Are you voting?

We are!

I did not mean the upcoming Lok Sabha elections in India; for which we NRI’s continue to remain foreigners.. but I am talking about EARTH HOUR 2009.

1,858 cities, towns and municipalities in 81 countries have already committed to VOTE EARTH for Earth Hour 2009, as part of the worlds first global election between Earth and global warming.

Kuwait Tower has already committed to join and they hope that more organizations and individuals will join them.




For those in Kuwait, you can join Earth Hour 2009, by turning off your lights at 8.30pm Saturday 28 March and sign-up here at earthhour.org.

As usual there are skeptics for this one too… some says it maybe just to bring glory to certain organizations and individuals eying the “Global” awards. If one remembers, when the oil price shot up, there used to be an email going around asking individuals to stop filling Oil on a particular day to bring down the demand and hence the price. This was ridiculed too, but then we saw the price going down and one cause is definitely owing to lower consumption due to the economic slowdown. Even after output cuts and temporary closure of refineries for imaginary reasons, the price still refuses to move up and ease the pain of all those who were dreaming of a 200 USD per barrel price.

So if possible, choose to stay in dark for at least 1 hour in those places where we do not have power cuts:), burglaries and maybe even electricity!

Apurva

Where is Apurva? In whose clutches is she?



This news in the Times of India dated 24th December 2008 may have been read by many.

I came to know about Apurva only when I received a forward that was sent by my friend. I was able to check the authenticity ( I found the News Paper article only later) of the email since one of the person mentioned in the email was gracious enough to respond. I hope we bloggers can create more awareness by posting the following story on our blog. I pray to the Almighty that Apurva and Aravind are kept safe and will soon be reunited with their grieving parents.

My Army friend met a guy named Mr. Ravi Shankar on the train when he was returning from Chennai on 26th of December, 2008. I was having a regular chat with him regarding the Army and its rules and regulations and how the forces are admired in our country.

He then told me about a shocking tragedy that his family went through and hence I write this mail to you seeking your help.
He told me that he was posted in CAR-NICOBAR in the year 2004 as a sergeant in the INDIAN AIR-FORCE.

On 26th of December that year his family fell victim to the Unfortunate Tsunami that struck out eastern coast. He along with his wife and two children (photo below) were washed in the deadly waters. Reaching out, his wife managed to cling onto a tree but his small son (picture insight on the left) had swallowed too much water and passed away in her arms.

Ravi also in desperation to swim lost grip of his daughter's (APURVA's) hand. She was washed away and was never to be found again, until one day they came to know of her being sighted at a relief camp. On contacting the authorities they came to know that this little girl was abducted from the relief camp and was missing again.
Since then Mr. Ravi Shankar has been traveling to Chennai every year with a hope to see his daughter. He has been publishing MISSING columns in major dailies in Chennai, and he showed me how heavily these newspapers had charged him for those ads.
One of the major newspapers charged him a whopping amount of 12000 rupees for a 4 X 4 cm ad (that too on the fourth page).

Please do not consider this mail a regular chain mail and do care to forward this to your near and dear ones. He requested me to do something to reach out to people who use e-media (internet etc.). I myself have posted her picture on my blog and I request people who own their personal blog pages to post this girl's picture there as it could be of significant help.

In case any news of any nature is found regarding her (APURVA) please drop in a mail at the below mentioned mail id's or the following address.

1. James mathew( 123.mathew@gmail. com ) 2. Amit kumar ( amitkumarmajor@ hotmail.com ) 3. khem chandra pan ( khemchandrapan@ yahoo.com )
Or contact:
Mr. RAVI SHANKAR
SMQ - 17/2
AF VAYUSENABAD
TUGLAKABAD
NEW DELHI-110062

Phone no - 09868763263

The picture is that of APURVA's picture taken in year 2004 with her younger brother.