Musician brothers Salim and Sulaiman Merchant put up a high-energy performance at Xpressions ’12, the annual fest of Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar, (XIMB), on Monday evening. The duo got temperatures soaring with popular tracks amidst loud cheers . While Sulaiman concentrated all his energy on his octapad, Salim did a balancing act by switching between the keyboard and singing. Popstar Neha Bhasin, who had accompanied the Merchant brothers for the fest here, set the stage on fire with her husky voice and coquettish dance steps. Reality show contestant Shadab Faridi also kept the spirits high with his distinct voice. The crowd crooned and grooved to their tunes with some students even going up on the stage and shaking a leg with Salim and others. After treating the crowd to songs such as Halkat Jawaani, Fashion ka Jalwa, Tauba Tauba, O Re Piya and Dhunki Dhunki among others, they performed on the song that has become the sports anthem of the country – Chak de India. The fest concluded with the XIMB authorities felicitating the star performers and their band members. Annual day nMoorchhana 2012, the annual event of Asian School of Business Management (ASBM), Bhubaneswar, was celebrated on November 6. A blood donation camp was organised on the campus in which 152 units of blood were collected. This was followed by a symposium on FDI in retail. A cultural programme added zing to the revelry. Prizes and certificates were distributed to the students, who had won in various competitions organised earlier. Director of the institute Biswajeet Pattanayak advised the students not to give up and march ahead until one reached his goal. The chief guest on the occasion, additional director general of police B.K. Sharmathe, said weapons of knowledge could alleviate all evils. Vice-chancellor of Fakir Mohan University Balasore, Kumar Bar Das was also present at the event. Riot of colours nThree students of Balasore Art College have earned laurels for their institution by bagging prizes at the East Zone Camel Art Competition in Calcutta. While 43 students of the college took part in the event, the work of 12 was considered for an exhibition. Of them, three would be awarded cash prizes of Rs 10,000 and a citation each on November 24 at Academy of Fine Arts, Calcutta. The awardees in the categories of oil paint, water colour and pen-and-ink are Laxmipriya Panigrahi, Debabrata Dey and Sandeep Deb, respectively. Their creations would be exhibited at the academy till November 29. An art work of college principal Nikunja Bihari Das and faculty members Mousumi Mohapatra, Ramakanta Dubey and Nabasankar Das would also find a place in the catalogue of Camel. Book release nYoungsters in the capital got a peep into history as writer Amandeep Sandhu released his second novel Roll of Honour at the Bakul Children’s Library last week. Set against the backdrop of Operation Blue Star, assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and the riots that followed in 1984, the story centers on the split loyalties of a Sikh boy studying in a military school in Punjab. The novel, part memoir, part fiction, is “about a period when all of us, as a nation, as a society, lost our sense of meaning” as Sandhu said. He said: “We write to heal, the healing process never started in Punjab.” His earlier novel Sepia Leaves was about life in Rourkela during the emergency period. Views on justice nSupreme Court judge Justice Aftab Alam delivered the second Dinabandhu Memorial lecture at the National Law University, Odisha, on November 3, sentencing policy. Drawing the attention of the assembled group to the topic of sentencing, Justice Alam stated that it was the most critical factor in the administration of justice. He stressed that the major challenge for today’s law courts is to strike a balance between the proportion of wrongdoing and the quantum of punishment. He said judicial systems paid more attention to criminal procedure and little attention to sentencing. He voiced his concern about the arbitrariness in sentencing and emphasised the need to ensure consistency in sentencing so that punishment was not left to the whims and fancies of judges. Justice A.K. Patnaik urged the audience to start thinking about removing the inequalities and discrimination in sentencing which destabilises the society. He said that laws should be developed by judicial precedents and new modes of punishment should be devised. A host of legal luminaries from the bar and the bench were present at the occasion, including former Chief Justice of India S. Rajendra Babu and Justice V. Gopala Gowda. Design awards nThe Piloo Mody College of Architecture (PMCA), Cuttack, hosted the CoA-Niasa Awards for Excellence in Architectural Thesis-2012 last month. The Council of Architecture has been hosting this awards programme for students through its academic unit — National Institute of Advanced Studies in Architecture (Niasa) — since 2006. The programme is conducted in two stages – zonal and national level. All architecture institutions in the country are divided into five national zones, each consisting of 20-25 institutes. Three eminent architects Jaimini Mehta from Ahmedabad, Brinda Sommayya from Mumbai and Rafiq Azam from Bangladesh were the jury members. Abhimanyu Prakash and Nitish Jain from Sushant School of Architecture, New Delhi, and Nikita Patharkar from Bharatiya Kala Prasaran Sanstha, Pune, received cash prizes. Mayukh Sarkar, a final-year student of PMCA was also among the top 10 finalists. The event provided people an opportunity to interact with architects, students and faculty members and apprise themselves of current trends in the field of architecture and urban development.