Universal Citizen

Rich & Philanthropists................. who is larger than life.

2011-01-08T03:25:00.000-08:00

Azim Premji, who transformed a family-owned cooking oil firm into the software giant Wipro, announced earlier this month that he was giving two billion dollars to fund rural education.

The 100 wealthiest Indians have a net worth equal to 25 percent of India's GDP and Premji's donation - by far the largest ever made by an individual - was seen as a challenge to others in the ultra-rich club.

Open displays of wealth are often more admired than criticised in India, where the rich commonly spend hundreds of thousands of dollars - sometimes millions - on lavish weddings.

Mukesh Ambani's construction of a billion-dollar, 27-storey home in Mumbai, where 60 percent of the 18 million population are slumdwellers, raised some eyebrows but little overt resentment.

Wipro's Premji, known for his frugal lifestyle, said conspicuous consumption was common in countries climbing the wealth ladder.

Traditionally, so-called "old money," embodied in the likes of India's 142-year-old Tata Group conglomerate, has focused on promoting the welfare of workers, with health care and housing.

"Initially people thought it necessary to help those closest in their households or villages, but now they realise help needs to be on a wider scale," Sanghavi said.

Together with his wife, Sanghavi runs the Dasra (Enlightened Giving) foundation, helping donors pick charities which can use their money best.

Sunil Bharti Mittal, founder of India's largest mobile company, has set up 237 schools to educate the poor, saying he wants to help children break out of the "generational poverty cycle."

The need for charitable funding in India is self-evident.

Some 42 percent of Indians, or 455 million people, live on less than 1.25 dollars a day, according to the World Bank and India's statistics on health, infant mortality and malnutrition are worse than those for sub-Saharan Africa.

But there's little sign yet of India's rich taking "The Giving Pledge" - an initiative by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and billionaire investor Warren Buffet that asks the wealthy to donate half their fortunes to charity.

The duo organised a dinner for China's mega-rich last September and say they may host a similar event in India early next year.

Billionaire Shiv Nadar, the founder of tech giant HCL who pledged in June to give 130 million dollars to education, believes India's rich are still not ready to embrace the Gates' concept.

"When it comes to giving, there aren't many people who will happily give away even one percent" of their wealth, he said.

Philanthropists...........................Universal Citizens

2011-01-08T02:53:00.000-08:00

Lets start with a lesser known but VVVIP Dr Kiran Patel and Dr Pallavi Patel, who gave the University of South Florida $34.5 million in 2005 to build a centre that focuses on ‘creating solutions that deliver a sustainable quality of life for all people’.

And what of India’s women philanthropists? Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, who heads a leading Indian biotech firm, has set up a foundation to provide quality healthcare and health education. Sudha Murthy, wife of the founder and mentor of IT giant Infosys, heads Infosys Foundation, while Rohini Nilekani, wife of Nandan Nilekani, CEO of Infosys, describes herself as a self-taught philanthropist, building two foundations committed to education and water issues in India.

British Asians too have their pioneers. Chris Mathias, a UK-based social entrepreneur, has a hands-on, results-oriented approach to philanthropy. He funds start-up charities that are not fashionable in India, recycles computers from British businesses to African schools, and is chair of a new UK charity, Connect for Change, to link British Asian donors with exciting development initiatives in South Asia, starting with a pilot in India.

Azim Premji, billionaire head of Bangalore-based software company Wipro foundation, which he funds through his shares, helps reform India's education sector by implementing on-the-ground assessments of the effectiveness of teaching programmes in thousands of schools in Karnataka, South India. Premji sets the direction and monitors monthly progress but leaves the running of the foundation to a dedicated team.

One interesting anecdote friends......................

Sudha Murthy, Chairperson of Infosys Foundation, recalls that J R D Tata, Chairman of the Tata Group, asked her, at the time of her leaving the company in 1982, what she was going to do: ‘“Sir, I am leaving. My husband is starting a company called Infosys.” “Oh! And what will you do when you are successful?” “Sir, I don't know whether we will be successful.” “Never start with diffidence,” he advised me. “Always start with confidence. When you are successful you must give back to society. Society gives us so much; we must reciprocate.”’

