Posts Tagged ‘Nagpur’
Written by admin on 06 February 2012
Nagpur, Feb 6 (IANS) Advocating the need for companionship in the autumn of life, a Nagpur octogenarian has taken up the task of mooting live-in relationships for senior citizens who are leading a lonely life after outliving their spouses.
“The relationship might not be sexual only. They can live together as friends or define their own relationship,” Arvind Godbole, 81, who is spearheading the initiative, told IANS.
Godbole is working under the aegis of Jayeshthanche Live-In Relationship Sanyojak Mandal, formed by the Geeta Godbole Smriti Trust named after his daughter.
He said he got inspired by a book written by Dada Dharmadhikari, an Indian freedom fighter and philosopher.
“Fondly known as Acharya Dada Dharmadhikari, he was one of the strongest adherents of Mahatma Gandhi’s principles. In his book ‘Purush aur Stree Sahajeevan’ Dada quoted Gandhiji as saying that a woman has many ‘roopas’. She can be a sister, a mother, an aunt, a friend and so on,” Godbole said.
“What we need to realise is that a woman can shower her affection in any form of a relationship. It does not have to be sexual. When we understand this, we will be free from the shackles of backward and narrow-minded mindsets,” he added.
Godbole said that the book inspired him to bring together lonely senior citizens. The recent Supreme Court verdict making live-in relationships legal encouraged Godbole to take the initiative forward.
The mandal is now on the verge of laying down rules for membership and soon a drive would be formally launched to enrol interested elders.
“Once that is done, we will be open to registering members. A general member can be anyone over the age of 55 years — single, married or widowed. We will then call them for a general meeting next month and discuss the format of the mandal and put it up for approval,” Godbole said.
The octogenarian said that the mandal currently had 15 core committee members and that the committee was a part of the Geeta Godbole Smriti Trust.
“As of now we are a sub-committee of the trust. Later, we might apply for a separate entity,” he said.
“Once the members agree upon a format, we will be organising several workshops and programmes for senior citizens,” he added.
Godbole, however, conceded that the initiative might be much more difficult to take forward. “While it sounds like a wonderful idea at first instance, we also cannot ignore the fact that elders are set in their ways and their ideas. If we bring together a hundred people, chances are that only two of them would be compatible,” he said.
“But companionship is only one part of it. We would also look forward to sponsoring hostels where seniors could pay and stay in the comfort and company of others,” he added.
Godbole said that youngsters could also register as volunteers. “From all the general members, those who are left alone in society will be registered as beneficiaries. Our aim is that these beneficiaries be benefited from the mandal.”
The former Bank of India officer said that once the members were registered, the mandal would help them with a memorandum of understanding (MoU).
“The agreement of the MoU will be signed by both the beneficiaries who plan to stay together. We are also thinking about deciding an amount of compensation for women who might get cheated in this case. But this is just a preventive measure,” he said.
Godbole said that the core committee may arrive at a decision that the legal or biological heirs of the elders give a clearance to their proposed live-in relationship.
According to 61-year-old Nandini Pimplapure, a committee member of the Mandal, “This is an age of nuclear families. Moreover, when your children grow up and start working or go abroad for work, parents are left alone. It becomes even more difficult to tackle loneliness if your spouse dies”.
Pimplapure, a retired school principal, says that a live-in relationship is often misunderstood.
“By taking this initiative, we are trying to remove the tabboo that surrounds a live-in relationship. I never married due to my dedication to work. Today I stay with my 92-year-old mother and take care of her. This is a live-in relationship of sorts,” she said.
Pimplapure said that instead of misinterpreting the phrase people should look at it in a broader sense.
“At the evening of your life, you look for moral support and companionship. Our organisation will work towards this. Two women or two men or even a group of oldies can live-in and be good friends,” she said.
(Mauli Buch can be contacted at mauli.b@ians.in)
Tags: Nagpur
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Written by admin on 31 January 2012
Nagpur, Jan 31 (IANS) Two labourers were killed and at least nine injured when a four-storied industrial building collapsed in Chikhli industrial area here, police said Tuesday.
The under-construction building housed a cold storage plant which collapsed late Monday, trapping the labourers working there.
The body of 50-year-old Samtaram Bharati was removed from the debris early Tuesday. Dilip Walde, 49, succumbed to his injuries later in Mayo General Hospital, a police official said.
Among the injured are two women and two minors who are being treated at the same hospital.
Relief and rescue work, currently under way to clear the rubble and search for more people who may be trapped, may continue for another two days, the official said.
The owner of the building, Pramod Khandelwal, is being questioned in the matter.
The plant machinery which was extensively damaged resulted in leakage of ammonium and carbon dioxide gases, which inconvenienced residents in the vicinity and hampered rescue operations.
Tags: Nagpur
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Written by admin on 11 January 2012
Nagpur, Jan 11 (IANS) Trusting god to ensure party ticket for the coming civic polls in Maharashtra, many Congress hopefuls slipped their application forms in the donation boxes of famous temples here.
‘The trend came to light when I went to the Ganesh Tekri temple here to offer prayers for my newly-born grandson,’ said city Congress president Jayprakash Gupta.
