Since 2002, Shaikh had been languishing at SAG's Porbandar centre, established
to promote cricket. Its hostel has 34 trainees, all cricketers. With
international experience, and having been coach of the Indian team, he could
have been busy training a new breed of wrestlers from Gujarat. Instead, an
extremely bitter Shaikh took voluntary retirement from Sports Authority of
Gujarat (SAG) two months ago.
Shaikh is Gujarat's only connection to India's glory days at the Beijing
Olympics. This ace wrestling coach
had trained Beijing bronze medalist Sushil Kumar when the Indian team had
participated in Asian Wrestling Championship in Tehran in 1999. Sushil had won
the bronze there as well. At
least 12 wrestlers from Gujarat trained by Shaikh have won medals at
national meets also/
SB Patel, who was administrative officer at SAG during Shaikh's transfer to
Porbander says, "Coaches can be sent anywhere. So what if there was no
wrestling facility in Porbandar? He was sent to find talent and promote the
game. What is the big deal?"
"I don't know how many letters I wrote asking my bosses to transfer me to a
centre where I could train wrestlers. But all I did for six years was to take my
salary," says the 54-year-old coach
Threat to bomb Porbandar-Mumbai Express
August 31 The trains running between Porbandar and Mumbai
underwent strict police scrutiny on Sunday in the wake of a letter threatening
serial blasts in four compartments of the Mumbai-bound Porbandar-Mumbai Express,
similar to the 7/11 Mumbai train blasts.
The letter, a postcard from Mumbai, was received by the Station
Superintendent of the Jamnagar railway station on Friday. The police believe
that the letter might be aimed at creating panic among the public. The train
leaves Porbandar at 8.25 pm on Sunday and reaches Mumbai at 8 pm, the following
day.
Congress has appointed former leader of
Opposition Arjun Modhwadia as its Chief Spokesperson
Congress has appointed former
leader of Opposition Arjun Modhwadia as its Chief Spokesperson for the Gujarat
unit. Appointment of Modhwadia as a spokesperson is not a casual appointment.
The Congress in Gujarat never had a leader of such a stature as spokesperson.
Coming from Porbandar, the land
of Mahatma Gandhi 52 year old Modhwadia is a qualified mechanical engineer and
he slogged for 20 years before he got an entry in the Assembly. Modhwadia did
not want to take up the present assignment. It is obvious from the fact that
spokespersons generally have a limited job of holding the brief of the party. He
will take the charge next week.
Gujarat school motivates students to use bicycles
As per a directive issued by the school administration, no school buses or vans
and motorbikes or scooties (mini-scooter) should be in sight in school premises
on Thursdays and Saturdays. Everyone should use bicycles on these days.
Students and staff members of Bharatiya Vidyalaya now arrive in the school
riding bicycles in place of petrol-driven two-wheelers. The rule is abided by
even the school principal, who himself uses bicycle on these two days. He
believes that this initiative to make bicycle compulsory for all will help
people to save money spent on petrol.
Indian coast guards issue guidelines fo
r fishermen
20
Apr, 2008
The Indian coast guard authorities
have asked the fishing community in Porbandar not to cross the international
maritime water boundary.
"If they continue to violate the international maritime laws, they would be
arrested by the Pakistani Marin Security Agency (PMSA)," the coast guard
authorities told the fishing community leaders.
The Fisheries Department of Gujarat government has also issued guidelines for
the fishermen. The total number of Indian fishermen in the Pakistani custody has
gone up to 485 from 467 and number of seized boats to 363 from 360.
Elected candidates & Margin of Victory
Name of Assembly Constituency
Elected Candidate
Party
Vote
Runners Up Candidate
Party
Vote
Margin
32 - PORBANDAR
Arjunbhai
Devabhai Modhavadiya
INC
46311
Bokhiriya
Babubhai Bhimabhai
BJP
41911
4400
Ex-minister held at airport
15
Nov, 2007
A team of Porbandar police, who were waiting at the airport,
placed the former irrigation minister under arrest when he walked out of the
tarmac at 11.45 am.
