Meeting on 24th Sept 2008,

We had Deputy RTO Mr. Anand Patil as a chief guest for todays’ meeting.

He explained the difference between RTO (Road Transport Office) and Traffic police. RTO has 14 regions in Maharashtra and is responsible for what can be used as transport in the region and who can drive it. While traffic police is responsible for the traffic discipline on road, traffic jams and parking etc.

He gave statistics that in Thane District there are 3000 KM of Roads and about 19.11 Vehicles of various categories. This means more than 6000 Vehicles per km road. Hence the problem of traffic jam and parking space will get more acute in future.

What is more drastic fallout of this and unsafe driving is that there are close to 1100 fatalities in more than 3000 accidents per year (Statistics of last year 2007). Which means we loose more people in road accidents in Thane district alone than any national calamity or the war in past. In my opinion if we put national loss @ Rs. 10 Lakh per life then the loss is staggering Rs 110 Crore per year and growing.

We all must support RTO and Traffic Police in making driving safe and pleasurable

Rtn Pramod Ambekar

Science Awareness Program at Uchaat – 21st Sept. 2008

We flagged off the series of Science Awareness Program at Aspi Vidyalaya, Uchaat in Tal. Wada, Dist. Thane, on Sunday, 21st September 2008. Every year this program is jointly done by Inner Wheel Club of Thane West, Rotary Club of Thana West and Marathi Vidnyan Parishad,Thane. We were assisted by members of our RCC Kudus. This is 5th year of this program. The program has been conceptualized by our Secretary Sadhana Vaze.
This program was organised for science and maths teachers from schools located nearby Kudus and Uchaat area. We had targeted 25 such schools. There were 30 teachers and 20 bright students from the Class 8 & 9 present. Shri. Mandage and his team of science teachers from Marathi Vidnyan Parishad, taught them scientific toys based on various science principles and explained theory behind the operation of these toys. Kits were distributed to all participants and they were asked to construct these toys. The topics covered were, Geometrical shapes, Sound wave, Bernoulli’s principle, Faraday’s law of induction (dc motor), MagLev, Parachutes, Centre of Gravity. The main objective of this exercise was to impart practical scientific knowledge to teaching community who in turn should propagate this knowledge to their students. The fundamentals of scientific principles must be cleared in students’ minds if they want to make career in science or engineering fields. The practical demonstration is a valuable tool to make them understand these principles.
The program started at 10AM and went on till 4.30PM. It was very well organised by Aspi Vidyalaya teachers and students. Mrs. Manjusha Muley, Dr. Mahesh Parekh, Arvind Nair, Kanwal Tikoo, C. Ramadasan, Sadhana Vaze, Sanjay Deshpande from our Club, Vandana Durve, Olive Rebello, Shubhangi Deshpande from Inner Wheel Club and Prof. Mandage with 3 teachers from Marathi Vidnyan Parishad, participated in this program.

Prez. Sanjay Deshpande

Medical Checkup Camp at ITI, Wagle Estate – 16th Sept. 2008

Every year, Industrial Training Institute (ITI), Wagle Estate, Thane admits over 300 students for their various courses. These admitted students are required to undergo medical checkup to detect any health irregularities at an early stage so that timely advise can be given. Earlier these students were used to be sent to Thane Civil Hospital for checkup in a batch of 10 and was causing great hardship as it used to take lot of time. When we approached Principal K. D. Shinde of ITI, he agreed to our proposal of doing medical checkup in ITI premises itself, thereby saving lot of time of students and giving ITI authorities an accurate feedback.
We organised Medical Checkup Camp for these students on Tuesday, 16th Sept. 2008. We were assisted by Inner Wheel Club of Thane West. Our team of doctors included Dr. Subhash Mhaskar, Dr. Abhijit Deodhar, Dr. Mahesh Parekh, Dr. Suresh Deshpande, Dr. Sunil Katkade and Dr. Kunda Mhaskar, Dr. Ranjana Kadam from Inner Wheel Club. They were assisted by Sadhana Vaze, Pramod Ambekar, Vinayak Patankar, Hemant Divekar, S.R.Bhattacharjee, Sanjay Deshpande and Mrs. Olive Rebello, Mrs. Neelam Sharma & Mrs. Shubhangi Deshpande from Inner Wheel Club. The team examined 257 male and 57 female students on this day and submitted their reports. The program started at 8AM and was over by 12PM. The meticulous planning paved the way for a grand success of this service project.

