M Manju with her parents at Dharmapuri Medical College | S Raju
Dharmapuri :
A first generation Arunthathiyar girl student attended her first class at Government Dharmapuri Medical College (GDMC), here on Monday.
M Manju, whose dreams of pursuing MBBS was facing financial hurdle, was helped by philanthropists across the State following an Express report shedding light on her plight.
Thanking Express for giving voice to her plea, Manju said, “Were it not for the news report, I would never have been able to enter the college.”
Following the publication of the report, judges and senior advocates from the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court pooled Rs 85,000 for her studies. The DD was handed over to Manju by the Superintendent of Police Asra Garg.
“I will never forget the gesture. A day after the report came in print, people began calling on me promising financial assistance. A senior police officer from Salem bought me my first year books. The Madurai Bench judges and advocates pooled money for my fees. We had never seen each other, but still they came forward to help me. My dream is their gift,” says Manju, barely able to hold back her tears.
The wannabe pediatrician said that the gesture had put responsibility of great magnitude on her shoulders. “I have to do justice their support. I will work harder than ever to express my gratitude,” she added.
Meanwhile, the senior police official, who bought Manju her first year books and did not want to be named, told Express, “I did it because she deserved it. I wish her all the best for her future.”
Manju’s success was a proud moment for the entire community in general and the family in particular, said her sister Tamizhselvi. “It was the dream of our entire family. Her success would inspire people from our community. She truly has become a role model,” she added.
100 Join on Day One
The first year classes started at the Government Dharmapuri Medical College (GDMC) here on Monday. As many as 100 students attended the class. Of the 100, 15 students are from other states.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> States> Tamil Nadu / by M Niyas Ahmed / September 02nd, 2014
The memorial at P. Thippanapalli village. Photo: N. Bashkaran / The Hindu
A crow perched atop the high flag mast scans a sleepy kutcha stretch while a cement statute of a turquoise uniformed-sepoy sporting a twirled moustache stands upright, the right hand raised in a salute. Hidden in a corner is a plaque with names of persons who perished in the two World Wars.
The sleepy village of P. Thippanapalli, nestled away from the yawning highways, is some 20 km from Krishnagiri. The village, with 345 households, has over 400 men in the armed forces while over 160 persons draw ex-servicemen’s pensions.
Even today lanky young boys in the village want to continue in the footsteps of their fathers and grandfathers in what has become an unwritten tradition spanning over a century since World War I. According to P. Chinappan, district president of the ex-servicemen welfare association, poverty and lack of education drove the villagers to take up jobs in the army during the world wars. Later, army jobs became a lucrative proposition for them as it ensured job security.
The village had one of its own get martyred only once; in 2008, when Govindasamy, deployed in Afghanistan, was killed in a suicide-bomb attack. “Whoever went away always returned. Perhaps, that may also be the reason why we do not fear sending our men,” says 35-year-old Anuradha, whose husband returned to Sikkim last weekend.
“My father and uncle were in the Army, and now my husband is posted in Sikkim,” says 34-year-old Saradha while Kannamma, 45, whose husband has been in the Army for over 25 years, says: “We are used to this. It is a pride for our village, and for the country.”
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> National> Tamil Nadu / by P. V. SriVidya / Krishnagiri (T.N.) – August 28th, 2014
In a bid to insulate children from crimes, Childline India Foundation (CIF) is to begin a round-the-clock Childline care for the Southern States — Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh — from November 15 in Chennai.
Officials of the Childline India Foundation (CIF) said that they would complete the recruitment process as soon as possible.
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has come forward to support the initiative by providing space and technology-related equipment.
Child rights activists say that the new move would pave the way for comprehensive services to curb crimes against children in the southern States of India.
Childline India Foundation (CIF) had last year sent a recommendation to the ministry of Women and Child Development for bringing all the Southern States’ Childline contact centres under one umbrella and they received a green signal to establish the centralised Childline call centre for the southern states.
Jenishiya Priyanka, Programme Coordinator, Southern Regional Resource Centre (SRRC), Childline India Foundation (CIF) said that they have already started connecting the Childline contact centres.
