An Initiative by Tamil Nadu Government

In a pioneering initiative  by the Tamil Nadu  is quite 

admirable step towards the education of rural and needy children. Chief Minister Jayalalita is providing free laptops to students of government-run and government-aide higher secondary schools,arts and science colleges. The scheme, which will cover 912,000 students this year at a cost of Rs. 912 crore, is designed to give a major boost to information technology literacy. Social welfare programmes intended to increase enrollment and reduce dropout rates in schools are not to Tamil Nadu, which was first state to introduce a comprehensive mid day meal scheme.Boys and girls in the schools run by government are being provided free uniforms and text books. From this year, under another novel scheme envisaged by the chief minister, pupils in classes 10th, 11th and 12th will be given cash incentives to complete schooling. Even in this context, the free laptops scheme is exceptional-backed by a serious pedagogic effort, it could have a far-reaching impact on improving access to higher education for boys and girls from poor and needy families across the State. All higher secondary schools in Tamil Nadu have computer labs but students do not get sufficient exposure to computing, not to mention coding and programming. The free laptop scheme could open up a whole new world of knowledge based opportunities to a generation of students who hope to do well in higher education and then in the job market.

Equipping and appointing trained computer teachers should be the next big step towards achieving the universality in computer education.

They've Set Up Bonds With Old Age House

 None can deny that relationship matter. It protects us from the dog-eat-dog world. Love and friendship act as buffers to the horror of human competition,but it's lacking today,affecting the elderly people.
Doctors, Philosophers and Sociologist have been pointing to the fact that they have fallen prey to a clash between two generations.
They have said this is the reason why the status of elderly people is changing, causing loneliness to them.
The city, where number of old age homes is rising is also witnessing this problem. Also, a research work done under under the guidance of Asha Shukla, HOD of Centre for Women Studies. says,"Bhopal tops in cases of old age abuse," One such lonely lady is 72 years old Moni says, "i am happy here,enjoying my life. I dont want to disturb my granchildren's studies" May be she is happy, but one can very well fathom her mental agony and pangs of loneliness she's suffering from.
Like Soni, there are thousands of senior citizens, living in old age homes in the city.
With lump in his voice, Rajesh, who is living in old age home, says,"I was very happywith mywife, son and daughter-in-law. But after the death of my wife,my son and daughter-in-law changed their attitude towards me."
"They told me to leave the house,as they can't afford me anymore," he adds.
"May be my wife was working as maid for them. So they're keeping me. Thats why i was forced to live in the old age house after her death. Now i have my own world . i have lots of friends who are alone like me. We are enjoying our life."
Physical problem too, sometimes forces one to live in old age homes. Children of many people are settled abroad. Such people too feel isolated and choose to nlive in old age homes. An old couple, Mahesh and Mitali are living in Lions Senior Citizen Home, They say, "We have only one son and who lives abroad,so we have chosen to stay here, enjoying our life."
There are three big old age homes in the city-Anand Dham, Karunalay and Lions Senior Citizen Home.
Dr RP Mishra, president of Anand Dham says," Our purpose is to provide shelter to the homeless, right now we have 22 men and 16 women."
There are three catagories of people who come to live in the home. Those who are homeless come stay till death. Secondly those who whi live temporarily return to their houses if the situation permits. Thirdly, those who come for only for day time return home in the dusk.
The4 is appointed with health care and yoga training facilities. Thosev who are3 above 60 years are eligible to stay there. Karunalay, where ten people live, is basically meant for the Christian. The Lions Senior Citizen Home is appointed with free homeopathic treatment, games, yoga and other other facilities. This is basically a paid old age home which charge between Rs 2500 and Rs 3000 per month. Prem Lata, manager of the home says " The people come here from various district like Guna, Gwalior, Sagar and Jabalpur. They are living here happily, enjoying the company of others." Blame it on generation gap or economic liberalisation or lack of education at a time when the elderly people need special care, they have to leave their houses only to live in old age homes-broken. Emotional isolation it's true, breaks down both body and soul.
"Bridging gap between the two generations is needed, Says Aasha Shukla Hod of the Centre3 of Women Studies, Bhopal "  She further says," The elderly people have fallen victim to this generation gap."
Post retirement is the best part of life, but at this age, they are being neglected, Those who are young say about the elderly people, 'Buddha Sethiya gya hai." this kind of abusive language should not be used against the elderly people, she says. She also says only education can help solving this problem, as after five years 40 percent of the population will be old. A research work done under her guidance says the generation gap is the main reason for rising number of old age homes.She has also started an old age care certificate cource for the young generation.

