I am not Alone

I am singing alone in the street
with no one to listen
With no one to listen
makes me to sing loud

I am dancing alone in the street
with no one to see
With no one to see
makes me to swing and swirl

I feel alone
with no one to sense
With no one to sense
makes me to cry

There is no one to hear
There is no one to see
There is no one to sense
And I am Dead

Amaze! I am Alive
I hear the cuckoo singing
I see the orange leaves dancing
I feel the breeze

NATURE is witnessing me...

Child Reporters

These children at class V to VII in Orissa are not preparing for their mid-term exams.They are writing reports for a monthly journal which is a joint initiative of the District Administration and the Orissa branch of United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).The magazine talks about issues such as water shortages, lack of roads and the absence of doctors in hospitals and teachers in schools. The reports show a desire to correct the flaws.

Some of their reports...

"Our village has a large number of children. But half of them are not going to school. Their parents make them graze cattle. The children who refuse are beaten up"

"There are many liquor vends in our village. The people of our village are blowing up their day's earnings by consuming liquor at these vends. Many people are suffering from different diseases by consuming liquor"

"The Government planted saplings in our village, but they did not survive as they were planted at the end of monsoon"

This project by UNICEF is aiming to have a total of 1700 reporters with 10 reporters from each of 170 gram panchayats of Koraput in Orissa.
These child reporters will be a driving force being the development of the village and they will be monitors of the process of development plans which has been drawn in 16 villages.

The District Collector has given each child reporter a signed badge, which is pass for them to enter any Government office.

These child reporters are a force to reckon with.

A Date with Bill Gates

What will you do or how would u feel if you have an offer to meet Bill Gates whenever you wish?

Meet Ajul, 18 from Ahmedabad. He does not get paid, but Microsoft pays all his study fees. In return he helps them as and when asked.

Ajul, a tech wizard holding a MS from Harvard has managed to finish a two and a half year curriculum in five months.

He interacts with Bill Gates every week and says "Why do I need to meet Mr. Gates? I speak to him whenever we have a Microsoft online meeting. Instead, I would have loved to meet Mahatma Gandhi, Swami Vivekananda and Napoleon Bonaparte"

A Merchant and a Monk

Sometime in 1893, a ship called Empress of India sailed from Yokahoma in Japan to Vancouver in Canada. On board were two extraordinary Indians – Jamshetji Tata and Swami Vivekananda. Both were headed for Chicago which was to host the World’s Columbian Exposition, a celebration of technology and Industrial progress. The exposition opened on 1 May 1893.

Tata was heading Chicago for getting new business ideas. Vivekananda, on the other hand was heading for a smaller show that was meant to compliment the industrial exhibition; The World Congress of Religions. There he shook his audience with that exceptional opening “My dear brothers and sisters...” speech on Vedanta.

It was a meeting of two visionaries; Tata, a keen supporter of social reform in India and the monk, very passionate about science and development. On board, the two discussed to start a steel mill in India. It is said that Swami told Tata that there were two parts to the challenge – manufacturing technology and the science of steel. The former could be bought from abroad, but the science has to be researched at Home.

This seeded the idea in Tata’s mind to start the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore.

Tata wrote to Vivekananda in 1898 asking for his support for the venture: “I know not who would make a more fitting general of such a campaign than Vivekananda”

That year was to mark the end of a period of modest but a volatile economy.