Lounge for 22 Oct 2011

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Saturday, October 22, 2011

Vol. 5 No. 43

TH E AL W DI U SS II E

LOUNGE THE WEEKEND MAGAZINE

GIFTING, GIVING This Diwali, besides presenting the best stuff to your near and dear ones, be a part of the cycle of positive change in our villages

A THOUGHT (AND BUDGET) FOR EVERY GIFT >Pages 10­20

YOUR OWN MA BAKER With cinnamon­infused granola bars or chocolate shortbread, add a personal touch to your gift hampers >Page 8

LEAD KINDLY LIGHT Syama Jogi is a solar engineer trained at Bare­ foot College, Rajasthan.

FIRST PERSON

THE GOOD LIFE

SUNIL MITTAL

A COMMITMENT TO RURAL EDUCATION

P

eople come to us for donations of all kinds: for old-age homes, eye donation camps, healthcare needs, AIDS afflicted.

We could have kept writing cheques which we did for a long time and still do. But after the earthquake in Gujarat (Bhuj, 2001), some people came to us seeking help and I still remember thinking that even this cheque will go into a large, black hole. It made no sense. I knew we needed to do something that would create an impact. My mind was working... >Page 4

INSIDE VIEW

SHOBA NARAYAN

DO YOU HAVE A ‘RURBAN’ IN YOU?

F

or the financially secure, urban Indian, however well meaning, rural India remains a nebulous construct.

We know the statistics, hear about farmer suicides and watch verdant paddy fields in movies. But barring annual visits to ancestral villages, few urban dwellers have any real intersection with Mahatma Gandhi’s “700,000 villages”, now about 640,000 as per Census 2011. We don’t know how our rural counterparts live and... >Page 6

JO CHOPRA

Help the visually impaired and children in need while buying ‘diyas’ >Page 21

DON’T MISS

in today’s edition of

THREE ESSENTIALS OF A GIVER

I

think about money a lot. I run an organization in Dehradun for children with special needs and thinking about money comes with the job description: where it will come from; where it will be spent. How much we need; how little we have. What it can buy; what it cannot replace. Who’s holding on to it; who’s willing to give it away. Like all my colleagues in the voluntary sector, I think about money. Like many of them, I used to worry about it too. I don’t do that any more. Not worrying is a challenge. It takes discipline... >Page 6

PHOTO ESSAY

RAGHU RAI’S COLOUR SHIFT

THE GIFTING ISSUE

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First published in February 2007 to serve as an unbiased and clear-minded chronicler of the Indian Dream.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2011 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

á Sennheiser: â Good Earth: Set

ä Paul Smith: Signature money clip, `3,900.

of scotch glasses, coasters, ice bucket and cocktail nap­ kins, `12,400.

LOUNGE EDITOR

PRIYA RAMANI DEPUTY EDITORS

SEEMA CHOWDHRY SANJUKTA SHARMA

CX 310, noise­cancel­ lation high­fi­ delity sound headphones,

`3,490.

ã Canali: Silk tie and pocket scarf, `12,500.

MINT EDITORIAL LEADERSHIP TEAM

R. SUKUMAR (EDITOR)

NIRANJAN RAJADHYAKSHA (EXECUTIVE EDITOR)

ANIL PADMANABHAN TAMAL BANDYOPADHYAY NABEEL MOHIDEEN MANAS CHAKRAVARTY MONIKA HALAN SHUCHI BANSAL SIDIN VADUKUT JASBIR LADI

{

WIN WIN CONTEST

â Apartment9: Gift voucher worth `3,500.

á Philips: HMP3000, media player that accepts data from any source, `4,990.

©2011 HT Media Ltd All Rights Reserved

á Sony Ericsson: Txt, cellphone built for easier texting, `7,500.

ã Fabindia: Organic products, tea lights, candles in a tray, `3,500.

á Zaza Home: Wall clock, `3,500.

ã L’Occitane: Set of perfumed soap, shower gel, beauty milk and hand cream, `3,665.

ã William Penn: Money clip studded with a black onyx by Dalvey, `3,200.