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Census 2011

The census 2011 has brought some developing and contradictory findings. One of it is the increasing population to 121 crores with an increasing of 18 crores in just a decade. According to experts we will reach to first position beating China in next two decades. Is this distribution fair? One more important finding is the increasing literacy rate from 68% to 75%. This bring some satisfaction to our mind. And sure this leaves a quarter of the population still illiterate. But it is heartning to note that female literacy has gone up sharply, moving up 11.7 % to 65.46%. Male literacy too, has climbed a little bit more slowly, rising 8% to reach 82.14 % .But is this literacy rate sufficient for this modern time. Perhaps not because we knows that Japan's literacy rate is 99.0% and China's 93.3. And still women are less literate than male person in the country. So there is a lot more to do and develop.child sex ratio slow down to 914 from 927 girls for every 1000 boys. This figure is again arising question against government's schemes for saving girl child, but I am not emphasizing on child sex ratio because if we will work on education ratio, automatically it will affect the women infanticide positively. 

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Can't Bit and Reins Expressions...!

Every world in the first amendment gives us the freedom to do what we do every day. The freedom of religion lets us go to church. The freedom to assemble peaceably lets us protest and strike on the streets. And the freedom of speech lets us say what we want to say. Isn’t saying what we wanting say the same andwriting what we want to say? Freedom of the press lets us write articles on controversial subjects and no one bans those. Yet, books like "Great Soul: Mahatama Gandhi & his Struggle"are banned even though we have the freedom of speech. Banning this book is in violation of our rights stated in the first amendment because banning something is the same as saying to not write it at all. The freedom of speech is our thoughts, what we feel, expressed into words. the book written by Joseph Lelyveid is his thoughts and experiences.
The Maharashtra government banned the book as blaming that he tried to portray the Gandhi as bisexual. There is no doubt over that Gandhi ji is the father of  nation, great freedom fighter & a well known inspirational personality for us. But we should accept all these things also with his drawbacks. Even almighty god have few drawbacks, why we are ignoring Gandhi's.......! Even Gandhi himself recorded his experiments with sexuality in his autobiography. There is no doubt that Gandhi wrote uninhibitedly about his love for Kallenbach, even more warmly than what he wrote about other men dear to him like Andrews.

 Is there any parameter for banning the books????

Banning books or attacking art work is not new in our country. The works of Tasleema Nasreen, Salman Rushdie & MF Hussain have became easy prey to this tendency . It is a democratic country having the right for 'freedom of speech & expression.' Banning a book is a drastic power vested in the government.

How could we bit  and reins a writer's view????

A democratic society must always be open for new ideas & fact. Banning the book is wrong from every point of view and doubly so in the light of Gandhi's commitment to freedome of speech.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Let The Window Open.........                                                                      

Supreme Court's decision to grant Jamia Islamia a minority status is a welcome move and celebrated by some of youth chunks . A few days ago Sacchar committee report declared that Muslim community are more backward than other sc/st. Therefore Supreme Court have taken this step to improve their condition by promoting them for heigher education.

Jamia was established in 1920 as they wanted muslim to keep their education in own hands as it was British period and established as a reaction to British interference in Aligarh's Muhammedan Anglo Oriental College started by sir Sayyad Ahmed Khan. But what is its need in todays democratic country,Where Muslim could not be understimated in any institution of the country.Let them live with other community so that they mix up with other religious culture and get familiar with them.If our constitution is not marking difference between muslim and other religion in India all are equal  then why we are differentiating them in collage by providing this minority status. It will affect the competative environment of the collage. Before taking this decision, SC should concern with students polls because it is an universityty not school.and at this level students are enough mature to take decisions.Declaration of minority institution will tie up the students among their muslim crowd.Article 25 of our constitution gives the freedome of conscience and free profession, practice and propagation of religion and Article 29 & 30 also protect the right of minority. According to article 29(2), no citizen can be denied admission into any education institute either maintened by the state or receiving aid by out of state funds on grounds only of region, etc.

