Techno Social Innovation makes its way in rural India

By Mr. G M Sastry

When I visited Katuru (very near to my native place Vuyyuru) on 4th Nov 2012 for the water quality testing project, I could notice two totally contrast and  opposite things- exactly situated opposite to each other. One is old and ancient abandoned and dilapidated house.

Just opposite to the above building, a modern technological phenomenon aiding the welfare schemes of the government aimed at senior citizens and other welfare beneficiaries was happening every month. It took me literally by surprise when I saw what was happening.

Opposite to the old abandoned house is the Grampanchayt office/Secretariat of Katuru. On that day (4 Nov), the Gramsevika entered the premises of GP secretariat and several senior citizens, widows,  were waiting along with some specially abled/challenged. From her handbag, she took out a small machine and placed it on the old table in the GP office. On the side of the machine, she placed her mobile.

                                                                

One by one the senior citizens started showing their id cards. She fed the id no into the mobile and immediately the senior citizen’s details are retrieved by the mobile including his/her photo and other details. She pushed some other buttons on the mobile for further verification. Then she asked the beneficiary to put his/her fingers on the small machine for scanning. It took less than a minute to scan the fingerprint and then match with bio-metric database. Once it was approved by the system, the small machine printed out the receipt in duplicate. One copy was handed over to the person along with Rs 200 from the handbag of the Gramsevika.

All this happened in less than may be 4 to 5 minutes. There was a good crowd before the gramsevika. Normally it happens in the frist week of a month for about 4 days. For those persons, who are identified for the pension scheme and cannot come to the GP secretariat/common place, the Gramsevika goes to their house, completes the formalities and distributes the cash!

Modern technology aiding the welfare schemes aimed at old/senior people!

I am not opening up a debate whether welfare pension is good or not or the amount of Rs 200 is sufficient or not. Simply amazed by the usage of the technology. Of course the next step would be cash transfers to the pensioner’s bank accounts if the proposed financial inclusion in rural areas is not a mirage!

Technology can be effectively used by harnessing its true potential and thus to reduce the side effects of able workers’ migration to urban areas on their dependant senior family members, who are not productive by modern understanding!

May be this is called social innovation!

As Shared by Mr. G M Sastry , http://in.linkedin.com/in/gmsastry

Email:  gmsastryhyd@gmail.com

 

 

Forget yourself for others, and others will never forget you.

Short Film Competition on Mental Health , WIN $1,000 cash prize

 

Winning filmmaker to receive $1,000 cash prize and have work featured in education and advocacy work around the country.

Open call to submit film projects, up to 5 minutes in length, of any genre, using mental health as the point of interest. Film topics may either be interpretive of mental health, or address it directly.

Art With Impact views the short film as an important art form and springboard for young talent. As such, we do not place any formal restrictions on submissions, and will consider all genres and types of short films, including submissions utilizing original footage, shared footage, photo stills, music, essays, screenplays, original art work and more.

All submissions are subject to Art With Impact's Mutual Respect Policies.

There is no fee for submissions.

Submission Guidelines

●     Submissions must be five minutes or less. Films longer than five (5) minutes will not be considered.

●     Submissions must be added to the Mental Health Short FIlm group on Vimeo and the URL for the video must be included in the Entry Form. Only submissions with complete entry forms (including Vimeo URL) will be considered.

●     Any participant may submit more than one project, and up to three. A separate Entry Form must be completed for each submission.

●     Submissions will be judged by a panel of guest filmmakers and Art With Impact board members. User comments / audience popularity may be taken into consideration in the final selection but will not determine the winner.

●     Jurors who are also filmmakers may submit work, but only during months in which they are not serving as a juror for the competition.

●     Past winners are required to wait at least one year before re-submitting to the competition.

●     Filmmaker agrees that all submitted films may be used by Art With Impact for educational and outreach activities and the winning film may be used by Art With Impact and affiliated organizations in any relevant programming in perpetuity.

Eric Roache : eric@artwithimpact.org
Art With Impact Connects Film With Action 

http://www.artwithimpact.org/awi/short-film-competition-mental-health 

 


 

Forget yourself for others, and others will never forget you.

Bright minds and Dark Angels

Being a 5-pointer proves to be too much for these bright students and they fail to deal with the pressure.

Dad – sorry I couldn't be a better son to you… all you asked was my betterment of my career and future and I couldn't give it to you… I have failed you dad and I am so sorry about it. I cannot show my face to you

Mom – Sorry mom, I really did love you more than dad….

I was weak I thought I could become strong but I was weak, I was so so so weak the fault is my own. The fault is my own. Hope something good happens with my death. Firestallion has left the building…

I wish to donate my eyes and internal organs…. At least somebody can be benefitted with my death.

