A letter from “Studio Systems” reader Vijay Kumar Patnaik got me thinking about the enormous confusion experienced by most people wishing to enter the profession of Music in India. I meet numerous youngsters almost every day who want to make Music their career but have just no idea what to do as there is no clear cut path available, no job placements, no job interviews and no recognised colleges which could guarantee employment. Hopefully some of the tips offered in the booklet 'So you want to become a Musician in India???' can help clear the fog and help in focusing these youngsters into achieving their goals. Also this booklet hopes to give Parents & the Music Business professional a better understanding of the mindset of musicians and a deeper understanding of Music itself. Music, after all, is like religion for all dedicated musicians. Please email us for details about how you can get your own copy.
Nandu Bhende
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Prof Asha Bhende
Citation read out at the presentation of the "Prof. Asha Bhende Gold Medal" for the Best Student at MA / Msc at the 53rd Convocation at the International Institute For Population Sciences (IIPS) on 17th June 2011.
Prof. Asha Bhende, Former Professor and Head, Department of Population Policies and Programmes, IIPS, Mumbai will always be remembered for her contribution to the field of Family Planning & Reproductive Health. Born on 1st October 1928 in the family of eminent academicians, Prof. Bhende had three Masters degrees – in Sociology (Bombay University), in Social Work (Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai), in Public Health ( Berkley University, California, USA) and Ph. D. from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. Her doctoral work on “Husband-wife Communication and Family planning Acceptance” under the guidance of Prof Gore, a well known sociologist, which reflected her insight into the social aspects of population issues was much ahead of the time. Equipped with this unique educational background she was a multidisciplinary population scientist in the true sense of the term.
Her contact with the community, while working in the Family Planning Training Center at the initial stage of her career and later on the experience of working in the action research project at IIPS with Dr. Chandrasekaran enriched her understanding of grass root realities ,which was reflected in her research and teaching .
She was a joint author of ‘Principles of Population Studies’, a text book on Demography which presents the complexities of population dynamics lucidly. Twenty editions of the book in a span of 32 years show the popularity of the book among students of population studies. She was convener of the University Grant Commission’s Population Education Consultation Committee
Prof. Bhende’s study of Mumbai slums, undertaken for the World Vision is recognized as a pioneering work in the area of adolescent sexuality. She was also a consultant to International Labor Organization for the project on “Family Planning and Creation of Job Opportunities for Women Slum Dwellers in Nairobi, Kenya. She also worked as a consultant to UNFPA, Rockefeller Foundation, FRHS Ahmedabad and National Association for the Blind. She was a visiting fellow to the East West Center, Hawaii in 1985.
With her contribution to Marathi theatre as an actress and her achievements in the field of Population Studies, Prof. Bhende was a rare combination of artistic mind and academic temperament
As a chairperson of the Ashish Gram Rachna Trust, of the Institute of Health Management, Pachod, Maharashtra, she was active till her death on May 28, 2010, in directing the programmes of the trust aimed at the holistic development of the individual, family and community and to the upliftment of marginalized groups.
The International Institute for Population Sciences is privileged to announce Prof. Asha Bhende Award instituted by the Institute of Health Management, Pachod for the Overall Best performance in the MA/ MSc Course in Population Studies from IIPS.
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Economic Crisis and its Effect on Football
My son Akshay's first article.
First it was a credit crunch, and now it's a global crisis - but football teams seem to have sleepwalked their way through it, with Manchester United spending £30m to get Dimitar Berbatov, Manchester City being taken over by Abu Dhabi United Group, owned by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Liverpool spending millions on every Spanish footballer that was ever born.
Finally, football clubs are beginning to see the magnitude of the crisis at hand and they don't like what they see. Everton's Bill Kenwright has already admitted that it's a game for the billionaires and the club's finances have hit rock bottom with Kenwright forced to mortgage the club's future against a stadium that may not even get the go-ahead. Everton are in a bad state and badly need someone like Anil Ambani to bail them out - but the three who maintain the debts are the three in the frontline: Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester United. Together they owe £1bn worth of debt - and Football Association Chairman Lord Triesman says that the debt of these three clubs alone constitutes a third of the debt owed by English football clubs.
