PANCHAAMRITAM 228

 

Vishwa Samvad Kendra, Chennai

PANCHAAMRITAM 228

Pancha is five in Samskritam, Amritam is nectar

Amavaasya / Kali Yugaabda 5113 / Kara Thai 8 (January 22, 2012)

ONE

This year (2012), 24 children - 8 girls and 16 boys – received the National Bravery Awards. Five awards have been given posthumously. This issue of PANCHAAMRITAM presents two of the bravehearts – G. Parameswaran, a 14 year old boy of Tamilnadu and Prasannta Shandilya, the girl from Odisha. (The posthumous awardees were: Adithya Gopal from Arunachal Pradesh, Kapil Negi from Uttarakhand, Saudhita Barman from West Bengal, Lovely Verma from Uttar Pradesh and C Lalduhawma from Mizoram).

TWO

G. Parameswaran is a 14 year old boy studying in standard IX in Government Higher Secondary School at Yelagiri village in Dharmapuri district. His elder brother G. Sivakumar is a Casual Labourer working in Titan Industries at Hosur. Parameswaran's father Govindan is a daily wage earner; his mother G. Lakshmi is a home maker. Parameswaran saved three girl children from the Nagavathy Dam river in Aragasanahalli village, 33 km from Dharmapuri town on September 18, 2010. The boy had gone to take bath in the Nagavathy Dam river along with five other girl students of Aragasanahalli Panchayat Union Middle School. A. Saranya, M. Bhuvaneswari and V. Aarthi are the three saved by him from drowning. He pulled them out by their hair. Though the boy did not know swimming, he had jumped into the river and rescued the three children risking his life. Three days later, the then Superintendent of Police R. Sudhakar complimented the boy with cash award of Rs. 1000 and said that he would recommend his name for the National Bravery Award. He received the Award from the Prime Minister on the eve of 2012 Republic Day. THE HINDU, January 19, 2012.

THREE

Prasannta Shandilya, the girl from Odisha, fought off robbers who attacked her parents. The incident took place on April 12, 2011. After breaking into their bedroom, the five men started beating up her parents with an iron rod. They also attacked her father with a sharp weapon. Prasannata woke up hearing his father's screams. She saw her father bleeding profusely and mother writhing in pain. But without losing composure, she tiptoed into the kitchen. 'I couldn't watch my parents in pain. I saw the two jars containing turmeric and chill powder. 'I didn't know which was what, so I mixed both and rushed back to the bedroom. I threw the powder in the eyes of three of the intruders,' she says. Panic-stricken, the miscreants fled. Studying in Class VI, the braveheart wants to become an IPS officer. She received the national Bravery Award from the Prime Minister on the eve of 2012 Republic Day. www.dailymail.co.uk

 FOUR

About 10 kms from Salem (Tamilnadu, Bharat) lies village T. Perumalpalayam. Two lakes to its east and west are the sources of irrigation for this agrarian village. Normally the one to the west gets filled up during the monsoon. But the other lake remains dry as there is no canal linking it with the western lake. Neither the Panchayat nor the government officials showed any inclination to solve the problem. So, the villagers got together, formed a group and raised funds to the tune of Rs. 1.5 lakhs. They got a canal dug, linking the two lakes. Following this, whenever the western lake filled up, the eastern lake received water through the canal. That resulted in 350 additional acres of agricultural lands getting irrigation facility. As told to team PANCHAAMRITAM by Shri Bhaskar of Salem. 

FIVE

Meet Shri Visvanathan, 74, a retired government official residing in Mahakavi Bharati Nagar near Vyasarpadi (Tamilnadu, Bharat). At daybreak on January 22, 2012, he took a stroll along a road in his locality. All on a sudden, someone pounced upon him; as he lost his balance, the intruder snatched his gold chain and tried to speed away. Visvanathan gave a hot chase and quickly overpowered the thief. Then he handed over the offender, who turned out to be a woman, to the police station. All the residents of the locality woke up that day to witness in awe the heroic deed of Visvanathan, a Swayamsevak. As told to team PANCHAAMRITAM by Shri Sendhil, Sangh Pracharak, Chennai.  

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