs, said seven short films co-created by students from Chandigarh, Mohali and Mumbai will premiere at the prestigious Grand IndieWise Convention (or Miami Film Festival) in Miami, Florida, USA between August 24 to 27 this year.

Visibly exited over the invitation, she said the Convention is an “Entry by Invite Only” festival for filmmakers and industry professionals from 80+ countries and is one of the world’s most important fests for parallel cinema. Purple People Labs will be among the youngest crew of filmmakers participating in the festival, she gushed, adding that they have been invited being India’s largest producer of films by kids.

“We will also be the only production house from India which will be screening films in Miami. Over 20 films from PPL qualified for nomination, from which seven best films will be screened at the Miami Festival. In all around 250 films are to be screened at AMC 24 Aventura Theatre as part of the festival which is expected to attract 400+ filmmakers and industry professionals from 80+ countries,” she said.

Apart from screening their films, the students will also produce a documentary film about the event. PPL crew will interview filmmakers from world over on the festival’s blue carpet as the official “Kids’ Press”!, Shweta informed.

The first short film made by kids that reached the international circuit under the PPL banner was “Beti”, a film on girl child education. This time yet another short film with a strong global message has been rolled out by the kids’ crew – The Photograph. The film is based on an emotion behind an award winning photograph clicked by a war journalist, where a little girl surrendered herself by raising her hands mistaking the photographer’s camera to be a gun! The film throws light on a very sensitive situation faced by children in war nations.

Shivain Arora from PU, Chandigarh is the cinematographer of the film, Post production has been done by Rhea Sharma of Banyan Tree School, Chandigarh, Smyra Grover (4 yrs) from Little Flower, Panchkula has acted in it. Omkar Shitole, from KC College Mumbai has directed it and Shirish Waghmare from Ramesh Sippy Academy of Cinema and Entertainment is handling all post works.

All of these young filmmakers along with Brinda Thamman, 10 yrs, St. Kabir Public School Chandigarh, Jai Kunwar (6 years), Grade 1, Shemrock School Mohali, Pawan Taneja, KC College Mumbai interacted with media.

"After my first short film “Beti”, I realized that my voice can actually reach out to the world through films. I loved the concept of "The Photograph" and as a law student I would always want to stand up for the larger good of humanity", said Shivain .

"I had a great time working in Chandigarh with the kids’ crew, it’s my first time here. The entire idea of our work being seen by filmmakers from all over the world is exciting as a learning experience”, said Omkar Shitole from KC College Mumbai.

"I am really excited at the prospect of meeting filmmakers from all over the world, we are gonna rock at the blue carpet. I will try sharing some live updates", said Yashas Chatree, 9 years, Purple People Labs, the youngest ‘journalist’ travelling to Miami.

About Purple People Labs

Purple People Labs runs a “Cinema School in a Sandook”, a film school out of a bag! The Mumbai based startup travels across India to listen to children’s stories and mentors them to take those stories to the screen.

The various filmmaking programs are designed to motivate kids to speak their mind and develop communication skills for digital and new media.

Purple People Labs is self-funded through participations of International schools and utilizes 100% of its profit to reach out to kids from marginalized communities. PPL is working on its web platform “Youth Say TV”.

The vision is to amplify young voices to the world!

Newer Therapies Expensive; Early Detection Is Key

Sanjeev Kochhar

July 14, 2017

Have unusual symptoms like lumps in any part of the body or excessive bleeding, diarrhoea, cough, etc which persists beyond three weeks ? This is enough reason to be on the guard. Immediately get it diagnosed to rule out cancer. This is the only way we can be sure of winning the battle against cancer, which has taken on gigantic proportions to become the second largest killer disease.

In a media interaction at Hyatt Regency, prior to start of a three-day ‘Best of ASCO’ (American Society of Clinical Oncology), a mega scientific meet on Oncology being attended by 500-odd cancer specialists, surgeons and radiation oncologists from India and abroad, leading specialists said “we are adding 11 lakh new cancer patients in the country every year and projections for the next few years are even more alarming. By the year 2025, this figure of new patients may increase five times to 55 lakh per year.”

Photo By: Life in Chandigarh

Dr Purvish Parikh, Director (Precision Oncology), Asian Institute of Oncology, Mumbai and Dr Harit Chaturvedi, Chairman (Cancer Care), Max Healthcare, said one of the main factors for two-thirds of the cancer patients being cured in the US as against 40 percent in India, despite the availability of information and drugs, is that patients invariably reach for medical help in the third or fourth stage, by which time chances of survival get drastically reduced and the cost of treatment increases tremendously.

The two noted oncologists said recent advances like targeted therapy and immunotherapy had vastly improved the chances of survival and longevity of live even in stage three and four cancers, but being newer treatments these were still prohibitively expensive. Hence, the need for early diagnosis and cure, they emphasised.

