Thursday, April 28, 2016

PANCHAAMRITAM 296

0 comments


PANCHAAMRITAM 296
(pancha is five in samskritam; amritam is nectar)
Poornima / Kali Yugabda 5118 / Durmuki Chithirai 8 (April 21, 2016)

*Posted on April 25, 2016*

ONE

I had mentioned in the passing that if you could bear the load of Rs 1,500 to Rs 2,000 per year, then why don’t you give up gas subsidy, so that the poor families could benefit.   I am happy to tell you that one crore families have voluntarily given up subsidy on gas cylinder. There are several modes to do that – through the mobile phone app, online or give a missed call. But I find that 80 percent of the one crore families went to the distributor, stood in queue and gave in writing that they were surrendering the subsidy. They were not rich. They mostly belonged to the lower middle class section – consisting of retired school teachers, retired clerks, farmers or small time traders. I am proud of all of them. By this move they have sent out a message to the political class and economists that the common man should be taken into confidence. Once it is done, unprecedented results ensue. (Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi in his monthly radio talk ‘Mann Ki baat’ aired on April 24, 2016).

TWO

 
Shri Somnath Giram, a 30-year-old tea-seller of Pune, is set to turn into the symbol of education in Maharashtra. His struggle has impressed Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis who finds him the most appropriate aam aadmi to boost the state’s education campaign. He has been roped in by the BJP-led state government to motivate students across universities in the state by narrating his inspiring story. Son of a farmer in Solapur, Giram migrated to Pune (Maharashtra, Bharat) in 2006, after his family was unable to bear his education cost. He was a BCom dropout who came to the city, hoping to complete his education and find an alternative job as well. Giram had to work as a tea-seller in the city. Throughout the day, he used to sell tea at his stall, earning roughly Rs 10,000-12,000. After a tiring day, he used to study in the nights. This process continued for nearly 10 years during which he pursued BCom, MCom and finally cleared Chartered Accountancy (CA). Completing the CA course was an unprecedented achievement, especially for a person who was working hard to earn his daily bread. The course has a success rate of merely 5 per cent. Maharashtra government chose him as their first layman ambassador. Giram is currently employed by an accountancy firm based in Pune. He has rented his tea-stall to migrants from his village. The CA is all set to lecture college students on behalf of the Maharashtra government and inspire them to adopt his ‘earn and learn’ module of studying. (From a report by Shri Mohammed Uzair Shaikh in http://www.india.com/news/india/somnath-giram-1128802/ on April 22, 2016).
THREE



A woman two wheeler rider – Sivagayathri, 36 - was killed in a road accident in Velachery, Chennai, when a blue metal laden truck ran over her. Two girl students who were nearby swung into action. They covered the body properly. Informed the relatives and police. Aiswarya, an MBA student and Jesi, a journalism student stood guard over the body till police reached. Aiswarya tried to reach the relatives of the deceased using Sivagayathri’s mobile. But, as it was in locked mode she spoke to her office number found on the ID card. When colleagues from Sivagayathri’s office arrived, she spoke to Sivagayathri’s father with their help. Both the students struggled for an hour to locate Sivagayathri’s father and broke the news without alarming him. The police personnel lauded the efforts of the girls. Just recently the Supreme Court had accepted the government of India’s announcement that those who help road accident victims would be protected from police and legal harassment. The two girls put that to test by their action. Aiswarya and Jesy said they learnt that contact numbers of relatives should be kept in a written form so that it would help matters in an emergency (Based on a report in DINAMALAR, April 20, 2016).

 
FOUR


A young man in his thirties used to stand on the footpath opposite the famous Tata Cancer Hospital at Mumbai (Maharashtra, Bharat) and stare at the crowd in front- fear plainly written upon the faces of the patients standing at death’s door; their relatives with equally grim faces running around. These sights disturbed him greatly. Most of the patients were poor people from distant towns. They had no idea whom to meet, or what to do. They had no money for medicines, not even food. At last he found a way- He rented out his own hotel that was doing good business and raised some money. From these funds he started a charitable activity right opposite Tata Cancer Hospital, on the pavement. The activity consisted of providing free meals for cancer patients and their relatives. Beginning with fifty, the numbers of patients increased, so did the number of helping hands. The number soon reached 700. Shri  Harakhchand Sawla, for that was the name of the pioneer, did not stop here. He started supplying free medicines for the needy. A toy banks was opened for kids suffering from cancer. The ‘Jeevan Jyot’ trust founded by Sawla now runs more than 60 humanitarian projects. Sawla, now 57 years old, works with the same vigour. (From THE INDIAN EXPRESS, FEBRUARY 10, 2015). Idea: Shri S. Nagarajan.

