Sunday, May 17, 2015

PANCHAAMRITAM 273

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PANCHAAMRITAM 273
(pancha is five in samskritam; amritam is nectar)
Amavaasya / Kali Yugabda 5117 / Manmatha Vaikasi 3 (May 17, 2015)

ONE

 

During the recent earthquake in Nepal, Butham Sai, a 14-year-old orphan from Rama Krishnapauram Colony in Timmapur mandal, Karimnagar district (Telangana, Bharat), rescued five children,  three boys and two girls, all aged below four, by evacuating them from a toppling building in Kathmandu while everyone was trying to save themselves. Sai had migrated to Nepal two years back with the help of his paternal uncle. He was taking care of the children of his uncle and some relatives. Around a hundred families from RK Colony live in rented houses in the Shinamangal area of Kathmandu. On the day of the earthquake, Sai was watching TV along with the other children. “I realized it was a earthquake only when the TV set fell on the children. I then started shifting the children to the road,” said Sai. “A flying piece of tin cut my left eyebrow, resulting in bleeding, when I was trying to rescue my uncle’s children, eight-month-old Venkata Sai and one-year-old Indu.” The other children who Sai rescued were Ganesh (4), Anu (3) and Shivani (3), children of other residents of RK Colony. (Based on a report in DECCAN CHRONICLE May 08, 2015).


TWO




Light of education is spreading in backward, tribal and remote areas of Madhya Pradesh. Two students from the most marginalised Baiga tribe in (Madhya Pradesh, Bharat)  have cracked the Indian Institutes of Technology Joint Entrance Examination (IIT-JEE) Main exams and have become eligible to sit for the JEE (Advanced) 2015 scheduled to be held on May 24, 2015.  If the students Geeta Tekam and Santosh Kumar qualify the IIT-JEE (Advanced) exams, they will be eligible for admission into one of the most prestigious engineering colleges of India. Both the students live in acute poverty and their  mortgaged everything to fund their education. Eighteen-year-old Geeta Tekam is the first girl of Baiga tribe to see the dream to study in IIT. She has already cracked JEE-Main. Her labourer parents, living in acute poverty at Sunehra village in Mandla, preferred to choose her for academics than two sons.  Santosh Kumar of Jablpur is the second talent of Baiga community. A resident of Paundi village, Santosh is not sure about the branch of engineering he would opt for in future, but he has big aspirations. In fact as many as 135 children from different tribes have cleared IIT-JEE Main exams 2015 from Madhya Pradesh. All of them, including Geeta and Satosh are being provided special coaching by the state administration for IIT-JEE Advanced exam. Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has congratulated the duo for their success.  Over 13 lakh students had appeared for the IIT-JEE Main exams 2015. (Based on reports in IBNLive.com May 7, 2015 &  http://www.mpnewsonline.com)
THREE


Hiware Bazar - Located in the Ahmednagar district (Maharashtra, Bharat)  has transformed from being a place fraught with issues to being possibly the richest village in IndiaFrom 168 Below Poverty Line families in 1995, Hiware Bazar now has just three. The village, which has 235 families and a population of around 1,250, now also boasts of 60 millionaires. The cement houses along well-planned, clean roads are pinkish brown. There is a sense of discipline and order. Liquor and tobacco are banned. So is open defecation and urination. Every house has a toilet, a fact that few Indian villages can boast of. The fields are lush with maize, jowar, bajra, onions and potatoes. Hiware Bazar is an oasis in a drought-affected area. Earlier it was not like this.  There were 22 liquor shops in the village.  Alcoholism had made them poor and addicted. Popatrao Pawar, 52, the only postgraduate in Hiware Bazar  was elected Sarpanch unopposed. Pawar realised he had got the chance of a lifetime to usher in change. He got the liquor shops closed. He got the gram sabha to tie up with the Bank of Maharashtra to grant loans to poor families, including those who were brewing illicit liquor earlier. He got the villagers to voluntarily help in rainwater harvesting. Soon, the villagers built 52 earthen bunds, two percolation tanks, 32 stone bunds and nine check dams. Water management helped them harvest multiple crops. Before 1995, there were 90 open wells with water at 80-125 feet. Today, there are 294 open wells with water at 15-40 feet. In 2007, the village won the National Water Award for community-led water conservation. There is no doctor in the village. There is no need of a doctor here as everyone is healthy. No one can fall sick when the streets and houses are clean.The gram panchayat has now decided that the second daughter’s education and marriage expenses will be taken care of by the village. The village has just one Muslim family and as there was no mosque for them to offer prayers, one was built for them. Banabhai Sayed and his family take part in all Hindu festivals and effortlessly sing Hindu bhajans. (Based on a report by Shri Ramesh Menon in TEHELKA MAGAZINE, October 20, 2012).