Explaining the concept of immune-oncology therapy, Dr. Jacob Sands, Assistant Professor, Lahey Medical Centre, Boston, said “Cancer cells are very different from normal cells in the body, but they often find ways to disguise themselves as normal cells, because of which the immune system does not always recognise them as dangerous. As the natural immune response to cancer cells is often not strong enough to fight off all the cancer cells, immuno-oncology therapies activate our immune system, making it able to recognise cancer cells and destroy them.”

Considering that more women than men are diagnosed with cancer every year, the conference on Day-1 devoted an entire session to gynaecological cancers.

Prominent doctors from Tata Memorial Hospital (TMH), Mumbai, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and from other well known centres across the country shared scientific data with gynaecologists from the city and around and answered their queries.

Speaking on the importance of this session, Dr Gautam Goyal, Organising Secretary, Best of ASCO, and Dr. Sachin Gupta, Co-Organising Secretary, explained that breast cancer was the most common cancer in urban women and cervical cancer in rural women. In both these cancers, gynaecologists are the first point of contact with the patient, but oncologists have to treat them. Today’s session provided a platform to both to understand the problems of each community and improve coordination thereby leading to a better treatment protocol and outcome, they added.

There was an exclusive lecture on HIPEC, a new form of treatment of ovarian cancer. Organ preservation, the latest research in the field of surgery, was also shared. This is a new concept in which the tumor is removed but rest of the organ is preserved for functional aspect. In women organ preservation can be used in breast, larynx, eye, kidney and ovarian cancers.

“In breast conservation surgery (BCT), the part of breast containing the tumor is removed. The rest of breast is able to function normally. When whole of the breast has to be removed, it has major implications on the psychology of women patients, and BCT helps them maintain their dignity, womanhood and self-esteem. Also, as the results are equal, so breast conservation surgeries should be done, whenever feasible”, said Dr. Ritesh Pruthy of Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai, who has mastered the art of organ preservation.
Experts explained that early detection and prevention is the need of the hour as it can improve cure rate to 70-80 percent. If there are early lumps in breast in a female, or any unusual bleeding during or in between menstrual periods, and if these persist for more than two to three weeks, they should be examined by the doctor, the experts added.

Giving a background to the three-day conference, Max Hospital Mohali Senior Vice-President Sandeep Dogra said the ‘Best of ASCO’ is being held for the first time in the region. Its objective is to share and review the most important practice-changing data presented at ASCO 2017, the largest gathering of oncologists from across the world, held recently at Chicago, Illinois, US. Experts in specific fields of cancer will present abstracts and discuss foremost research and strategies in oncology that will directly impact patient care. The conference will also showcase research work done by Indian oncologists presented at ASCO 2017, he added.

Kalam Express-2 Joins Education, Rehab Initiative

Sanjeev Kochhar

July 13, 2017

Bringing up children with special needs always is a special task for parents, requiring loads of love, compassion, understanding, patience and perseverance. But this extraordinary effort becomes all the more challenging when parents lack adequate resources. More help for such parents and their wards is on the way. The Kalam Express, an initiative of the UT Chandigarh branch of the Indian Red Cross Society aimed at extending a helping hand to such parents, got a shot in the arm on Thursday with the launch of a second mobile educational cum rehabilitation unit for children with special needs (CWSN). The initiative is named after former President of India and great teacher, thinker, philosopher and motivator AJP Abdul Kalam.

Flagged off by Punjab Governor and UT Administrator VP Singh Badnore in the presence of local Member of Parliament Kirron Kher, Adviser to the UT Administrator Parimal Rai and Deputy Commissioner Ajit Balaji Joshi from the Punjab Raj Bhawan, the Kamal Express is fully equipped with audio visual and tactile teaching aids like Braille kits, toys, special Oro Motor kits, etc.

PHOTOS BY: LIFE IN CHANDIGARH

A team of special educator and a physiotherapist in the mobile unit will, by rotation, visit visually impaired, hearing and speech impaired, and mentally challenged children at their door step in Maloya, Dhanas, Manimajra, Mauli Jagran, Bapu Dham and Colony no. 4 to impart education and provide physiotherapy treatment to such special children who are unable to attend regular school.

Parimal Rai and Ajit Balaji Joshi, who are also President and Chairman respectively of the UT Chandigarh Branch of the Indian Red Cross Society, told lifeinchandigarh.com that the first Kalam Express was launched in June last year with the mobile unit being donated by the State Bank of India as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activity. The service, which comes free of cost, has in this short span of a year helped 36 children join regular schools and integrate with the mainstream by promoting, developing and maintaining in them the skills required to adapt to their home environment and in a social setting.

During this period the team had identified 260 children with special needs who qualified for this assistance, and is currently catering to 168 children in the adopted city villages, rehabilitation colonies and slums, they added.

Following a request made by the mother of one of the special children, present at Thursday’s launch, to increase the frequency of the mobile unit’s visits to their doorstep, the two UT officials assured her that though the new mobile unit will replace the old one, which would be decommissioned, another new one will be added soon. This would help increase the frequency of the visits to thrice a week, they added.

