Monday, July 26, 2010

How to track the performance of MPs and MLAs?

PodUniversal Edition 103
Indian Election Commission conducts elections every five years to elect MPs and MLAs for the Parliament and various State Assemblies.  The media hype dies down, after the elections are completed.  Unless there are some big issues or chaos in the Houses, neither the media nor the general public give serious attention to the performance of the elected members.  This process goes on for ever and the media hype starts when the next elections are announced.
PRS Legislative Research is a non profit research body at Delhi established in 2005.  They  conduct various researches on the bills, questions, debates of the Parliament and various state Assemblies.  They also periodically put out their analysis in their website.  While, US and UK have many such research bodies to analyse the performance of Legislatures, India has only one such research body.
(L to R: Bharathi Thamizhan, Tonusree,
K. Srinivasan, Era Chezhian)
Chennai Press Club and Prime Point Foundation jointly organised a workshop on 24th July 2010 for working journalists at Chennai to create awareness about the tracking of the performance of MPs and MLAs, with the support of PRS Legislative Research.  
The workshop was inaugurated by the veteran and well known Parliamentarian Mr Era Chezhian.  During his inaugural speech, he expressed concern over the reduction in number of sittings of Parliament during the past few years.  Before 1980, the Parliament used to meet for 120 days every year and now it has come down to around 60 days.  Mr Chezhian was also expressing his concern over the suppression of freedom of press by many Governments.  
Please watch and listen to the presentation made by Ms Tonusree on the various aspects of tracking of legislators.  Please click to play the video.  The video will be streaming smooth in broadband connections.  If you encounter any difficulty, you may download the wmv file of this video by right clicking this link and saving to your desktop.  



This video may also be watched form the following site:
The audio version of this presentation can be listened from the following site:
Please watch the photographs taken during the occassion.


Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Inspiring story of high flying Capt. Bavicca Bharathi, the youngest commercial pilot and commander

PodUniversal Edition 102
Capt. Bavicca Bharathi (21) is the world's youngest commercial licensed pilot and commander. When she was 16 and studying her plus two, she had high ambitions of becoming a medical doctor.  She heard about the 'flying' opportunities from her family friend.  After completion of her plus two, she joined the flying training.  At the age of 18, she got the license to fly.  Now at her 21st age, she has more than 2100 flying hours at her credit. She has now become the youngest commercial pilot and transport pilot and commander.  She holds three records in Limca records book. Within few  years, she will also become the Management Pilot, after completing the required flying hours. 
Bavicca is presently piloting the   flights to many of the stations like Bangalore, Hyderabad, Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi, Coimbatore, etc. from Chennai. 
When she wanted to become pilot, her mother (40) (left in the photo) Ms Judith Jeslin Bharathi also joined her daughter Bavicca Bharathi (right in the photo)  in the training.  Both underwent flying training together.  After getting the license, both are working in the same airline company. 
Every aircraft is piloted by two licensed pilots.  The second pilot is known as co-pilot.  Shortly, Bavicca will be handling the flight as the main pilot.  Her mother has the greatest desire to be the co-pilot, when her daughter is the main pilot.
Capt. Bavicca Bharathi is a multi talented person.  She has passed with high grades  from Trinity School of Music.  She is talented in painting, music and dance and has won several awards.
It is quite interesting to know about their surname 'Bharathi'.  Their grand father Mr P Thomas is a great fan and admirer of Mahakavi Subramanya Bharathi, a national Tamizh poet who lived a century back.  Mahakavi Bharathi was known for his inspiring poems with modern thoughts.  His poems were banned during British Rule.  A century back, Mahakavi Bharathi visualised the role of 'new generation women'.  He wanted the women to go for higher studies, be the rulers to make law of the land.  He even wanted the new generation women to take up the professions, dominated by men.  Mr Thomas made 'Bharathi' as surname to all the family members, probably to remind everyone about the dreams of the great poet.
Bavicca Bharathi, hailing from the family of admireres of Mahakavi Bharathi, has proved his dream  of 'new generation woman'.
Please listen to the inspiring interview with Capt. Bavicca Bharathi and her mother Capt. Judith Jeslin Bharathi. Please click play to listen to the interview.  (12 minutes).  The audio streaming will be smooth in broadband connections.  If you encounter any problem, you may download the audio, by right clicking the link and saving to your desktop.
The podcast interview may also be listened from

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