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ã Patchi: Chocolate platter, `3,650. ã Titan: Phulkari­inspired ladies watch, `3,750.

á Microsoft: Gesture­sensing touch mouse, `3,999.

SEASON CHANGE

S

unil Mittal says that he is often asked why Indians don’t give. “My view on this is simple: India has got wealth recently. People are not comfortable with it just yet. They are not sure if this is for real and if it is sustainable. Also Indians want to save up for their children. Each one of us has done that. My parents did it, I do it. Despite the fact that I am reasonably wealthy, I still want my children to live a better life than I do.”

Why do Indians want to leave money for their children? Mittal says attachment to the next generation is very, very high in India. “It’s quite intense in our DNA. But I think this is changing, specially in urban India. Forget business people, I am seeing professionals becoming interested in giving.”

At Lounge we believe that many of you might be interested in giving too but often slack off because you are not sure about the cause or whether the charity ON THE COVER: PHOTOGRAPHER: PRADEEP GAUR/MINT

you want to support will actually use your money sensibly. This year we decided to visit NGOs working in the hinterland and selected 11 causes that might touch your heart. Watch our slide shows and videos (www.livemint.com) to get a real glimpse of how rural India lives and what they think. We also found that there are agencies that track the work of NGOs carefully so you can be sure that your money is utilized well if you decide to be part of the giving brigade.

So as you head out to shop for the perfect gift (don’t sweat, because we have already scoured the stores to look for gift ideas that will delight just about anyone) and spend time indulging and splurging, take part of your Saturday off to read about what your countrymen in rural India aspire to. Enjoy the issue, enjoy the season of gifting and giving.

Seema Chowdhry Issue Editor

á Episode: Set of two silver­plated bowls encapsulated in copper holders, `4,000.

RULES OF THE CONTEST This is the fourth year for our Diwali Win Win contest. We believe that you should not just see but also enjoy some of the gifts featured in the gifting section. Take our quiz at www.livemint.com/diwaliquiz2011 Answer the questions, and a lucky draw win would give you a shot at getting any of these great gifts. The contest closes on 1 November.

THE GIFTING ISSUE

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SATURDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2011 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

THE GIVING ISSUE PHOTOGRAPHS

BY

PRIYANKA PARASHAR/MINT

SUNIL MITTAL’S ‘MA KA KHANA’ MODEL

P

eople come to us for donations of all kinds: for old-age homes, eye donation camps, healthcare needs, AIDS afflicted. We could have kept writing cheques, which we did for a long time and still do. But after the earthquake in Gujarat (Bhuj, 2001), some people came to us seeking help, and I still remember thinking that even this cheque will go into a large, black hole.

It made no sense. I knew we needed to do something that would create an impact. My mind was working at building a core around our giving activities.

When I discussed this with Rakesh (elder brother) and others, we wondered what kind of activity would have a multiplier effect. And I knew it would be education, especially in villages where schools are not available for the poorest of the poor. I firmly believe that if you teach a child, chances are that eventually this benefits the whole family.

Another factor also set me thinking. We had given crores to the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), New Delhi, and while it (Bharti School of Telecommunication Technology and Management) was and is a great project, I felt that the output was very poor—in the sense that the number of students who qualified on that money was no more than 100 a year. In effect, we were spending very large amounts of money on high-quality education but it benefited few.

I like scale; everything we do is done on a large scale. I felt that the money that had gone to IIT would have worked much longer had we done primary education.

This is where our shift in focus came, and we decided the Bharti Foundation would set up a programme that would build and run 500 primary schools across the country.

If we wanted to scale up our philanthropic activities, then we had to have focus on one area.

We decided to put in `200 crore from our own funds into the Bharti Foundation corpus towards this and started the programme around 2006.

We consulted a lot of people like Arun Kapoor, director of Vasant Valley School in New Delhi, and many other educationists, saw the

SUNIL MITTAL

FIRST PERSON

government school models and then finally developed our model.