The new mobile unit is learnt to be much bigger than the previous one and much better equipped with modern tools. The one to be added in the near future will be supported by the MPLADS funds.

Here’s wishing the initiative greater success.

First-timers Love The Adrenaline Rush

Sanjeev Kochhar

July 12, 2017

The idea was to organise an offroading event for the first time in the foothills of the Shivaliks in which even the first-timers driving 4X4 wheel drive SUVs could participate without much hesitation, just to make them experience the adrenaline rush. The response to the two-day event, ‘Shivalik Adventure Drive’, organised by the Punjab Forest Development Corporation and state Tourism Department in association with a professional group Gerrari Offroaders from July 8-9, surpassed the expectations. As against a cap of 50 participants, the organisers had to squeeze in three more on persistent demand.

Among the 53 teams of drivers and co-drivers which participated at least 40 percent were first-timers ranging from 18 years (students) to 60 years. Most of the rest were not regulars, but those who had a past experience of doing dirt tracks. There were just a couple of professionals, including a retired colonel. Two of the drivers were women, though a few more women took the co-driver’s seat. Four vehicles had differently abled – hearing and speech impaired – participants. The adventurers came from as far as Hanumangarh in Rajasthan, Dehradun in Uttarakhand, Delhi, Ellanabad in Haryana and Jalandhar.

Photo Credits : Bhavna Sharma

Padamjit Singh Chauhan, founder member of Gerrari Offroaders, told lifeinchandigarh.com, that barring 3-4 breakdowns, the event passed off remarkably smoothly, with no injuries whatsoever. Out of the breakdowns two were tyre bursts, which were repaired and the teams continued on the track, but one vehicle had to be towed away. Barring this one vehicle all the other completed the adventure, he added.

The food on both days was sumptuous Punjabi with typical ghee-shakkar, makhani dal, and all. The hospitality of the Forest Department was excellent. Five lucky winners, decided purely by a draw of lots, won free trips abroad. Ishwinder Singh from Nawanshahr won a Dubai trip, Sumit Katyal from Delhi will be off to Bali, Deepak Bagga from Yamunanagar will take a flight to Kuala Lumpur, Jaspal Tiwana will enjoy a Dubai sojourn, and Karanjot Singh from Mohali will get to visit Malaysia.

Padamjit felt that for a first time, the event could be termed as a big success. The track was good enough. Most part of it was deliberately kept simple with the first timers in mind, but it had a fair share of tricky points as well … some could negotiate it, others couldn’t and had to find another way up, he shared.

“Now that we have made a successful start, with the fullest involvement and cooperation from the forest and tourism departments, we would like to explore the possibility of organising bigger and more challenging events moving forward. There are a lot of untapped areas in the state which can be identified and developed as offroading tracks, Ropar, Talwara and Harike areas being some of them. There could be another event coming up in Winters,” informed Padamjit.

Allaying the apprehensions of environmentalists, he said the tracks will be fianlised with care to ensure that the offroading activity does not harm the flora and fauna of the area.

PGI Adds Lungs To Its Transplant Program

Sanjeev Kochhar

July 11, 2017

A 35 years old woman from Sangrur in Punjab and a 22 years old brain dead boy from Moga became a part of history, as a team of doctors from the prestigious Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education & Research (PGIMER, PGI for short) Chandigarh on Tuesday performed the first lung transplant surgery in the institute, claimed also to be the first in a public sector medical institute in the country.

A team of more than 20 doctors and supporting staff, comprising anesthetists, cardiovascular & thoracic surgeons, specialists from pulmonary medicine, a neurosurgeon, residents doctors, transplant coordinators, technical and nursing staff were involved in the mammoth effort and complex surgery lasting over 12 hours.

PGI Director Prof. Jagat Ram with the team members who performed the first lung transplant surgery

Photo By: Life in Chandigarh

Gurkirat Kaur (name changed) from Sangrur, who was suffering from “interstitial lung disease” (end stage lung disease), received a new lease of life after brave parents of Bhola Singh, a 22 years old road accident victim who was declared brain dead at the PGI late on Monday night, agreed to donate his body, and alongwith other vital organs, his lungs were found to be fit for transplant.

Congratulating the entire team for a job well done, and taking a big leap forward in transplant surgery, PGI Director Prof Jagat Ram while interacting with media persons said “Despite cadaver donor organ transplants picking up at a consistent pace in different pockets of the country, lung transplants are still very uncommon. This is partly because the surgery is complex and technically demanding and also because there are not too many usable lungs. Even the recipients have to be selected very carefully for these procedures. So, it is really heartening that today, PGIMER not only surpasses the 27 number of cadaver organ donations of last year but also has to its credit the first lung transplant surgery among public sector hospitals in India.”