“Childline care centres from Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala would come under one umbrella in Chennai and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has assured us to provide space with network related services like telephones and connectivity at a building in Thoraipakkam in Chennai, which houses several software and BPO companies,” she said.
The Programme Coordinator also added that they are in the process of completing recruitment. The candidates preferred as those with social work-related experience and proficiency in regional languages.
Stating that they are gearing up to start the call centres, Jenishiya said that it has been confirmed that the Childline contact centres would start functioning from November 15.
“As of now, around 30 telephones will be used in the new contact centres and will have 60 employees, who are proficient in both regional languages and English,” she said.
The new move has been welcomed by child rights activists.
“It is a welcome move and the new technology would not give any space for time lag. Most importantly, there would be no network problem and even if it is so, in can be rectified immediately,” says S Thyagarajan, a child rights activist and coordinator, Childline nodal agency.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> States> Tamil Nadu / by Lenin R / August 31st, 2014
When G Mariammal, 60, hoisted the Tricolour on Friday, it was one of the most unforgettable moments in her life. Tears rolled down the eyes of Mariammal, the only woman undertaker in the district after hoisting the flag at the Sellur night shelter, even as she was surrounded by a group of people.
Thanks to the efforts of social workers and members of Padikattugal, a youth volunteer forum, Mariammal was bestowed with the honour of hoisting the Tricolour. “I have never participated in a flag-hoisting ceremony before and I used to watch it from a distance when I was a child. I never imagined that I will touch the Tricolour with my hands and hoist it,” said Mariammal, an undertaker at the Pasumalai crematorium.
The occasion also fulfilled a distant dream of 52 destitutes of the corporation night shelter at Sellur as they were provided with sweets and gifts. Two of the staff, Sundara Vadivu and Shanmugam, were honoured by the volunteers for serving the poor with dedication. The youth forum members mobilized funds through social networking sites and bought rice bags, sweets, clothes and two plastic water drums for night shelter.
Children homes, orphanages and old age homes were provided rice and provisions during the event.
Moved by the gesture of youngsters, one of the inmates, G Murugesan announced his wish to donate his organs after his death.
V P Sundara Subramanian, a city-based social worker said they did not expect this from the elderly man. “We will get him the necessary forms and help him out with the documentation work,” he said. M Kishore, who led Padikattugal volunteers said they wanted to celebrate Independence Day with the less privileged people. “We mobilized money and resources through social networking sites and our volunteers contributed generously. With success of this programme, we are planning a massive Diwali celebration for members of children and old age homes,” he said.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Madurai / S. Lenin, TNN / August 16th, 2014
Funds collected from a climb up Mount Kilimanjaro were used to dedicate a mobile van housing science models, to Agastya International Foundation. Photo: M. Vedhan / The Hindu
The youth had decided to seek donation from friends and relatives for the project but also wanted to do something physically demanding to achieve the goal.
City resident Mahesh Ramakrishnan on Wednesday dedicated to an NGO working for science education a mobile van funded through an expedition to Mount Kilimanjaro.
The funds collected from the climb that took him to the top of Africa’s highest mountain last year, were used to dedicate the ‘Science on Wheels’ vehicle-an educational van where students can view science experiments — to Agastya International Foundation. Two vehicles were dedicated to students on Wednesday, one of which was funded by Mahesh and the other by State Bank of India. The climb has also generated enough funds for Mahesh to provide for the operational costs of both vehicles.
Participating at the launch function held at Ramakrishna Mission High School, the 18-year-old said he appreciated Agastya International Foundation’s mission to provide creating, innovative and engaging science education for underprivileged children in the country.
The youth had decided to seek donation from friends and relatives for the project but also wanted to do something physically demanding to achieve the goal. Hence, the decision to scale the mountain, he said. Beaming with pride, Ramakrishan said: “The aim was to collect US $25,000 but I ended up collecting $40,000.”
The mobile vehicles are aimed at encouraging students to get hands-on practical experience of science through experiments outside the classroom. K.V. Sai Chandrasekhar of the foundation said each mobile science vans had 150 to 200 science models covering a wide range of topics in physics, chemistry, biology and maths.