FOUR



At Ganganagar locality of Meerut (Uttar Pradesh, Bharat) is the house named Satyakam. Twelve  children live in the house, all of them HIV-positive and blessed to have found parents in Ajay Sharma, 41, a former teacher at the Government Inter College in nearby Phalwada, and his wife Babita, who teaches at the Ismail Degree College.  Ten years ago, Ajay had a brain haemorrhage and slipped into a coma for 15 days. This close encounter with death helped him “understand the importance of being alive”, says Ajay, dictating his decision to quit his full-time job and dedicate the rest of his life to the cause of underprivileged children. Wife Babita has been a pillar of support; it’s her salary that Satyakam runs on. The couple has two biological children of their own.  The couple enforces a strict daily regimen of yoga, timely meals and sleeping early to ensure a healthy and disciplined lifestyle for the 12 children. They have to be coaxed, however, to take the bitter medicines twice a day. In the end, though, it remains just a semblance of normalcy, the harsh truth never too far behind. One child, Balwant has already reached Stage II of the disease and knows his condition may worsen any day. Aniket, 11, lived in Satyakam for over two years before his relatives finally accepted him and he went back to stay with them. The Sharmas adopted their youngest, Samrat, from a hospital when he was an emaciated and malnourished kid of two. Five today, he is ecstatic to have a family to call his own. The couple wishes to adopt more kids and increase the number to 50. Right now, the adoption laws don’t allow them to take in girls with the boys. So the Sharmas are planning to rent out a separate house for girl children infec­ted with HIV soon. Their motto is very clear. “I want these 12 children to reach out and help a hundred like them,” says Ajay. Hope multiplied. (Based on a report by Smt Sakshi Virmani in OUTLOOK magazine, September 15 2014).
FIVE



For once, the porters did not indulge in any bargain, but rose up to the occasion voluntarily and promptly after the blast at Chennai Central on May 1, 2014, rescuing the injured and rushing them to proper medicare after first aid. And Southern Railway decided to reward the licensed porters for their Good Samaritan act when its General Manager Rakesh Mishra lauded the timely effort that helped to prevent blood loss and agony. “This is no just reward but means more to us. It’s recognition for us coolie porters,” — was the common refrain of the group of porters who were honoured on May 5. “Chennai Central is more than my house…it’s my temple,” says A. Hameed Basha, 34, a licensed porter who was honoured on the occasion. “This is our livelihood, and we would strive to safeguard the passengers whom we don’t even know by their names, denominations or destinations, when the situation demands,” Shri. Basha says, even as his comrades Shri  Kalyani, Shri N. Murugan and Shri B. Pandian nod in agreement. “Even if such unfortunate circumstances recurred, we would not hesitate to help, unmindful of the danger to our life and limbs,” the porters, who number around 300 at the Central’s 11 platforms, reiterated off the dais. (A report in THE HINDU, May 6, 2014).
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Wednesday, May 13, 2015

PANCHAAMRITAM 272

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PANCHAAMRITAM 272
(pancha is five in samskritam; amritam is nectar)
Poornima / Kali Yugabda 5117 / Manmatha Chithirai 20 (May 3, 2015)

This issue of PANCHAAMRITAM could be posted only on May 13; the delay is due to unavoidable reasons. – Moderator.

