No transport plan for Gurgaon?
IF you have been stuck in those endless traffic
jams in gurgaon you may have wondered what
the problem is.
Three young men, Sachin, Sumit and Satish have
the answer: Gurgaon has no public transportation
plan. The three have filed right to information
(RTI) applications wanting to know what the plan is
and drawn a blank. They have met senior officials,
including, most recently,
the Deputy Commissioner of Gurgaon, and come
away without a clear
answer.
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Little cash saves pregnant women
THE joys of being a mother were shortlived for
Rebati Harijan. When her post-delivery bleeding
didn’t stop, she was taken to the nearest government-
run community health centre at Khariar
road. Anaemic, like most of her counterparts in the
district and still bleeding, the doctor advised her
blood transfusion and referred her to the district headquarters hospital 10 km away. Rebati’s family,
instead of taking her to the hospital went back
home because they didn’t have money. She bled
and died seven days later.
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Nomads want to settle down
EVERY Indian city has its share of impoverished
street ntertainers. They can make monkeys jig
and bears dance, or a snake sway to a lilting flute.
Sometimes in a park you will see a little girl doing
acrobatics or walking on a tightrope high in the sky.
Such traditional performers belong to a broad
cluster of communities that come under the category of denotified, nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes (DNTs/NTs). For historic reasons these communities
are amongst the poorest in India today.
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Kriti’s film club
Atiny workplace in Tara
Apartments, New Delhi,
comes alive every third
Saturday of the month. It reverberates
with discussion, debates
and friendly arguments over a
film that the audience has just
watched.
This vibrant film club started by Kriti, an NGO, in 1999, is
attracting genuine admirers of socially relevant cinema across
the city. Generally, documentaries
are shown.
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Discovering life at menopause
MANASI Basu had trained to be a classical singer.
But marriage and household duties put her talent
on the backburner. Two years ago, detected
with cancer, Manasi was overcome with depression.
She was successfully operated and treated by her
gynaecologist. Yet, the futility ofher life suddenly
overwhelmed her. The fact that she was childless
made her feel worse.
Her gynaecologist, Dr Ratnabali Chakraborty, persuaded
her to help out at awareness camps for
slum women.
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Many surprises in Kerala river
A river that has come to life in Palakkad district
of Kerala offers more than one surprise in its
unique rebirth. This is the first ime in southern
India that a river has been revived. Even more
amazingly, its resuscitation has been made possible
by a government organisation generally criticised for being sluggish and corrupt. Called Ahads
(Attappady Hills Area Development Society) the
government organisation worked with local tribals
to achieve this miracle.
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Standing up for those who can’t
YOU don’t need wings to fly. Not if your name is
Rajinder Johar. A senior occupational therapist
working at King George’s Medical College,
Lucknow, Johar did not know that his life would
change forever when intruders pumped three bullets
into him in 1986. One bullet hit his spine and
made him a quadriplegic for the rest of his life.
He was declared 100 per cent disabled, paralysed
neck downwards. Yet the founder of Family of the
Disabled (FOD) and winner of 13 awards,
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