Even before he could get a sense of what was happening, Bokhiria was swiftly
escorted to a police vehicle waiting at the airport. Bokhiria was charged
one year ago in the Rs 54-crore illegal mining scam that rocked Saurashtra.
A year ago, Bokhiria was charged in a Rs 54 crore illegal mining scam. In
October 2006, a complaint of illegal mining was filed at Bagvadar police
station of Porbandar by Umesh Bhavsar, the assistant manager of Saurashtra
Chemicals Limited against four persons — BJP's Porbandar city president Babu
Bokhiria, Porbandar mafia don Bhima Odedara, his son and Adityana, Marketing
Yard chairman Laxman Odedara and former Congress MP Bharat Odedara.
Bhavsar in the complaint alleged that Saurashtra Chemicals had two leases
covering 200 acres in Porbandar district near Bagodar village. He alleged
that all the accused had been involved in illegal mining there through their
vast network.
Mass suicide : 4 of Bengali family kill selves
November 5: A shocking incident, four
members of a Bengali family committed suicide by consuming poison at their
residence. Vijay Bhattacharya, 38, his wife Shruti, 35, and children, Jyotika,
12 and Prashant, 4, were found unconscious at their residence in the Shrijee
Park society of Udyognagar town of Porbandar district.
While Shruti and the children were declared
dead on admission, Vijay died few hours after being admitted in the hospital.
Settled in Porbandar for the last ten years,
when Vijay’s mother Anjaniben reached their place on Monday morning, no one
responded to the door bell. With the help of neighbours, Anjaniben broke the
lock and entered the house to find Vijay lying on the floor of the drawing room
in a critical condition whereas bodies of Shruti, Jyotika and Manan were lying
in the bedroom. Vijay was rushed to Bhavsinhji Hospital but he breathed his last
during treatment. He died before police could register his statement.
Preliminary investigation by the police has
revealed that the couple first gave poison to kids mixed with Bournvita.
According to post-mortem report, kids and Shruti took poison between 1 and 2 am
while Vijay consumed it couple of hours later. Ruling out financial crisis as a
reason, the Udhyognagar police said that very little information was available
as to why did the family take such an extreme step.
Vijay was an employee with a factory and
Shruti was a teacher at St Mary’s School. The couple was educated and children
were studying in convent schools. Their house also was located in a prime
society of Porbandar.
Cyclonic depression over the Arabian Sea
along Gujarat coast has lowered in scale
Ahmedabad, September 24:
The cyclonic depression over the Arabian Sea
along Gujarat coast has lowered in scale, bringing much relief to concerned
officials. Ports in Porbandar had resumed functioning and people who had been
evacuated last night returned. The warning signals had been withdrawn.
Gujarat State Disaster
Management officials had evacuated a total of 20,157 people in Jamnagar, Kutch,
Porbandar and Rajkot districts. In Jamnagar district alone, 9,310 people were
shifted to safety while 8,790 were evacuated in Kutch. The number of people evacuated in Porbandar
was 1,107 and 950 in Rajkot, according to official figures
Coastguard rescues Panama vessel crew
July 29 Indian Coast Guard (ICG) has rescued all the 25
crewmembers of a Panama registered bulk carrier, merchant vessel MV Christena-II
that ran aground off the Porbandar coast on Friday. The vessel had main engines
failure in the aftermath of the extreme rough weather prevailing in the Gujarat
coast.
The Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC),
Mumbai and the Maritime Rescue Sub Centre (MRSC), Porbandar picked up the
distress signals from the vessel. Though the Master of the vessel confirmed that
there was no imminent danger to the crew but since the state of weather and sea
conditions began deteriorating, the ICG team from Porbandar reached the site and
evacuated all 25 crewmembers. They were later handed over to the police for
further investigation.
The vessel is laden with 180 metric tones of marine
gas oil and 40 metric tones of high speed diesel (HSD). The Coast Guard
authorities are keeping a close watch on the vessel and any situation arising
out of it. The presence of fuel onboard has the potential to cause damage to the
environment in the event of an oil spill. Meanwhile the local agent has been
directed to undertake the salvage and de-fuelling arrangements of the vessel as
soon as possible.
