NEW DELHI, June 19 (UNI): Congress MP Rahul Gandhi turned 35 today.
Mr Gandhi, who was elected to Lok Sabha in May 2004 from Amethi, made the birthday a low key affair.
There was no formal celebration at 10 Janpath, the official residence of his mother and Congress President Sonia Gandhi.
However, many party workers visited his office at Tuglaq Road.
ICPS elections held NEW DELHI, June 19 (UNI):Kanwar Anand Singh was today elected Honorary Treasurer of the Institute of Constitutional Parliamentary Studies.
Messrs Ram Niwas Mirdha, Prof P S Sangl, Jagdev, D S Mathur and K C Kaushik were elected as members of the Executive Council.
The election was held in Parliament House Annexe.
Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee is the President of the Institute.
Mahatma becomes stranger at his own museum NEW DELHI, June 19 (UNI): A Rs 40-lakh Dandi March sculpture has turned a familiar Gandhi into a "stranger" for some at a museum named after the Mahatma.
Carved out of Rs 8-lakh huge black marble blocks, it defies conventional ways of seeing the body.
The work, unlike other modelled clay portraits standing on the compound of Delhi's National Gandhi Museum, is gaining attention because of its "impersonality and symbolism" - terms Director Y P Anand uses to defend the sculpture against mounting criticism.
The 18-foot sculpture, purportedly showing the Mahatma and 13 other people on his electric Salt March, has baffled many visitors because it breaks the way they remember the Bapu's image.
But the Museum authorities are unfazed, saying artists create essence and not physical appearance.
"Impersonality and symbolism are common practices in sculpture, a fact those who are looking down upon the work a product of three years of effort perhaps are unaware of," Mr Anand said.
In 1998, the Museum commissioned renowned sculptor Advaita Gadnayak to create a monumental representation of Gandhi in stone because there was none until then.
A year later, its officials were in Rajasthan locating mines that could provide stone fit for sculpting.
Finally, they reached Bhaislana mines near Kotputli to obtain the stone of their choice and a supply agreement was signed with a Jaipur firm in 2000.
The carving began in August, 2002 after months of activities involving stone transportation, pedestal building and accommodation arrangements for the sculptor's seven-member team on the Museum complex.
The work was completed a week ahead of the 75th anniversary of the Mahatma's walk from Sabarmati to Ahmedabad.
"The sculputre, which has yet to be officially 'unveiled', allows something else to emerge, and I think it is the artist who can best justify his creation," said Mr Anand as he failed to contact the sculptor, away in Maharashtra for "another big project," to explain his work.
Small screen film release a first for Indian teleyision! NEW DELHI, June 19 (UNI): The small screen seems to be getting 'bigger' by the day! In a development seen as 'narrowing the chasm between the small screen and the big screen', Sahara One has started the trend of releasing films on television much before they hit the cinema halls across the country.
The first Indian channel to ever launch megafilms on television, Sahara one, in its 'first day show', will screen films by distinguised directors like Shrabani Deodhar and Vikas Desai and featuring established stars like Jackie Shroff, Anupam Kher, Raveena Tandon, Vinod Khanna, Mahima Choudhary, Jimmy Shergil, Diya Mirza and Manoj Bajpai, among others.
"The idea of releasing films on TV is aimed at increasing the size of the small screen that seems to be getting bigger every day,"says Purnendo Bose, CEO, Sahara One Television.
The first of the series of films that released on the channel this month are 'Hum Jo Keh Na Paaye' (starring Abhijit Sanyal, Anupam Kher and Gauri Karnik, 'Tum Ho Na' (starring Ria Sen, Jackie Shroff and Nethra Raghuraman) and 'Pehchaan' (Raveena Tandon, Vinod Khanna, Rati Agnihotri).
While ' Hum Jo Keh Na Paaye' was telecast on June 10,'Tum Ho Na' was aired on Friday.
These will be followed by the telecast of 'Pehchaan' on June 24.
Directed by National award winning Shrabani Deodhar, 'Pehchaan' is the story of a woman, Mridula, played by Raveena Tandon, who has to face her mentor in court (Vinod Khanna) in order to create her own identity.
The films are being telecast every Friday at 2030 hrs.
Other films that will release on Sahara One's 'First Day Show' are Tanuja Chandra's 'Film Star' (starring Mahima Choudhary, Priyanshu and Vasundhara Das), 'Prateeksha' starring Jimmy Shergil, Diya Mirza and Anupam Kher and 'Hannan' starring Manoj Bajpai and Sonali Kulkarni among others.
Trade analysts say that the move by Sahara is an indicator of the changing trends of film business in India.
In today's times, television's viewership is many times more than that of theatres.
In addition, television has far greater penetration level than cinema halls, they say.
Urgent need to protect waterbirds and their habitats; experts NEW DELHI, June 19 (UNI): As waterbird population around the world is declining and wetlands shrinking or dissapearing, there is an urgent need for international conservation measures to ensure benefit to the people as well as survival of these species and their habitats, experts say.
Ornithologists from across the globe, participating at a meeting, held under the Convention of Migratory Species, said waterbird populations were declining and the wetlands, grasslands and other habitats, especially along the important trans-national waterbirds migration routes, upon which waterbirds depend were also seriously threatened.
Therefore there was an urgent need of science-based and internationally co-ordinated conservation measures to ensure sustainable benefit to the people as well as survival of species and habitats, they said.
And hence the call for the development of an action plan for setting up a Central Asian Flyway had been recognised for sometime now, they added.
The action plan would set the agenda for enhanced regional environmental cooperation among the Central Asian Flyway states to promote the conservation of migratory waterbirds and their habitats.
The action plan would build on and complement actions that were being undertaken by national governments to promote conservation.
In addition, it would build on and complement programmes and actions that were being undertaken by various governments, institutions and organisations internationally.
The Central Asian Flyway covered a large continental area of Eurasia between the Arctic and Indian Oceans and the associated island chains.
The Flyway comprised several important migration routes of waterbirds, most of which extend from the northernmost breeding grounds in Russia (Siberia) to the southernmost non-breeding (wintering) grounds in West and South Asia, the Maldives and the British Indian Ocean Territory.
The birds on their annual migration crossed the borders of several countries.
Geographically the flyway region covered 30 countries of North, Central and South Asia and Trans-Caucasus.
