Give the Police a Chance

15 young graduates on their way to an outbound managerial training in Uttarkashi reach a station called Laksar near Haridwar in Uttaranchal. The train is late by couple of hours. After asking some people in the train we find out that there is no hotel where we can stay and we might miss the last train. there is no alternate mode of transport to anywhere. No bus No taxi nothing. Its a very remote and dangerous place having history of train raids by local goondas. When we reach the station the connecting local train to Haridwar is ready to leave. Couple of students rush to get the tickets while the others rush towards the train along with all the luggage.

On the way back to the train after buying tickets one student realizes that his wallet is not with him. We get restless ask people around. Someone says they saw a young boy running in a direction. Very difficult to find out given the number of people on the Railway station.

Dejected angry and helpless we come to the train which was about to leave. We find that the train has been halted due to the commotion caused due to the theft incident. We register an FIR with the Railway Police. By the way the wallet had Rs 5000 in cash , atm debit cards and driving licence apart from other things.

The Police tell us that we can leave for Haridwar and if at all they find the thief they will announce at Haridwar Station.

The journey to Haridwar is around two hours.

We all boarded the train thinking of the loss and empathising with our friend.

We reach Haridwar station. When we were about to leave the station to find a hotel we hear an announcement that the thief and wallet has been found with all the cash and other things.

Amazed and shell shocked three to four of us go back to Laksar. We see that the thief is behind bars. The wallet is returned and the Police refuse to take any money as a token of our gratitude.

How do you explain this ?

I feel Police is one of the most thankless of professions. They are on duty 24 hours. They have no festival holidays and we scoff at them labelling all of them as corrupt and ineffective based on the movies we watch and the newspapers we read. How many of us have actually had bad experiences with Police ? How many good things done by Police get reported ?

A Beautiful Concept of Friends of Police is present in many parts of Tamil Nadu.

This is to develop a rapport of citizens with police and to prevent crimes by promoting a sense of civic responsibilities and duties among citizens. A very good model which can be replicated in all other parts of the country.

RTI -Weapon of the common man

Hello RTI,

Late wishes for your 5th birthday.

By the way do you know how difficult your birth was and how long it took after the first idea ?

Well let me tell you it took a lot of efforts by activists like Aruna Roy, Arvind Kejriwal, Anna Hazare to name a few along with the support from the government that you came into being on 13th October 2005 in a landmark legislation for Indian democracy.

You have allowed citizens to demand information from the government regarding any government department or office and kept them on their toes and rightly made them realise that after all they are "Public Servants". There are officials who just do not want to reveal information. Not because they have something to hide. But only because they did not like the idea of being questioned. Now that you have come they need to be more careful because you can penalise them, even put them in jail for denying or hiding or misrepresenting any information.

You have come as an " Avatar " for the common man whose complaints earlier fell on deaf ears. Most of the government officials anticipate action once you visit their office and complete the job they are required to do to avoid embarassment.

Let me mention a couple of the many success stories where you have played a crucial role.

1. Hemant Karkare, Ashok Kamte and Vijay Salaskar the three police officers who were gunned down by terrorists were not provided with reinforcements for 40 minutes despite Karkare requesting for the same. Vinita Kamte author of the book " The Last Bullet " based on the incident procured call log records at the police headquarters with your help to seek information about the conversation. Such information would have been suppressed had you not been there.

2. Association for Democratic Reforms formed by IIM Ahmedabad Faculty and Alumni and National Institute of Design took your help to demand disclosure of Income tax returns of Political parties. Another achievement was the mandatory disclosure of assets, liabilities, criminal record and educational qualifications of people contesting elections.

You know what ? According to Transparency International India's ranking on Corruption Perception Index has gone from 74th to 87th in the last four years after your birth.

Does it mean that you have exposed a lot of shit which TI could not find out ? Well done !!

But dude you know what ? You need to market yourself a lot.

There are many people who are not even aware that you exist. Leave alone knowing how to seek help from you.

Well just a word of caution. A lot of your close friends(read Activists) whom you have been helping a lot have been attacked( 8 murders and 20 serious attacks in the last 15 months). Unless the government does something to protect your friends you will have a tough time. Its a bad world out there trying to suppress you. Enable us all to seek your help in a tactful way.

