Monday, April 18, 2011

PANCHAAMRITAM 209

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Vishwa Samvad Kendra, Chennai

PANCHAAMRITAM 209

Pancha is five in Samskritam, Amritam is nectar

Poornima/ Kali Yugaabda 5113 / Kara Chithirai 4 (April 17, 2011)

ONE

It was Saturday, 16 April 2011. About 2,00,000 people watched in utter astonishment as the starry night suddenly turned cloudy and a heavy downpour, accompanied by strong winds, drenched the `yagasala' altar in Panjal, near Shoranur (Kerala, Bharat) after it was set afire to mark the ceremonial end of Athirathram, the ancient Vedic fire ritual. They erupted into thunderous applause as the first drops of the rain fell. Rain appeared miraculously because the weather throughout the day was blistering hot and dry and the sky remained starry and clear in the evening. It changed in five minutes as the sky turned dark and a strong wind built up at around 9.30 p.m. `The rain was caused by the strong convection current generated by the smoke rising from the altar and the continuous chanting of the mantras,' V.P.N. Namboodiri, head of the research team of the Panjal Athirathram. The 12-day fire ritual for peace, purification, fertility, health and rain began April 4. It was organised by a local non-profit group Varthathe Trust to revive dying Vedic traditions in the country. The village was host to four major Athirathrams in 1901, 1918, 1956 and 1975. http://www.asianetindia.com/news/panjal-athirathram-ritual-concludes_261127.html

TWO

That was 27 years ago. Shri Dadaji Khobragade of Nanded Fakir village in Chandrapur district (Maharashtra, Bharat) noticed yellow seeds in three spikes of a paddy stalk in his field. Intrigued by the freak harvest, he preserved the grains. He subsequently planted them in a six-foot square plot, which he covered with thorny branches to keep foraging animals away. As the plants began to mature, he noticed that they had a firm kom, or ear, with straight grains. His doubts were confirmed when he harvested 250 grams of the paddy. "The grains were plentiful in each kom," he recalls. Realising that he had chanced upon a special rice variety, he continued the experiment, and this time he got 10 kilograms of paddy. The family cooked the rice and marvelled at its taste. In 1988, Khobragade sowed 4 kg of seeds in a 10-foot square plot and harvested 400 kg of paddy. The following year, he sowed about 100 kg of seeds and got 90 bags of paddy. He shared the harvested paddy with other farmers, and they too began sowing the new-found rice variety. After five years of research, Khobragade developed a variety of short-grained paddy that had an average yield of 40-45 quintals a hectare with a recovery rate of 80 per cent. The rice was aromatic and had a high cooking quality. Khobragade named the new variety HMT, on an impulse, after the brand of wristwatch he was wearing when he went to sell the first bag of paddy in the market. HMT went on to become one of India's most popular varieties and is sown across five States on at least one lakh acres (one acre = 0.4 hectare). Khobragade was 45 years old when he developed HMT. He is now 72. In the intervening years, he developed eight more varieties of paddy. He likens the rice varieties to his children. Vijay Waghmare, Collector of Chandrapur district, said that the Department of Agriculture was assisting Khobragade with developing his latest variety so that he followed certain procedures that would enable him to patent the variety. From FRONTLINE,  January 15-28, 2011.

THREE

Smt Uma Devi works as a science teacher in the Narayani Baalika High School, Patna (Bihar, Bharat). Every day she comes to school by train. One day, she left her hand bag in the train. The bag contained Rs 4,000 in cash, her mobile phone costing Rs 2,000, house key bunch, her spectacles, medicine, etc. She realized that her bag was missing only after reaching home. She almost fainted. But gathering her wits, she dialed her mobile number. The voice on the other end reassured her that her property will be duly handed over to her soon. It so happened that the bag was in the possession of a Swayamsevak of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Shri Ananda Kumar (26), a resident of Kashmiri Chowk, Nalanda district. Within a few days, Ananda Kumar visited  the Narayani Baalika High School, collected the residential address of Uma Devi, reached the teacher's house, accompanied by a Swayamsevak of the Rajendra Nagar Shakha and handed over the bag to her with all its contents.  SAMVAD DARSHAN, Hindi fortnightly, Patna; March (I) 2011. 

