Blog Archives

Darion Gandhi Dances to Gold

May 16, 2012
Darion Gandhi Dances to Gold

So You Think You Can Dance judge Jason Coleman thinks a young Hampton Park boy can do just that. Published in the Barwick Star News, Melbourne Australia. Nine year old Darion Gandhi from Cathy-Lea Dance Works received a gold medal at the Cechetti Junior Award Day a couple of Sundays ago.      The event was held at the Ministry of Dance Studios in North Melbourne and was adjudicated by Jason Coleman from the hit television series So You Think You Can Dance. Darion was selected from 60 elite entrants at his level. Nine other students from Darion’s school received...

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Zoroastrian Stree Mandal of Hyderabad and Secunderabad: Sticking together

May 16, 2012

There is probably an inverse relation between a community’s population and its togetherness. The Parsi community doesn’t defy this relation and is an exceptionally close-knit community. With a population of about 1,100, the Parsi community has a sizeable population. By Amar Tejaswi | Deccan Chronicle Parsis’ business acumen drew them to the city a couple of generations back and they have remained here since with a lot of the members having businesses of their own. But the business acumen is diminishing with time as current generations move towards jobs in IT industry and elsewhere. Parsis in the city, like...

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Parsis petition Centre for survival

May 15, 2012

The Parsis are a demographically declining community on the cusp of near extinction. This is what Keki Daruwalla, Sahitya Akademi award-winning poet and a member of the National Commission for Minorities (NCM), wrote to the Planning Commission (PC). By Anurag Kumar Chaubey & Kshitiz Shaminit Tirkey | DNA India Alarmed by the drastic fall in India’s Parsi population, Daruwalla, in his two-page letter to PC member Dr Syeda Hameed, has highlighted the census figures which show that the number of Parsis in 1941, which was 1,14,890, almost halved to 69,601 by 2001. Daruwalla organised a meeting with PC members...

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Billionaire Godrej Sees Property Beating Retail

May 14, 2012
Billionaire Godrej Sees Property Beating Retail

Indian billionaire Adi Godrej said real estate will deliver his company’s fastest growth over the next five years as foreign rivals such as Unilever Plc (ULVR) and Procter & Gamble Co. (PG) constrain his flagship consumer-goods unit. By Ruth David and Malavika Sharma | Bloomberg   “The strongest growth potential we see is in our property- development business,” Godrej, chairman of the Godrej Group, said in an interview at his office campus on the outskirts of Mumbai. “No one has any significant market share. It is divided among a large number of players.” Godrej Consumer Products Ltd. (GCPL), in...

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Shapoor Mistry brings in talent, expands role of old hands

May 11, 2012
Shapoor Mistry brings in talent, expands role of old hands

Shapoor Mistry of the Pallonji Mistry group is bringing in talent, expanding the role of the old guard and identifying new business ventures at the $2-billion group. The initiative is aimed at transforming the way the construction-to-home appliances conglomerate functions. By Sobia Khan | The Economic Times The reclusive Irish-Parsi business tycoon, Pallonji Mistry, passed the baton of his 147-year-old business conglomerate on to elder son Shapoor Mistry in January this year after younger son Cyrus Mistry was chosen as the successor to Tata Group chairman Ratan Tata. Mistry’s father first bought shares in the Tata Sons in the...

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Water Wastage Complaint at Bhabha Sanatorium Compound

May 8, 2012

200 ways to waste water For three months, allege residents, a Bandra family has been committing water carnage by pouring upto 200 litres of water out of their fourth floor flat for no reason; BMC engineer says action will be taken By Shailesh Bhatia | Mid-Day Even as Mid Day reported the acute scarcity of potable water in Thane villages which led to the death of a tribal woman, and the fact of individuals there surviving on just three litres of water per month (‘Thane, where water is a luxury’ April 26, 2012), this reporter came upon an instance...

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ZYNG Organizes A Summer Celebration for Differently Abled Parsi/Irani Zoroastrians

May 6, 2012
ZYNG Organizes A Summer Celebration for Differently Abled Parsi/Irani Zoroastrians

Name: SPECIAL STARS Tagline: A Summer Celebration for Differently Abled Parsi/Irani Zoroastrians Organizers: ZYNG – Zoroastrian Youth for the Next Generation Senior Citizens Ladies Group of Rustom Baug Om Creations Trust Jam-e-Jamshed Schedule: Friday, 11th May 2012 10:00am – 2:30pm Rustom Baug Saturday, 12th May 2012 4:30pm – 7:30pm Rustom Baug Sunday, 13th May 2012 4:30pm – 7:30pm Rustom Baug Participants: Differently Abled Parsi/Irani Zoroastrians are invited to come and spend the weekend with us. We will organize workshops and games for them and make them participate in various competitions (Talent / Prayer / Fancy Dress). All participants will...

