Spring FeverIt's springtime, the season of flowers. The annual Flowers, Fruits and Vegetables Show by the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) will be held in the Ganesh Kala Krida Manch (Nehru Stadium) on February 13 and 14.On the occasion of the show, the garden superintendent's office, Sambhaji Park, has also organised a seminar for keen gardeners, farmers, and nursery owners on the subject, Greenhouses, from February 8 to 13, at the Nehru Stadium Hall from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Dutch expert Peter van der Berg, from the world-wide independent organisation, the Netherlands Management Co-operation Programme, will chair the seminar. Says Yashwant Khaire, garden superintendent, PMC, ``Information on all aspects of greenhouses: construction, management, economics, marketing, control of diseases and pests and much more will be discussed. At Rs 1,000 per head, the seminar includes a tour and site visit, besides lunch and tea''.At the show following the seminar, besides the array of nature's bounty, a garden competition and tree plantation competition are the other highlights.Spic's pickSpic-Macay is back with a bagful of musical goodies. The Fest '99 starts on February 9 and goes on till February 12, and this time it is dedicated to the memory of Pandit Jitendra Abhisheki, who featured regularly at their shows. Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma, Ustad Sultan Khan, Dr Veena Sahasrabuddhe, Shaunak Abhisheki, and other artists will perform on the occasion. The festival has organised the programmes in different places like Cummins' Technical University, BMCC and other colleges, to promote Indian classical music amongst the youth.Good newsThe celebrations aren't over as yet. With the University of Pune's golden day inching closer, the department of journalism and communication studies is getting out its gear to celebrate. Lined up is an exhibition on February 8 and 9, tracing the department's history and development at its premises at Ranade Institute. Profiles of the department's prominent alumni, its research activity, old issues of the in-house newsletter, Vritta Vidya. will provide an insight into the department's functioning. On display will also be photocopies of the first issues of some newspapers and old issues of those like Kesri. Information on how a newspaper is produced, sections on broadcast and internet journalism, other forms of mass communication like advertising will also be included. A glimpse into what's news, and how it gets into the papers!Mail to orderEmail may have replaced postal or even telephonic communication, being comparatively cheaper and quicker. But its greatest drawback has been the language. If one didn't know English, there was no way one could use this service.But not anymore. With the latest software developed by the Centre for Development and Advance Computing (C-DAC), English has become dispensable. On February 2, C-DAC announced its Hindi and Marathi software for internet-users. If you have an email facility at home, all you have to do is log on to gistmail.cdac.org.in and you can send and receive mail in Hindi and Marathi. The USP of this system is that even the menu is in these languages. The problem is that of the keyboard, which English-operative. But one can get a template to map these languages onto the keyboard.Though this service began just a few days ago, 300 people across the globe are already using it. Though free as of now, says Chandrashekar Raje, from C-DAC's research and development department, ``We have introduced this software on a trial basis and the user pays only for the telephone charges now. But we will begin charging in some time.'' The C-DAC gistmail team worked for a year before this facility became available to users.On the moveThey call themselves the Gypsies and promise to live up to the name by holding exhibitions all over the city every month. They are six women who bumped into each other sometime back and clicked so well that they decided to start exhibiting their respective wares together under one roof.Thus the collection showcased at Sanskriti, the art gallery in Aundh on February 5 and 6, was an eclectic and charming mix of various products, ranging from infant wear to breakfast cereals to ethnic saris. ``This is our first show together. And the response has been so overwhelming that we have been spurred to now hold such sales in every locality of the city, moving from one place to another with our products, just like gypsies,'' smiles Kavita Borges, who is into producing and marketing herbal beauty products. ``Our USP will be our reasonable rates and the fact that most articles would be either exclusive or hand-made,'' adds Benedita Roy of Mishka Collections, dealing with baby and child wear. The Gypsies' next venture is a Goan food festival at Zeenisha's Talent Window, Camp , on February 13.