The doctors supervising the patient declared that she was stable and perfectly fine, with her vital parameters within normal limits, under the circumstances, though she will be kept under close observation for several days to watch how she progresses. “Till now we can call it anatomical success, functional success will be judged in the coming days,” added Dr Jagat Ram.
“This being our first lung transplant surgery, we were extra cautious and put the patient on heart-lung machine, which, with practice, may not be necessary. Expectations from us were high and we were definitely under stress,” admitted Prof. Rana Sandip Singh, cardiovascular and thoracic surgeon.
Said pulmonary medicine expert in the team, Prof. Ashutosh Nath Aggarwal, lung transplant surgeries are still very uncommon the world over. There would be very few institutes performing 100 lung transplants a year. In India, a handful of private medical institutes are known to have performed lung transplant surgeries in Chennai, Hyderabad and Mumbai but there is no authentic data to show how many such surgeries have been performed by them. After our first experience, we plan to go ahead with other suitable cases as and when they present before us,” he added.
Though PGI claimed that in this lung transplant it is financially supporting the recipient, Prof. Ashutosh said a normal procedure would cost a patient anything between Rs. 6-10 lakh in a reputed government hospital. This could be higher in case of other complications with the patient,” he added.

Among the team members were anesthetists Prof. G. D. Puri and Prof. Virendra K. Arya, cardiovascular & thoracic surgeons Prof. Rana Sandip Singh and Dr. Harkant Singh Baryah supervised by Prof. T. Shyam K. Singh, and specialists from pulmonary medicine Prof. Ashutosh Nath Aggarwal and Dr. K.T. Prasad, and neurosurgeon Prof. Rajesh Chhabra.

Detailing the case history, Prof. D. Behera, Head, Dept. of Pulmonary Medicine, said, “The Director PGI took a keen interest and had called a meeting of all the stakeholders to fast track the process of lung transplant. For over one year, we have been closely monitoring the recipient. But today we could leverage the opportunity presented to us by the kind consent of the donor family. The entire team involved in the process has made it happen. However, Dr. Ashutosh Nath Aggarwal and Dr. K.T. Prasad deserve a special mention for their proactive efforts.”

For Quality Services, Leave Healthcare Management To Managers

Sanjeev Kochhar

July 10, 2017

One of the biggest tragedies of healthcare services, especially in the public sector, in India is doctors being asked to perform roles they are not trained for â€“ managing healthcare services. So, be it managing a large or small hospital, or a health institution or programme, doctors are burdened with managerial work they are least comfortable with, leaving very little or no time to concentrate on what they do best â€“ providing clinical care to patients.

It has taken us too long, but the realisation is slowly sinking in. Policy makers in the country finally appear to be readying to take corrective measures to improve the quality of healthcare services, hints of which are visible in the New National Health Policy, approved by the Union Cabinet in March this year.

IIHMR Delhi Campus Building

Photos By: Life in Chandigarh

The new thought process, experts believe, is conducive to bringing in more professionalism in the management of healthcare services, hence a greater need for qualified and trained hospital managers, health managers and health information technology managers to take care of management related issues so that doctors can focus on providing clinical care, for which they are trained.

Dr. Sanjiv Kumar, a noted healthcare expert and former Executive Director, National Health Systems Resources Centre, who has taken over as Director of a reputed private healthcare institution – International Institute of Health Management Research (IIHMR) Delhi, told lifeinchandigarh.com during a recent visit to Chandigarh, “we have been constantly emphasizing that one of the weakest link in the healthcare delivery system in the country is the poor management of hospital and health services. This has not only resulted in poor quality of services, but also inappropriate utilization of the healthcare facilities at all levels primary, secondary and tertiary.

Dr. Sanjiv Kumar, Noted Health Expert and Director IIHMR, Delhi

“The only way to overcome these bottlenecks in the health sector is to post trained and qualified health and hospital managers at all levels of care. This in turn, will improve the credibility of our public health institutions and also increase the utilization of infrastructure, manpower and other services provided from these institutions,” Dr Sanjiv Kumar, who has 41 years of experience in public health across 29 countries and also remained associated with UNICEF for 22 years, added.

He opined that “To facilitate such a positive change, the central and state governments need to create additional managerial positions not only at district level but also at Community Health Centre (CHC) / Primary Health Centre (PHC) level. Though such positions exist under the National Health Mission (NHM), many are lying vacant. In fact, there is a need to create a cadre of health/hospital managers and make them available to man these positions at all levels.”

Sharing details of a recent demand-supply analysis for managerial positions carried out by IIHMR Delhi, Dr Kumar said an estimated 20,000 qualified professionals would be required across the health sector in India in the next few years. As against this there are around 50 institutions conducting MBA or Post Graduate Diploma in Healthcare Management (PGDHM) with annual admission capacities estimated at 3,000 seats. Only a few of these offer specialisation in Healthcare Information Technology. There is an urgent need to increase capacities to meet the future demand expectations with greater focus on quality and academic rigor during teaching and training to enhance the employability of the trained professionals, he added.