(Each Satya Bharti School has three classrooms, separate toilets for boys and girls, an IBM-donated computer, six teachers, plus a helper for around 200 children, nutritious mid-day meals and a double-shift system.)

The model had to be fine-tuned and that’s where the expertise of people like Manju Bharat Ram, who is on our board, came in handy. For example, initially we wanted to have two classes going on at the same time in one classroom. She objected to that. Finally, we came around to her point of view.

The board had discussed charging `10 a month as a fee, not because we wanted the money, but because it was thought it would help curb absenteeism. We had even planned to give this fee back to the children who had a good attendance record. I was totally opposed to it because in the villages where we were to set up, there was just too much poverty.

I think initially we experimented with the fee in a few new schools and it was found that not many could pay that sum, so it was abandoned.

Another key idea was to hire teachers from within the local ecosystems, so that they don’t leave easily. We also felt regular teachers’ training is very important. Even today, despite our efforts to hire good staff, there are teachers who are not up to scratch. Therefore, we have to train them constantly. We did not realize when we started out that we would end up training them for 20/25 days in a year but it helps and so we have continued the process. Teachers also like it because they get to learn about new tools, methods, and get acclimatized to our way of education.

We wanted to turn out rounded individuals and hence

there has been emphasis on personal hygiene, on good manners for our students. Since nutritious meals was another focus area, my thought was that only mothers should cook mid-day meals in our schools. I am not sure how much of that has been implemented. But I believe if a mother cooks the food, it will be with love and care.

This is a way to affect the community too since the mothers get a job and earn a livelihood.

While we were developing the model, we wrote to many members of Parliament cutting across party lines asking if they would be interested in this programme. We had asked them only to connect us to village panchayats and work with us at convincing them to lease land for the school buildings. Some responded but most did not.

Now the Satya Bharti School programme works like an organization; each school follows the standard operating model. You go to one school and then the other and everything will be exactly the same. The curriculum, of course, had to be the same anyway and so we developed our own curriculum and it is dramatically different from the government schools, and much better. I am a firm believer in the fact that practical modules should be added to theory and this is the right way to impart education.

Our teachers are trained to teach more through visual effects, through props and that’s how it is in the rest of the world. I have always opposed the rote method and we will not go that way. We want our children to absorb the ideas. I feel that’s why our students do better. We have seen the results after the schools have been operational for five years now and they are positive.

There is a beautiful story which was narrated to me about a child from one of our schools who taught her parents to sign. When they came in for a parent-teacher meeting, the teacher pushed forward an ink pad for the thumb print but they asked for a pen instead and signed on the report card. This is the positive aspect of what we are doing.

Having 33,000 children in this programme currently is quite impactful even for a country like India and every year the outcome only delights us.

A better tomorrow: Chil­ dren enjoy outdoor activities at the Satya Bharti School in Kai­ thal, Haryana; and (left) homeward­bound in a tractor­trolley (jugaad).

Rakesh, whenever he goes into those villages, says he is showered with love.

Will this have any spin-off or benefit for our business, I don’t know. But the goodwill for the family, for brand Bharti, for the foundation is enormous.

I know, we said that we would only do primary schools initially but within a year or so of the schools being operational we realized this is not a good thing.

We were giving a reasonably good quality of education to the students and then leaving the child in a lurch after class V. When he comes out of the Satya Bharti School Program he does not want to go to a government school. That’s why we decided that in the first phase we will cut down the primary schools from 500 to 250 and use the remaining funds to build 50 secondary schools instead. Companies like Google are partnering with us to build elementary schools (up to class VIII) in some areas too.

Right now, we are in a consolidation phase. We have

233 primary schools, 12 elementary schools and five senior secondary school running in Punjab, Haryana, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and some are in public-private partnership with the government too, so we have taken a step back to figure out if all is well; why is the attrition rate of teachers high; why do students drop out. There are still some students who are not doing well, their grades are not picking up.

