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Happy Lot

Mascarenhas arrival bolsters Rajasthan Royals

Jaipur (PTI): A buoyant Rajasthan Royals team, already with its tail up after three consecutive victories in the high-profile Twenty20 Indian Premier League, is further bolstered by England all rounder Dimitri Mascarenhas' arrival hereon Monday to join the squad.
An official close to the Rajasthan Royals team said while Mascaranhas reached Jaipur the Australian southpaw Darren Lehmann will be flying back to his country.
"Dimitri reached Jaipur on Monday and Darren Lehmann, who was brought in for two games, is flying back to Australia. Lehmann was drafted into the team for Graeme Smith, who was not available for first two games but since then he has been instrumental in Royals success story."
"The promising all rounder's presence will give us more options. He is rated very highly by former skipper Shane Warne who has played with him during his tenure as coach and captain with English county Hampshire. Dimitri enjoys Warne's confidence and can fill in as bowler and batsmen," he official said.

Win toss, bat first is Warne’s plan

Jaipur: It’s an old story now that Rajasthan Royals went down without putting up a fight against Delhi Daredevils in their opening game in the DLF-IPL Twenty20 championship. Since then the Jaipur-based team has gone the extra mile and defeated Kings XI Punjab, Deccan Chargers, Hyderabad, and Royal Challengers, Bangalore.
With Rajasthan Royals scheduled to take on Kolkata Knight Riders next at home on Thursday, its skipper and coach Shane Warne underscored the contributions made by Graeme Smith, Shane Watson and a few Indian players in the last 10 days.Ahead of the pack
Warne said that his team was ahead of the pack on the tactical aspect and that the other teams were copying it now.
Warne revealed in advance that he would bat first should he win the toss. “They played on Tuesday night in Kolkata, are travelling the whole day on Wednesday and the match starts at 4 p.m. on Thursday when it would be boiling hot.
“It’s better to bat first and keep them on the field for ninety minutes. They have lost two on the trot and that must be hurting them. Now they are going to play on our turf. They are going to have new players, which again is going to be hard for them. But they (Brad Hodge and Salman Butt) can also be dangerous.
“We think we have got all bases covered. It’s all about doing the basics better than the opposition, sticking to plans and executing them very well.
“We are always coming up with new stuff. I don’t look at the odds. As a coaching group we are trying to get the best out of each player. I have been encouraging the players to be aggressive; attack, attack and attack is the slogan of our group.”
After the final practice session at the Future Cricket Academy, Warne repeated that Twenty20 could be anybody’s game. “There’s no set way. But we thought the best way to win games was to bowl first against Kings XI, Chargers and Challengers because we thought their bowling was not strong and that we could chase anything. It worked. We are having a meeting on Thursday and we have a spirited group to put up another good performance against Kolkata.”

Slowdown in IIT coaching at Kota

JAIPUR: The IIT coaching industry in Kota is likely to witness a downslide in coming years. And with this, the overall economy of the city, which is largely based on IIT-JEE coaching, would plummet to an extent of 15%. Pramod Maheshwari, director (academics) of Career Point, a leading coaching institute in the country, told ET the number of IIT aspirants coming to the city has died down considerably after the chance-restriction. “With government restricting aspirants’ IIT-attempts to only twice in consecutive years, students are now aiming at AIEEE and state pre-engineering tests to ensure a berth for themselves. It will result into an overall shrinkage of 15% in the annual turnover of the coaching industry, which is estimated to be sitting at Rs 250 crore,” Mr Maheshwari pointed out. Institutes, however, are gearing up to fight out the situation. Career Point is planning to launch an IPO to raise funds for their diversification plans. “We would be the first IIT coaching institute to go public. By raising around Rs 60 crore, we would initiate international educational programmes to cater to the global needs,” Mr Maheshwari informed. Every year more than 20000 students land at Kota to realise their IIT dreams. Of which, around 1,500 students succeed, which is one-thirds of the total seats of IITs and allied institutes. Now that the chance restriction has come into play for the first time this year, number of students coming to Kota is going to fall in the coming session. The trend was quite evident in the last IIT-JEE examination. In 2006, more than 3 lakh students appeared for the IIT-JEE while this year, less than 2.5 lakh competed for around 4,600 seats. “Now to match last year’s turnover, institutes either will have to hike the fee or add other courses like AIEEE and state pre-engineering tests. Also, there would be a question of survival for feeble players, who rely on students failing to get admission in top-of-the-line coaching institutes,” Mr Maheshwari feared. Top IIT coaching institute Bansal Classes has now forayed into pre-medical coaching also. It has recently started its pre-medical unit in Jaipur. However, PK Bansal, CEO of Bansal Classes, maintaining that IIT coaching business is running smooth, said, “We have started pre-medical coaching on an experimental basis in Jaipur only. It’s nothing to do with IIT coaching, which is our main thrust. Chance-restriction would not have any impact on us, since we have limited seats and long queue of aspirants in waiting,” Mr Bansal said. Apart from coaching institutes, hostel owners and other ancillary businesses have started feeling the heat. “Last year, we were 150% booked. And this year only 75% rooms are occupied. We are expecting further fall in accommodation in the next session,” Sharad Kapoor, a hostel owner, said.