Monday, March 7, 2011

Bhopal or Bhojpal                         

I am also part of those youth chunk who are standing against the government action plan for  renaming Bhopal as ‘Bhojpal’. Since we are in twenty century and now our government legends are thinking like ancient time kings  who used to rename the states on his own name after winning the region.So what should we interpret from government new step. It is also said that Bhoja founded the Bhopal city but it is not clear which raja bhoj founded the city.It is merely a co-incident that both names Bhoja and Bhopal start with same first three letter ‘Bho---“so over the period of time people start to assume that Bhopal was founded by Raja Bhoj but actually it was Dhar and Ujjain. In present Bhopal, not a single work of any of kings from Bhoja dynasty is found except the Upper Lake, which is claimed to have been constructed by Raja Bhoj.But the formation of Upper Lake of Bhopal is geographical and natural phenomena and no proof is available which proves that it was constructed by Raja Bhoj.

                        If government really want to give tribute to raja Bhoj, In real sense It can be done through various  ways like . Highlighting Bhoj’s work, his moral, his welfare deeds, novel thoughts and ideas.  But not by renaming the city.what is in the name? As I think it’s a political gimmick of government to divert us from other issues and to get in limelight . Government should concentrate towards the development of Bhopal as it is a underdevelop city. So Instead of spending   money in  renaming process, better redirect that funds in  development of city. In.past Bombay was converted to Mumbai, Banglore to Bangaluru, Madras to Chennai etc. etc..But there was no sudden change or any  magical development in these rename cities.

                         For a glance lets accept the name change but ultimately what will be the outcome – Might be some other parties will stand at any other corner of India & ask for name change & No doubt some day  they will come up with proposal for name change of India.How can we think off change of our identity which we are carrying by name Bhopal Since ages across the world.

Daal Roti Khao Prabhu K Gun Gaao....

Monday, January 31, 2011

Daal Roti Khao Prabhu K Gun Gaao....

Daal Roti went out of reach for the aam aadmi in 2009 while vegetables and onion price brought tears . The end of 2010 as the food inflation touching a high of 14.44 percent for the 18 dec 18.32 percent for the week ended Dec. 25, 2010. The sudden increase of petrol price by Rs. 3 per litre in Dec. dealt silent blows to the aam aadmi and farmers alive. About 17368 farmers committed suicide in 2009 and vabout 2.16 lakh distressed farmers have killed themselves since 1997. Pulses are sold at 90 Rs. per kilo, sugar which was 21 a kg two years ago, now sold at Rs. 50 a kg. Year 2010 was volatile for the food and agriculture sector in terms of high price of essential commodities, vegetables , milk, tea, coffee, edible oils even salt was not spsred. This is worrying. We says that we are world's second fastest growing economy. Our economy is boosting day by day and we are enjoying that soon we will be a developed country. But no-body is concern with the other side of the coin. Today about 80% of Indian are surviving on less than 2$ per day. Everyday children are crying and giving their lives in lack of food. While there is also a crowd in our country who have not occupied with place to keep the food storage. 

Grains Gone Wild

Monday, January 31, 2011

Grains Gone Wild

We have heard a lot about the world financial crisis. But there was another world crisis underway and it it  is hurting a lot more people that the food crisis.
                                                         Over the past few years the prices of wheat , rice, corn, pulses, vegetables, fuel and other basic food stuffs have doubled or tripled with much of the increase taking place just in a few months.There have already been food riot around the world. Food-supplying countries from Ukrain to Argentina have been limiting exports in an attempt to protect domestic consumer, leading to angry protest from farmers and making things even worse in countries that need to import food.
                                                      How did this happen?
the answer is a combination of long term trend, bad luck and bad policy.Firstthere is the march of the meat eating chinese that is growing number of people in emerging economies who are for the first time rich enough to start  eating like westerners. Since it take about 700 calories worth of animal feed to produce a 100 calorie peice of beef, this change in diet increase the overall demand for grain. second thing, there is the price of oil. Modern farming is highly energy intensive with oil persistently above $ 100 a barrel energy costs have become a major factor drawing up agriculture cost. And third, there has been a run of bad weather in key growing areas.
                                                        All these left the world food balance highly valnerable to a crisis affecting many countries at once. The most immediate need is more aid to people in distress. We also need a push back against biofuels . But it is not clear how much can be done cheap food, cheap oil may be a thing of the past.