PANCHAAMRITAM 255
AMAAVAASYA
/ Kali yugabda 5116 / Jaya Aavani 9 (August 25, 2014)
ONE
Dharhara is a small, nondescript village located about 20
kilometers from the district headquarters of Bhagalpur in Bihar that has found
a great way to tackle declining sex ratio; global warming and climate change,
all in one go. For years now, girls in this village have been welcomed into the
world in the most novel way: By the local community planting at least 10 fruit
trees – traditionally mango – in celebration. New daughters here are treated as
avatars of Goddess Lakshmi and stand to inherit these fruit trees as they grow
up. Owing to the tradition, this green village is today nestled in the midst
of more than 1,00,000 fruit-bearing trees. Sukriti, the young daughter of the
village pradhan Parmanand Singh, says, “Even as the world is frantically
discussing how to deal with issues like sex selective abortions, global warming
and the carbon footprint, planting trees when girls are born is our simple
solution to all these complicated problems.” Former pradhan Pramod had planted
10 mango trees about 12 years ago when his daughter, Niti, was born. Niti now
goes to school and neither her father nor other family members consider her
school fees a burden since the money comes from selling the fruit from her
trees. Of course her very traditional mother, Rita Devi, has taken to planning
for her marriage already and sees Niti’s trees as an asset in that context. For
now, the 8,000 villagers of Dharhara, including scores of young girls, are
enjoying the fruits of their labour. Shatrughan Singh, an octogenarian, has
planted more than 600 trees in Dharhara for his daughters, granddaughters and
other village girls. Planting mango is also profitable because once the trees
become old they can be felled for wood, which is in great demand in the
low-cost furniture market.
TWO
On the face of it, one may find it as nothing more than a
reel life sequence from a 70s blockbuster showing a Mother India like character
taking on dreaded dacoits with her emotional dialogues. That it can happen in
real life too, was something not many would have believed till Sarjna returned
to her Greater Noida (National Capital Region, Bharat) house with her husband,
safe and sound. A lecturer at a college in Greater Noida, Ajit Singh was on his
way home from Agra when he was kidnapped by a gang of dacoits from Chambal
ravines. In the ransom call that Sarjna received the next day, the kidnapper,
identified himself as Bheema (a listed notorious brigand of the Chambals),
demanded Rs 5 lakh for the safe release of Ajit. The dacoits refused any
negotiation on the ransom amount. She set off for the Chambals after informing
the dacoits that she was coming to deliver the ransom and take her husband
back. And it was this very act of hers that left the Bheema's gang so impressed
that they declared themselves as her brothers. Not only verbal claims, the
brigands gave Rs 5,100 to her from the ransom amount as 'a gift for their
sister'. They also returned her gold earrings as a token of their appreciation
and set the couple free but not before begging them for forgiveness. The
dacoits were so impressed by the determination of Sarjna to ensure safe release
of her husband and her courage to walk over 10 kilometres into the Chambal
ravines all alone, that they could not help appreciating her decision. Daughter
of a retired jailor, Sarjna was pursuing her studies at Lucknow University over
a decade ago when she fell in love with her classmate Ajit Singh. Following
objections from the family, they eloped and got married.
From THE TIMES OF INDIA, August 11,
2010
THREE
When I studied linguistics in college (way
back in the 20th century), “generative grammar” was all the rage. This was the
algorithmic syntax put forward by Noam Chomsky, who proposed that all natural
languages have an underlying structure that can be teased out and modeled as a
rigorous system of rules. What no one told me was that generative grammar had
been invented earlier in India — 2,500 years earlier, in fact. Sometime around
500 B.C., the ancient scholar Panini analyzed the Sanskrit language at a level
of complexity that has never been matched since, for any language. His grammar,
the Ashtadhyayi, comprises some 4,000 rules meant to generate all the possible
sentences of Sanskrit from roots of sound and meaning — phonemes and morphemes.
Sound familiar? Panini’s grammar of Sanskrit bears more than a family
resemblance to a modern programming language. As Chandra says, the grammar is
itself “an algorithm, a machine that consumes phonemes and morphemes and
produces words and sentences.” This is not a coincidence. American syntactic
theory, Chomsky channelling Panini, formed the soil in which the computer
languages grew.
From a book review by Shri James Gleick in
THE NEW YORK TIMES, August 24, 2014. The book: Geek Sublime by Shri
Vikram Chandra (Graywolf Press. Paper, $16).
FOUR
On Monday, June 16, 2014, life in the heart of Chennai
came to a halt to save a life. In a textbook example of precise coordination
between surgeons of two hospitals and the city traffic police, a medical team
transported a heart from Government General Hospital to Fortis Malar Hospitals
in Adyar, about 12 km away, in less than 14 minutes by creating a "green
corridor" - that is, red-light free access along the Beach Road and
Santhome High Road, two of the busiest stretches. Normally, a vehicle takes 45
minutes to cover the stretch at peak hour. A human heart can be preserved for
up to four hours, but experts say the earlier the transplant, the higher the
chances of success. Karunasagar, the Additional Commissioner of police
(traffic), was informed about the need to transport the organ. C Kathir, a
seasoned ambulance driver, was chosen for the mission. Deputy Commissioner
Sivanandan had charted the route the ambulance would take. By 3pm, he had in
place 26 of his men at the 12 intersections the ambulance was to pass. As the
vehicle passed each signal - touching 100 kmph at times - a pilot radioed in
the location to the control room as also the police teams along the corridor.
At the private hospital, the parents of Hvovi Minocherchomji, a 21-year-old
B.Com student from Mumbai, received the heart - the mother in tears, the father
with a prayer on his lips. As soon as the heart was brought, the transplant
began. By 10.15 pm, the heart was beating in the patient's chest.
Based on a report by Karthikeyan Hemalatha & Janani
Sampath in THE TIMES OF INDIA, June 17, 2014
FIVE
Prashant, son of a construction worker and
Ragahavendra Valmiki, son of a daily wage earner, secured the 255th and 1007th
ranks in IIT-JEE respectively, thanks to ‘Tapas‘ (http://www.tapasedu.org/), a free residential
programme of Rashtrotthana Parishat, Bengaluru (Karnataka, Bharat) which has
avowed to turn the dreams of the brightest among the underprivileged into
reality. It is an organization inspired by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
(RSS). Tapas was started in 2012. Every year Tapas selects 30-40 most promising
boys, studying in Class X and offers them free Pre University education and
trains them for the IIT-JEE. As many as 34 students from very poor backgrounds
have completed PU-II this year thanks to ‘Tapas’. The students selected for the
programme have fared well in CET, JEE Main and JEE Advanced too. This year, 30
out of 34 students qualified in JEE Main and were eligible to appear for JEE
Advanced and 7 have qualified in the JEE-Advanced and have become eligible for
entry into Indian Institute of Technology. “At Tapas we focus on building
character along with sharpening their skills for entering IITs,” said Dinesh
Hegde, General Secretary, Rashtrotthana Parishat. Dr H.S. Nagaraja, Founder
Director of BASE (Be Ahead with Sustained Excellence), said, “There are lots of
students in the weaker sections of the society from rural areas who excel in
their studies and seek the right training.” A day’s schedule includes Yoga,
meditation, plenty of time for reading, interactive sessions with achievers
like Magsaysay award winner Dr. Harish Hande regularly to enhance their
self-confidence.
Based on a report by Shri Prashanth
Vaidyaraj in Samvada.org, June 27, 2014