By the way i am going to seek your help for the first time tomorrow. Hope we become good friends and our association grows by leaps and bounds.

As i conclude let me pay my respect to all the martyrs who fought against the system with your help and were brutally murdered.

Children's Parliament

Heard of it?

I came to know that it is very successful in a lot of places in Tamil Nadu but I never had heard of such a concept before and was excited to interact with the Speaker, the Prime Minister, and the whole bunch of cabinet ministers of the village.

The Age of all of the MP's was in the range of 8 to 14 years. You have to see it to believe it. :)

The roles..

The Speaker.. Getting together all the MP's for meeting in the open area of one of the houses. Generally its done by going in front of each of the houses and yelling the name.

The Education Minister.. Making sure all the children go to school regularly and recording and finding out reasons for any absentees. Weaker children are provided assistance by school seniors . Occasional counselling is provided to parents so that they don't stop their children from going to school.

This counselling is much more effective since it is done by a group of children. So sweet :)

Be it the Health minister, Environment Minister,Cultural Minister, Sports minister or the Prime minister each of them have a role defined and they all take enormous pride in what they do.

The meeting in the Parliament starts with a Welcome Speech. Games are played songs are sung etc after which they have a review of what happened in the previous month. The proceedings are recorded for further reference.

A vote of thanks is proposed and the date for next meeting is decided.

It was so nice to watch all this happening so nicely and the amount of interest it generated in the parents of these children that I imagined how it would be if it were replicated to all schools across India.

It gives the children the confidence of speaking in public, feeling of brotherhood and unity.

It instills a sense of responsibility towards the society right from the childhood.

They say the Youth of India are too busy in their own selfish goals and are passive towards the issues faced by the country.

I am not sure whether these children as the next citizens will make a drastic changes but they surely will be a very potent force that will be much more sensitive to social issues and hence will be much more active.

This NGO is giving me a lot of exposure to things never heard of

Yet another day of feel good and lots of learning.

Much more to come

Heard of RTI?

Wait and watch for the next post..

My First experience with an NGO

First of all why did i bump into an NGO?

Yes i have an inclination to work at grassroots level. Was not getting anything great to do and had a lot of spare time. And I curse every moment when i have nothing to do.

Was looking around and asking almost everybody of some ideas and opportunities. And when i got it I pounced on it.

We read about Self Help Groups in Economics and how they manage their funds, how they give out loans to individual members in emergency or for starting some business etc.

I actually saw a group of 15, half of them illiterate, manage a fund and was amazed by the professional way with which they handled it.

President, secretary, treasurer, minutes of the meetings, attendance registers, cash registers, credit registers etc were not words i associated with illiterate rural women.

And the most interesting part was they all spoke in Tamil which i don't understand much and the English of the translator (the NGO representative) who was accompanying me was as good as my Tamil.

So the whole communication was through Body language Signs Facial Expressions aided by some English words which he knew and Tamil words which i know.:)

I guess ill learn Tamil quickly in the process.

My perception is changing everyday as i learn new things.Its been only two days as of now and i look forward to seeing what a Children's Parliament is and how it functions.Pretty interesting concept and new to me.

Details about that? ill write about that in my next post.

As of now its pretty good first two days with an NGO.

Best moments in life.

This is not right,that's not happening, this is not fair etc etc.

Just ask yourself what are you going to do about it.

The system is faulty, what can we do? etc etc... I call them losers.

Either navigate your way through the system or have the guts to change it...

By complaining and bitching and cribbing what does one try to do? Spoil one's mood unless he gets some sadistic pleasure by bitching etc, spoil the listeners mood and you spread an air of negativity.

Smile, appreciate some good thing, help somebody, be happy gentleman !!

Life is very short..try and live every moment happily.

Some of the best moments of my life

1. Laughing until it pains in my stomach

2. Smell of the first rain and getting drenched dancing in it

3. Listen to my favourite song on somebody else's system

4. Hearing accidentally somebody praising me

5. Playing Frisbee on the beach.

6. A poem being written on me.

7. Going on a tour without any plans or schedules.

8. Atmosphere at a temple very early in the morning before sunrise.

9. Going on a local train in Mumbai on a Sunday morning.

10. Meeting best school and college buddies after a long time.

11. The feeling of being loved..