Sponsoring a girl child

I am sure we can do much for the girl child and it costs us not much as detailed by Roop Rai in her post that I copied below:

Nanhi Kali: Sponsor education of a little girl


Nanhi Kali (loosely translated as little girl) is a project jointly managed by K C Mahindra Education Trust and Naandi Foundation in India to promote and finance education for under-privileged girl children. For as little as Rs. 1800 per year, you can sponsor education for one of the girls studying between Grade 1 and Grade 7, and for Rs. 2700 per yer, education of a girl studying between Grade 8 and Grade 12 can be financed.

Rs. 1800 a year = only 22 GBP/year, 44 CAD/year, and 45 USD/year
Rs. 2700 a year = just 34 GBP/year, 66 CAD/year, and 67 USD/year
Please visit XE.com for updated conversion rates.

I was sent a brief by Nanhi Kali yesterday when I rang them for information. The brief is as follows:


Shreya's parents can't send her to school.
Can you?


If you can’t, the chances are she will end up housebound, exploited as a maid or a child prostitute, be married off early and could even die during childbirth!

We write on behalf of thousands of girls who like Shreya, are forced to dropout of schools because their families cannot afford to keep them there. It is official knowledge that out of every 10 girls who enrol in Std I, only 3 complete Std X. Education for a girl child born to a poor family is still a pipe dream.

The Nanhi Kali project intends to make this appalling fact, history. With your help we can make it sooner.

How you can help:

Sponsor a Nanhi Kali. Be her guardian. Give her the assurance that no matter what trials her family faces she will never have to drop out of school. Your sponsorship will provide her with study material, uniforms and learning support. It will also be used to work with her teachers to create a learning-friendly environment in the government school she goes to.
− To keep a girl in school from Std I - VII, the per annum cost is Rs 1800
− To ensure an older girl continues her schooling from Std VIII - X the per annum cost is Rs 2500

As a guardian:

You will receive a profile of your Nanhi Kali with a photograph. You will also receive half yearly updates about her, so you can track her progress.

To Sponsor a Nanhi Kali you can donate online through www.nanhikali.org

For more information, please contact me at unchaahiATgmailDOTcom or Gauri at r.gauriATmahindraDOTcom.

Me and husband will be sponsoring two girls (one each from both groups) and I'll share my story here as it unfolds. I look forward to hear from more sponsors.

Let there be blood....

Let there be blood..

No I am not talking about the Oscar winning movie which I did not watch yet. I am talking about Kannur and the dirty politics that seems to have adopted this place like a curse.

Kannur is the fourth largest urban agglomeration in Kerala after Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram and Kozhikode with a population of 498,175. According to data compiled by economics research firm Indicus Analytics on residences, earnings and investments, Kannur is one of the best ten cities in India to reside. Indicus considered six parameters — health, education, environment, safety, public facilities and entertainment — for preparing the 'reside-in' index.[1] It is popularly known as the city of Looms and Lores.

The ships of Solomon, they say anchored along its coasts to collect timber for building the ‘Temple of the Lord’. Kannur finds mention as NAURA in the ‘Periplus of the Erithrean Sea’ a Greek work of great antiquity.

Kannur has always been a favourite destination of the intrepid foreign traveller. Europeans, Chinese and Arabs have visited our coasts. In his book of travels Marco Polo recounts his visit to the area circa 1250 A.D. Other visitors included Fahian, the Buddhist pilgrim and Ibn Batuta, writer and historian of Tangiers.
The term Kannur is the compound of two words Kannan (Lord Krishna) Ur (Place). This will make it the place of Lord Krishna.

Well, now Kannur is synonymous with violence. The recent one has claimed 7 lives and there is still tension.

I still don’t understand why we Indians take politics so seriously. If you look at a country like US, even they have political parties and elections but I have never heard of people killing each other in the name of a party. (or do they?)

I guess we have no stringent rule where the political leader is made responsible for the party that he leads. For now, he sits on his throne and directs the whole movie but takes no responsibility for the consequences. If we could only gather all those leaders, barring a very few, send them to a remote island and let them fend for themselves, we shall have peace everywhere. Let them play politics or even kill each other, we don’t care. Just leave those poor folks alone.