Real cost of a Car

2010-08-08T22:08:00.000-07:00

Have we ever considered how much our car costs the city? Just think of the roads that need to be expanded, to fill the ever-exploding numbers of vehicles in our city. Delhi has put as much as 23% of its land under roads and wants to build more to keep up with the ever-growing bulge on its roads. But the city is fighting a losing battle, as road space per vehicle has actually decreased, not increased.

But this is only one part of the unaccounted cost of our cars - add everything from land for petrol pumps to electricity for traffic lights, cost of traffic policing, the space for parking and the crippling costs of air pollution on our bodies - and you will find the car and the city are a match made in hell.

Take roads. We know that cars on roads are like the proverbial cup that always fills up. When more roads fail to solve the problem, governments invest in flyovers and elevated highways. These roads occupy space - real estate - and are costly to build and maintain.

But this investment is not paying off either as ever-increasing cars fill the ever-increasing space. This is why experts say building roads to fit cars is like trying to put out a fire with petrol. Britain's orbital motorway, akin to Delhi's Ring Road, was built 20 years ago. Since then, it has been expanded at huge costs to 12 lanes. But bumper-to-bumper traffic on it has dubbed it the nation's biggest car park.

Congestion costs the earth, in terms of lost hours spent in traffic, fuel and pollution. In the US, the congestion bill for 85 cities came to a staggering $63 billion in 2003. This calculated only the cost of hours lost - 3.7 billion - and extra fuel consumed, not the loss of opportunity because of missed meetings and other such factors. Bangkok estimates it loses 6% of its economic production due to traffic congestion. These costs do not even begin to account for pollution: emissions of hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide are linked with speed and frequent stop and start.

Cars do not only cost on the road. They also cost when they are parked. Personal vehicles stay parked roughly 90% of the time; the land they occupy costs real estate. Cars occupy more space for parking than what we need to work in our office: 23sq metres to park a car, against 15sqm to park a desk. Cars in Delhi take up roughly 11% of the urban area when parked, same as green spaces do.

Today, cities have a virtual war on their hands to park the vehicles. The answers are not easy to find, as all cities have grown without first accounting for the expensive land that will need to be set aside for parking vehicles. The multi-level parking lots, planned for cities to take care of the menace, are expensive to build.

Car owners do not want to pay the price. So, the only option, city planners have is to dig below green areas. This is "free space", they say. Yet another cost of the car to the city - gobbling up children's playgrounds and adding to the health crisis of obesity.

The question of who should pay is simple: the user. But what is often not understood is the nature of the 'real' user of the public largesse in our economies. While in the Western world the car has replaced the bus or bicycle, in our world it has only marginalized its space. Therefore, even in a rich city like Delhi, cars and two wheelers carry less than 20% of the city's commuting passengers but take up 90% of the road space.

The rest commute by buses, bicycles or simply walk to work. So, the cost is for the car to pay or not pay.

Friends pool cars, buy fuel efficient cars and if you really donot need it donot buy cars.

Reverse Brain Drain

2010-06-12T15:02:00.000-07:00

* Himanshu Tyagi, 32, an IIT-Delhi graduate who earlier worked for Intel in the US, is an assistant professor at IIT-Ropar.
* Ashish Ahuja, 31, also from IIT-Delhi, who was earlier working in Paris, is a visiting faculty at IIT-Ropar.
* Sanjiv Gupta, 35, a Yale University alumnus, teaches Mathematics at IIT-Ropar.
These are just a few of the many young professionals who have quit successful corporate jobs and research careers abroad to return to India and teach at the Indian Institute of Technology-Ropar, the first of the eight new IITs to start classes on its own campus.
“We have a faculty strength of 45. Of these, over 30 are in their early and mid-thirties who did their masters from abroad and were pursuing their careers in foreign countries. In fact, every single faculty member in our computer engineering department has a PhD from a foreign university,” says Professor M K Surappa, director of IIT-Ropar.
The trend has been noticed in IIT-Mandi too, which will be starting classes in its campus from this session. While its direcor, Professor Timothy Gonsalves, is busy conducting interviews for faculty recruitment, the institute’s Registrar, A K Srivastava, says: “Majority of the applicants are in their early thirties who are working in well-known firms.”

