Chandi ka Waraq

Chandi ka waraq sales gaining momentum

Metro News/ Hyderabad : The sound of uneven hammering in some shops near Charminar attracts several visitors but no one can understand what really is going on until they ask the shop keeper. These sounds in these shops of Chandi Ka Waraq (Silver Paper) would gain more speed in Ramzan month. With the beginning of Ramzan the workers in these shops seem to be busy. An old Kaarigar (worker of making this silver paper) Mohammed Akbar said that they get the material (Silver Bricks) from Delhi and make slices of it and then cut it into 2 cm pieces and would put it in a specially made German paper.

The tools that are used include a hammer, a wrapper and a finely cut stone

After properly wrapping these pieces, workers start beating and that’s how a silver paper of a size of Pass Port is made. Akbar said, “Kaarigar need to beat for three hours to make one pack of papers consisting around 250 pieces.” These are sold at the rate of Rs 3 per piece and people buy it according to their need. The tools that are used include a hammer, a wrapper and a finely cut stone. Some buy it for Daawat, some buy for sweets but most of customers for them are sweet shop owners, said Akbar. He said that due to some misleading reports on these silver papers, their sales came down and people are now using machine made papers.

Ali Bin Abdul Khader, owner of a Charminar Waraq Shop, adjacent to Mecca Masjid said, “Though season for us is Deepavali, we do good business in the month of Ramzan. The sale of Waraq (Silver Paper) increases in Ramzan month.” He said that in Ramzan month it is used to cover high quality Khajoor (Dates) and vendors buy it. It is used for wrapping sweet paan and to cover several other sweet delicacies in Hyderabad for decades. Abdul Khader said, “Most of the people use it just to show the ‘silver lining’.” He said that his shop was running for last fifty years and it was their family business.

From Charminar to Shah Ali Banda there are around 7 such shops where workers can be seen beating on a booklet type wrapper to prepare a thin layer of silver. Several shops also make Gold Papers which are sold at the rate of Rs 90 per piece. Abdul Khader said that Hakeems (Unani Doctors) buy these papers for preparing several medicines. A bundle of 500 pieces is sold at Rs 320 and bundles of Rs 60 and Rs 150 are also available. A Paan Shop owner at Royal Sea Hotel near Income Tax towers Mohammed Jeelani said that he uses this thin layer of silver for special Paans and it attracts our customers.

Sultan Bazar Boys School

Mohammed Younus/ Hyderabad : A city school which is nearly 150 years old and an alma mater to several eminent persons, including a renowned mathematician, a former president and a chief minister, as well as a host of judges of the high court, would normally acquire heritage status. Alas! The Sultan Bazar High School is not so lucky or well- connected. Hence, it is a picture of utter neglect today.

The Sultan Bazar High School has a glorious past. It was among the few schools that offered education in five media. Several illustrious sons of the soil had their early education in the school, including former president Zakir Hussain, former AP Chief Minister T Anjaiah, children of former Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao, mathematician Babaiah Naidu, present DGP of Karnataka Lalrokhuma Pachau and several judges of the AP High Court. Yet, the institution has been ignored over the years so much so that it is now on the verge of collapse. 

Well-meaning sections have been highlighting the need to renovate the school and sustain it for the present and coming generations. SU Sivaramprasad, currently in charge of the school, points out that in the past education was imparted in Tamil, Kannada, Marathi, Urdu and English media for children belonging to differing cultural backgrounds. 
Once considered as the best school in the city, the Sultan Bazar High School is now in shambles as successive governments have not cared for it, he bemoans. Much of the land belonging to the school has been encroached, with the institution’s sprawling premises being reduced to a few yards.

the government should bring back the glory of this school and restore the old structure

Established in the year 1866, before the birth of Mahatma Gandhi, the school has a unique history. It was the first school in Hyderabad to offer education in five different media with contributions from the local communities and the then Asaf Jahi government. It was established under the supervision of the Nizam Education Trust for educating the children of people belonging to various communities settled in Hyderabad, especially those who had come from Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Iran and Turkey. A clock tower was arranged on the campus for facilitating punctuality among students. Even that is in a state of neglect now.