Absenteeism in schools bothers me and the sheer fact that children are coming from 2-3km away is upsetting. Our idea was to enrol children from nearby areas only but that is not happening. We get children from even 2-3km away. Sometimes parents use tractor-trolley (jugaad) to bring children to school. That is a challenge. There is discussion now, “Should we run buses?”, but I don’t think we can now be a transport company too. There is time when you need to stop, breathe and take corrective actions and then go

ahead. That’s what we are doing now. Later we will look at states like Bihar and Orissa to open more schools.

Another thing we are looking at is to take promising students beyond the primary and secondary system. I want doctors, pilots, lawyers to come out of this scheme; that will be the high point. We will run scholarships for these children. If need be, I will move all scholarships from those engineering colleges and bring them here.

I am happy when state governments want to partner with us. But what takes a long time usually in these partnerships is that we are clear that we don’t want daily interference. We have said no to money because we will not compromise our style of functioning. That has been quite a struggle because when any government puts in money or the education department puts in capital, they want more control.

We are happy to be subjected to massive amounts of transparency. If they want weekly reports, we will do it, if they want to audit us, we are happy, but we can’t run the schools the way they want to run them. We have had a breakthrough in Punjab recently and now six Government Satya Bharti Adarsh Senior Secondary schools run in partnership with the government.

Can this be done on a much grander scale by us? It can be done. We have funded the project heavily, have put the right people behind it and have passionately pushed the project.

But my real hope is that 100 organizations will look at this model and says yes this works and then push for it too. I would be happy to just open up the elements of this programme for them, let them send in their people to see the model and then transport it and make it work.

At the end of the day, if 100 companies dedicate themselves to this, there will be a dramatic change.

As told to Seema Chowdhry seema.c@livemint.com

THE GIFTING ISSUE

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THE GIVING ISSUE NATHAN G/MINT

DO YOU HAVE A ‘RURBAN’IN YOU? F or the financially secure, urban Indian, however well meaning, rural India remains a nebulous construct.

We know the statistics, hear about farmer suicides and watch verdant paddy fields in movies. But barring annual visits to ancestral villages, few urban dwellers have any real intersection with Mahatma Gandhi’s “700,000 villages”, now about 640,000 as per Census 2011. We don’t know how our rural counterparts live and what issues they grapple with. Then how to contribute?

Where to begin?

I cold-emailed Jairam Ramesh, Union minister of rural development, with one question: How could urban individuals contribute to rural India? He called me from Gumla, Jharkhand. “Do you know where Gumla is?” he asked. Sheepishly, I said no.

After some small talk—his mother lives in Bangalore—I asked how the average urban citizen could help rural India, should they desire to. What were his top five priorities?

Ramesh laughed and said that his top priorities, such as land reform, rural infrastructure and employment, were not things the average citizen could contribute to. “Those initiatives are for well-meaning bankrupt governments, not for well-meaning rich individuals (like your readers),” he said.

“The bulk of investments in rural areas will have to come from the government. To expect the private sector to make these huge investments is unrealistic.”

I can see why he thinks that; but with all due respect, I disagree with him. The 2011 Bain & Co. report on philanthropy in India states that private giving in India is between 0.3% and 0.4% of GDP —higher than other developing countries such as China, but far lower than America’s 2.2% and the UK’s 1.3%. The reason for this disparity is because individual donations in India only constitute 26% of all private giving, relative to the US’ 75% and the UK’s 60%. We look to our governments for the bulk of funding, particularly in rural India, where the government has budgeted `74,100 crore for 2011-12, according to the ministry of rural development (MRD) website. The question is: Can a charismatic leader like

SHOBA NARAYAN

THE GOOD LIFE

Ramesh cause a significant shift upward in private donation numbers so that “bankrupt governments” can spend less?

India with over 50 billionaires (according to the Forbes magazine’s list of world’s billionaires) ought to have higher philanthropic numbers; and slowly it is happening. The uber rich are setting up foundations; average citizens are giving more, and this doesn’t count what we give to our religious institutions. But we aren’t giving enough. Wealth has a correlation to charity but it is not an obvious one. The World Giving Index 2010 states that Indians, surprisingly, give more than the Chinese. But rural India—barring building schools and hospitals—doesn’t feature much in our giving. I think it is because we don’t know how to and (it must be said) because we think the government will take care of it.