The two mobile vans would be visiting government-aided schools and schools run by the Chennai Corporation.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Chennai> Society / Staff Reporter / Chennai – August 14th, 2014
The boy took a lock out of his pocket, fixed it to the grill and turned the key. He closed his eyes, prayed and left. “He has relinquished all his troubles here,” said Nawaz, the khadim-e-dargah (caretaker). “The Pir will now take care of them.” He added that people also consigned ill health and those possessed by spirits to the locks. Everything was possible in the saint’s durbar. All you need is faith.
Faith is what drove Bahadur Khan, the Killedar of the Bangalore Fort, to defend it with his life on March 21, 1791, during the Third Anglo-Mysore War. Like his fellow soldiers, the fort Commandant fought for Mysore and its freedom.
The former Faujdar of the Krishnagiri Fort had been recently shifted to Bangalore under Tipu Sultan’s orders. Tipu himself was busy fighting a determined and desperate General Lord Cornwallis. He trusted that Bahadur Khan, assisted by Muhammad Khan Bakshi and Sayyid Hamid, would be an able protector of the oval Bangalore Fort. The ancient mud structure had been reinforced in stone around 1761 by its erstwhile Killedar, Hazrat Ibrahim Khan, Hyder Ali’s maternal uncle and a Sufi pir of the Shuttari order.
Close to midnight, the English army stealthily attacked the fort. They crept along its walls (now busy KR Road), scaled its ramparts and cut soldiers down quietly by moonlight. A popular conspiracy theory whispers that the Mysorean army was betrayed from within and that the breach blown through earlier by English cannons was deliberately left unguarded. Bahadur Khan and a handful of soldiers fought fiercely till he died of a gunshot through the head. His body was stabbed repeatedly by bayonets.
Approximately 2,000 men lost their lives that night. The prosperous town of Bangalore had been laid siege to earlier, and now the fort had fallen. A victorious Lord Cornwallis commended his bravery and wrote to Tipu asking him where his noble Killedar should be buried. Tipu is said to have wept publicly, and replied that a soldier must be buried where he fell. He requested that the Killedar be handed over to the Muslim population of Bangalore who would ensure that his last rites were attended to appropriately
Bahadur Khan was buried near what is now the KR Market flyover. Flags flutter high over his green domed mausoleum at the corner of Avenue Road and SJP Road. It is revered by local populations and also called ‘The Lock and Key Dargah’ of Hazrath Mir Bahadur Shah Al-Maroof Syed Pacha Shaheed. Other warrior-saints sleep inside the Pete’s labrynthine streets. They create a sacred landscape that is interwoven with this densely commercial area.
The seventy-year-old Killedar was described by historians as a majestic figure, “a tall robust man… with a white beard descending to his middle.” The prophet-like reference only adds to the shrine’s reputation. People of all faiths walk in and out all day. They petition the saint and pray quietly amidst jasmine flowers and incense sticks, while buses ply and frantic commuters run to and fro outside. At dawn, the shrine is surrounded by roses in buckets, as wholesalers from KR Market squat outside its door. Sometimes, I find musicians with harmoniums and percussion instruments singing devotional songs as offerings. There is no courtyard or wall. Its doors remain open for the busy world to take refuge within. The custodian of Bangalore’s historic fortress continues to watch over the city’s population, centuries later.
The writer is a cultural documentarian and blogs at aturquoisecloud.wordpress.com
source: http://www.bangaloremirror.com / Bangalore Mirror / Home> Columns> Other / by Aliyeh Rizvi, Bangalore Mirror Bureau / August 03rd, 2014
Claiming that Tamil Nadu was the safest state for women in the country, Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa on Wednesday told the Assembly that sexual crimes had halved since she took charge in 2011. Listing the steps taken to ensure the safety and security of women, she maintained that the rising number of police complaints being filed by women evidenced this.
This assertion came in response to the insinuation that rapes were increasing in Tamil Nadu, made by DMDK member VC Chandhirakumar, during the debate on the Police and Fire & Rescue Services Departments.
“Since this government took charge in 2011, police personnel have been ordered to pay special attention and work expeditiously on crimes against women. This work is happening as per the 13-point plan I had formulated following the gang rape incident in Delhi,” she said.