The first-ever night Diwali fair, a big hit in Jaipur

These days all roads are leading to Albert Hall in Jaipur, where a night Diwali fair is being organised by the Rajasthan Tourism Department for the first time. Visitors are having great fun beyond midnight while participating in the festivities.
More than 200 stalls and 60 kiosks from different parts of the country are showcasing their products in the fair. Visitors, tourists say it is one-of-its-kind with different products available at reasonable rates. "This is being held for the first time and we can find that stalls from different cities of the country have been put up here. It is really nice. One can find a lot of variety and the rates are also reasonable. This festival should happen every year," said Jagruti, a visitor.
Mouth-watering dishes, mellifluous music and cultural programmes, all have added to the ambience of the event making it one of the most apt event on the occasion of the festival of lights.
"It's fantastic, it's good to see people coming out in the night. All the different stalls of food, the music, the lights ... it's very interesting, very exciting. It's nice to walk around and feel the party," says Asid Fiona, a tourist from Australia.
Businessmen say that the night bazaar has been 100 per cent successful and they are registering good business. "This is like a night bazar and a good event in the sense that common man likes it. The entry is free. It is very centrally-located, very close to the walled city (Delhi). They should continue organising such events every year because this kind of event are liked by the people and people do spend in this kind of event," says Sanjay, a stall-owner.
Most of the items displayed at the fair are handicrafts, small household items, eatables, jewellery and colourful clothes of Rajasthan.
The fair will last till November 1.

Jaipur Foot Takes Off for Lebanon

Jaipur Foot Takes Off for Lebanon

The Jaipur Foot - artificial legs made in Rajasthan - is all set to travel to war-hit Lebanon and Sri Lanka to aid amputees there.
Experts from the Bhagwan Mahaveer Viklang Sahayta Samiti (BMVSS) will travel to the Middle East on the invitation of the Indian contingent of the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, BMVSS general secretary S.R. Mehta said. The team would open a camp in Lebanon April 14 to 25. Five technicians would accompany the team to fit the artificial limb on survivors of Israeli and other bombings. Mehta told IANS that 100 people have been identified for the fitting. "After Lebanon, we propose to go to Colombo." BMVSS had organised a 15-day camp in Jakarta in February that saw 350 people fitted with the Jaipur Foot. "These were people who had lost their limbs to diseases or mishaps. There were some who had lost it in the tsunami," Mehta said. "Besides Jakarta, we have held camps in Sudan, Afghanistan and parts of Latin America." A Jaipur resident, Ram Charan Sharma, who hailed from a family of sculptors, conceived of the Jaipur Foot in 1968. With the assistance of orthopaedic surgeon P.K. Sethi, the Jaipur Foot was launched in 1968. The artificial foot - made of rubber, wood and aluminium - is attached free of cost in the premises of the BMVSS, which was established in 1975 here.