ONE
On Tamil New Year’s Day (Mid April), a group of Indian Institute of Technology-Madras (IIT-M) students donated unused bicycles to needy students in nine villages near Tiruvallur (Tamilnadu, Bharat). A total of 53 school students were given bicycles that were abandoned at IIT-M by alumni. A group of youngsters from IIT-M joined together to reach out to needy students through the ‘IViL-IIT for villages’ programme. “We learnt that several school children dropped out because of lack of transport. We came up with an idea to identify abandoned bicycles on the campus and repair them with funds from various organisations. It was encouraging to see the excitement on the children’s faces after the bicycle were distributed,” said Bhanu Chander V., an MS research scholar at IIT-M. The members of ‘IViL-IIT for villages’ also take classes and teach computer science in their spare time. “We have now made posters intimating students who are completing their courses to donate their old bicycles, in order to reach out to more students,” says Bhanu Chander. Their next goal is to provide solar table lamps, which are being designed, to schools. IIT-M students joined hands with Srinivasan Services Trust to identify school children in dire need of better transportation. (Till very recently, K. Sandhya, a class VII student of Tiruvallur Panchayat Union Middle School, would wake up early to help her parents in the fields and do housework. She would then prepare for a half-hour walk to her school in Aayalur near Sevvapet. She no longer has to endure the ordeal of long walks as she now has a bicycle). (Based on a report by Smt K. Lakshmi in THE HINDU, April 19, 2015).
TWO
He had a dream job with IBM in London, a swanky car and all the luxuries a 27 year-old could possibly imagine. But after working for four years, Shuvajit Payne decided that this was not what he wanted to live for. He wanted to do something meaningful in life rather than making a multinational company richer! Shuvajit Payne graduated in economics from the Presidency College, Kolkata. He then did MBA from Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow in finance and marketing and went abroad like many of his peers. Bracing stiff resistance from parents, society and of course friends, Shuvajit moved ahead in his pursuit to build a better India. A friend suggested that State Bank of India’s Youth for India program would be an ideal platform to take the plunge. Supported by SBI, the 13-month long programme gives an opportunity to youngsters to work on rural development projects with experienced non-government organisations. They are provided with a stipend and connected with NGOs to work towards building solutions to help people, who don’t even have access to basic facilities. Presently, 54 fellows are working on a number of projects at 35 villages in 10 states. After the basic training, he was posted to a village called Waifad in Wardha district of Maharashtra. Since the Vidarbha region (Maharashtra, Bharat) was prone to farmer suicides, people wanted to move out of villages in search of greener pastures. If 2 or 3 children from a family get better jobs, they can plough their income back to farming. So it is very important that they find good jobs, according to Suvajit. He trained about 300 students in interesting ways. The happiness, satisfaction and sense of achievement, this job gives is irreplaceable, explains Shuvajit as he continues to live his dream of building a better India. (Based on a report by Smt A.B. Manu in Rediff.com, May 11, 2015). Idea: Shri. Vasuvaj.

THREE
Located in a dilapidated building tucked away in a nondescript corner of Nizampura in Girmajipet of Warangal city (Andhra, Bharat) is the Bhagavad Gita Vidyalaya. The school has been constantly producing hundreds of young scholars in Sanskrit and Bhagavad Gita every year for six decades. The school was set up by two philanthropists Mudumbai Ramanuja Charyulu and Motupally Krishnamacharyulu. It secured government recognition in 1971 and was upgraded into a high school a decade later. According to the school management, of the 300 students, 120 are Muslims and 30 Christians. Initially, only Hindu students used to join the school, which incidentally is located in a Muslim-dominated area. Of late, many Muslim and Christian students have joined the institution. In the recent state-level competition in Bhagavad Gita recitation conducted by the Jeeyar Educational Trust and the Gita Trust, four Muslim students won gold medals: Kulsum of Class I, Sadia Feroze of Class VI, and Saba Sultana and Muskan of Class IX. Sanskrit and Bhagavad Gita are taught as compulsory subjects, apart from the regular curriculum prescribed by the state government.
FOUR
It was 8.40 in the night on April 29 when I found out to utter horror that my bag was   missing. My bus was due to depart at 9.00 pm that night from the Koyambedu Bus Terminus, Chennai (Tamilnadu, Bharat). After cancelling my journey, I was standing in front of the terminus nonplussed. I had travelled by an autorickshaw to reach the terminus from my residence. I lodged a complaint with the police by calling control room number 100. Even while I waited at the police booth nearby, the control room official informed me that the bag could be traced as the auto driver Varadarajan himself had informed the control room about an unclaimed bag in his vehicle. Shri Varadarajan drove in in his auto with my bag by 10.55 pm. The contents – my ipad and smartphone - were intact. I joined the police officials in thanking and patting varadarajan for his honesty. (An experience narrated by PANCHAAMRITAM reader Shri Nambi Narayanan to Team PANCHAAMRITAM).
FIVE
The Sri Dattagiri Maharaj Vedic Pathashala located in an ashram in the Bardipur village (Telangana, Bharat) has an ambiance just like any other ashram - quiet and peaceful. Established around 55 years ago this ashram teaches the children the vedas and the mantras and offer a course that trains them in becoming a priest themselves. But the uniqueness of the ashram lies in the fact that religion and caste are not taken into consideration for admission. In Hinduism, the post of a priest has always been conventionally held by a Brahmin and this ashram emphasises on changing that mentality. The best example of this is Naveen Naik, a shy student at the school. Naveen, who turned just 14 in April 2015, is a tribal boy from Narsapur in the Marpalli mandal of Ranga Reddy district. Though this may not mean much to a person in a metropolis, it is a huge step forward when it comes to abolishing caste-based discrimination that is prevalent in India. Naveen comes from a humble background. His father, Raju Naik, is a daily wage labourer and has fought a lot of social stigma to ensure that his son would become a priest someday. Currently as many as 60 students are studying in the school and they plan to take 30 more students for the next academic year. It is a four-year course, with an exam after each year. (Based on a report by Shri Nitin B. In THE NEWS MINUTE, May 5, 2015).  Idea: Shri M. Venkatesan.
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