Monsoon
July 5 Porbandar which
was reeling under water shortage for the past couple of months, are now set to
get regular water supply as there is very good monsoon going on in result
majority of reservoirs and dams have registered a significant increase in water
levels. Fodana and Advana dams in Porbandar, which saw intense agitation
by the women of the district against short supply of water, are about to
overflowing. The supply in Porbandar city had been badly hit following the
decrease in water level in Fodana dam. The fresh inflow registered in the second
spell is enough to maintain supply for the next eight months as per sources..
Sorathi dam, which supplies water to rural parts in Porbandar, is also
overflowing and is at a level of 14.93 feet.
97 year old Famous Gujarati writer Gulabdas
Broker dies
June 11
Known Gujarati writer Padmashri Gulabdas Broker
died at his residence in Pune on 11-06-2006 afternoon. Born in 1908 in Porbandar
in
Gujarat,
Broker was known as a traditional writer and had shown his creativity in the
entire gamut of literature except novels.
He had written more than 60 books and his works
have been translated in almost all Indian language and many foreign languages.
His short story "Lata su bole chhe" became quite controversial because of its
bold theme. He was brought up in Mumbai and had started writing short stories
from his college days.
Rare photos of the Mahatma, now in a digital
avatar
The project taken up by Porbandar District Chamber of Commerce (PDCC)
with help from Bank of Baroda had been given the nod by the Kirti Mandir
management committee. It cost around Rs 5 lakhs, including digitisation,
enlargement, reprinting, framing of the photographs and renovation of the
gallery. The project has served a dual purpose. While Kirti Mandir has
displayed the digital pictures, the original black and white historic
photographs of Gandhiji have been archived at the memorial itself. Earlier, the
small photographs were not captioned. But now with captions, anyone can read
them and understand Gandhi’s life better. Moreover, the copies are bigger in size, 20X24 inches
compared to the originals which were of 4X4, 12X9, and 9X9 sizes.
As time took toll on the quality of the original pictures,
almost 50 to 100 years old, it was decided to preserve them in digital form.
Housed in a special gallery renovated for the purpose, 262 digital copies of
photographs and 44 large frames, all with captions, illustrate the important
events in Gandhiji’s life.
Gujarat government prepares
action plan to tackle water shortage
May 08:
With soaring
temperatures and fear of drought looming large across Gujarat, the state
government has drawn up an action plan to provide adequate drinking water to
affected districts, said official sources.
Under the action plan, drinking water would be supplied to 406 villages in
Gujarat, including 152 villages in Kutch and 126 in Jamnagar, 32 villages in
Porbandar and 25 villages of Junagadh district that have been identified as
water scarce areas, the sources said.
Water would also be supplied to some villages in Banaskantha, Gandhinagar and
Ahmedabad districts.
Sources in the state water supply department said that Rs 6.5 crore has been
sanctioned for supplying water to these areas where shortage is expected, they
said.
The state has approved a proposal of Rs 125 crores for laying drinking water
pipeline in 600 villages in the coastal Jamnagar district, the sources said.
Although temperatures crossed the 45-degree mark in cities like Deesa and Idar
in Banaskantha district of north Gujarat, the regional Meteorological department
has claimed there is no heatwave in the state.
GMB, Navy to develop new jetty at Porbandar
April 28:
Porbandar will be gifted a jetty when a memorandum
of understanding to this effect is signed between Gujarat Maritime Board (GMB)
and the Navy on May 1, the Gujarat Day. The jetty, a joint venture worth Rs 31
crore, will facilitate sea trade and also help the Navy anchor its vessels.
The 200-metre-long new jetty at the all-weather port
of Porbandar would facilitate anchoring of both cargo and defence vessels. The
sea trade is also expected to go up to seven lakh metric tonnes when he jetty is
in place.
In 2005-2006, Porbandar with its two existing
jetties handled cargo to the tune of 39,000 metric tonnes. According to GMB, the
new jetty would accelerate export activities of goods like cement, coal,
bauxite, coke and salt.
