Adoption with a difference
The Ramakrishna Mission (RKM), Shillong and Sohra branches have adopted 400 and 600 children, respectively on the occasion of the 150th Birth Anniversary of Swami Vivekananda. The holistic development of these children is now the responsibility of RKM. Similar adoptions also took place elsewhere in the country to observe the Anniversary Celebration. The adoption is also unique in nature. RKM picked these children randomly from the streets of Shillong and Sohra and did not approach any organization for that. The same process was adopted in Bihar where poor children were picked up randomly from the streets. A noble idea, these children who earlier had no future ahead of them nor any possibility of education, has suddenly found a whole new world opening up for them. With growing poverty in the region, which even Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has acknowledged on her recent visit to Tripura, it is high time that every philanthropic organization starts emulating these practices and showing the world that every child in India has a future.
When will it ever end?
Traffic jam… where? For how long? Why? Did a truck overturn? This is how the conversation happens today in Meghalaya. Be it at a funeral, a wedding or a prayer meeting. The moment an occasion presents itself people talk animatedly about how they got stuck for so many hours at this or that place. Fair enough. After all traffic jams are the bane of our lives today. So much so that even those who are delayed on account of their own indolence can tell their bosses, “Traffic jam Sir” and get away with it. But what has surprised many is the Home Minister tendering an apology on behalf of truck drivers. The HM said trucks find it hard to set their ignition going in this cold weather hence they park on the road until the sun is up to warm the engines. One irate passenger going down to Guwahati on Sunday said. “I have never heard of a minister offering such a poor excuse for the traffic jam. Do the minister’s sympathies lie with the truck drivers or the harassed citizens?” he lashed out. At the end of a prayer meeting, a lady who listened to the ‘traffic jam’ conversation quietly asked, “When will it ever end?” Everyone gaped at her. Another person said. “What a boring question to ask. Why doesn’t she ask the Home Minister who is also the PWD Minister? Good question!
Is Congress shooting itself in the leg?
Meghalayans are addicted to politics. If they are not talking traffic jam then they are calculating the 2013 ball game. In recent weeks the only other topic of discussion is the voting by the different Blocks of the Congress party for their prospective candidates for the 2013 battle royale. What happened in Shella and Mawryngkneng has evidently created ripples. In Shella the Block President managed to be voted in but in Mawryngkneng a rank newcomer, albeit one who is heavily loaded has been selected as the next candidate from a constituency abandoned by his father. The guy will therefore be stepping into his father’s shoes as they say. The whispering campaign everywhere is that dynastic politics has come to roost in Meghalaya. Political watchers believe that what’s happening in the Congress party will ultimately fragment it because those who have solicited the party tickets are not going to sit idle. They believe the seeds have been sown for dissidence and bitter infighting. What is interesting is the conversation of non-Congress voters from those constituencies. They have openly expressed that a 1000 odd people voting for someone does not necessarily mean that all voters will elect that person. Interesting perspective indeed!