‘I was curious when the priest asked me about upcoming civic polls. When I asked him as to why he is so interested in the elections, he told me that he found eight to 10 copies of candidate’s forms in the donation box,’ he said.
Gupta also said that a few other such forms were found from the donation box of Sai Temple also.
‘People really put their faith in these two temples and believe that all their wishes will come true if they pray here,’ he said.
Gupta also noticed that some of the forms were not received by the party office, adding the candidates seem to have missed the last date of the forms’ submission.
‘If the candidates have put so much faith in the lord, it is our duty to do something for them and hence we have extended the date of submission of forms for two days,’ he said.
Tags: Maharashtra, Nagpur
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Written by admin on 04 January 2012
Nagpur, Jan 4 (IANS) A suspected Maoist, Arun Ferreira Wednesday slapped a Rs.2.50 million defamation case against the Maharashtra government after walking free at the end of over four years in jail.
Lawyer Surendra Gadgil said the case had been filed in a local court, alleging violation of human rights and denial of fundamental rights to his client Ferriera while in custody.
Ferriera said he had been falsely accused of being a Maoist.
Hailing from Mumbai, Ferreira was nabbed by security forces in 2007 along with three others on charges of supporting an outlawed Maoist group.
Although Ferreira was released on bail in September 2010, he was re-arrested in some other Maoist-related cases.
In 2009, all four accused were acquitted after the prosecution failed to provide sufficient evidence against them. But it was only on Wednesday that Ferreira walked out of the Nagpur Central Jail.
Tags: Maharashtra, Nagpur
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Written by admin on 20 December 2011
Nagpur, Dec 20 (IANS) Grabbing the initiative from the opposition, Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan Tuesday demanded that the central government hand over a mill premises in Mumbai ‘free of cost’ to the state for constructing a memorial to Dalit icon Bhimrao Ambedkar.
A resolution to the effect, moved by Chavan, was unanimously passed in both houses of the legislature here, catching the belligerent opposition unawares.
‘We have demanded that the centre should hand over the entire 12.5 acres of land of Indu Mills, currently in possession of the National Textiles Corporation, free of cost to the state government,’ Chavan said.
This would pave the way for the state government to erect a grand memorial to Ambedkar on the site, located near Chaityabhoomi in Dadar west, where his last rites were performed.
The Indu Mills land has been virtually taken over by hundreds of activists of the Dalit party Republican Sena since Dec 6, Ambedkar’s death anniversary.
Led by Anandraj Ambedkar, grandson of B.R. Ambedkar who is revered as the Father of the Indian constitution, they have vowed not to move out of the premises until the land is allotted for the memorial.
The developments made Chavan rush to New Delhi last week and urge Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to initiate steps to allot the land for the memorial, even as all opposition parties came out in support of the Dalit parties.
The issue has also figured prominently in the state legislature, currently in its winter session here.
Chavan’s move comes in the wake of the recently concluded civic bodies elections around the state in which its partner in the ruling Congress-led coalition, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), emerged as the biggest vote-catcher.
Elections to top civic corporations like Mumbai, Thane and Pune, among others, are scheduled around February 2012.
Tags: Maharashtra, Nagpur
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Written by admin on 18 December 2011
Nagpur, Dec 18 (IANS) Refusing to accept the state government’s ‘paltry’ Rs.2000 crore aid package, some farmers in Maharashtra’s Vidarbha region have threatened to donate the amount, averaging Rs.1,700 per head, to Maoists active in the state’s eastern districts, an activist said here Sunday.
The decision was taken Saturday, Dec 17 by nearly 20,000 farmers of five villages in the Arni sub-district of Yavatmal, around 175 kms from here. Yavatmal is notorious for being the country’s worst suicide-hit farmland district.
‘The villagers of Bellora, Mangrul, Sakur, Borgosavi and Brahmanwada have formed an action committee and an unanimous decision was taken on the issue. Whenever we get this Rs.1700 aid, we shall donate it to the Maoists,’ Raju Raut, the committee’s representative from Bellora told IANS.
Several hundred farmers along with their local village representatives took part in the meeting Saturday, where the decision to donate the aid to Maoists was discussed and finalized.
Raut claimed that the villagers decided on the extreme measure since the government’s aid package is too little and too less and is merely a ‘tokenism’ to lure the farmers to withdraw their ongoing month-old agitation, demanding better remuneration for their produce.
Last Wednesday, Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, while announcing the Rs.2000 crore package, termed it ‘historic and the biggest ever aid’ for over seven million needy farmers in the regions of Vidarbha, north Maharashtra and Marathwada.
Chavan informed the State Legislature currently in session in Nagpur, that the cotton, soyabean and grain growers needed the aid package most and pointed out that the state government had provided similar aid packages of nearly Rs.600 crore to sugarcane growers in the past two years.
This latest aid package, which followed a Rs.1000-crore package last year, was roundly criticized by opposition parties, farmers groups and NGOs like ‘Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti’ (VJAS).
Tags: Maharashtra, Nagpur
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