“I can categorically state that crimes against women have reduced greatly since I took charge as Chief Minister for the third time. Not only crimes against women, all sorts of crime have reduced. I can proudly say Tamil Nadu is the safest state for women in India,” the CM added.
Jayalalithaa backed up this claim by citing statistics, showing that dowry harassment cases had come down from 165, at the end of the previous DMK regime, in 2010 to 118 in 2013. Sexual crimes had halved between 2010 and 2013, from 638 to 313, registering steep falls in every year in between.
However, she said the biggest indicator of increasing safety for women in the State was evident from the number of cases they had come forward to file. “Cases registered under the Dowry Prevention Act were 199 in 2010, 195 in 2011, 277 in 2012 and 305 in 2013. The very fact that women are feeling secure enough to come forward to file complaints is a testament to this government’s track record in ensuring action on complaints. Under the previous minority DMK government, they were not filing complaints as they knew no action would be taken,” she said, adding that it was her previous administration that had, in 1992, started All Women Police Stations in State.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> States> Tamil Nadu / by Express News Service / August 07th, 2014
This innovator made a kit that frees women in many parts of the world of the threat of infection during childbirth.
Zubaida Bai at the production facility of ayzh, 30km from Chennai. Photo: Nathan G/Mint
Freedom from risky childbirth | Zubaida Bai
Growing up in Chennai, a young Zubaida Bai wanted to study further after completing class XII. A reasonable request, except that in her family, nobody—male or female—had made it to college. The women in her family were usually married in their teens. Plus, Zubaida’s father did not have the finances to put her through college.
Undeterred, she decided to fight fate.
At 33, Zubaida Bai was the founder-CEO of ayzh (pronounced “eyes”), a low-cost women’s healthcare company based in Chennai and Colorado, US. Her biggest achievement: JANMA, a birthing kit sold and distributed through non-governmental organizations and healthcare companies.
JANMA (birth in Hindi) kits consist of six things: an apron, a sheet, a hand sanitizer, an antiseptic soap, a cord clip and a surgical blade. They meet the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines of “six cleans” during childbirth—clean hands of the attendant, clean surface, clean blade, clean cord tie, clean towels to dry the baby and wrap it, and clean cloth to wrap the mother. A jute purse in five colours contains the kit and and it can be used as a purse after delivery.
From mundane struggles with a traditional Muslim family to being a successful innovator, Zubaida Bai’s journey has been one about exercising the right to free choice although that involved selling her jewellery to get ayzh off the ground.
Soon after school, Zubaida took a year off, selling retail banking services door-to-door for ABN Amro, cold-calling customers and earning her first pay cheque when she was 17. Soon she was in college, studying mechanical engineering, and went on to become the first graduate in her entire family. After graduation, she dreamt of designing cars, but ended up at auto-parts company Sundram Fasteners. “I was the only girl on the entire floor, all I did every day was change the dimensions on a CAD design or take printouts. I was getting fat from all the thayir saadam (curd rice),” she recalls.
She was soon planning her escape. Scouring the Internet for a master’s degree, she secretly applied to various universities. After an acceptance letter for a fully funded scholarship to an M.Tech programme at Dalarna University, Sweden, arrived, she told her parents. Her father thought this was one of those infamous scams that promised you a job and ended up hiring you as domestic labour. But finally, Zubaida left home.
In the summer of her first semester in college, she took a road trip, was part of a students’ exchange programme, visited Poland and, during a period of self-discovery, she decided to start wearing the hijab, though no one in her family did.
Back in Chennai before her second semester ended and coaxed to meet a potential suitor, Habib Anwar, she feared the worst. “(But) he said that he was looking for an educated girl, who he would like to work rather than sit at home and squabble with his relatives,” says Zubaida.
Anwar supported Zubaida’s plan to study further as well. Soon they were married. Much later, he would be instrumental in providing the necessary support to make ayzh a success.
In 2006, Zubaida gave birth to the first of her three sons, Yasin. It was a painful experience. She needed surgery, was forced to rest for two months and took close to a year to recover fully. In her childhood, she had witnessed the lack of healthcare facilities for her mother, close relatives and community, and the lack of financial resources to pay for these if they did happen to be available.
