Social mapping in KTJC-New Delhi- a slum by Vinod Pandey

Urban morning reality!

UP govt decided to give Rs 1,000 per month as unemployment allowance to the youth between 30 and 40 years of age

The Uttar Pradesh Government has decided to give Rs 1,000 per month as unemployment allowance to the youth between 30 and 40 years of age. It has been decided by the State Cabinet, chaired by Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav.

AIR Lucknow correspondent reports that for the implementation of the much-publicised scheme, the Government has fixed Class 10 as the minimum qualification to be eligible for the allowance.

The Government has said about 10 lakh unemployed would be able to benefit from the scheme and over Rs 1,200 crore would be spent every year under the Uttar Pradesh Berozgari Bhatta Yojna (unemployment allowance), 2012. The allowance would be given to the eligible youth on a quarterly basis.

An official spokesman said the candidates registered in employment exchanges till March 15 this year who are natives of the state and annual income of their families is not more than Rs 36,000 per year from all sources would be eligible for the allowance.

The spokesman has clarified that once the candidates find an employment their allowance would be discontinued.

AIR correspondent reports that when unemployment allowance was rolled out during the previous Mulayam Singh Yadav Government, the age of eligibility was 21 years to 40 years.

For more information could go through:

http://newsfox.in/2012/05/12/up-govt-decided-to-give-rs-1000-per-month-as-unemployment-allowance-to-the-youth-between-30-and-40-years-of-age/

‘A peaceful end’

Idrish Mollah (name changed) a young man from Muslim camp was suffering last few years. Finally when he visited doctor it was found that he is undergoing the last stage of AIDS. The pressure from the neighbors and fear of the immediate family drove him away from the home. He took shelter under a tree little far from the house and started begging for food.

Taj Ali, Pinki Khatun, Md. Abid and Chandni our ‘Youth Group and Child Parliament’ members came to know and organized themselves with the help of other group members and started counseling the community and their family members. After a few days they could break the misunderstanding about the HIV/AIDS.

Idrish was back in home and received love and care by the same family members till his death. While dying Irish said, ‘because of you I shall have a peaceful death’

Courtsey: Caritas India (Kolkata office)

Urban people may not know the real problems of farmers

           The common man views farming as something to do only with government

It is an accepted fact that importing food cannot solve the problem of food shortage. “Modern technologies do offer vast prospects for crop improvement, but that alone need not make it popular among small and marginal farmers,” says farmer Mr. Mahavir Singh Arya, from Churu district, Rajasthan.

Despite facing acute problem of water shortage, Mr. Mahavir, an advocate of organic farming, developed numerous varieties of wheat and mustard, and claims that he never used any inorganic fertilizer to grow crops and still managed to generate good yield.

Ignorant

“Urban people do not seem to know the real problem we farmers face,” he says and adds: “To them it becomes an issue only during price hike. Though farming encompasses a vast area, a large section of the public view agriculture as something involving only the government, and it becomes a job for elected persons to resolve the farmers' problems.

“The fact, that we import food to cater to domestic demand, besides large scale migration to cities does not seem to cause any serious concern in the urban man's mind,” he notes with concern.

According to him, though urban people may be fascinated by the simple village life, in reality it is not that easy.

“The aspiration of rural folk is to seek out greener pastures in nearby metros, educate their kids and push them out of the village. Hence statistically, food supply is dwindling and demand is shooting up — we are all sitting on a volcano ready to erupt anytime,” he feels.

“A farmer's life is a tale of continuous experimentation and struggle for existence, and even getting a good price for the produce is difficult for us,” he explains.

Several odds

Inspite of all odds, inquisitiveness made him visit Hissar Agriculture University to see some breeding experiments in crop varieties and learn the method of selection and crossing between different varieties.

He returned to start experimenting in the fields. Encouraged by success, he got interested in breeding and thereafter he made it a point to visit various research institutions and universities, to keep himself updated.

The farmer developed more than 10 varieties of mustard by crossing the varieties available in Delhi region.

The maturity period of all these varieties ranges from 130 to 150 days and the yield from about 1.8 tonnes to 2.4 tonnes per hectare. All the varieties are disease resistant and high yielding, according to him.

He chanced upon a variety of tall and high yielding wheat and crossed it with a locally popular variety.

The next year, the farmer observed that the crops grew taller and bore bolder grains that were resistant to disease.

He selected plants possessing characteristics like height of the plant, resistance to disease, etc., every year and developed the variety ‘Mahavir Kisan Mahan.'

15 wheat varieties

In the same way, he kept on crossing varieties obtained from different regions with other local varieties and successfully developed more than 15 varieties of wheat.

The maturity period of all the wheat varieties varies from 135-160 days, except one, named Mahavir Kishan Pragati, a short duration dwarf variety developed by him that comes to harvest in 95-110 days.

The yield of these varieties varies from 4-8 tonnes for a hectare. “For a farmer every available area of space needs to be utilised so that some sort of income can be generated.

Water shortage

“In places like ours where water is a scarce commodity, extra effort is needed to obtain even average yield. Government should look into the cause of the millions of farmers like Mr Mahavir who toil day in and day out to feed the over billion plus population of the country.” says Sundaram Verma, a progressive farmer himself and Honey Bee Network collaborator of Rajasthan.

Mr. Mahavir mentions that the government may be trying its best, but an extra effort towards providing enough support to the farmers would go a long way in making India a self-reliant country in food crops.

For more information, contact Mahavir Singh Arya, village Gudan, taluka Rajgadh, district Churu, Rajasthan, Mobile 09461932854.

for more on this you can log on to http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/agriculture/article3377267.ece 

Attitude is everything!

Md. Soni is an ordinary boy of Tangra Muslim Camp. He was one of the most unfortunate children like many others who had never been to school. 

It was nothing but the peer pressure made him to join as ‘youth group member’, initial days he used to sit back quietly, after attending few youth meetings, he started speaking and asking questions. He was also learning alphabets to write his name for the senior members. He was developing speaking, listening skills after attending an input session on ‘Developing communication Skills.

Gradually he became leader of the group and stated taking sessions, making plans for the groups, his true leadership qualities were improving day by day. In the month of April 2010, he attended an interview with some of the literate youths from the community for a prestigious ‘retail shop’. In spite of his illiteracy, he was selected and started work there. Now he gives training for the fresher and many youths from the community are working with him for the company.

He often meets with the youth group members, motivates them and helping them to built the ‘Attitude’. As he says “SKC programs helped me to build up my attitude towards life.”

                                                                 

                                                                         Md. Sony says “Attitude is everything”

A Slum called Hollywood

In these days of discord, disharmony, conflict and competition, finding affinity between two entities that are geographically far apart and no match to each other in socio-economic or cultural terms, is impossibility. But that is what this photo series did, and it went on to discover the impossible - A small slum area in the heart of the posh new city of Ahmedabad called HOLLYWOOD. The actual name of the area is Gulbhaitekra, but it has been popularly known as HOLLYWOOD for the last 4 decades for the reason that the women living here have a rustic beauty and glamour which is found to resemble that of Hollywood stars. Photographer KANNAGI KHANNA shares her images as she meets the enchanting women of Hollywood.