Anapneo

Mumbai city from my room!

Please check out an important report at the following site;

http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=88505
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Now the questions I want to raise is;

Do we really need surveillance cameras in every nook and corner of our schools?

This feeling of confinement and being perpetually watched over …is it healthy for the children?

According to me this is really a shocking development in our academic institutions!
If it was there when I was in school I would not have a single moment of pure fun to recollect. I would have just wanted to escape from the “zombie culture”. I was a very good student but pranks were part and parcel of my education. And my teachers never punished me for any of them. They knew that kids need to be themselves. The kids need to be trusted and told so. The children need to be given space to grow and learn from their own mistakes. No amount of hammering things will serve any purpose. It will only stunt their growth. It really scares me to see this kind of policing now.
What are the authorities trying to achieve by this? A generation of robots…with no emotions?

I feel there are better ways to monitor children and i.e. by maintaining a healthy learning culture and co-operative activities.

By this kind of surveillance, the authorities are trying to mask their inability to provide good education and then trying to control the reaction of the children to their ineffective methods. It is really sad as they are trying to put the blame squarely on the kids rather than concentrating on the prevention itself.

Do any of you have cameras in your campuses?
What do you think about the issue?

Indian NGOs launch de-addiction centres for women in Hyderabad
geetan bhardwaj

22 February 2006

Two de-addiction NGOs, Serenity Foundation and Hope Trust, based in the city of Hyderabad, India, have ventured for the first time to extend the alcohol and drug de-addiction residential programmes exclusively to women addicts.

These NGOs have come forward to start `women only' rehabilitation facilities with women staff carrying out the treatment process at Trimulgherry and Banjara Hills respectively.

The need for exclusive centres emerged with a large number of enquiries received and the complete absence of `women only' centres in the city with the nearest centres located at Bangalore, Mumbai and Chennai.

"Going by the number of calls from anonymous callers for help, including calls from NGOs working with women, we felt a need to start an exclusive centre for women," says Chetan, Managing Trustee of Serenity Foundation, who has started a 15-bed facility.

Addictive personality
"Earlier, patients had been approaching physicians and psychiatrists for solutions. But now, they have come to understand the requirement of an addiction specific facility which will address the personality of the person as an addictive personality and deal with it in a holistic manner," says Rahul Luther, Executive Trustee of Hope Trust, who has started a new rehabilitation centre with a ten-bed facility.

"Social stigma attached to the problem has prevented women from coming forward for treatment. They should not try experiments but approach for help. After all, addiction is like any other disease and needs timely treatment," explains Mr. Chetan.

Both organisations will run the recovery programme based on the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, which examines the physical, mental, social and spiritual aspects to effect a personality change in the individual.

"I have gone through the recovery programme myself and I have come out of it, in spite of having been into drugs for more than two decades," explains Mr. Luther.

While the cost of the programme at Hope Trust is Rs. 25,000 per month, at Serenity, it will work out to Rs. 6,000 to Rs. 7,000 or more if the participant is looking for an exclusive room.

Source: The Hindu.
http://southasia.oneworld.net/article/view/128069/1/1893

'Talking library' records success

By Sunil Raman
BBC News, Bangalore



Ms Singhal (left) depends on charity and private contributions
It started when her brother-in-law bought her a tape recorder and encouraged her to do something for the blind.
Now 46-year-old Madhu Singhal, herself visually impaired, runs an audio library of 16,000 works in the southern Indian city of Bangalore.

Unlike in the West, audio libraries are rare in India, and "talking books" are rarely available in shops.

Ms Singhal's library has audio books in English and two Indian languages, Hindi and Kannada.


Volunteers

"I wanted to take books to blind people," says Ms Singhal, who is also a founder of the Mitra Jyothi (Friendly Light), a city-based non-governmental organisation.

"We started [recording] fiction but moved on to academic material when we were flooded with requests," says Ms Singhal.

She depends entirely on volunteers to help with the recordings.



"I wanted to take books to blind people"

Madhu Singhal

Two recording rooms at Mitra Jyothi's office are the hub of the library.

Volunteers - from young students to housewives and the retired - lend their time and voices to record for the blind.

One of the volunteers is 68-year-old Nityanand.

"I spend every afternoon recording at least two tapes a day," says Nityanand.

For a nominal sum of 10 rupees, the visually impaired can enrol as members.

Nagaraj, 23, who is doing his master's degree at the local university, is one of several hundred members who use the library.

"I use both Braille and tapes. But [audio books are useful] because you can rewind the tape and listen to the lesson over and over again.

"I have been getting first class grades from the time I started using the material."

Employment centre

With word about the library spreading, students from neighbouring southern states have begun demanding audio books in their native languages.



Student Nagaraj (left) says his grades have improved

The library's success has motivated Ms Singhal to start a computer centre and an employment centre for the disabled.

But she has to depend entirely on private contributions and charities to run the operations.

"I need lots of audio cassettes, computers and a building of our own, she says.

Her efforts to get government aid have not yet yielded results.

But thanks to the untiring efforts of Ms Singhal and her volunteers, this unique library is continuing its good work.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4336081.stm

In Contemplation? or....


http://flonnet.com/stories/20060224000206600.htm