FOUR

Masthamma is a 65-yearold Soliga tribal healer with a vast knowledge of herbal medicines; shelives in Hebbal, Mysore district (Karnataka, Bharat). The popularity of this illiterate miwife spread far and wide after she launched a campaign against Caesarean sections, by naturally delivering more than 2,000 babies. She claims zero mortality of mothers and babies in the last 40 years. When husband Arasayya, an agricultural labourer, was forced out along with other tribals from their forest habitat in early 70's, she was forced to follow her parents into becoming a midwife. Over the years her fame spread through word of mouth across the state. Now many people in cities want her to stay over and take care of their pregnant daughters. She advises pregnant women to be active, and deliver while squatting. Though struggling to make ends meet, Masthamma is determined to pass her knowledge of herbal medicines to her daughter Shivamma to carry on her legacy.

THE NEW SUNDAY EXPRESS (Magazine) April 10, 2011.             

Read this as well. This one is from PANCHAAMRITAM 82: "Smt. Kanha Devi of Muzaffarpur (Bihar, Bharat) has helped 10,000 infants to land on this planet safely during the last two decades. Yes, she practices midwifery. Not a single case out of the 10,000 deliveries she attended on was a failure. The highlight is that she is blind since birth. Her husband forsake her. But she chose not to rue her fate. Today she is a much sought after dhai in her neighbourhood.(Based on a clipping telecast by ND TV- 24/7 news channel on February 10, 2006)".

FIVE

The warmth and generosity of Chennaites has given 36-year- old teacher Smt  Kiyomi Tanaka, born in Kyoto, Japan, comfort. Kiyomi has been living in Ambattur since June 2008. She teaches Japanese to the students of the Soka Ikeda College of Arts and Science for Women, Manapakkam. The institute has strong ties with Japan and regularly receives Japanese students as part of its foreign exchange programme. They also send their own students to study at the Soka University in Tokyo. Kiyomi had just completed her class when one of her students informed her about the earthquake and the tsunami. "I didn't know about the news initially, but after that my phone had not stopped stop ringing," she says. "Many of my Tamil friends were calling to ask me if my family was doing ok. Even the cleaners and drivers at the school, who do not know English, stopped me in the hallway to ask me if my loved ones were fine. I feel very fortunate to be here with such nice people." From a report by Will Date in THE NEW INDIAN EXPRESS, March 21,  2011.

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Monday, April 4, 2011

PANCHAAMRITAM 208

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Vishwa Samvad Kendra, Chennai

PANCHAAMRITAM 208

Pancha is five in Samskritam, Amritam is nectar

Amavaasya/ Kali Yugaabda 5112 / Vikruti Panguni 20 (April 3, 2011)

ONE

Siddhagiri Museum is located at Kaneri village, about 10 kms away from Kolhapur (Maharashtra, Bharat) and 4 kms off the `Pune-Banglore' highway - the national express highway no.4. It has been built by the 1,000 year old Siddhagiri Ashram. The artificial caves contain tableaux which depict the scientific tradition of ancient Bharat including Bhgiratha, the first engineer of the world, Charaka, the ancient chemist, Aryabhatta, the astronomer par excellence, etc. All are shown immersed in their work. The creations of great Sanskrit scholars are also on display. The tableaux showing scenes of village life are real eyecatchers. "Our village was totally self reliant before the arrival of the Britishers", said Swami Siddheswar, the creator of this unique museum. The income from the museum is spent on the Siddhagiri hospital and that enables the people of the nearby villages to save money on treatment, informs the Swami.

RASHTRA DEV, Hindi fortnightly, Dehra Dun, February 15, 2011.  

