DesiReflections

Recently, I visited Mahalakshmi Temple at Kohlapur.  One among the ‘Shaktipeethas’, Kolhapur attracts the pilgrims of the world. They visit Kolhapur to pray goddess Ambabai (Mahalaxmi) for a peaceful & healthy life. It is considered that the darshan of Shri. Balaji of Tirumala is incomplete without visiting goddess Mahalaxmi of Kolhapur. The temple has a rich history. It was originally constructed during  Chalukya Rule (550 A. D. to 660 A. D.)  However, the ancient temple was destroyed by an earthquake that took place in 8th century A.D. Yet several ruins of the first structure are found today in various part of the current temple. The ancient petite idol is found in a small structure next to the stairs, between Goddess Mahalakshmi and Goddess Mahasaraswati’s sancta sanctorum. On the other side of the same stairs is a sculpture of a boar carrying Goddess Earth on its tusk. The boar represents one of the avatar of Lord Vishnu. Besides, a boar was also the em...

  Nine years after he retired as special secretary, Research and Analysis Wing, India's external intelligence agency, V Balachandran spends a lot of time delving into security and intelligence matters.
 and regarded as one of the finest expert on terrorism related issues. Yesterday he was invited by Indo American Society in Mumbai to deliver a talk on Combating Terrorism - The US Way. An IPS officer from the 1959 batch, Balachandran was one of India's top spymasters, who worked for RAW for 19 years in various countries including the United States and France. A specialist in security affairs, he had also been president of Indo American Society.  While delivering his talk, Balachandran shared that before 9/11 incident took place in 1911, security in American System not paramount. On most of the major airports security was almost negligible, even for international flight one could go straight to the craft without any serious check. In USA , the Depa...

Last time I wrote briefly about Epilepsy disease, Epilepsy Foundation and Dr Nirmal Surya, the man behind Epilepsy Foundation. Sitting in air conditioned chamber of Dr Surya's consulting chamber, it is very difficult to understand that what kind of work he is doing at ground level. So when I got a call from him to join his Epilepsy Camp in collaboration with National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) at Kolhapur, I decided to visit Kohlapur. I spent my Sunday at his camp. It was a kind of experience seeing a crowd of more then 650 chronic epilepsy patients with their kith and kins travelled all the way from their remote villages, some of them covered more than 100 Km, with lot of apprehensions, but saw them going back with a sense of satisfaction and gratitude.   Kolhapur is a historical town with its connection with great warrior Shivaji, you may still find invisible presence to Shivaji in the form of Panahala fort, Palace and other relics. The town is also know...

Film Director  Not Allowed in NFDC film Bazaar Viewing Room NFDC Film Bazaar  which is going on in Goa and the last date of which is 24 th November 2012 did not allow a well known PRO turned film Director  Harish Sharma  to enter the viewing room of the film bazaar where 3 of his movies were been screened. Sharma’s short film  “The Last Announcement” , a documentary  “A soldier becomes a Monk”  and the third one a supernatural feature film  “2 Nights in Soul Valley”  which is to be released on 28 th  December in theaters, were playing in the film bazaar viewing room. According to  Harish Sharma  he landed from Kolkata to Goa on 23 rd  November evening, and went straight to Hotel Marriott, where NFDC film Bazaar is going on. He wanted to go into the viewing room to see the response on his films and how NFDC had put his films in that section. He met a girl from NFDC and told her about his three films and she p...

Time is just right to act, more than trying to personalise the content or product, we need   to try to understand the consumer; get a very nuanced, granulated and specific perception of his mind,” says Uday Shankar, CEO of STAR India. “As of now, we have very generic understanding. We have to ask, are we echoing our viewers’ thoughts? If a programme embodies, exercises and plays what is going on in everybody’s hearts, as in the case of Satyamev Jayate, it is personalization of the media in a great way. Media is all about impact. Nothing else matters. It is important to influence 10 lives than inform 10 million.” In the domain of television, time was when people had no choice but to watch Doordarshan. Now there are hundreds of channels – all competing brands – vying to catch the consumer’s attention. These are devoted to increasingly niche content such as food, music, action, movies, comedy, etc., - not only in English and Hindi, but in every regional language possible. Even wit...