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A year on, JJ Hospital finally gets Rs. 52 Lacs from Maneck Sanjana’s Estate

May 4, 2012

In January 2011, JJ received an email that a Parsi woman had left 100,000 Canadian dollars for it. But the hospital authorities thought of it as an elaborate online fraud By Santosh Andhale | Mumbai Mirror Congratulations! You are entitled to receive 100,000 Canadian dollars. Send us your account details so that we could facilitate the transfer. If you had such an email in your inbox, you would probably frown and delete it. If your new-to-email dad gets it, you would painstakingly try to explain why that email is a fraud. So one can understand that when state-run JJ...

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Mumbai Boss: The Chef Behind Godiwalla Caterers

April 30, 2012
Mumbai Boss: The Chef Behind Godiwalla Caterers

Tanaz Godiwalla is the undisputed high priestess of Parsi wedding catering. Families are known to call Godiwalla before they book a venue or finalise the guest list. We wouldn’t be surprised if a few of them inform Godiwalla of the date before they telephone close relatives. After all, her catering services are so much in demand that her appointments diary is already packed with commitments until December 2014. By Purva Mehra |Mumbai Boss Godiwalla Caterers have been the community favourites for over four decades now. “Both my parents were great cooks; we had this tradition of cook-offs in which...

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BAWATips: I’m Bawa and I Know It

April 30, 2012

The incredibly funny bunch of people at BAWATIPS bring us their first video….I’m BAWA and I Know It.

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Requiem for a Parsi delight: Food

April 30, 2012

There isn’t much that stands between Parsi food and extinction. Joanna Lobo digs amongst the delectable ruins of what remains By Joanna Lobo | DNA As he starts to describe the dal ni poori (a pastry stuffed with sweetened dal, tutti frutti and dried fruits), Kurush F Dalal lets us into a secret ingredient for his childhood tea time snack. “You’ve got to learn how to do this from your grandmother,” he says. “If you had a kadak grandmother, she would make sure everything was done perfectly”. For the dal ni poori to be made as perfectly today, one...

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Anu Aga: A Profile

April 29, 2012
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69-year-old Anu Aga, who was nominated to the Rajya Sabha on Thursday, is known as much for her social work and activism as her business accomplishments. Published by NDTV In 2004, she retired as the chairperson of Thermax Ltd, handing over the reins to her daughter Meher Pudumjee. Thermax is a Rs. 4,935 crore engineering solutions provider in the energy and environment sectors. She is also a member of the National Advisory Council, headed by Sonia Gandhi, which works closely with the central government on public policy and issues, such as the Right to Food. In 2010, Aga was...

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The Carriage of Pestonjee Press of the Fort Coach Company Exhibited in San Francisco Museum

April 28, 2012
Image Copyrights Sunita Sohrabji

An ornate silver carriage, built in 1915 by Pestonjee Press of the Fort Coach Company for the Maharajah of Bhavnagar, was featured at the San Francisco Asian Art Museum’s “Maharaja” exhibit that closed here April 8. By Sunita Sohrabji | India West The exhibit — which featured the art and artifacts of India’s princely rulers — will next move to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, Virginia, where it will be on display from May 21 to Aug. 9. The Field Museum in Chicago will then host the exhibit from Oct. 17 to Feb. 3, 2013. “The...

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Do Parsis lack a proper sense of history?

April 27, 2012

Our good friend Dinyar Patel asks a very valid and pertinent question Do Parsis lack a proper sense of history? It is a question that I have often wondered while traveling and conducting research across India in the past fourteen months. Our history and culture is as rich as that of any other community in India, yet we have, at least for the past few decades, not been very good stewards of them. A number of our libraries and institutions are badly run. There are whole collections of valuable books and related items that are gathering dust in Godrej...

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The Promise Of A New Day: World Zoroastrian Organisation Trust

April 27, 2012

Since the 1990s, The World Zoroastrian Organisation Trust, based in India, has been working in the villages of Gujarat, specifically in the villages of Navsari and Surat, to uplift the lives of poor Zoroastrians and their families. The Promise Of A New Day, highlights some of the organisation’s most notable work over the last two decades!

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