Gujarat Day observed at Porbandar
city
May,01
It’s the first time that a
state function has been organised on such a large-scale in this coastal city.
Programs like blood donation and karate camps, rallies against female
foeticide and killing of whale sharks, and a multi-media show on the life of
Mahatma Gandhi were part of the line-up.
The entire city was decorated
in saffron and roads, lanes and bylanes were dotted with BJP flags, huge
hoardings and banners of Modi and other ministers.
The Congress decided to
register a protest by sporting and waving black ribbons at Sudama Chowk. They
raised several problems, including water crisis and delay in payment of sales
tax subsidy to fishermen in the district
Shutdown call
observed successfully in Porbandar town after workers' retrenchment
Porbandar Bandh call by the employees of Saurashtra Chemicals, to
protest their retrenchment by the new management of Nirma Group, turned out to
be a major success. Most of the main bazaar areas and educational institutes
across the city remained closed, supporting the cause of released employees of
Saurashtra Chemicals. As the court hearing in this matter is scheduled
tomorrow, the employees are anticipating positive decision into the matter. The
Nirma management has taken stay orders against the Labour Commissioner’s order
of re-opening the factory and engaging the employees back on work.
The bandh was supported by major political parties of the
city and other allied associations including Bharatiya Mazdur Sangh, Saurashtra
Chemicals Kamdaar Sangh and Saurashtra Chemicals Employees Union.
Government of Gujarat terms Nirma action illegal
The Gujarat government has finally intervened and termed the Nirma
group’s closure of Saurashtra Chemicals plant as illegal and in clear violation
of labour laws. The state government has asked the Nirma management to come up
with some solution by 23.02.06.
Sauchem workers Saurashtra Chemicals Ltd
lays off 2,300
Over 2,300 employees of the Porbandar-based soda
ash maker Saurashtra Chemicals Ltd were laid off on 19th February, 06 by
the new management took over the unit from the erstwhile promoter, the Kolkata-based
SK Birla group. On its part, the new management, a part of the diversified Nirma
group, has promised to pay legal dues up to Rs 30 cr to these workers within two
weeks, with a commitment to recruit on a need-basis as also on fresh terms and
conditions.
CJ Bhatt, senior veep, (personnel),
Saurashtra Chemicals, confirmed the development. “Services of over 2,300
personnel, except supervisory staff, have been terminated under section 25 (FF)
of the Industrial Disputes Act and notices about new recruitments have been put
up. The new recruitments will be done as per the company’s new requirements,”
As Saurashtra Chemicals has been ailing,
Nirma Chemical Works has proposed that it would be required to invest around Rs
150 cr to bring it back to health. There is a need to rationalize the costs of
production, and a part of that would come in terms of employee cost. There are
indications that not all laid-off employees will be retained, but the new
promoters have claimed in meetings with the workers and residents of the town
that its intentions are “positive”.
Nirma Chemicals Works, a closely-held firm
belonging to the family that runs the Rs 2,000 crore (approx) soaps and
detergents major Nirma Ltd had acquired the ailing firm from the Asset
Reconstruction Company (India) Ltd (Arcil) last year, but the physical change
happened late on Friday the 19th February, 06.
Bachchan family visits Sandipani ashram
The people of Porbandar were taken by surprise as the Bachchan family including Amitabh Bachchan, wife Jaya Bachchan
and son Abhishek Bachchan descended in the city accompanied by Samajwadi party
leader Amar Singh.Despite visiting the Mahatma
land, the Bachchan family could not visit the birthplace of Mahatma Gandhi as
they had come specially for this occasion.
They were at Porbandar to attend Dharmotsav celebrations at Sandipani
The Bachchans spent about an hour at the ashram and said it was a wonderful
experience to visit such a beautiful and peaceful religious place.
Porbandar will the first port in the state to have night
navigation system
Porbandar will the first
port in the state to have night navigation system. This will enable 24 hours
movement of cargo traffic.