Looking at the future healthcare scenario in the country, Dr Kumar said changing demographics, rising incomes, growing lifestyle diseases, etc. demand better healthcare delivery. Notable among the innovations to be tried out is the concept of “health and wellness centres” at the peripheral level. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has fixed a target of transforming 1,50,000 Health Sub Centres into Health and Wellness centres in a phased manner. The New National Health Policy also lists “accountability” as one of the important principles in the health care delivery system.

Quoting a WHO report, he said India needs to add 80,000 hospital beds each year for the next five years to meet the increasing healthcare demands. It is estimated that each additional bed has the potential to create 5 direct and 25 indirect jobs.

Estimating the required professional workforce count, Dr Kumar said, India with 35 states (28 states and 7 union territories) and 643 districts requires a program manager at each level. Approximately 7,000 trained professionals would be necessary at the block level. About 1,000 consultants would be employed in institutes like National Institute of Health and Family Welfare (NIHFW), National Health Systems Resource Centre (NHSRC), State Health Systems Resource Centres (SHSRCs), etc. About 200 consultants/specialists would be employed at the state level in each state, another 1250 trained professionals would be employed across 250 large NGOs, 500 professionals across international organisations, while 1500 professionals would be necessary in academic/research organisations across the country. The corporate sector was also absorbing an estimated 1,000 healthcare management professionals, he added.

“So you can see that as the healthcare sector grows, and becomes more competitive and professional, especially in the government sector, the opportunities for rewarding careers for health managers in this sector are limitless,” he asserted.

About IIHMR

Speaking about IIHMR Delhi, Dr Sanjiv Kumar, said institutions like IIHMR can address this projected demand by providing intensively trained managers in health, health IT and hospital management. Use of information technology will make doctors available for consultation long distance and maintaining digital individual and family health records.

He said the IIHMR offers two-year full-time PG programme with specialisation in Hospital management, Health Management and Health Information Technology management. The annual intake is 120 students. Their demand in large corporate and public sector hospitals, international, bilateral and national healthcare organisations and health insurance companies is increasing with every passing year, he added.

The institute also conducts evaluation studies, operations research, studies and program evaluations on different dimensions of the health system for a range of clients, including national and state government organisations, national and international non-government organisations such as WHO, UNICEF, etc.

The key areas of research include reproductive and child health, functioning of health care organisations, non-communicable diseases, health economics and population based issues and climate change.

The institute also offers consultancy to hospitals and healthcare organisations to streamline the workflow and operations by developing Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), providing technical assistance to government’s flagship programme NHRM for making district health action plans and quality assurance, etc.

Undertrials, Convicts Get One Stop Free Legal Support

Sanjeev Kochhar

July 9, 2017

Screening of a beautiful short film by Prakash Jha â€œNyaye Sab Ke Liyeâ€, carrying the essence of what the legal service authorities stand for, set the tone for a ceremony to mark the inauguration in Punjab, Haryana and UT Chandigarh of ‘Legal Assistance Establishments’, one stop facilities for providing free legal information and assistance to under trials and convicts in jails, on Sunday.

After formally inaugurating these establishments in the premises of the legal services authorities in Mohali, Panchkula and Chandigarh, Justice Dipak Misra, Judge of the Supreme Court of India and Executive Chairman of the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA), was the chief guest at this ceremony held at the Chandigarh Judicial Academy. It was attended among others by Justice Shiavax Jal Vazifdar, Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court and Patron-in-Chief of the legal service authorities of Punjab, Haryana and UT Chandigarh, other judges of the high court, secretaries of state legal service authorities, empanelled lawyers to the authorities and paralegal volunteers.

PHOTOS BY: LIFE IN CHANDIGARH

The background theme song of the short film highlighted the key elements of the thought process behind the legal service authority movement like “Nyaye khudd chaupalon tak ayega” and “Ek muthi aasmaan parr haq hamara bhi hai”. Justice Misra and Justice Vazifdar in their addresses to the gathering also emphasised the need for all stakeholders to work in mission mode so that the targeted population truly benefitted, the way it was planned.

But the audience feedback, especially from paralegal volunteers, during the brief 10-minute window allowed, did not leave the gathering in any doubt that the ground realities were far from adequate to generate optimum results. Among the issues highlighted by these paralegal volunteers, especially from Haryana, was that the honorarium of Rs 250 for each case dealt by them was too less and needed to be enhanced, and infrastructure provided to them for dealing with distant cases was inadequate to the extent that they could not find a place to even sit.

The women behind the legal luminaries

There was also a demand for adequately rewarding those who were doing good work so that their morale could be boosted. More ground level informative and motivational camps for the paralegal volunteers and the general public, especially the uneducated and the poor, were also suggested. A volunteer from Amritsar highlighted the need for getting the facility of vehicle to travel to distant places all 30 days a month, instead of 15 days as on now, and facility of an ambulance to ferry abandoned mentally challenged people to hospital or pingalwara.

One volunteer even challenged the rationale behind giving free legal service to habitual offenders, and those involved in heinous crimes like rape, causing a brief commotion in the gathering.