Take a look at West Ham today, with Chairman Magnus Eggertson having to issue a statement saying that the club will not be affected by Landsbanki going into receivership. As of 12 September 2008 the club terminated its contract with its main sponsor, XL Leisure Group which had been placed in administration. The club is already set to hand out millions over the Tevez affair and have had to scale back their spending plans as a result. What happens when the Glazers of Manchester United or Gillette & Hicks of Liverpool wind up in trouble? Liverpool has already put the new stadium on hold...
Just as nobody predicted the collapse of Lehman Brothers, nobody has predicted the collapse of a Premiership football club.
The Premier League, of course, have tried to deflect attention away by claiming that the FA itself is heavily indebted and that clubs' income is proportionate to their expenditure - but the debt packages that have been tied into Liverpool and Manchester United are just as murky as any of those that have been bringing down American banks - and now banks around the world.
As long as there are billionnaires around to bail out clubs, those with chairmen who view their clubs as playthings will survive - until they get bored or see their fortune halved overnight and decide they're going to stop playing around. Arsenal, too, will remain solid – although still suffering from £43m in debt, invested wisely in their stadium and a youth scheme that is paying dividends. But there are clubs in the Premier League who have been playing around with debt - and if one does start to struggle, it could pull the others down with it.
The future? Unless every Premiership club gets itself a billionaire, then the Premier League clubs ought to think along the lines of the Championship, which sees clubs start on a relatively equal footing and punishes those with poor financial records. However, even in this volatile market, I don't see that happening unless a club collapses. And as long as there's debt involved, there remains a possibility that we might see Sir Alex carrying the items from his desk out of Old Trafford in a cardboard box. A small one, but not as crazy as Lehman Brothers or Manchester United's own sponsors AIG going bust.
Akshay Bhende
First it was a credit crunch, and now it's a global crisis - but football teams seem to have sleepwalked their way through it, with Manchester United spending £30m to get Dimitar Berbatov, Manchester City being taken over by Abu Dhabi United Group, owned by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Liverpool spending millions on every Spanish footballer that was ever born.
Finally, football clubs are beginning to see the magnitude of the crisis at hand and they don't like what they see. Everton's Bill Kenwright has already admitted that it's a game for the billionaires and the club's finances have hit rock bottom with Kenwright forced to mortgage the club's future against a stadium that may not even get the go-ahead. Everton are in a bad state and badly need someone like Anil Ambani to bail them out - but the three who maintain the debts are the three in the frontline: Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester United. Together they owe £1bn worth of debt - and Football Association Chairman Lord Triesman says that the debt of these three clubs alone constitutes a third of the debt owed by English football clubs.
Take a look at West Ham today, with Chairman Magnus Eggertson having to issue a statement saying that the club will not be affected by Landsbanki going into receivership. As of 12 September 2008 the club terminated its contract with its main sponsor, XL Leisure Group which had been placed in administration. The club is already set to hand out millions over the Tevez affair and have had to scale back their spending plans as a result. What happens when the Glazers of Manchester United or Gillette & Hicks of Liverpool wind up in trouble? Liverpool has already put the new stadium on hold...
Just as nobody predicted the collapse of Lehman Brothers, nobody has predicted the collapse of a Premiership football club.
The Premier League, of course, have tried to deflect attention away by claiming that the FA itself is heavily indebted and that clubs' income is proportionate to their expenditure - but the debt packages that have been tied into Liverpool and Manchester United are just as murky as any of those that have been bringing down American banks - and now banks around the world.
As long as there are billionnaires around to bail out clubs, those with chairmen who view their clubs as playthings will survive - until they get bored or see their fortune halved overnight and decide they're going to stop playing around. Arsenal, too, will remain solid – although still suffering from £43m in debt, invested wisely in their stadium and a youth scheme that is paying dividends. But there are clubs in the Premier League who have been playing around with debt - and if one does start to struggle, it could pull the others down with it.
The future? Unless every Premiership club gets itself a billionaire, then the Premier League clubs ought to think along the lines of the Championship, which sees clubs start on a relatively equal footing and punishes those with poor financial records. However, even in this volatile market, I don't see that happening unless a club collapses. And as long as there's debt involved, there remains a possibility that we might see Sir Alex carrying the items from his desk out of Old Trafford in a cardboard box. A small one, but not as crazy as Lehman Brothers or Manchester United's own sponsors AIG going bust.
Akshay Bhende
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