Announcing this Chief
Minister of Gujarat State, Narendra Modi said that Porbandar will the first
port in the state to have night navigation system. This will enable 24 hours
movement of cargo traffic. The CM, who was here to attend the boat race and swimming competition
organized at the Asmavati Ghat here as part of the Tourism year, said that the
coastline of the state would be developed for religious tourism.
Major fire ahead of vice president's Porbandar visit
A major fire on 04.02.06 burnt down 80 tents set up to
accommodate NRI guests at the Sandipani Ashram in Porbandar, ahead of an hour
before the arrival of Vice President of India Mr Shekhawat & Gujarat Chief
Minister Narendra Modi. However, no one was reported injured in the accident.
Out of a 750-odd tents, the fire reduced at least 80 to ashes. The fire was
brought under control in half an hour after the Porbandar city fire brigade and
the airport extinguishers rushed to the spot. The fire may have been caused by a
short circuit.
Coast Guard to celebrate 29th Raising Day in Porbandar on Feb 1
Indian Coast Guard (ICG) will organise a 'Day At
Sea' program onboard its ships off Porbandar on February one to
mark its 29th Raising Day celebrations. The event will begin
with anchoring of the ICGS fleet at the Coast Guard jetty in
Porbandar. The celebration also includes demonstration of a few
mid-sea exercises such as search and rescue operations, surface
firing and close range anti-aircraft firing. Dornier aircraft
and Chetak helicopters will also participate in the exercises.
Sandipani Niketan to hold 13-day festival in Porbandar
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Sandipani Niketan, an educational institute
imparting knowledge in Vedic heritage and Indian culture, has
organised a festival called 'Sandipani Mandir Mahotsav'
beginning here from Febraury.
Addressing media persons here last evening, Sandipani
Vidyaniketan founder Bhaishree Rameshbhai Oza said the festival
would be held to mark the inauguration of the magnificent Shri
Hari Mandir in the complex.
On the occasion, the institute has also planned to hold a
science exhibition. ''We will exhibit the achievements of Indian
rishis in the various fields of science such as astrophysics,
astronomy and mathematics,'' he said.
If science and religion work together, it could lead to creation
of a value-based society and bring lasting peace, progress and
harmony in the world, Mr Oza observed. Noted artistes such as
Pandit Jasraj, Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, Pandit Birju Maharaj,
Pandit Brijbhushan Kabra and Anup Jalota will perform during the
13-day event, he added.
Kalam visiting, but
Modi C. M. of Gujarat can’t accompany him
President Kalam will be inaugurating a science museum set up at the Sandipani Vidhya
Niketan, the ashram established by prominent religious leader Ramesh Oza. Later,
he will be inaugurating Ramakrishna Mission’s Vivekanand Institute for Value
Education and Culture, and also interact with its students. Chief Minister’s
office have informed that Narendra Modi will not be
accompanying President A P J Abdul Kalam, who is scheduled to visit Porbandar. The official reason is
that Modi is scheduled to attend an inaugural function of the three-day
international kite festival at the Sabarmati river front in Ahmedabad that day.
After the inaugural function in the morning, he will visit Sanskar Dham at Bopal
to watch a play on Swami Vivekanand in the evening.
On the National Youth Day today, President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam will make a special trip to Gujarat's
Porbandar town, birthplace of Mahatma Gandhi, to inaugurate two inspiring
institutions which are unique in the country.
While the Sandipni Science
Gallery showcases contributions of ancient sages and modern scientists from
Aryabhatta to Abdul Kalam, the Vivekananda Institute of Value Education &
Culture (VIVEC) imparts trail-blazing education in character building.
Designed by Mumbai-based physicist and ex-director of Nehru planetarium, Dr
J.J. Raval, the science gallery displays countless eye-catching models and
charts to explain the importance of science and religion for India's progress
and is part of a five-temple complex , a brainchild of popular preacher Ramesh
Oza. The President will also address 5000 youths at VIVEC which has been built
by the Ramakrishna Mission with a Rs10-million aid from the federal government
and offers short-term courses in total personality development,
self-employment, enlightened citizenship and other thought-provoking subjects.