FIVE


Shri Chandrakumar, an MBA from Tiruchy (Tamilnadu, Bharat), felt restless over the shifting fortunes at work place. In order to put an end to all this, he toyed with the idea of a start up. Shri Kamaraj and Shri Sathish Kumar, also MBAs who had similar aspirations, joined him. Chandra Kumar as a boy had worked as a newspaper delivery hand. His customers used to ask him whether he needed old paper. He had no use for it then. Now he decided to go door to door, buy old newpapers and sell them using technology. They launched a site www.kuppavandi.com in 2012, wherein Tiruchy residents could convey to the team the time and date for paper collection. The trio confirmed the same and began procuring old paper. They did smooth business in this manner.  At the outset, families dismissed them as lads dealing in old paper, but once they learnt of the background of the trio, they invited them inside to occasional refreshments and coffee. Gradually they diversified the business – procuring any used domestic article from electrical gadgets to empty milk sachets to old furniture. They visit 10 to 15 families in a locality in a day and shift locality the day next. Clad in blue uniform the trio move about in a mini lorry, collect articles, pay the estimated amount and dump them in a rented warehouse. The articles are segregated and resold to those who need them. As  a service activity they place saplings in plastic containers that come their way and donate them to the families they do business with.  (Based on a report by Shri L. Murugaraj in DINAMALAR, September 15, 2015).

OOOOOOO
If you want your friend or someone to receive PANCHAAMRITAM in the inbox regularly, please ask the person to send an email to

It is FREE!
OOOOOOOOO


Tuesday, April 12, 2016

PANCHAAMRITAM 295

0 comments


PANCHAAMRITAM 295
(pancha is five in samskritam; amritam is nectar)
Amavaasya / Kali Yugabda 5117 / Manmatha Panguni 25 (April 7, 2016)

ONE

26 infants were evacuated safely after a fire broke out at a district general hospital in Kalaburagi (Karnataka, Bharat) March 23, 2016. The fire was triggered by a short-circuit in an air-conditioner in the infants emergency ward (NICU) of the district hospital. Thanks to presence of mind shown by employees at the hospital, no lives were lost. One of the hospital employees, Fakirappa, immediately broke open the glass door and windows with his bare hands, and with the support of nurses, parents, and other people present, immediately brought all the 26 newborn infants out of the emergency ward. The children would have otherwise faced high risk of getting suffocated. The incident took place during the lunch break, it is said. The presence of mind of the two male nurses and a medical attendant in the Dental wing in the hospital saved the day for the authorities. The trio did not wait for instructions, rushed to the ward and started breaking the windows in the air-tight NICU ward, allowing the smoke, which had engulfed the room to escape and saved the lives of the infants. (Based on media reports including one by THE HINDU, March 24, 2016).
TWO



I tried making sense of it (RSS role) walking the familiar old Brahmaputra promenade, the river on the left and on the right the zone that formed the epicentre of the Assam movement. I retraced my steps to the tiny Shukreshwar Temple astride the embankment. Like other reporters then, I would climb these steps often to meet a single man with a mysterious half-smile. Kumud Narayan Sarma, whose family had hereditary control of the temple, was dean of the law faculty at Gauhati University (Assam, Bharat) and lived in its one-room outhouse. His fame came not from his scholarship but from the power of his favourite “students”, the leaders of AASU, to whom he was formally an advisor. Everybody agreed there was something intriguing about AASU’s key interlocutor, who left Home Minister Zail Singh infuriated with his talk-talk/fight-fight approach. I could never say so conclusively, but there was much to him that suggested a deep RSS connection, beginning with his utterly spartan lifestyle in the compound of his little old temple, and the understated suppleness with which he handled his enormous power. He, along with his wards, was also incorruptible, which Zail Singh and his spooks complained about most of all. From a column by Shri Shekhar Gupta in BUSINESS STANDARD April 8, 2016 (http://www.business-standard.com/article/opinion/shekhar-gupta-assam-s-35-year-saffronisation-116040800961_1.html).