To this Justice SS Saron, Judge of the high court and Executive chairman of the Punjab Legal Services Authority, replied that while associated with the legal service authority one cannot be judgemental. We are bound to provide legal aid to all those needing it. We take it that till found guilty, every person, charged with any offence, is innocent, and he needs to be provided legal aid. It is for the courts to decide whether a person is guilty or not guilty, he asserted.

In his address earlier, Justice Saron appreciated the special personal efforts made by Justice Vazifdar to rehabilitate an acid attack woman survivor, who, apart from getting her statutory entitlement of compensation, was ushered in as a paralegal volunteer. Gestures like these can go a long way in providing a new direction to women, he added.

Justice Vazifdar in his submission, made light of the appreciation, saying in a lighter vein that one of the advantages of being a Chief Justice is you get credit for some things others may have done. Dwelling on the history of providing legal aid in the country, he said the concept was enshrined in the Constitution. But credit must go to “two legends” of the legal fraternity, Justice VR Krishna Iyer and Justice PN Bhagwati, former Chief Justice of India, for their untiring efforts to make legal services authority a reality. He called for periodic upgradation, review and improvement of systems to keep them relevant to the times.

Speaking in chaste Hindi, interspersed with English, and quoting profusely from episodes in Indian mythology, Justice Misra, said those needing legal assistance may at times resign themselves to their fate, but they need to be motivated by “our Captains” – the paralegal volunteers – to keep doing “pursharth”, because the “karm” will eventually shape your “bhagya”.

Here’s wishing success to all well meaning initiatives of the National and State legal services authorities.

Harsimrat, Dhankar, CII Bat For Food Processing

Sanjeev Kochhar

July 8, 2017

There’s no denying the fact that she has the spunk. And, she is eloquent too. Union Minister for Food Processing Industries Harsimrat Kaur Badal displayed these qualities in ample measure while addressing a gathering in chaste Punjabi at a road show organised in CII-NR headquarters on Friday to spread the message of the biggest ever global scale food processing festival ever to be held in India. Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi will be witness to the World Food India 2017, the largest gathering of investors, manufacturers, producers, food processors, policy makers and organizations from the global food eco-system, from November 3 to 5.

Addressing progressive farmers, industrialists and senior government functionaries from Punjab and Haryana, she asked them to mark their diary for the three days as they cannot find a better opportunity to widen their horizons to the limitless possibilities in the field of food processing, which can result in a quantum jump in incomes of farmers, as envisioned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

PHOTOS BY: LIFE IN CHANDIGARH

Harsimrat, who earlier in the day laid the foundation stone for the first ever maize based Mega Food Park near on Phagwara-Hoshiarpur road in Kapurthala district of Punjab, said during her brief three-year tenure she had approved 42 mega food parks across the country, out of which three are in Punjab and two in Haryana. Out of these one in Fazilka (Punjab), which was lying in limbo for several years, was made operational within six months of her taking charge of the ministry, and the remaining two are under implementation, as are the two in Haryana – one by state owned HSIIDC in Sonipat and other by Hafed in Rohtak.

The Mega Food Park in Kapurthala is being developed by Sukhjit Mega Food Park & Infra Limited on 55 acres land in a declared Dark Zone, where slow desertification is happening because of overexploitation of water due to dependency on cultivation of cash crops. The mega maize based food park is an attempt to wean farmers away from the wheat-paddy cycle and usher in maize cultivation, which is much less water intensive.

Enjoining the state governments in Punjab and Haryana to capitalise on the golden opportunity to help their farmers earn more income, create substantial employment opportunities and grow their economies, Harsimrat Kaur Badal said the Narendra Modi government was determined to ensure that all the 42 mega food parks are made operational by the end of its 5-year tenure in 2019.

She said before the Modi government came to power, only two mega food parks had been made operational, and one of them was Patanjali. “When I was given charge of the ministry, I cancelled the allotments of all the non-operational mega food parks and re-allotted them. Since then we have made six more mega parks operational in three years and four more will be running within this year. The remaining allotted mega food parks will also be made functional in the next two years, she asserted.

Focussing on the recently launched Kisan Sampada Yojana, she said the aim of the scheme is to make efforts to initiate every farmer into food processing by helping him set up his own big or small food processing and marketing unit. The scheme also encouraged individual farmers or group of farmers or farmers’ cooperatives to establish smaller food parks or food processing clusters on 10 acres or more land and avail of massive subsidies, for which her ministry had been allocated Rs 6,000 crore to be utilised till 2019-20. Farmers setting up units in the mega food parks were also entitled to get soft loans from NABARD, which had been given a corpus of Rs 2,000 crore for this purpose.

Harsimrat said coinciding with India celebrating 75 years of its independence in the year 2022, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had envisioned doubling farmers’ incomes and a big contribution in achieving this target has to come from food processing.

