The legendary Bollywood choreographer (1948 –2020) Saroj Sardar Roshan Khan was the most prominent of Hindi cinema dance choreographers. Known as The Mother of Dance/Choreography in India, she has to her credit more than 2,000 songs during a four decade career. A beautiful teacher and human being, Saroj brought grace, dignity, expression and style to dance. Blending Indian classical dance with modern beats, she made dance look easy enough for anyone to dance. Vibrant, smiling, jovial and an inspiration, she single handedly changed the landscape of how songs were shot. She taught actors to work hard and lucky were the…
Author: oiop
Supreme sacrifice of a brave Commando (1977- 2008) Born on 15 March 1977, Sandeep Unikrsihnan was the only son of K. Unnikrishnan, an ISRO officer who had moved to Bangalore from Kozhikode. He studied at Frank Anthony School at Bangalore. A good athlete since his school days, Sandeep was keen to join the Army and always sported a crew cut. He joined the National Defence Academy at Pune in 1995 and was commissioned into 7 Bihar on 12 July 1999.His friends remember him as selfless, calm and generous. Sandeep served in various stations and took part in counterinsurgency operations. He…
Undaunted by job loss, three women diversify from their core areas of expertise to launch new ventures and make success stories out of them for others to follow. Seeing an opportunity in every crisis is the defining characteristic of an entrepreneur. Most successful entrepreneurs use crisis to their advantage by repurposing their business to changing circumstances. COVID pandemic has posed a challenge of epic proportion to entrepreneurs. Especially, women entrepreneurs who have to multitask – care for the family members, do household chores as well as manage their business. While many women-owned enterprises are struggling to survive amidst the pandemic,…
Although the National Education Policy 2020 appears to be groundbreaking, it fails to clearly spell out how the ambitious goals will be achieved by 2025, feels Poorvi Bose, as she analyses it and also highlights some of the ground realities and failures of the Right to Education (RTE) Act. The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 was recently approved and its revolutionary ideas are being discussed not only among experts but also by common people of the country. Proposing a revamp of the entire education structure, this policy has received a divided response with some applauding it and others being skeptical…
Yashodara Sirur who specialised in cooking only fancy cuisine at home; narrates her experiments with Indian cooking during the lockdown. I’ve always been a ‘MasterChef’ kind of cook. I don’t mean to say I cook exceedingly well, just that I cook the fancy stuff they keep cooking up on reality TV. In short, I specialise in cooking what my mother doesn’t. On my culinary journey from crème brûlée to carbonara, and parmigiana to pork chops, I missed the stop at Desi-ville, and never learnt to make batatyachi bhaji and vaangyache bharit. Not blowing my own trumpet here, but learning to…
India`s tourism sector and its affiliated businesses are the hardest hit following the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic. With no major relief measures coming from the government, the tourism industry is struggling for survival. Is there a hope for revival? asks Manu Shrivastava. The number of COVID-19 cases is on the rise in countries around the world; this, irrespective of the political, social or economic status of the nations in question. Despite that, several governments, including India, have already started relaxing travel restrictions and requirements in the hope of reviving the ‘hardest-hit’ tourism industry. In the third week of August, Vaishno…
A two-pronged strategy needs to be adopted for the immediate revival of the tourism industry. One, all stakeholders of the tourism industry, government agencies and regulatory authorities will have to work together to set a legal and operational framework for the road ahead and two, boost domestic tourism, writes Vanshika Jain. After weeks of being locked down, when the central and state governments started ‘reopening’ businesses and activities, the biggest fear facing authorities and citizens was what if the phase-wise ‘unlock’ fails and the outbreak soars to even higher proportions? Thankfully, the reopening or ‘Unlock’ 1.0 and then 2.0 is…
The COVID-19 pandemic has badly impacted the Civil Aviation sector, which was already spiraling into losses. However, with easing of restrictions and by adopting smarter strategies, the sector is gearing up to take flight again, says Gauravi Patel. The Civil Aviation sector in India continues its struggle to stay afloat in the post-COVID scenario. The lockdown and the restrictions on air travel affected the sector badly, not just in India but globally. The COVID-linked pessimism and potential health risks involved with air travel have led to the drastic reduction of air passenger traffic in India. However, with tuned-down restrictions and…
The impact of pandemic on the hotel industry has been drastic with mounting revenue losses each passing day. Kavitha Subramanian tells us how the industry is in the process of tweaking its procedures, protocols, activities and strategising itself to bounce back into business. The Indian hospitality industry has been hit badly due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The restrictions on movement of vehicles and people and the consequential disruptions in the hospitality business have been drastic to say the least. After the months-long lull, the industry is now gearing up and strategising to get back into the business. According to some…
During the recent lockdown, homestays across India came to the rescue of stranded travellers by opening their doors to them, and living up to the motto ‘Atithi Devo Bhava’. In the post-COVID world, the smaller, less crowded and local lodging options will present a tough competition to brand and chain hotels, feels Nikita Shastri. For a moment, life stood still for Carolina D’Sa when she heard about the lockdown being imposed across the nation. A first of its kind, she didn’t know what to expect in the coming days. Worse still, she was ‘stranded’ at a homestay in Nainital, Uttarakhand,…