Sometime in 2009, as part of a master’s in business administration in global social and sustainable enterprises at the University of Colorado, US, Zubaida came to India to research ideas that could be developed into products. She worked with Chennai-based non-profit Rural Innovations Network (RIN), making the JS Milker, a vacuum-driven cow-milking machine, low-cost and commercially viable. In Rajasthan, she met a village dai (midwife) who had just delivered a baby with a grass-cutting sickle.
This was her a-ha moment. She started reading up on institutional childbirth. She stumbled upon a clean birth kit (CBK) while attending a tech event in Denver, US, promoted by the non-profit healthcare organization PATH. The kit had a plastic sheet, a Topaz blade, a piece of thread, a small square of soap, and a plastic coin. All this was wrapped in a box with instructions. She then travelled halfway across the world to Nepal, where a group of women was assembling the kit.
Unimpressed with the quality of the kit, she searched for more samples, but found none that matched her expectations. But she knew she was on to something, and started building her own improved version, using off-the-shelf components and assembling them.
By 2010, she had put together a rudimentary clean birthing kit called JANMA, which she tested in Bangalore, through her gynaecologist. The innovation won the Global Social Venture Competition for business plans at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad in March 2010, and followed it up by topping the Camino Real Venture Competition at the University of Texas at El Paso, US, later that month.
Zubaida Bai also received a 2010-11 fellowship related to maternal health from Ashoka, an organization which identifies and invests in social entrepreneurs. At one event, she met the who’s who of the world of maternal health. “They were folks who were shaping the future of maternal health. These are people I would have found impossible to meet, especially Wendy Graham, who does research on how clean birth kits prevent infections,” she says. Her interactions confirmed her belief that a product such as JANMA would have a market.
By 2011, they had sold 2,000-3,000 JANMA kits, priced at $2-5 (now around Rs.120-300), in India and had made some inroads into the US.
After the initial success, though, Zubaida Bai hit a wall. Ayzh needed funds for operating costs, scaling up and distribution channels. Forced to return to India after completing her course at the University of Colorado, Zubaida and Anwar had two MBAs and two children between them, and no jobs. Those were trying times.
Even as friends and family advised one of them to get a job, Zubaida and Anwar calculated that they needed $300,000 for one-and-a-half years for ayzh to get off the ground. A social impact firm assured them of $50,000 if they could raise $100,000 and $20,000 if they raised nothing. Everything hung in the balance till the end of 2012, when they were awarded the $80,000 Echoing Green fellowship. They also got a Canadian government grant for another $100,000, while an individual investor put in another $100,000.
This was the turning point. In 2013, they clocked $100,000 in revenue, and sold 50,000 kits in India, Haiti, Laos, Afghanistan and Africa.
The JANMA kit’s relevance is irrefutable. According to the UN, India’s maternal mortality ratio per 100,000 live births reduced by 65%, from 560 in 1990 to 190 in 2013. But that still means 50,000 women die every year in India while giving birth. Seventeen per cent of the women die from preventable infections. More than 300,000 infants in India die the day they are born, according to the report “Ending Newborn Deaths, Ensuring Every Baby Survives”, by the non-profit Save the Children and Joy Lawn, professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK.
Zubaida’s goal for ayzh is three-pronged. She wants women to have power over their health by introducing new products for post-partum haemorrhage, a new-born kit, maternity pad and other innovations in reproductive health and family planning. Instead of creating products from scratch she wants to leverage the ayzh distribution platform to aggregate and sell products already available in the market. And, finally, she wants to launch an innovation lab for low-cost healthcare products, so that an entrepreneur with an idea does not have to go through the same grind that they did.
To realize this ambition they are currently in the process of raising $3 million in funding—a huge sum for a social enterprise selling low-cost products to bottom-of-the-pyramid customers—from social impact investors.
“We want to build a corporate entity, with a group of companies that will focus on women’s health and empowerment. Habib saw his mother struggle doing sewing and embroidery and I saw my mother struggle as well. They always brought in money, but were not appreciated and treated as an asset,” says Zubaida.
