The Beautiful Life

The festival of Ashadhi Ekadashi will witness the Warkariyatra enter the Vithoba temple at , marking the culmination of the auspicious pilgrimage to the abode of the Lord Vitthal. The Warkaris, devotees of  Lord Vitthala trek   to see their very own ‘Vithaimauli’, putting up cheerfully with all the difficulties and inconveniences of a long journey. The stress on enhancement of knowledge, though has come out strong in the past decades, can be traced back more than 700 years to Sant Dyaneshwar, the poet saint, who brought a revolutionary change by spreading spiritual knowledge to all including the downtrodden. Dyaneshwar, himself a devotee of Vithoba, was instrumental in introducing this practice of Warkari  pilgrimage  to the common people, breaking the barriers of caste and creed. Through the centuries, he has been one of the main attractions of the Warkari Panth or Bhagwat Dharma. Dyaneshwar rejected the caste system and reinforced the belief that everyone ...

A new study by the University of Toronto found that the lifetime prevalence of suicide attempts among adults who had been exposed to chronic parental domestic violence during childhood was 17.3 percent as compared to 2.3 percent among those without this childhood adversity. Dr Shubhangi R Parkar, Prof. and Head of the Department of Psychiatry of KEM Hospital, has been working in the field of suicide and mental health for the past thirty years. She spoke about the need for early identification and intervention of children exposed to domestic violence.  Dr Shubhangi Parkar spoke on the impact of exposure to domestic violence  on children Dr Shubhangi R Parkar Q: Are children exposed to domestic violence prone to suicidal tendencies? Dr Shubhangi Parkar : More than imitating their parental violent behaviour, these various adversities affect children’s socialisation process. Children encode negative beliefs in their memory and they often start believing, feeling ...

Adv Smita Sarode-Singalkar is a practising socio-legal lawyer and is an executive member of the National Green Tribunal Bar Association (West zone). Adv Smita spoke on the need to break the nexus between officials, politicians and the garbage mafia which is proving to be a serious hindrance in development of smart cities in the state. How severe is the issue of solid waste management in the state? A: Though the state government has plans to develop some big cities in the state as smart cities, the idea can be seen facing challenges because of management of solid waste. Garbage poses a new challenge in Mumbai, Thane, Kalyan, Dombivali, Nashik, Pune, Aurangabad, Kolhapur, Sangli-MirajKupwad, Nagpur and Latur. What are the major issues related to solid waste management? A: The constant neglect towards the management of garbage has already created a big threat and without tactfully handling this threat we cannot develop any city in the state as a smart city. Nexus between poli...

Women all over the country are increasingly falling prey to cyber violence and vulgar messages, which can be as damaging as physical abuse. In such cases the perpetrators are not limited by geographic or physical boundaries. Voicing concern over the fact that even educated people fall in the trap of processing messaging containing wrong and misleading information on the social media, noted human rights advocate and analyst Asim Sarode said that people are now becoming used to sending insensitive messages, a trend which started during the assembly and Lok Sabha elections.  Are women soft target on the social media? It has been observed that world over women have been the first victim of technological development or scientific advances. The pre-natal diagnostics techniques were invented to check the growth of the foetus but unfortunately it is used to check whether the foetus is that of a girl or a boy. Milenda Gates while talking about lesser p...

Students under exam time pressure  It is that time of the year when board exams are on and children crumble under intense pressure to give their best. The number of adolescents committing suicide increases during this phase of the academic year. Experts explain that out of the multiple reasons for students committing suicide, one of the major causes is the inability to handle stress. There are many students who handle stress effectively, many learn from their failures and move ahead in life. The possibility of suicidal tendencies is likely to occur in combination with several circumstances that seem to over-load teens with stress and hence make them unable to cope with the challenges of adolescence which lead to increase in stress. Multiple factors are held responsible for a person’s suicide and that failure in exams need not be a single cause. Many students are under increased pressure due to multi-tasking as they are expected to remain attentive and perform in scho...

The State Government’s decision allow government and private medical colleges in the state to issue the specific learning disabilities (SLD) certificate, will make it easy for students from the remote rural areas to obtain this crucial document.  Currently, these students spend considerable time and money on acquiring the certificate, as only a few centres in Mumbai offer the certificate. With rising awareness, demand for the SLD certificate has increased putting pressure on the few institutions in Mumbai that offer the certificate.  Dr Ashish Deshpande, President, Bombay Psychiatric Society, did his graduation and post graduation in Psychological Medicine from King Edward Memorial Hospital and Seth Gordhandas Sunderdas Medical College, Parel, Mumbai.  Dr Ashish Deshpande  spoke on the incidence of specific learning disability among children and the available remedies.  Edited excerpts.  Q What are the common learning problems found among scho...

Recently a Class I student had injured his right eye severely after a fight with a classmate. He may have to undergo retinal transplant surgery. This violent incident has again shifted the focus on increase in the rate of juvenile crimes in the city. Increasing violence among teenagers is becoming an inalienable problem. Escalating aggression among the new generation is extremely harmful to the society as a whole, Dr Samir H. Dalwai spoke on find out the reasons behind this trend. Dr Dalwai is a developmental and behavioural paediatrician and is the recipient of Rajiv Gandhi Manav Sewa Award for service to children by the Government of India. What are the reasons for rise in crimes committed by children? There are three reasons for it: i) Unrestricted, unsupervised exposure to media, especially violent sadistic animation and destructive games and little time or inclination left for real life experiences, ii) desire to achieve and acquire whatever one wants (‘instant gratificati...