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By:

Rajendra Pandharpure

15 April 2025 at 7:55:54 pm

The BJP’s Ganesha Gambit

Pune’s Ganeshotsav has become an enormous civic and political stage, and the ruling party has proved adept at occupying it. Pune: The city’s Ganeshotsav is entering its final phase, but the festival has already demonstrated something beyond its extraordinary crowds and familiar spectacle: the extent to which it has become a political stage. This year, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has left a particularly visible imprint on the festivities, using an event that reaches deep into the city’s...

The BJP’s Ganesha Gambit

Pune’s Ganeshotsav has become an enormous civic and political stage, and the ruling party has proved adept at occupying it. Pune: The city’s Ganeshotsav is entering its final phase, but the festival has already demonstrated something beyond its extraordinary crowds and familiar spectacle: the extent to which it has become a political stage. This year, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has left a particularly visible imprint on the festivities, using an event that reaches deep into the city’s neighbourhoods as an opportunity for public outreach. The political appropriation of the festival has not, however, been without a counter-current. Demands were raised for curbs on noise pollution, loudspeakers and the volume of dhol-tasha performances. The argument was not against Ganeshotsav itself, but for moderation - notably, a complete ban on DJ music and limits on the number of dhol and tasha instruments used by performing troupes. Familiar Troubles The festival’s reality has been rather different. Major roads have been occupied by mandaps. Processions celebrating the arrival of Lord Ganesha have unfolded amid punishing noise. DJ music, while subject to restrictions, has continued. Traffic congestion has become a familiar feature of the festival, with the movement of political leaders adding another layer to the city’s already strained roads. The Peth areas have remained crowded deep into the night. The Shrimant Dagdusheth Halwai Ganpati temple has drawn enormous crowds for darshan from the opening day. From the old city to housing societies and neighbourhood mandals, Ganeshotsav touches virtually every part of Pune. For a political party seeking a direct connection with citizens, few occasions offer such a ready-made network of people, institutions and local influencers. The BJP enters this festival with an unusually formidable organisational base. It has two MPs, seven MLAs and more than 100 corporators in Pune. Murlidhar Mohol, one of the city’s MPs, is a Union Minister of State. Chandrakant Patil is a Cabinet minister in the Maharashtra government, while Madhuri Misal is a Minister of State. The party’s presence also extends into the festival’s organisational architecture. Its influence is visible across numerous mandals, large and small. BJP MLA Hemant Rasane is General Secretary of the Shrimant Dagdusheth Halwai Sarvajanik Ganpati Trust. Kunal Tilak, a member of Lokmanya Tilak’s family, is a BJP corporator. The political and cultural histories of Pune therefore intersect in ways that are difficult to ignore. The BJP’s senior leadership has also made the most of the occasion. National President Nitin Nabin visited Pune to seek Lord Ganesha’s blessings, while Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis visited the city before and during the festival. Such visits are about more than religious observance. In a festival watched by millions and embedded in the city’s social life, political visibility comes almost automatically. There is also talk in Pune that the BJP provided substantial financial support to Dhol-Lezim troupes and their organisers, with claims that some major mandals received financial backing as well. These claims would require independent verification, but the perception itself points to the depth of the political contest around Ganeshotsav. BJP workers, according to local observers, have also sought to make their presence more conspicuous than that of festivities organised by housing societies. Useful Expedient The festival arrives at a politically useful moment for the BJP. The party has faced disquiet on several fronts. Young people have been agitated over the paper-leak controversy. Broader public dissatisfaction has been voiced over inflation and unemployment, while government policies relating to ethanol and charges associated with UPI transactions have also generated criticism. While a political party can defend a policy in a press conference and advertise its achievements, during Ganeshotsav, its workers can be physically present in neighbourhoods, among processions, mandals, cultural groups and devotees. Politics thus becomes less about argument and more about visibility. That is the BJP’s advantage in Pune. Ganeshotsav, after all, is not simply a sequence of religious rituals. It is an elaborate civic network involving local organisers, volunteers, cultural groups, businesses, residents and political representatives. Whoever has influence over that network acquires a powerful channel of communication with the city. The BJP appears to understand this particularly well. Its strength in Pune’s electoral politics has been reinforced by a presence that extends beyond elections and into the institutions and social spaces that organise public life. The irony is that the very scale of the festival that makes it politically attractive also magnifies the civic costs. The political value of Ganeshotsav and the civic burden it creates are therefore two sides of the same phenomenon. For Pune, the larger question is not whether politics has entered Ganeshotsav. It has done so for decades. The more consequential question is whether the festival’s extraordinary social capital will remain primarily a vehicle for political outreach or whether the same influence can be used to reconcile celebration with the ordinary civic needs of the city. For the moment, the BJP seems to have understood the first proposition better than most.