Once abuzz with a large number of students, the strength of school has now dwindled to 106. The school has competent faculty, but the lack of proper infrastructure is deterring even students from poor families to get enrolled in the school. According to staff members, all government-run schemes are being implemented here, though no one is concerned about the building. As it is considered Grade 1 (oldest ones) school, no permanent headmaster is appointed. School staff members say that the results of SSC for past three years, at over 60%, have been encouraging. Referring to the present government’s promise to strengthen government-run schools, Sivaramprasad says that the government should bring back the glory of this school and restore the old structure.

Bone of Contention IIT Bombay

TOP RANKERS EYE BOMBAY IIT

Mohammed Younus/ Hyderabad : A majority of the top rankers of IIT JEE 2014 expressed their wish to join the IIT Bombay campus and choose the Computer Science stream. All-India second ranker and topper from Telangana state Sai Chetan said that he would be opting for Computer Science at IIT Bombay. He said that he was interested in research. Ravuru Lohit, who secured fourth rank, also said that he would also choose computer science stream in IIT Bombay.

His father R Suresh, a former Air Force employee, said that as there were good opportunities in the corporate sector. Ninth ranker N Pavan Kumar also echoed the thoughts of the aforementioned duo and said that he too would choose IIT Bombay. Another student Rakesh Naik, who secured the second rank in ST category, said that he was also interested in computer science and stated that Bombay as his preferred destination. The son of a farmer from Puttaparthi mandal of Anantapur, he however expressed his desire to become an IAS officer in the future.

On the other hand, Potluri Vachandeep, who secured 129th rank, said that he was very much interested in Mechanical Engineering and would like to join this stream at the IIT Bombay campus. When the students were asked about their future plans with respect to serving the nation, almost all the students said that did not have any idea. However, most of the students said that they would plan for their future so that their talent would be useful for the development of the country.

There are 16 IITs in the country among which Bombay, Roorkee, Kanpur, Kharagpur and Madras campuses are the most sought after. IIT Bombay is the preferred destination for Computer Science stream.

A Tale of Dawat

The Telangana

With the formation of a new state of Telangana the sixty years dream of the people come true and a new era has been started in the southren part of India. The state was carved out of Andhra Pradesh formed in 1956 after the state reorganization commission' recommendations. Though the announcement for the bifurcation of the state was announced much earlier but the actual date of state formation was decided to be June 2, 2014.

When we look back at the history of the separate Telangana state it reveals a bloody side of the movement with the suppressible attitude of the consecutive governments ruling the region and the reluctance of central government towards such an important issue for sixty long years.

Discrimination played the major and vital role in igniting the Telangana sentiment these years. Moreover the political parties dominated by Seemandhra leaderships always shown their arrogance towards the issue.

The Andhra leaders here behaved like the colonials and looted the resources and funds generated by them from the Telangana. They suppressed the 1969 Jai Telangana movement by using some opportunistic leaders. As many as 300 students were killed during that movement in just police firing.

It was another Jalianwala Bagh in the independent India. But they could not suppress the desire for separate state of Telangana alive in the hearts of people. When it was started again in 2001 with the formation of Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) the movement’s pace was very low.

TRS leadership convinced the people to vote for them so that a political pressure can be made upon the centre but it could not succeed. Rather TRS was made the part of the governments that were against the formation of Telangana.

Again in 2009 it was a fully student movement driven by media. Though started by TRS leader K Chandrasekhar Rao, present CM of Telangana, it was carried forward by the students, student groups, social and civil society members, NGOs and other organizations.

From 2009 the movement for separate state was run by full energy and enthusiasm but the lowest point of this agitation in my view was the suicide attempts made by the students especially the poor students.

However every suicide attempt gave a galvanizing effected and ignited the Telangana sentiment with full energy and the movement sustained the authoritarian aggression of both state and central governments.

The Telangana was ignored existence just because the one reason that the majority of the population in the region is comprised of backward communities, Tribals, scheduled tribes and Muslims. It was the part of erstwhile princely state of Deccan ruled by AsafJahi dynasty and Qutub Shahi kingdom earlier than that. 