In another 2 min it will be 3:13 both my fav numbers. awesome time to die 

These were Nitin Kumar Reddy's last words in an email he sent to his father. The final-year M.Tech student at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras hanged himself from a ceiling fan in his hostel room after he got a semester extension.

Straight out of Raju Hirani's blockbuster 3 Idiots, Nitin aka Firestallion aka Swamy was on the verge of completing his final-year project, but could not meet the deadline. Unable to face the embarrassment of not graduating with his batch, he “left the building”.

'' I had told him not to worry; I would sort it out,'' says Nitin's father, Lakshmana Moorthy, who was to land in Chennai by the first flight the next morning. “I had left my office to attend a meeting. I got a call telling me that Nitin had sent a disturbing email. By the time my friend read out the email, he was gone.”

The pressure cooker description given by the media certainly does not go with the IIT Madras campus, located within a 620-acre natural forest with a magnificent lake and a wide range of flora and fauna.

However, in the last three years, the campus has witnessed six suicides—the highest number across IITs. This year eight IITians killed themselves across India, and IIT Madras leads this list, too, with two students, both from the mechanical engineering department, killing themselves.

In February, V. Anoop, 25, a final-year M.Tech student at IIT Madras, hanged himself in his hostel room, as he could not complete his course in time.

His father, Vijay Kumar, says Anoop had trouble with his guide, who “wasn't happy that Anoop did not consult him enough”. Anoop had requested a change, and it was granted. “His new guide had assured him that he would complete the project in time…. But we got a letter from the institute asking us to re-register. I got a call that midnight that he was gone,” he recalls.

And more recently, in September, B. Gowri Shankar, a second-year postgraduate student at IIT Madras was found dead in his room. It is suspected to be a case of suicide, though forensic experts are yet to confirm it.

According Nitin's friends, he had finished the major part of his project: simulation. “He had trouble fixing the engine,” they recall. “He asked his guide for help. He was told to approach the lab technicians, but they apparently were unable to help. Nitin tried fixing it himself, which did not happen. Finally on the day when he had to submit the thesis, the engine wasn't ready.”

And that meant Nitin had to repeat a semester. His plum placement plans bid him goodbye, and he bid goodbye to life.

Students who knew Nitin say he had initially faltered with his time-management. “His project guide should have noticed this and helped him fast-track his work,” says a student. “Indeed, many professors fail to pay enough attention to projects, as they are busy with researchers under them.”

While extensions pushed Anoop and Nitin to the extreme, the latest IITian to give up on life—Mehtab Ahmed, a first year student in IIT Kanpur—had been on campus just for a couple of months. The youngest in his family, Ahmed hanged himself from the ceiling fan in his hostel room on September 22.

The reasons being cited were many, including love affair and homesickness. The end result, however, was scrawled across the wall of his room in pencil: “I am tired of IIT-Kanpur.” This was the ninth suicide in IIT Kanpur in five years. 

Concerned about the spike in the number of students killing themselves, the IIT Council headed by Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal has recommended setting up of a task force—consisting of teachers, parents and students—to study the issue.

Eight suicides across India in an annual combined batch of 10,000 might seem, as one professor in IIT Madras put it famously, “statistically unimportant''. But when the country's brightest students decide to end their lives, it does call for, if nothing, introspection.

Life@IIT

What makes these brilliant students crack? Boman Irani as the heartless professor may have been the chief reason for many students to give up in 3 Idiots, but in real life, it is much more complicated.

And it is not that IITs are like Nazi camps. Majority of the graduates say IIT was the best part of their lives. Even current students agree: “It is fun; the pressure is part of it,” says an IIT Madras B.Tech student. “We booze once in a while, we have ‘unofficial' inter-hostel competitions, and we have our own share of masti, besides plenty of sports and recreational facilities.”

Read in Detail: The Week | Bright minds and Dark Angels

Forget yourself for others, and others will never forget you.

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) : India Resource

 Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is an international medical humanitarian organization created by doctors and journalists in France in 1971.

Today, MSF provides independent, impartial assistance in more than 60 countries to people whose survival is threatened by violence, neglect, or catastrophe, primarily due to armed conflict, epidemics, malnutrition, exclusion from health care, or natural disasters. MSF provides independent, impartial assistance to those most in need. MSF also reserves the right to speak out to bring attention to neglected crises, challenge inadequacies or abuse of the aid system, and to advocate for improved medical treatments and protocols.

In 1999, MSF received the Nobel Peace Prize.


India Resource - See Excellent Stories and work of Doctors Without Borders in India:  
http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/news/allcontent.cfm?id=33
 

World wide Offices :
http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/offices/?ref=nav-footer






Forget yourself for others, and others will never forget you.