Thursday, November 15, 2012

CHILD SMILE Observed CHILDREN'S DAY Among Blind Students

CHILD SMILE, a NGO dedicated to children, celebrated the CHILDREN'S DAY on 14th November 2012 among the students of the Blinds' School, Patharchepa village in Balangir of Odisha.




Chief Guest of the function Bharati Behera, Board Member of District C.W.C. (Child Welfare Committee) Balangir, articulated her respect to Jawaharlal Neheru, the first Prime Minister of India whose birthday is observed as the Children’s day in India.She also recounted his achievements and ideal steps.

The Chief Speaker lighted the candle and depicted about the value of education in life.

Guest of Honor Mr. Ashok Sahu, teacher of Blind School, Balangir said, "Disability can't check our steps to reach our vision but for our development education is most important" and described children to be the future citizens.

Ms Dipti Mayee Nanda, Chief functionary of CHILD SMILE conducted different participatory activities related to “Child Rights ” amongst the children for their sound understanding. Around 25 students and all the teachers of the school attended the program.

At the end Mr.Samson Das, Volunteer of CHILD SMILE proposed the vote of thanks. Mr. Sanjeeb Chhatria and Mr.Vicky helped organize the program.



Monday, November 12, 2012

Chanakya of CGM will play Ravan in Mahadev on LifeOk

Manish Wadhwa, the great actor, who was playing the role Chanakya in the serial ‘Chandra Gupta Maurya’ will soon be seen in the role of ‘Raavana’ in the spiritual superhit serial ‘Devon Ka Dev Mahadev’ aired on LifeOk. Wadhwa had created a place for him in the heart of the audience and it is his acting aptitude that has fueled a lot of CGM fans to raise their voice for telecast of the historical serial again. CGM advertently got stopped after the airing Channel of the show, the erstwhile Imagine TV was shut down months back. However, the characters Chanakya, Chandragupta and Dhananand had attracted a huge audience.


Wadhwa had not accepted any assignment waiting for CGM though he was been offered a lot of roles. But lastly just to be in the frame right before the eye of his huge fans he decided to appear in the role of Raavana in ‘Devon ka Dev Mahadev’. Of course he has assured that the moment CGM returns back he will again be a part of the great serial and he likes to be the first among others to be included again in the historical saga in his role of Chanakya.


Fans of CGM have taken great pain to see their favorite serial back in TV. Apart from the very famous Facebook page to telecast the serial, rallies have also done in Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Bangalore. But it is matter of high astonishment that despite all these serious efforts to air a serial, a mere NOC could not be issued by Imagine TV. Fans of CGM are astonished to see that in a time, when a lot of unnecessary serials are aired in India, a great serial like CGM has been stopped and though some other channels are interested to telecast it, for reasons unknown Imagine TV is not issuing the NOC.


It will be great to watch Wadhwa again in a serial which teaches a lot of moral. Of course in CGM, he was a total positive character, but here he will play Raavana, who is taken as a symbol of evil despite some of his great qualities.


Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Fashion Designer From Odisha Rocks in Paris


Pritam Panda, a young Fashion Designer from India was presenting at Paris. This is the Odiya/Oriya designer’s Third invite to the Mecca of Fashion Paris. It was a trip for 10days with two shows and a preview of his spring summer 2013 line.


The first day of Designer Pritam Panda’s trip to the fashion capital saw his much awaited creations for the world legendary doll brand Barbie as they hosted the “HAUTE Barbie on RED CARPET” event, wherein there were designers from across the globe who presented a new look to this magnificent teen craze Barbie and presented their couture creations for the Barbie 2013 new looks.

“FTV has been the official media partners to the HAUTE BARBIE on RED CARPET, so I had to be here and I just love the designs by all the 28fantastic designers and I personally know couple of them..With  Pritam around it has to be the baling factor with little bit of India but very internationally contoured, he is a good friend and we have worked for quite some shoots and events of mine, so when he is in Paris then I have to be here to support him..though I miss the Desi factor from him” says Hofit Golan a friend to the designer  and an Internationally acclaimed Television personality.
“This is for the first time I am doing haute couture for Barbie, it’s a true privilege to do it...but I need to confess that it has been really difficult to finalize the looks and recreate them as I needed to represent my haute couture costumes and styling details just on a 15 inches mannequin that too which is a such a big rage amongst kids. It had to look sensual at the same time we needed to keep an eye on the moral values as it’s going to be available to kids around the world” says Panda.  

Designer Pritam Panda is one amongst the 28 invited young designers who have been invited from 23 different countries across the globe. Panda is representing India in this event with his classic haute couture and styles for the Barbies new haute couture look.



The designer has presented 5 prospective looks for the Barbie and all these five looks are High on glam quotient and very haute couture in their style, the most appreciable till now has been the designers recreation f the Beyonce and the 80s Madonna look that has been quite a favorite amongst the visitors and the panel members of the multi million dollars company that’s manufacturing BARBIE. Most of it is in the designer’s fav color combo of black white and nude, embellished with intricate Swarovski and even the Indian zardousi embellishment. 