Nelson Vinod Moses is a Bangalore-based freelance journalist who writes on social entrepreneurship.
source: http://www.livemint.com / Live Mint & The Wall Street Journal / Home> Lounge> Business of Life> Indulge / Home – Leisure / by Nelson Vinod Moses / Saturday – August 09th, 2014
With a rusty trunk in hand and a plethora of instructions in mind, Anna Jacob boarded SS Franconia from Bombay to Liverpool to pursue her dream of becoming a nurse. “It was 1947. There were 3,500 passengers on board, and most of them were Britons returning home,” says Jacob, 67 years later.
The journey lasted three weeks. “There was a badminton court, a swimming pool, a live band. Many of them were upbeat as they all were returning home at last,” says Jacob, her face breaking into a wrinkled smile.
Jacob, who will turn 100 this month-end, was among the first batch of students who completed the higher grade nursing course from Christian Medical College, Vellore, in 1936. In the city to attend the centenary celebration of Women’s Christian College, where she did an intermediate course in 1946, she recounts her days with Dr Ida Scudder, founder of CMC, and Vera Pitman, her nursing tutor.
Jacob, fondly called Annamma by her family and friends, surprises people with her sharp memory. “I still remember the day Miss Pitman came to our school in Tiruvalla, Kerala,” she recalls. “She was really tall and graceful, but what drew people to her was her passion for what she did — nursing. Fifteen minutes into her talk on the need for dedicated nurses in the country, I had already made up my mind to join her team in Vellore.”
Her family members were aghast as “Nursing was looked down at that time. No woman from a good family would get into the profession.” When I broke the news to my family that I was moving to Vellore, they were aghast. News spread fast and my father received condolence letters,” said Jacob, who was the third among five sisters. Undeterred, she went on to be among the first batch of nine students under Pitman. “It was the best move I made in my life,” says Jacob.
After completing her course three years later, Jacob moved on to work in Delhi, before she got a scholarship in 1947 to do a bachelor’s in Canada. “A month later, I saw myself on board SS Franconia and later made my way from Liverpool to Montreal,” she said. She returned to Vellore two years later, where she was made the Nursing Superintendent. She worked there from 1949 to 1974.
Pitman continued mentoring her through letters from London. “She said it was up to me to now to pass on what I was taught. And that’s what I did and continue doing,” says Jacob, who stays on her own in Vellore and continues mentoring young nurses.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Chennai / by Ekatha Ann John, TNN / July 20th, 2014
For professional courses in Tamil Nadu, the number of applications increases every year, leading to greater competition for jobs and a raised benchmark for an employable graduate. Considering the scramble for jobs among those who had pursued professional courses, graduates from other streams need to go the extra mile to equip themselves.
Twenty-two-year-old Selvi, a graduate in Botany from Pulianthope, narrated her success story which landed her a job at Data Mark, a BPO.
“After my graduation, I couldn’t get a job. With three months of training in Tally and spoken English, I was made employable. As the eldest of my siblings, I can support my family now,” she said at a graduation function held in Kolathur by Aide et Action, a non-governmental organisation.
Along with Selvi, 473 graduates aged between 18 and 35 received their certificates on Sunday.
They had successfully completed their MAST – iLEAD course conducted by Aide et Action for students and dropouts from slums in the city.
Since 2005, the NGO has been training students in batches, in automobile engineering, ITES, data entry, tailoring etc..
“We have our faculty reaching out to slums and other places with below poverty line (BPL) people through ‘Community Mobilisation Hive’. They visit homes with success stories of the previous batches and find students for the new batch. After that, an employability assessment test to gauge the student’s abilities will be conducted and appropriate training will follow in the trade they are good at,” said S Martin, programme officer, and Manikandan P, a trainer.
They also said that the organisation provided holistic training, equipping students with technical and soft skills needed to excel at their work place. The students would be given comprehensive training with industrial visits that facilitate a clear understanding of the industry’s needs.
With these skills imparted, the organisation produces employable graduates who are poised to deliver and exceed the expectations of the industry and society.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Cities> Chennai / by Express News Service / July 22nd, 2014
