Run for a Cause and CRY for bringing smiles!

How many times we have seen a child wearing torn and dirty clothes running towards us as the traffic light turned red and tried to be the best sales boy/girl possible to sell something what they would have played with (a flag, balloon, local toy ear buds!) or performed acrobatics that would challenge the best trained acrobats and gymnasts. At times we would have thought, can’t anything be done about it and at times we would have just passed them by telling to self this reality doesn’t exist.

In the humdrum of our busy and successful lives, we often lose sight of the opportunities that came our way right from the time that we were born, which made us what we are today. We took for granted our loving families, good education, access to food and medicine, opportunities to play with our friends and express ourselves while we were growing up. What we never realised was that we were simply massively lucky!

Did you know that even today, every second Indian child is malnourished- they simply don't have enough to eat; that health-care here is so inadequate that we suffer from one of the highest infant mortality rates in the world; half of India's children don't go to school and this is primarily because there is no accessible school to where they live; 3 in 4 women were married off before they turned an adult. The list goes on...We simply never had to experience any of these, because we were plain lucky! Point is can anything be done to make every child inIndia that lucky? I think it’s possible and it's time that we, the luckier lot, ensure that!

As a small step, I am supporting CRY (Child Rights and You)- a child rights NGO, to ensure that every child inIndia has access to what his rightfully his/ hers- the right to live and grow. Please join me in supporting this cause. How?

1. Moral support: run representing CRY at Sunfeast World 10K run on 23^rd May, 2010, Bangalore.Register now at:

http://reg.sunfeastworld10k.indiatimes.com/marathon/marathon.jsp?eventid=102 and run for CRY showing your support. Last date for registration: 30th April, 2010

2. Moral & Financial support:make monetary contribution to CRY
3. Network and spread the word and generate the above two!! J

Monetary contributions:

• Thru Cheque: Send me a cheque in favor of Child Rights and You or let me know, I can come and collect the same from you OR you can carry the same on the race day and handover it to me

Please let me know if you are participating in the run so that I can include your name in CRY supporter’s list.

What is raised by these efforts would be utilsed towards CRY's work in supporting projects in the most underprivileged and deprived communities in India, where the community members work towards ensuring a brighter future for their children.

Incidentally, your contributions would be eligible for 100% tax exemptions and you will be given a contribution certificate.

My Heartfelt thanks for your patient reading.

Best Regards,

With contributions from Sumona Bagchi, CRY

The Right to Education Act 2009: Another commenter!

I have been listening to a few debates and have been reading about the recently enacted RTE Act. It’s quite interesting to see the way civil society has responded/reacted to it. As expected and normally happens it has received a mixed response and if to believe the skeptics, it won’t tick!

Am an optimist and believe this a very positive and good move and would like to congratulate Mr Sibal for being able to pull this off! This is one big step forward towards ensuring education for all.

A “perfect” Act?: Yes, even I believe the act has quite a few unanswered questions and there are and will be issues on ground with respect to implementation, but for that matter, which new and positive or even negative plan doesn’t have gaps? So what do we do? Wait and work for another ten, twenty, thirty years to draft a foolproof plan and try to implement the same in another similar timelines?! Well, I believe, we will never achieve anything that way. How have the MNCs able to take their products to places where government programs don’t reach?! Am not trying to equate the two or trying to oversimplify the issues involved in implementation of government programs, but suggesting there's a lot that government and non-governmental organizations can learn from these corporations and implement them. I also believe that if a CEO of a profit making organization had all the answers to the questions of why a product / services will not work and waited to get the answer to those questions, am sure that CEO would have been sacked or the corporation would have been closed!!! Don’t like this example, take this: had Gandhi ji and other freedom fighters waited to draw a “perfect” plan of national movement for winning freedom, I bet, we still have been fighting our battle for freedom! So what am I trying to say? I am saying, we may not have a perfect or foolproof Act, but also the country can’t wait for another ten, twenty, thirty years to make a "perfect" Act. We need to make a start and this is a good start! We all know this Act will help millions of children even with its inherent imperfections, so let’s embrace it and help start implementing it and work towards its improvement.

My concerns: I am concerned about how the rampant class system impacts and may impediment the objectives of the Act. It surely will show the true colours of the pseudo socio sympathizers (people who may sponsor an under-privileged child’s education in a school that is as distant as possible from their own child’s school) as tow how they come to terms to the fact that the son of the maid working in his/her house will share the seat with his/her own son! A standard 1 kid won’t discriminate; will his parent be that “mature”?! I am worried.

I was watching a debate on Times Now and was disgusted by the comment of one of the participant Lina Ashar, Founder & Chairperson, Kangaroo Kids, when she said how she will manage the psychological impact an under-privileged child will have if he is not invited to birthday party of Shahrukh Khan’s son?! Do you see this as a drawback of the Act?! C’mon, you got to be kidding!!! These are the people who have been talking about social development and that government should do something!

To conclude: As I said earlier, am an optimist and am sure this Act will definitely benefit millions of children and this is a landmark Act.

Well done KS!

Ghar se masjid hai bahut door chalo, yun kar le
kisi rote hue bachche ko hansaaya jaaye

Teach!

It's quite late...so good night and good morning! :)

"maut ka ek din mu'ayyan* hai
neend kyon raat bhar naheen aatee?"


mu'ayyan* = definite, fixed

Another brick in the wall!

Well, here's another brick in the information age blog, err, wall!!! Well, I have been contemplating to start a blog of my own for a quite sometime now (and I mean it when I say quite sometime! at least 5 years!) and finally the five year plan got executed! Finally, I did act on the saying why postpone today what you can postpone tomorrow! Feel happy and satisfied...

If you have been somehow misguided or lost way and landed to this site, would wonder what's the BIG deal starting a blog and you will be correct...so continue and don't brood too much on my first blog!!!

Yes, you will get this kind of "insightful" writing on this blog!!! So continue being daring! :)

PS: the name of the blog is not inspired from the famous song of famous Pink Floyd...as people who know me well would bet I would have not known that! :) Yeah, I know am writing truth at the cost of being called moron who doesn’t know PF and his songs! Other names that I thought before I finalized on this one are:

• Drop in the ocean © (I hope this too isn’t a song. If it is, please educate!):) Also I have copyrighted it now!

• Work in Progress ©

Now that I write and talk so much, let me also clear your doubts as to how I came to know that this is song by PF. Well, no prizes for guessing it right…another “great” Google! Was just checking what I get if I search “Another brick….and I was enlightened!

So this is all…I think more than enough for my first blog post before I make all feel that this is comparable to first kiss, first love, first job, first s…..OK. That’s it before even Google runs down my over-enthusiasm by giving “A” rating to my blog at the first post itself….

Hope to write something more sensible and meaningful soon! Happy surfing!