Friends, I am excited to see this. I wanna see India excel in the R & D map of the world and these young professionals are my hope in achieving this. I am willing to start a R & D fund with like minded people. The fund will be utilised for research in areas such as Harnessing Solar Energy and Wind energy. I am going to decide the modalities of the fund soon. Your suggestions are most welcome.

Common man and RTI Act

2010-05-15T15:21:00.000-07:00

AD Bhavaser and his friend Partish Parekh prevented communal violence during the high voltage Gujrat assembly elections in Dec 2007.They filed RTI application and forced Election commission to take note of ill -intentioned moves.
A month before elections , municipal councillors had issued instructions that the board of housing societies in Ahmedabad be painted saffron and green according to type of community living.Besides there were banners announcing "Welcome to Hindu Rahtra". Fearing another round of communal violance during the elections, both Parekh and Bhavsar filed RTIs to know the reason behind the sudden decision to paint society boards.They sought details of budget earmarked for the purpose and file noting of officers responsible for the decision.They also demanded money spent by individul counsillors on preparing banners.

Within minutes , the banners were removed and the officers concerned were issued showcause notices.

Generous acts

2010-05-02T06:09:00.000-07:00

Nandan Pandya distributes footwear among the barefoot poor at traffic signals in Mumbai .70-year-old man who attends every wedding in his locality in Navi Mumbai to collect leftover food and feed the hungry kids in his neighbourhood.

A real estate builder, Narulla and his friends set out on mini trucks every evening with potable water tanks to distribute drinking water in the shanties of west Delhi.
Mrs Chheda unflinchingly delivers five litres of buttermilk everyday for the three summer months at a nearby milk booth to be distributed amongst the thirsty vendors, watchmen and taxi drivers.
R Kumar, a Delhi-based journalist, never leaves home without packets of glucose biscuits in his car. He hands them to poor kids and cops stationed at traffic lights. Kumar feels, “It’s better than giving them money. As for the cops, they are just grateful that someone even stopped by to think of them!”
Rohan Solomon, lead vocalist of rock band Cyanide. Little girls at Khushi Home in Delhi call him ‘guitar wale bhaiyya’. He drops in during his free time and shares some music with the kids. He also gets them Tom and Jerry DVDs. “What most people don’t realise is that these kids have the right to have fun as much as they have the right to food, clothing, shelter and education.”
“Engineering student Pradip Ugra from Pune, who spends his birthdays with the elderly in an old age home.
Delhi-based businessman Nitin Gupta’s family doesn’t make offerings to priests on shraadh ceremonies. The entire family shares food and spends the day playing antakshri with blind kids from an orphanage in Vikaspuri, Delhi on such occasions.
Five-star hotels like the Taj Palace Delhi gives away surplus food to Father Agnel Bal Bhavan, a hostel for lepers. The Le Meridien gives excess food to Asian Food Bank and other leftovers to People for Animals. Meridien regularly gives wilted flowers to an NGO for women and children where natural colour is turned into dye.
Prasad Dhume, a former engineer, gave up his job to dedicate full time to the cause of those who have their upper knee amputated, by providing them low-cost artificial limb accessories.

Save India from global trash

2010-04-24T09:09:00.000-07:00

103.7 metric tonnes of Barcelona’s garbage — from shredded plastic carry bags to used diapers and napkins — arrived last August at the nondescript port of Tuticorin in southern India.
The three stinking containers were promptly sent back to Barcelona by alert Customs officials. However, for the last eight months, 72.59 metric tonnes of trash ranging from optical fibre waste to used oil cans and rubber hoses from Jeddah in Saudi Arabia have been lying at the Tuticorin dock, reeking.
Last year alone, nine containers of hazardous waste imported from Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and Barcelona by three different companies in Tamil Nadu were caught at the port.
This year, too, 20 containers of hazardous waste from Greece and Reunion, a French colony, imported by a paper factory in southern Tamil Nadu, were “resent” from the Tuticorin port.