Press Release By NCPRI, New Delhi On RTI


PRESS RELEASE

Peoples’ hearing held and resolutions forwarded to the Information Commissions prior to the Annual Convention of Information Commission.

11 October, 2012, Delhi: On the occasion of the 7th anniversary of Right to Information, the Public Hearing organized by the National Campaign for People’s Right to Information (NCPRI) bringing together 400 RTI users from 16 states and held a day before the annual convention of State and Central Information Commissioners, which is to be addressed by the Prime Minister, resulted in many resolutions drafted on the basis of people’s experience of using RTI for 7 years being forwarded to the government. Also significant discussions on the recent Supreme Court on the appointment of Information Commissioners and its current and potential impact were discussed threadbare. 

Speaking about the recent Supreme Court judgment, Ms. Deepak Sandhu exhorted RTI users to defend the simplicity of the procedures laid down in the existing RTI Act and not to complicate it with legal processes and formalities. Mr. Shailesh Gandhi former Commissioner stated that the recent Supreme Court judgment will only exacerbate the problem of pendency. “Today if five Information Commissioners are able to dispose of 15000 cases every year, the present judgment of the Supreme Court will reduce the disposal rate to less than 25% of current capacity. This judgment will undermine the efficacy of the RTI Act and will ultimately subject users to even longer waits and delay.”     
   
Speaking about the Right to Information, Mr. Kamal Tank from RTI Manch in Jaipur, lamented that about 9500 cases were pending in Rajasthan, while Pradip Pradhan, RTI activist from Orissa highlighted that 8000 cases are pending in the Orissa State Information Commission. Ms. Geeta Potsangbam representing a Manipur woman’s organization called Machaliema stated that this is a right they are determined to defend at all costs. “In Manipur we have as many as 800 activists who have formed 48 associations across 4 districts to advance this right and ensure that we break the apathy and indifference of the Commissioners” she added. Shanu a physically challenged women residing n Delhi slum shared her travails in accessing information about why her ration had been stopped without any prior information given to her.  Not willing to give up, she filed a second appeal and is awaiting the response from the Commission. But it was the startling revelations of Mr. Abey George a spokesperson of the anti-nuclear struggle of Kudankulam that exposed the real state of affairs. “We filed an RTI case two years ago on the safety of the nuclear plant and it took the Commission a year and a half to respond and when they did respond they do so with a decent order but the government have decided to ignore it and till date we have not got the safety order” he shared.   

Given the mounting pendency cases, which was one of the major complaints of all RTI users, Anjali Bhardwaj, NCPCRI pointed out that even the Central Information Commission is not free of this malaise as it has as high as 28000 pendency cases at present. In this connection one of the key resolution mooted at the meeting was “well defined norms and standards of functioning of information commissions should be adopted.” In this connection it was pointed out that the “recent judgment of the Supreme Court effectively halves the number of commissioners without increasing the total number of commissioners in each information commission and without laying down norms on time-bound disposal of cases at the commission. This will make the RTI ineffective and impede peoples’ fundamental right to information.”  

Shri Wajahat Habibullah commenting on the resolution mooted at the meeting demanding the time bound disposal of cases at the Commission, emphasized the point “unless Section 4 of the Act is not implemented effectively obligating the government to educate the public about all their rights and entitlements, the number of pendency cases will not decrease.” Speaking in support of this appeal, Ms. Deepak Sandhu, Central Information Commissioner assured activists that a 10 day initiative will be implemented in December to monitor compliance of public authorities with the orders of the Commission. She also suggested that the number of commissioners and support staff be appropriately increased to deal with the issue of pendency without affecting the quality of the orders passed by the Commission.

A resolution was passed to this effect that the norms of functioning of information commissions be defined and a mechanism for time bound disposal of cases be adopted. The number of commissioners for each Commission must be determined on the basis of these norms. 

It was also resolved that no case should  be disposed of until either a penalty is levied and recovered and Information Commissioners must ensure that penalties imposed by them are recovered and are entered into the ACR/service record of the concerned official.  

Shri Balwinder Singh an RTI activist from J&K in his impassioned speech urged the government to set up appropriate mechanisms to protect RTI users and the whistleblowers. In the same vein since many other RTI users shared their experience of being intimidated in the process of seeking information,  a resolution was passed urging government to pass a directive mandating that in case of an attack on an RTI user the information sought by the applicant be disclosed and put out in the public domain immediately. Celebrating some of the landmark judgments given by information commissions, citizens spoke of the judgment of  Shri Wajahat Habibullah which included compensation awarded to widows residing in Delhi whose pensions were peremptorily stopped without informing them. In a recent instance Smt. Annapurna Dikshit, CIC has directed the Legislative Assembly of Delhi to publicize the proceedings of the assembly as most citizens have no access to information on the legislations passed and questions raised on the floor of the house .

The Public Hearing was organised by NCPRI in collaboration with other civil society groups including Satark Nagrik Sangathan, Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan, Transparency International, CHRI, Accountability Initiative, JOSH, Pardarshita, NFIW, CFAR, Rajasthan RTI Manch, Sanskriti Foundation and Inclusive Media for Change.

For more information please contact Farah at 95605.11667 or Nandini Dey at 99531.53445