Yogesh Avasthi

Yogesh Avasthi Posted On Wednesday, September 21, 2011 ( CM Narendra Modi had announced on the eve of his sadbhavna fast to people of Gujarat that ‘your pain is my pain’. In a shocking exposure, Mirror reveals how letters of hundreds of aggrieved citizens who wanted the CM to know of their pain were found abandoned. These commoners had dropped the messages addressed to the CM in the sadbhavna suggestion box. In a typical sarkaari style, the state government officials did not bother to take the drop box along with them after they vacated the venue. Good governance, eh? As chief minister of the state, the pain of each and every citizen is my own pain. Ensuring justice to all is the duty of the state,” wrote Narendra Modi in an open letter shortly before he started his three-day sadbhavana fast. The irony could not have been more stark. On one hand we have an extremely concerned CM who says CM for him stands for the Common Man, and on the other his government shows blithe ...

Yogesh Avasthi Posted On Tuesday, September 20, 2011 ( http://www.ahmedabadmirror.com/article/3/2011092020110920031718217aa8dd733/CM-is-not-as-accessible-as-shown-on-television.html ) The three-day ‘Sadbhavna Mission’ saw hundreds of people thronging the venue. While a few came on their own, some others were said to be the forced visitors. And there was also a group that just dropped in to share a frame with Chief Minister Narendra Modi. But, amid all this fanfare, two nursing students, believing that the chief minister is accessible to public and pay heed to their grievances, came with the true spirit to meet their leader. But the ignorant students after two-hour struggle to meet Modi realised that it is not aam aadmi but only khaas (special ones) who can catch up with the ‘people-friendly’ CM. Despite being turned away, the girls did not lose heart and dropped their letters, seeking financial support to carry on with their studies, in a suggestion box at the venue. Two-hour strugg...

Sacks of gammexane, a toxic insecticide, was dumped at a civic school in Saraspur. Over 900 students were exposed to the chemical during recess. Don’t their lives matter? Yogesh Avasthi Posted On Wednesday, September 14, 2011 ( http://www.ahmedabadmirror.com/article/2/2011091420110914024931527829e0d6d/Toxic-School.html ) Children can be pests, at times. But that is no reason why the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) should dump sacks of poisonous insecticide within their easy reach. At Saraspur Gujarati shala no. 11, 12 and Hindi shala no. 6, more than 900 kids were exposed to benzene hexachloride, commonly known as gammexane or lindane. AMC vans had left sackfuls of the powerful chemical at the steps leading to their school building. The sacks, which contained insecticides like lindane and malathion as well as lime dust, were being delivered to the sub-zonal office of India Colony Ward (North Zone). The office has been set up in the school building. And the civic authorities ...

City on high alert, sniffer dogs work 12-hour shifts to secure Gujarat’s largest rly station. And this for a pittance of Rs 4,365 which is not enough to buy them food Yogesh Avasthi Posted On Monday, September 12, 2011 ( http://www.ahmedabadmirror.com/article/2/2011091220110912021521431c0d22582/It%E2%80%99s-a-dog%E2%80%99s-life-for-railway-sniffers-.html ) Security at the Ahmedabad Railway Station has gone to the dogs, literally. The trouble is that there are not enough of them to secure the station at Kalupur. And ‘working like a dog’ takes on a whole new meaning if one notices the plight of the two sniffer dogs manning the largest railway station in Gujarat. With the city put on high alert following multiple terror threats, the dogs are being run off their paws, trying to cover the station that sees an average of 100 trains and over 1 lakh footfalls daily. Till six months ago, the Ahmedabad railway station had three dogs — Wendy, Candy and Dolly. After they died, Jock (German ...

We do not have any land left to till, protest villagers from Kalol, Pansar, Vada Swami, Insad, Ora, Chhatral, Pratapura, Ramnagar, Pipaj, Vamaj and Dajipura Yogesh Avasthi Posted On Wednesday, September 07, 2011 ( http://www.ahmedabadmirror.com/article/3/20110907201109070229126612778812/Won%E2%80%99t-sell-land-for-freight-corridor-Farmers.html ) Indian Railways’ ambitious project of developing a dedicated freight corridor, aimed at changing the face of its freight traffic business, is suffering a setback due to land acquisition trouble in the state. Farmers of several villages — Kalol, Pansar, Vada Swami, Insad, Ora, Chhatral, Pratapura, Ramnagar, Pipaj, Vamaj and Dajipura — are protesting the acquistion of their land for this purpose. Around 250 farmers met in a farmhouse on Sunday to chalk out an action plan. Those present at the meeting agreed unanimously against signing any papers or giving up their land. On Monday, a delegation of 25 members left for Delhi to meet the railway...

GU introduced semester and choice-based credit system for undergraduate courses this year. However, with no prescribed textbooks, students are a confused lot. So, three students from M G Science have taken it upon themselves to prepare textbooks Yogesh Avasthi Posted On Tuesday, September 06, 2011 ( http://www.ahmedabadmirror.com/article/2/2011090620110906031557721320c58d0/M-G-Students-solve-crisis-Design-their-own-BSc-Textbooks.html ) It was an ideal Teachers’ Day gift from three college students to their department head — a textbook designed by them after painstakingly collecting and compiling information from the internet and reference books over a period of a month. Unavailability of textbooks for BSc course is what prompted Jay Patel, Maulik Vala and Nupur Sanghvi, first year students of M G Institute of Science, to design a zoology textbook. Before implementing the semester and choice-based credit system for undergraduate courses this year, Gujarat University had given coll...