But why are the developed nations dumping their garbage on Indian soil? Simply because shipping municipal waste to India is about four times cheaper than recycling it in their own land. While it costs Rs 12,000 to recycle a tonne of rubbish after segregation in Britain, shipping the rubbish to India costs just about Rs 2,800.
Cement factories in Tamil Nadu also import toxic garbage on the pretext of using it as fuel.

“As most of these consignments smell foul, we check it. And we send the samples to the Pollution Control Board to ascertain if it is hazardous or not. And then we take the necessary steps, sometimes sending them back to the countries they came from,” says Tuticorin port’s additional customs commissioner S Chandra Mohan.
Environment protection laws in India are not stringent enough to curb imports of hazardous waste, say environmental activists. “When toxic consignments are caught, the importing companies manage to get relief from the court,” says a customs official.

Four containers of smelly waste are still docked at the port. More importantly, the State Pollution Control Board’s environmental engineers, who are responsible for monitoring the dumping of hazardous waste, fail to act swiftly in several cases. “They take a long time even to give the laboratory test reports and it leads to unnecessary delays in resending the waste,’’ a customs official says.

After a British TV channel exposed how toxic waste from municipal councils in the UK were being dumped in farms in western Tamil Nadu, environmental engineers were asked to keep a close watch on the industrial units that imported the trash. Vigilance and anticorruption officials raided the offices of the Pollution Control Board’s environment engineers. While one of the engineers was caught with Rs 7 lakh in unaccounted cash, in another district pollution control office, wads of notes were, ironically, found dumped in the dustbin.

Kudos to the custom offcials who are doing their jobs well ! Lets immitate these guys for the job well done.
Friends, pls do your bit to stop this menace.

Environment tip
Cut down your consumption of plastics, paper and start using cloth/jute bags.
Save mother earth for future generations also.

Health Tip
If you are overweight and wanna reduce weight , eat cereals in breakfast for one year and see the result.
Go easy in reduction of weight.

Gonds - The Indian Tribals

2010-04-21T20:37:00.000-07:00

Excerpts from interview of one the Gonds :

Q. Why the Gonds - The tribals are associated with Maoism
A. Extremely poor, illitracy,government neglect, they eat twice a day that also with imli- jor(Tamarind soup) or with just water and salt.
Q. Their needs ?
A. Schools, roads, electricity, and drinking water.

Every tribal home has atleast two dozens trees .They donot cut trees but plant them . Their is no dowry system,no saas bahu disputes.
Lets learn some lessons from them.

My Personal fundas :
Friends, Is it possible we can cut down on our food as per our body requirement/weight, avoid forrrrrcing our guests to eat more instead feed the poor who are short of nutritious food ?
Instead of throwing a big party of all junk food which we regret the next day , go in for all fruit party so that the next day we are all healthy and vibrant.
Lets stop this show off business and be realistic to ourself.Lets do it friends.

Health tip the month :
Drink sattu(Flour of roasted grams) in summers, I have started this summer hope you will too enjoy great taste of it with lime water.
Drink home made juice of water melon or just cut and eat with family.

Our small pledge

2010-03-31T01:46:00.000-07:00

I was hearing on the TV today which said "Keep marriage functions simple, avoid too much spendings and too many dishes instead invest that money for good cause".We have four crore orphans in India, think about them,do something about them.I am not saying donot celebrate but keep a check on your spendings. Think of people financially weaker than you.Its not only the Government alone which is responsible for the widening gap between rich and poor but also we are.

My friends, lets take a pledge that we will never be spendthrift during functions like marriages, son/daughter birth celebrations or any other celebrations of that sort and the part of the savings will be invested in some social cause of your interest.