TWO

There was a sense of disbelief among ministers and ambassadors from diverse nations when the chairperson of the 11th Info-Poverty World Conference held at the United Nations introduced the jeans-clad Smt Chhavi Rajawat as head (sarpanch) of Soda village, 60 km from Jaipur (Rajasthan, Bhaart). 30-year-old Chhavi, India's youngest and the only MBA to become a village head - the position mostly occupied by elders, quit her senior management position with Bharti-Tele Ventures of Airtel Group to serve her beloved villagers as sarpanch. (Chhavi participated in a panel discussion at the two-day meet at the UN on March 24 and 25, 2011 on how civil society can implement its actions and spoke on the role of civil society in fighting poverty and promoting development). It is necessary to re-think through various strategies of action that includes new technologies like e-services in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in an era where resources have become limited, she told the delegates of the international conference. "If India continues to make progress at the same pace as it has for the past 65 years since independence, it just won't be good enough. We'll be failing people who dream about having water, electricity, toilets, schools and jobs. I am convinced we can do it differently and do it faster. "In the past year alone, I and the villagers in Soda have brought about a radical change in the village purely through our own efforts. We have had no outside support - no NGO help, no public, nor private sector help," she said.

http://news.in.msn.com/national/article.aspx?cp-documentid=5082697

THREE

Organised effort strengthens the society. It has always been a difficult task to organise women of the society but the Self Help Group (SHG) scheme taken up by Seva Bharati, Tamilnadu, in Kanyakumari district has made this dream come true. In a remote Vanvasi ("tribal") village called Kodithuraimalai, the women members of Seva Bharati's SHG there resolved to execute a noble idea. After every weekly meet, all the members gathered to work in the farm of one member of the SHG without any payment. The owner of the land offered them lunch and evening tea. The next week the same activity happened in the farm of another member. This rotation of work is carried out in the farm of all the members in a regular turn. The resultant yield of self-reliance is promising both materialistically and socially. From a report by Shri Kesava Vinayagan (now Prant Prachark of RSS, Dakshin Tamilnadu), in ORGANISER, September 6, 2009.

FOUR

An electricity company based in Bihar (Bharat) called Husk Power Systems has created a system to turn rice husks into electricity that is reliable, eco-friendly and affordable for families that can spend only Rs 90 a month for power. The company has 65 power units that serve a total of 30,000 households and is currently installing new systems at the rate of two to three per week. Husk Power was founded by four friends: Gyanesh Pandey, Manoj Sinha, Ratnesh Yadav and Charles W. Ransler, who met attending different schools in India and the United States. Pandey, the company's chief executive, grew up in a village in Bihar without electricity. He decided to study electrical engineering. He found his way to the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in Troy, New York, USA. He was soon earning a six-figure income. He bought his family a diesel-powered electric generator. He felt compelled to return home and use his knowledge to bring light to Bihar. In Bihar, when rice is milled, the outside kernel, or husk, is discarded. Because the husk contains a lot of silica, it doesn't burn well for cooking. A recent Greenpeace study reports that Bihar alone produces 180 crore (1.8 billion) kilograms of rice husk per year. Most of it ends up rotting in landfills and emitting methane, a greenhouse gas. Pandey and Yadav came up with a system that could burn 50 kilograms of rice husk per hour and produce 32 kilowatts of power, sufficient for about 500 village households. They found ways to extract value from the rice husk char — the waste product of a waste product — by setting up another side business turning the char into incense sticks. This business now operates in five locations and provides supplemental income to 500 women. Based on a report by Shri David Bornstein in NEW YORK TIMES, January 10, 2011.

FIVE

Smt Mahalakshmi, a school librarian and resident of T.Nagar, Chennai (Tamilnadu, Bharat) along with her husband Shri Subramanian, a retired employee of a private company, has identified 30 temples in dire need of regular pooja daily and channelizes public contribution to that end. All the 30 temples are located in remote villages, many of them inaccessible. But the Archakas in these temples - each one of the temples is sanctified by the association of a great soul - perform their duties with devotion in spite of the meager salary they get. The devout couple has requested devotees who want to help the regular conduct of poojas in these 30 temples to personally talk to the archaka concerned. For the list of temples, devotees may contact: 044-28152533 or 98400 53289.  Based on a report in DINAMALAR, March 1, 2010.

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