AI in Sperm Sorting: An Unbiased Decision for A Better Outcome

Writer: Dr. Ramnath Babu T J
Dr. Ramnath Babu T J
Nov 7, 2024
3 min read

Artificial Intelligence or AI is revolutionising fertility treatments of the future. The inclusion of AI enhances the accuracy, efficiency, and objectivity of sperm selection, hence potentially improving fertility outcomes by leaps and bounds. Traditionally, sperm sorting through manual methods is subjective to judgments. Processes like centrifugation and swim-up methods are used to separate sperm based on motility and morphology. Although they are effective, they have their limitations, leading to human errors that affect the success rates of fertility treatment. For instance, studies have shown that traditional sperm sorting techniques can have variability in success rates, with reported live birth rates ranging between 15 per cent to 25 per cent per cycle depending on the method and quality of sperm. Hence the introduction of AI helps in maintaining consistency in evaluations of sperm, using the same data set for every sample which leads to better judgments.


Automation and Standardisation- Automation of sperm selection and also introduction of AI in the process have improved the results in ART. AI-assisted sperm selection improves the accuracy in choosing high-quality sperm for fertilisation purposes, and also, pregnancy and live birth rates might be improved. Technologies like Intracytoplasmic Morphologically Selected Sperm Injection along with AI ensure the chances of pregnancies increase by about 10-20 per cent compared to the standard procedures. AI and Automation will decrease time taken to analyze sperm and increase opportunities to select better sperm with DNA integrity for better development and higher success rates in embryo selection. These processes ensure that the sperm selection process follows consistent criteria, reducing variability in outcomes caused by human error.


Analysing Complex Data for Better Outcomes- AI plays a crucial in improving IVF outcomes by analysing complex data and providing tailored recommendations. AI-driven tools and models such as those on SpOvum.ai point towards an opportunity to optimise ovarian stimulation decisions by assessing patient characteristics and follicle growth patterns. A study revealed that the use of AI in IVF improved egg yield and reduced medication costs. AI enables fertility specialists to make data-driven choices, improving overall IVF success rates and streamlining treatment processes.


Reducing Human Error- AI models can continuously learn and refine their performance by being trained on newer data. This adaptability ensures the technology remains unbiased and up-to-date with the latest scientific insights into sperm quality and fertility success rates. Studies have shown that AI-driven sperm sorting can decrease human-related errors by up to 25 per cent, improving sperm selection quality in terms of morphology and motility.


Reduction of Sperm Damage- The new AI-driven sperm sorting techniques also include microfluidic systems that are known to exhibit several advantages over the most commonly used conventional method, which is centrifugation. Traditional centrifugation methods, such as density gradient centrifugation, also cause severe oxidative stress and DNA fragmentation of the sperm because of the very high mechanical forces involved. The AI-infused microfluidic sorting minimises this damage significantly by involving gentler processes that mimic the natural pathway of sperm selection. The studies show that the process of microfluidic sorting decreases DNA fragmentation in sperm, which gives improved opportunities for success for IVF. For example, DNA fragmentation is 20 percent lower in sperm sorted using microfluidic processes than in traditional processing methods.


AI is bound to play an increasingly definitive role in fertility treatments, which will improve the outcomes for couples experiencing infertility.


(The author is a Co-Founder & CEO at SpOvum® Technologies. Views personal.)

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