Say, I want to find a rural cause. I know two catalyst organizations—EdelGive and Caring Friends, both in Mumbai.

I would call them up and ask them to recommend an NGO. I would make a one-time, ad hoc donation, just to feel good.

Ramesh suggests the opposite.

“The problem with NGOs is that they lack scale and are dependent on personalities,” he says. “Urban Indians can help through technology and expertise. They could make a firm five-year commitment to the right NGO so that they can build capacity.”

Today, while folding clothes, I listened to a podcast interview with productivity guru Robert Pozen. Strange juxtaposition, I know. Pozen teaches at Harvard Business School, ran a fund company with $200 billion (around `9.8 trillion) in assets, and is a fellow at the Washington-based think tank, Brookings Institution. Pozen described leaders who took on too much, simply because they believed that they were the best

for the job. “The question is not who’s best at performing high-priority functions, but which things can you and only you as the CEO get done?” he asked. As soon as he said that, I wondered if I should stop folding clothes and tackle those jobs that I and only I could do. I am oversimplifying of course, but this begs the question: Is the MRD taking on too much? What are the high-priority functions that Ramesh and only Ramesh can do? Everything else, he can outsource to corporations, foundations and individuals.

Easier said than done, I know.

The roadmap to citizen involvement is circuitous and fraught with hurdles. I am not talking about public-private partnerships such as those initiated in the healthcare sector in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh or Uttarakhand. I am talking game-changer, a la Steve Jobs. If anyone can do it, a maverick like Ramesh can.

The MRD has 11 schemes in its portfolio, including training and housing. Ramesh also oversees drinking water supply and land resources, each with several schemes. The extent of his duties and projects are mind-boggling. No wonder he is in Gumla on a Saturday night.

After some back and forth, I pushed him for names and organizations he could recommend. “Canvass opinion from credible people who have experience in this area—people like Aruna Roy, Joe Madiath, Al Fernandez, for example—and also from administrators who have worked with such NGOs (S.M. Vijayanand in Kerala, K. Raju in Andhra Pradesh, Santhosh Mathew in Bihar, for instance). Once you find a good grassroots NGO—like Gram Vikas in Orissa—you contribute.”

Ramesh’s solution for individual contribution to rural India is practical but not a paradigm shift. He should expect more from us, I say. Bangalore citizen, author and philanthropist Rohini Nilekani has just released a book called Uncommon Ground. Urban and rural India can find common ground, can they not?

Ramesh calls it “rurban”.

“Frankly, the notion of rural and urban India is an old concept,” he says. “These are not two boxes, not two silos. There is a continuum. India is increasingly getting rurban. That’s where the

CREDIT

Clean sweep: Hyundai Motor India is constructing 200 toilets in Irungattukottai village, near Chennai. real growth is taking place.”

Could he name one area where individual contribution would make a difference? His answer is surprising: toilets.

“To my mind, the single biggest issue that we face is sanitation,” he says. “Fifty-eight per cent of all open defecations in the world are in India. Fifty to seventy-five per cent of all Indian women defecate openly.

It is a national shame, a national blot. We are trying to entice people to use toilets. We have built lakhs of toilets but people aren’t using them. We are trying to start a major Clean India campaign; communication programmes and such.”

Hallelujah! I find my answer.

Ramesh has opened the proverbial Pandora’s box. My fellow urban Indians! We may not be able or willing to spend extended amounts of time and energy in our villages, but we can do a Clean India campaign.

Influencing minds is urban India’s forte. We have copywriters, ad geniuses, celebrities, Bollywood stars. What if Sachin Tendulkar, Deepika

Padukone, A.R. Rahman or Savita Bhabhi urge people to use garbage bins or even toilets?

They might listen.