Healthy tip for heallllthy guys : Do not eat snacks in between meals, eat fibourous foods, eat salad before meals and never skip breakfast.
There is an old saying "Donot survive to eat but eat to survive".

Angels of Stanchart working at Burjwadi, Maharashtra

2010-03-05T21:07:00.000-08:00

Burjwadi, on foothills of Mathern, about 90km from Mumbai is a clouster of seven helmets with a population of 1200. Apart from the fact that it is 2500 feet above sea level, Burjwadi is like most other villages in India : poor. But thanks to a drive spearheaded by the NGO Sri Satya Sai Seva Organisation , and supported by Standard Chartered Bank and HDFC Bank, among others, life is improving for its people. The global market team(87 executives) of StanChart donated a days salary and raised Rs 10 lakh. The bank chipped in another Rs 10 lakh. This corpus was enough to built a community centre containing a school, primary health care centre , a library and a vocationl training centre.The team will donate used computers, while one of the senior executive is sponsoring a library.The team members visit the village fornightly to review the progress.

Construction is scheduled to be completed by May of this year, post which the team will focus on equippping the school and and developing the curriculum.The sales team, which work with 1000 large corporates across India , will shortly involve clients in this noble cause." Soon, our sales presentations will close with a brief mention of thsi initiative", said one of the staff.
Slowly but surely these Stanchart staffers are helping the people of this little village unshackles themselves from poverty.

Lets see friends, when we start something like that to reduce the gap between rich and poor.
It has to begin soon for our own benefit.

Irfan Alam - A real Indian

2010-02-07T03:58:00.000-08:00

Irfan Alam is invited by US President Obama for entrepreneur summit at Washington DC in April '10.
He is Chairman of Sammaan Foundation which works for the welfare of Rickshaw pullers.

He got banks to finance Rickshaw pullers, designed rickshaws which can shelve newspapers, mineral water bottles and some other small items for sale if the passenger needs them.These rickshaws also carry advertisements and the pullers get 50% of the ad revenue and the remainder goes to Sammaan.
This venture started with modest 100 rickshaws and now increased to three lakhs.
Also 10,000 odd are pedalling the special rickshaws, the process is underway to benefit others.

My Salute to this man.

Our small contribution towards equality for all

2010-02-04T14:19:00.000-08:00

When we buy vegetables from vegetable hawker(सब्जी वाला) esp someone who is short of money and
whoever works in our homes, we should pay them decent money so that they can send their children to good schools, they can have a roof to sleep and cloths for protection from weather.
This contribution will finally help us to reduce the widening gap between rich and poor.
Consequences of too much gap will bring it with theft, killings and other social problems.

Lets pledge together to make the world a better place for all.

My personal fuel saving tips

2010-02-04T13:43:00.000-08:00

When we want to move our motor bikes from any place, initially bring it out on the road (e.g - In case of house, out of the main gate) without starting the engine.

When we return to our house, stop the motorbike before entering the main gate of our house.
Same way follow for other places like office etc.
Gift bi-cycles to friends as birthday/special occasion gifts.

More details at http://www.pcra.org/

HOCKEY

2010-01-23T01:23:00.000-08:00

MP government has come foreward to the rescue of our women hockey team by bearing their expenses. Its a step in right direction which should be appreciated and emulated by us, The people of India.
Our women hockey team has performend extremely well in the past few years.
Their perforamance
2009-Asia cup silver, Champion challenge II winners
2006- Asian games bronze, C'wealth Silver
2004- Asia cup champ
2002-C'wealth champ

I donot think, they need anything else to prove their worth.
This is a peformance when the girls have found it difficult to make ends meet.
The girls are planning for a fund in name of Indian women hockey.
I request all of us to donate whatever we can to promote this national sport.

Kudos to Indian women hockey team

Hidden love of my father

2010-01-14T23:31:00.000-08:00

When I started planting trees in my locality with God's grace, my father objected to it, saying its a waste of money my son but later he was the one who nurtured all the trees when I used to be on the high seas by watering them in time.