Prez. Sanjay Deshpande

Teachers' Day & Literacy Day Celebration

On Wednesday,10th September, we celebrated Teachers’ Day (which falls on 5th Sept.) and International Literacy Day (which falls on 8th Sept.), by felicitating three teachers from our Thane city for the yeoman service they are rendering for our New Generation to come. They are Principal(Retd.) Shri. Ashok Tilak(Saraswati Secondary School,Thane), Principal Mrs. Revathi Srinivasan (Sulochanadevi Singhania School, Jekegram,Thane) and Principal Shri. Bhaskar Chaudhary(Savitridevi Thirani School, Vartaknagar,Thane).

As it is said that ' Good teacher explains, superior teacher demonstrates and excellent teacher inspires' - These teachers have been inspiring the next generation.

In response to felicitations, all teachers spoke on "Parent-Student-Teacher relationships". Shri. Ashok Tilak said " this relationship is an equilateral triangle and every side has equal responsibilities and duties to perform". Mrs. Revathi Srinivasan said "the new generation is facing an information overload from various sources and we need to channelise these resources properly. NGOs like Rotary Clubs and schools have very important role to play in this assimilation."

Shri. Bhaskar Chaudhary said "Rotary Club of Thana west is father of our school and we are proud to be associated with them. We can jointly work on various projects designed for the benefit of the students and new generation". The felicitation program went very well.

We also went one step forward and augmented our membership by inducting Mrs. Revathi Srinivasan, a Teacher to our club. PP Rtn. Dr. Mahesh Parekh graced her formal induction in the club. This has strengthened our arms and opened new avenues of service to the cause New Generation and Literacy. We have created a history in our club wherein the teacher to whom we felicitated was inducted as an active member to our club on the same day.

President Sanjay Deshpande

New Addition to Our Rotary Family On 30th Aug 08

We Inducted Dr Medha Bhave in the club - She was sponsored by Rtn. Dr Subhash Mhaskar.

Dr Sunil Katkade rejoined our club, Rtn Ajit Vora persuaded him.

Sunil Deshpande was sponsored by Rtn Hemant Divekar.

Manjusha Mulye was sponsored by Rtn Subhash Mhaskar.

We welcome these smiling faces in Rotary family

Weekly meeting of 20th Aug 2008.

Our own Rotarian Dr. Mhaskar spoke about history of Medicine in the weekly meeting of 20th Aug 2008.

His speech covered 2500 yrs of history of modern allopathic medicine. He started with Hippocrates and his famous oath. He explained its time tested applicability even in today’s medical practice.

He explained the development of common day instrument like stethoscope. He explained procedure and chemicals used for anesthesia. One really wonders how people in those days endured surgeries without it.

He lucidly explained the efforts taken by people like Dr Hunter to acquire knowledge of human anatomy. What they endured to get human bodies for dissections including grave digging and body snatching despite the risk of attracting wrath of the law in those days.

The topic is so interesting and vast, it possibly requires days to introduce volume of knowledge he gathered during his 45+ years of experience. He is writing a gr8 column in our weekly bulletin Satyam about it.

Rtn. Pramod

27th Aug the Whole World is waiting for.............

Planet Mars will be the brightest in the night sky starting August. Itwill look as large as the full moon to the naked eye. This will cultivateon Aug. 27 when Mars comes within 34.65M miles off earth. Be sure to watchthe sky on Aug. 27 12:30 am. It will look like the earth has 2 moons.The next time Mars may come this close is in 2287.

Share this with your friends as NO ONE ALIVE TODAY will ever see it again.

-- Rtn. Sanjay Deshpande