Shah Rukh Khan has already agreed to be an advocate for sanitation and hygiene. He has become the ambassador of the UN-hosted Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC), and has called for “political commitment at the highest level”. Khan’s first public service announcement is in English and on YouTube, where it will reach exactly those people who don’t need to squat on the streets. Someone should get him to speak in Hindi and beam him to India’s hinterlands through mobile phones, which have the greatest penetration in rural India. This is blue sky thinking, but maybe Sunil Bharti Mittal could have his engineers design an annoying phone alarm that goes off every time someone decides to take a you-know-what under the blue sky. NGOs like Sulabh are already doing good work on the ground. The UN has jumped in. Kerala member of Parliament Shashi Tharoor’s wife,

Sunanda, wants to build toilets for girls. There is a confluence of ideas on the verge of a tipping point. About time too.

I asked Ramesh for contact details I could publish in case Mint’s readers wanted to get involved with the Clean India campaign or his ministry. He gave me his email: jairam54@gmail.com.

If you write, tell him Mint sent you. And please don’t spam him.

Shoba Narayan is part of several Clean Bengaluru initiatives, including innovative garbage solutions from anonymous crusaders who call themselves The Ugly Indian (www.theuglyindian.com). Write to her at thegoodlife@livemint.com www.livemint.com Read Shoba’s previous Lounge columns at www.livemint.com/shoba­narayan

www.livemint.com Read Hyundai CSR activity story at www.livemint.com/hyundai.csr.htm

THINKSTOCK

THE THREE ESSENTIALS OF A GIVER I

think about money a lot. I run an organization in Dehradun for children with special needs and thinking about money comes with the job description: where it will come from; where it will be spent. How much we need; how little we have. What it can buy; what it cannot replace. Who’s holding on to it; who’s willing to give it away.

Like all my colleagues in the voluntary sector, I think about money. Like many of them, I used to worry about it too.

I don’t do that any more.

Not worrying is a challenge.

It takes discipline, faith and a good memory.

Discipline, because everything in our culture and upbringing tells us just the opposite: Constant anxiety about what you do or don’t have is normal. You are supposed to feel on edge. Nothing

JO CHOPRA

INSIDE VIEW is secure, nothing is certain. Life itself is worrying.

Faith, because if you aren’t worrying, it means you are placing your trust somewhere else—in god, or people or the universe—and admitting you aren’t always (or ever) in control.

A good memory, because we’ve been here before. And we will be here again. It’s important to remember that

we’ve been rescued in the past.

Every time, in fact.

Sometimes, to the exact penny we require. I remember once sitting with our accountant trying to figure out how we could give our entire staff a 10% raise and how much I would need to raise for the year to make it happen.

We were a small group in those days and the amount I needed to find was `1.2 lakh. “Go ahead,” I told her bravely, signing the memo announcing the decision.

“I’ll find the money.”

The next day, a cheque arrived for `1.2 lakh. Unsolicited, out of the blue.

I take these things as signs. Had the cheque been for less, I would have reduced the increment. Had it been for more, I would have hired another special educator.

The last thing you want to do in such situations is to get cocky.

A few weeks ago, a friend whose organization was in dire need of funds asked if I could help her find some money. Our foundation was in the exact same situation (there’s a pattern here, I know), but I took her story to a woman who is wealthy and generous and she donated `12 lakh to my friend’s cause.

When I came back to the office to share the great news, my colleagues were aghast: What about our funding crisis? they asked. Didn’t you think of that?

Of course, I did. And I’m not pretending that I wasn’t disappointed when that wealthy, generous woman didn’t offer to bail us out as well. But I was not worried. Because if I’ve learned anything at all about generosity in my nearly 20 years of raising funds, it is this: It doesn’t matter who gets the money. Today it’s

Keep the faith: Money worries have a way of solving themselves. her turn, tomorrow it’s his.

Next week, if we’re lucky, it will be ours.

The important thing is the generosity, the giving. It’s like a river. The moment you dam it up, saying “That water is mine”, or “Don’t tell anyone about this source”, the river dies.

Keep it flowing. The more you give, the more you receive.

Everyone has something to give.

Everyone needs something that someone else has. Pass it on.