The dominated classes of Seemandhra did not want to see the state full of resources in the hands of these communities. Now as the Telangana has been formed let us hope that a peaceful and affectionate atmosphere among all the communities will prevail and people of Telangana will have their resources in their possession for the development of the newly formed state. 

Development !!

Any change in the earlier state of the events is called 'development' in Journalism. Journalists and people associate with media, especially of electronic media, always chase every little development in any news matter.

But when it becomes the slogan of a political party fighting for the biggest post of the political hierarchy it sounds interesting. Perhaps they may have their own definition of development. Any way with journalistic perspective change in the political leadership in the country is the latest development.

As the whole process of political campaigning took place with the help of media this time we will look at it with the journalistic perspective. The biggest development that has happened during past some weeks is the change of guards at centre with congress routing out miserably and Narendra Modi capturing the highest post with considerable majority to BJP in parliament.

If we randomly look at the developments post Modi government sworn in we can surely witness some 'flammable' statements of the party leaders. The party which was campaigning with a slogan of development suddenly shifted its attention towards the sensitive issues of Article 370, Common Civil Code and other such things.
Soon after Modi took the charge his party leader released a statement questioning the status of Article 370 which drew several favored and opposing voices across the nation. People of the country were not expecting this to happen at this point of time. People voted BJP for its promises of 'development' but not for such sensitive statements to create the flutter in the tranquility in the nation.

We will not comment on the necessity and revoking of Article 370 but we surely say that people of India are bothered more about their livelihood matters dealing with Gas subsidy, Petroleum prices, taxes and other such matters. It seems that government is trying to divert the attention of the people.

And that has happened indeed! Amid the Media frenzy about the Article 370 the central government made a decision to bring FDI in defence thus taking U turn from its previous stand on FDI. The party which was against FDI before election and moreover which protested, agitated and motivated people against FDI has come up with its latest definition of FDI. So kindly note this was the latest development took place amid the 'hangama' of other sensitive issues of 370 and CCC. 

Nizamia Hospital Hyderabad

The 80 year old Nizamia Tibbi Hospital and College building, popularly known as Government Unani Hospital, is now in an appalling condition as the renovation works came to a grinding halt in midway causing inconvenience to patients and medical staff.

The renovation and restoration work that was started a year ago is being held up for last five months by the construction company citing the fund crunch and delay in fund release from the concerned authorities. 

The immediate effect of this is visible as the number of patients visiting the hospital has come down. Especially the number of in-patients came down for past several months. The hospital provides Unani method of treatment for diseases related to ophthalmic, ENT, dental and others. It is specially preferred for the paralytic health issues as the hospital has the oldest method of treatment for it. The superintendent of the hospital Mohammed Rafi Ahmed said that the number of patients has decreased and consequently the amount for medicinal purchase also came down considerably.

Elaborating on the issue, he said that the usual number of out-patients was from 300 to 700 per day at the hospital. Sometimes the number of patients may reach to 1,000 or 1,200 per day, he added. He lamented that the patient foot fall decreased considerably due to the inconveniences in the hospital with construction and renovation going on for last one and a half year. So is the case of in-patients here. He said that the authorities reduced the amount allocated for the purchase of prepared medicine from the Government Unani Pharmacy to only one lakh that was used to be Rs 3 lakh earlier.

An attendant of a patient at the hospital Syed Mohsin expressed his anguish over the authoritarian apathy in the hospital. He said, “The scaffold will surely detract the patients coming for treatment and we don’t see a hospital atmosphere here.” The A P Health, Medical Housing and Heal Infrastructure Development Corporation (APHMIDC) had started the restoration work here somewhere in April 2013 and work was scheduled to be completed by December 2013. Government sanctioned Rs 3 crore among the total allocated budget of Rs 4.2 crore for restoration work. The restoration work was outsourced to a city-based company. 

Until December last year, the work was going on smoothly but later it was stopped after remaining Rs 1.2 crore budget was reportedly stuck.
Sources reveal that the contractor who took up the restoration work at the hospital left the work incomplete after running pillar to post for procuring the remaining due fund. APHMIDC officials were not available to comment. The Hospital was established in 1938 by the seventh Nizam Mir Osman Ali Khan with his personal fund for the benefit of general public.