She said, the Indian food processing industry is already ranked fifth in the overall industrial sector in terms of production, consumption, exports and expected growth and contributes 13 percent to the overall exports from the country. Seeing its vast untapped potential, the world is looking up to India for sourcing its future food needs. Japan, for example, is seeking 10,000 acres of dedicated fields for tomato cultivation to meet its needs, she added.

In such a scenario, the farmers must rise to take things in their own hands to increase their incomes. The government is there to guide, handhold and provide capital subsidies and incentives. “I have even engaged a private company at the government’s cost to scout for potential areas which are food surplus. The company will organise farmers in these areas and encourage them to set up small and big units to add value to their produce. It will provide consultancy to the farmers in selection of land, help fill up forms, provide them knowledge about how to source soft loans to set up processing facilities and avail of the attractive capital subsidies and incentives available to them. The farmers will be provided guidance on how best to market their value added products,” the minister informed.

Giving examples, the minister said potato growers can set up plants to prepare potato chips or ‘aloo tikkis’. Similarly there are opportunities for those growing carrots, peas, kinnows, melons, grapes, etc to simultaneously get into processing business, she added.

In a lighter vein she also admitted that because of her soft corner for her home state, she had instructed her personal staff in Delhi, and associates in Jalandhar and Bathinda to go out of the way to help farmers interested in venturing into food processing. “Dooje soobian de log mere pitche pae rehande ne ke madam eh kar do, ooh kar do. Par Punjab vich assi log is mamle vich thhilley hann. Farm bharann vich assi jarakde hann. So, main apne kisan veeran nu appeal kardi haan ke himmat karo, main bharosa dilandi hann tuhada vadda bhallaa hovega.”

Earlier Haryana Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Minister Om Prakash Dhankar, in his impassioned address, while appreciating the World Food India 2017 as a very progressive step and confirming Haryana’s participation as a partner state, sought help from the central government in a big way to train farmers in the state on how best to market their horticultural produce.

Offering to host the next edition of the world event in Surajkund, he said participation by Haryana will help it move ahead with its vision of capitalising on its locational advantage to capture the 100-crore-a-day NCR food market. For this the state government had launched a Peri-Urban Agriculture scheme in which it was giving emphasis on demand-based agricultural produce for an assured market.

The state government had earmarked a meaty Rs 500 crore for this scheme, under which 340 villages are being identified and promoted as horticulture villages and centres of excellence in horticulture are being set up in each district of the state with assistance from Israel.

He said he was pained to discover during his recent foreign visit that potato was selling for Rs 40 per kg in Fiji at the very same time when farmers in my state were distressed, having to sell at Rs 2 per kg.

Stressing on the need to open more and more agri-business schools, Dhankar said he would be the happiest person the day individual villages start having popular brands of their own, and these brands start finding a place in the palate of well placed people across the world.

He also advocated that horticulture produce to be marketed in three separate sections in various mandis – fresh, dried and frozen – to give a fillip to farmers’ incomes.

Resorting to mirth to buttress his assertions, Dhankar related his recent experience when he flew on an official tour to Australia, New Zealand and Fiji. He said during the outbound journey on a foreign airline we found consolation in finding at least one Indian item on the food menu – pickle from Allahabad. But on the return journey by the National carrier even that one Indian item was shockingly missing.

On another occasion he described us Indians as very hard working and visionary. “If we can reach Canadian shores without a visa, then we can do anything,” he ventured, to a round of applause from the audience.

Speaking on the occasion the chairman of the CII Food Processing Committee and CMD of Nestle India, Suresh Narayanan batted for the glorious future of the food processing industry in the country. Quoting Nestle India’s happy experience in India ever since it launched its first plant in India at Moga (Punjab) in 1961, he said the company had since launched seven more plants across India, learning from the highly successful relationship model adopted in Moga. One of these plants (for nutritional products) set up at Samalkha is considered as one of the 10 best plants of Nestle worldwide, he maintained.

Quoting figures highlighting the promising future of the food processing industry, Narayanan said the industry was currently worth 40 billion US $ and expected to grow at a fast clip. It accounted for one-third of the total food market in the country and ranked fifth in the industry in terms of production, consumption, exports and expected growth. The food processing industry contributed 14 percent to the GDP of the manufacturing sector and accounted for 13 percent of the country’s exports and attracted six percent of the total industrial investment.

Listing out reasons for batting for the food processing industry, the Nestle head said first and foremost was the size of the consumers within the country – a staggering 130 crore. Then raw material was in great abundance, with India being the largest producer of milk, 2nd largest producer of fruits and vegetables, rice, wheat and other cereal products and fish, 3rd largest producer of eggs and 5th largest producer of meat in the world.

CRIKC Alliance Signs MoU with CII-NR

Sanjeev Kochhar

July 7, 2017

After years of only talk, we finally walked the talk on Friday. The much awaited marriage of the academia and the industry was finally solemnised. The venue was the premises of the CII-NR headquarters in Chandigarh’s Sector 31.