THREE



Meet Shri Natarajan, a retired bank official. Unlike most retirees, he travels 50 kilometres to attend to  his ‘Samajam’ work early in the day. Probably ‘Chennapuri Annadaana Samajam’ is the only organisation in India involved uninterruptedly for over 125 years in annadaanam. Mugalur Kannaiya Chetty born in a poor family in 1863 was saddened at the sight of numerous people starving as he walked to his school. After he was employed, he set aside four ‘annas’ (25 paise) from his first salary. Some of his colleagues too pitched in with contributions ranging from quarter of an anna to one anna and it all added up to three rupees. He deposited the amount with a hotel owner with a request to provide one time meal for 12 adults and 6 kids among the poor for one month – preference was to be shown to the disabled and the blind. The first meal was served on March 11, 1889.  Later Kannaiya Chetty arranged for twice a day feeding. In the course of one year, the number of beneficiaries grew to 300. A philanthropist by name Krishnadas donated his two storey building on Nainiappa Naicken Street in Park Town of Chennai (Tamilnadu, Bharat) for those poor to sit and take food. It is this building that witnessed the annadaanam for over 125 years. When Swami Vivekananda visited Chennai, he said that it was the place where he must have his food. He came to the samajam, sat with the poor, partook of the meal served there and blessed the Samajam team. Shri Udayshankar, the present secretary of the Samajam, is a retired bank official like Natarajan (Mobile: 9884186834.), one of the directors there. (Based on a report by Shri L. Murugaraj in DINAMALAR, September 9, 2015).

FOUR



In 2008, a farmer in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra committed suicide. He was survived by his wife, four children, and his very old father. Three of the four children were girls. The eldest daughter, Deepa, was 14 at the time. Sapna was 11, and Swati was about 7 years old. The family was thoroughly shaken by their loss. Today, Deepa is 22 years old and is working in a hospital after finishing her diploma in nursing. Sapna recently completed the same and Swati is in the second year of a BSc Yoga Education course in Bengaluru. They are educated, confident, and completely aware of how they want to plan their futures. The one person who made it all possible for them is Shri Ajeet Saxena, who is currently posted as the Chief Commercial Manager of Southern Railways in Chennai (Tamilnadu, Bharat) – a man who refers to these three girls and 200 other children from the region as his own.   He took 10 days of leave from work and headed to Vidarbha. There, with the help of some volunteers of the Sarvodaya Movement in Sevagram village, he met 29 families of farmers in about 15 villages.  “After seeing these girls for the first time, I sat inside their hut and cried, thinking of what would happen to them. They had nothing to look forward to,” he says. Ajeet returned to Chennai after giving the farmers his phone number and asking them to call him in case they felt depressed. Being a regular speaker on spirituality, he addressed many people in a Rotary Club in Chennai, a few days after he returned. Many came forward asking what they could do to help. He opened bank accounts in the villages for some of these children (Based on a report by Smt Tanaya Singh in http://www.thebetterindia.com/50248/ajeet-saxena,  April 4, 2016).

FIVE



Today, Srikanth Bolla is the CEO of Hyderabad-based Bollant Industries, a company with a turnover of around Rs 10 crore that employs uneducated and physically challenged people to manufacture eco-friendly, disposable consumer packaging solutions out of natural leaf and recycled paper. 24 years ago Bolla was born sightless in a remote village (Andhra Pradesh, Bharat). In 2012, after graduating from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), he launched Bollant Industries. The company now has around 450 employees, 60 per cent of whom are differently-abled. Life, he says, has taught him many lessons. Compassion is one of them. “Compassion,” he says, “is not about giving a coin to a beggar at the traffic signal. It’s showing somebody the way to live and giving them the opportunity to thrive.” The world looked at him and said you can do nothing, says Bolla. “But I look up at the world and say I can do anything." (Based on a report by Shri T E Narasimhan and Shri Gireesh Babu  in BUSINESS STANDARD, April 2, 2016).

OOOOOOO
If you want your friend or someone to receive PANCHAAMRITAM in the inbox regularly, please ask the person to send an email to

It is FREE!
OOOOOOOOO