As good as it getsThe State Transport (ST) bus may look like a relic of the past, but when it comes to keeping it clean, the methods used are almost futuristic. For the past year and a half, ST buses are being cleaned not by men, but by machines. A motorised `brush' moves alongside the length of the bus, sprinkling water and scrubbing it as it moves. And within 10 minutes, the bus looks like new. Almost.Says Sopan Nabde, depot manager, Shivajinagar Bus Depot, ``Installing this machine has resulted in huge savings. In the past, we had to have three men working round the clock and it cost us Rs. 21,000 per month. Besides, this system also saves on time and water.'' Old bus, new look, what more can one ask for?Exploring scienceScience can be fun - especially if it is lucidly and attractively presented. That's just the objective behind a series of six books brought out by Exploratory, Pune, a branch of the Bharati Vidya Bhavan along with Shekhar Phatak and Associates.The books, written on topics as diverse as Dolly the clone and carbon by scientists working in those fields, are aimed at popularising science. The books have been brought out under the guidance of an editorial board headed by Dr. V.G. Bhide, former vice-chancellor, University of Pune, and comprising Bal Phondke, Jayant Narlikar, Dr. Govind Swaroop, Dr. Paul Ratnasamy among others. The books include CT Scan by Dr. Pandit Vidyasagar, Dolly, the clone by Dr. Deepti Deobaugkar, Carbon, the wonder element by Sulabha Kulkarni, Friendship with Bees by K.K. Kshirsagar, Stars and Their History and Fundamental Forces of Nature, both by Dr. V.G. Bhide. A second series of six books is expected to come out by March this year.The Hindi stageThey are minding our language. They being students from Japan, namely students of Hindi at the Foreign Language Department of the University of Osaka (UoO), Japan. They will be putting up a performance of their play, Kaayaakalp, at the Balgandharva Rangmandir on March 5. The play is being jointly presented by the Nag Foundation, the Indo-Japanese Association and the department of Hindi, University of Pune.Written by Rajendra Sharma, Kaayaakalp has been directed by Tomio Mizokami, professor of Hindi, Bengali and Punjabi at the UoO. This is not the first time he is getting a troupe to India. Three years ago, his group and he were in India to perform two Hindi plays at the official invitation of the National School of Drama. The success of that tour prompted them to return, and they have been in India from February 25 on a one-month stay, staging the play at Calcutta, Mumbai, Pune, Agra and Delhi. An example worth emulating.