In a first of its kind association in Northern India, Chandigarh Region Innovation and Knowledge Cluster (CRIKC), an alliance of 25-odd reputed public sector and private institutions of higher learning and research, and Confederation of Indian Industry – Northern Region (CII-NR) opened a new chapter in industry-academia partnership by signing a memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to work for common good. Punjab Governor and UT Administrator VP Singh Badnore was the chief guest.

Photo By: Life in Chandigarh

The MoU envisages creation of a ‘CRIKC-CII (NR) Industry-Academia (I-A) Board’ for framing meaningful courses of higher learning in line with industry requirements, and commissioning and funding of research projects by the industry and absorbing this research in modernization and growth of the industry.

The board will prepare a roadmap and devise governance model to promote partnership programs between the research and educational institutes in Chandigarh region and industries represented by CII-NR. It will also undertake a number of activities like industry-academia interfaces, submit collaborative research projects to public and private funding agencies, set up industry sponsored chairs, scholarships, fellowships, laboratories at institutes in Chandigarh region.

The board will also organize industry-academia collaborative workshops, seminars, conferences, showcasing and networking meets, design competitions etc. to evolve new ideas for addressing industrial challenges and setting up start up, entrepreneurship and skill development programs.

Prof Arun Kumar Grover, Vice Chancellor, Panjab University, Chandigarh and President of the Governing Body of CRIKC, emphasised the need for linkages between government, industry and institutions for exchange of best practices and training for students. Industry and academia can replicate the concept of interchangeability of roles as practiced in advanced countries, he said.

Dr Dinesh Dua, Chairman, Regional Committee on Higher Education, CII Northern Region who is also CEO & Director, Nectar Lifesciences Ltd, said, “Academia is at the centre of developing trends. However, there is a gap between universities and industry that needs to be bridged. Acknowledging the importance of knowledge cluster, CII desires to work in tandem with CRIKC. Such an alliance will boost the R&D of industries and help enhance the educational skills of their employees. CII strongly believes that the country cannot achieve the universalisation of education without the contribution of the private sector,” he added.

Reining In Mayhem On The Roads

Sanjeev Kochhar

July 6, 2017

The day was marked by firm decisions aimed at making the killer stretches of Punjab roads less deadly, demolishing the cartelisation of goods carriages, which were hurting the already distressed industry, and breaking the near monopoly of a few private bus operators over profitable bus routes in the state, which had lead to state run bus operations turning sick.

The Punjab cabinet, which met under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Wednesday, approved the Punjab Goods Carriages (Regulation and Prevention of Cartelization Rules), 2017, which bar good carriage operators from forming cartels or unions in the state. The proposed new rules will be placed in public domain for 30 days for comments and objections.

Photo By: Life In Chandigarh

To protect the interests of transporters, following the abolition of truck unions, it was also decided that the government should fix minimum and maximum fares and freights for goods carriers. This would be done from time to time, in respect of different kinds of goods carriers on a per kilometre basis for wet and dry loads and for the transportation of livestock, keeping in view the different terrains to be traversed, the cost of fuel and maintenance, salaries and expenditure, and all other relevant factors pertaining to different kinds of goods carriages.

The cabinet also gave its green signal to the much-awaited new Transport Policy, while abolishing the system of DTOs and restructuring the Transport Department in order to streamline the issuance of permits and licences across commercial and private transport vehicles.

It was resolved that the state government will gradually increase the state transport undertakings’ share in the luxury bus service, currently controlled by bus cartels, with a target to eventually make this service state-controlled.

The killer stretches of roads in the border state may become less deadly if the new initiatives, especially one of outsourced computerised eyes on the roads, announced on Wednesday by the Capt Amarinder Singh government, are effectively implemented.

The new rules envisage that each operator, within 6 months of grant of permit, will ensure that his buses are equipped with GPS tracking system and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) as specified by the state government. This will enable monitoring of movement, speed, stoppages and regularity of the service of buses on permitted routes by the state government as well as the general public.

Operators would also have to ensure that CCTV cameras are installed inside the buses plying in, and entering, the state, to minimise chances of untoward incidents inside the buses and to ensure detection and appropriate action in case of such incidents.

In addition, panic buttons would have to be installed in buses to trigger an SMS/Call to nearest police station along with GPS location of the bus. The bus operator would also mandatorily have to be part of a common digital platform with requisite devices in buses to enable common tickets/passes for passengers travelling on buses in the state.

The government, as per the new initiative, would endeavour to develop facilities, on an outsourced basis, to set up automatic facilities for detection of over-speeding and issuance of challans based on speed radars and vehicle number plate readers, along state and national highways.

The state government would also be required to develop appropriate facilities, on an outsourced basis, to set up adequate automatic computerised testing stations for conducting annual fitness check of commercial vehicles.

The state government would also make efforts to ensure that challans are issued by Police and Transport Departments only on online handheld machines linked to a central/cloud server.

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Life in ChandigarhPeople, places and more

Life in ChandigarhPeople, places and more

Life in Chandigarhpeople, places and more

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