Jo Chopra is executive director and co-founder of the Latika Roy Foundation (Latikaroy.org) in Dehradun. The foundation works with children and adults with multiple disabilities and takes a rights-based approach to inclusion.

Write to lounge@livemint.com

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THE GIFTING ISSUE

YOUR OWN MA BAKER

ANIRUDDHA CHOWDHURY/MINT

THE GIVING ISSUE

With cinnamon­ infused granola bars or chocolate shortbread, add a personal touch to your gift hampers

PRIYANKA PARASHAR/MINT

B Y S EEMA C HOWDHRY seema.c@livemint.com

···························· xpensive chocolates, exotic fruits, endless boxes of laddoos—you’ve gifted them all. Don’t your cousins, friends and colleagues also come up with exactly the same, clichéd ideas? This Diwali, be different. Send out boxes of home-made, easy-tobake desserts.

E

Chocolate Shortbread Makes 3 dozen Ingredients 450g butter 65g sugar 65g icing sugar, plus some extra for dusting 550g flour 200g Toblerone chocolate, coarsely chopped Method Preheat the oven to 165 degrees Celsius. With a hand mixer, mix butter, both the sugars and flour until the lumps disappear. Now, add the chopped chocolate and knead well.

Dust the table with flour. Roll the dough to about 1cm thickness. Cut into desired shapes, like stars, hearts or circles.

Bake at 165 degrees Celsius for 12-15 minutes, until golden brown. Let them cool completely and then dust on the icing sugar with a sieve.

—Recipe courtesy Anna and David Hambly, Red Moon Bakery, Okhla, New Delhi

chocolate and heated cream in a 1:2 ratio) 100g melted chocolate for dipping Drinking straws Assorted decorative sprinkles, sugar balls, etc.

Method For each lollipop, take 100g of cake and 50g of icing. Mix them together in the palm of your hands and roll together to form a ball. Once rolled, place in the fridge for 10 minutes. Then insert the straw into the ball right to the very end, so that the ball does not fall off. Then dip into the melted chocolate to form a thick coating on the ball all the way till the straw.

When still moist, sprinkle with toppings and place in the fridge to set. Repeat the process to make more lollipops.

Place in a glass jar with shredded gold paper or marbles, etc., and present as a bouquet.

—Recipe courtesy Nikita Dembla, Niki’s Desserts, Breach Candy, Mumbai

Choco Combo Brownie Cupcakes Makes 5 Ingredients K cup butter 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate 1 cup sugar 2 large eggs K cup all-purpose flour 2 tbsp cocoa powder 1 vanilla pod O cup chocolate chips Orange marmalade or nuts (optional) Method Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. In a medium saucepan, melt the butter and chocolate over a double boiler, stirring until smooth. Remove from heat and beat in the sugar and then the eggs. Mix in the flour, cocoa powder, the seeds from the vanilla pod and chocolate chips. If you want, you can add hazelnuts to this mixture.

Scoop out into cups. Bake for 15-20 minutes. Cool, and wrap the next day and make your own Diwali hampers.

—Recipe courtesy Kishi Arora, Foodaholics.in, New Delhi

Oatmeal and Raisin Cookies

O tsp ground cinnamon K tsp salt 2O cups rolled oats 1 cup raisins Method Preheat the oven to 190 degrees Celsius. In a large bowl, cream together the butter, white sugar and brown sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs and vanilla until fluffy. Sift together flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Gradually beat into the butter mixture.

Stir in oats and raisins. Drop by the teaspoonfuls on to cookie sheets. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until golden brown.

Cool slightly, remove from the sheet to a wire rack. Cool completely and pack batches to send out.

—Recipe courtesy Shelly Sahay, Elma’s Bakery, Cakes and Tea Room, Hauz Khas Village, New Delhi

Makes 8-12

Chocolate Lollipop Bouquets

Ingredients O cup butter, softened O cup white sugar O cup brown sugar 2 eggs 1 tsp vanilla extract 1N cups all-purpose flour 1 tsp baking soda

Makes 8 lollipops, 1 bouquet Ingredients 800g chocolate sponge cake (store bought or make your own) 400g chocolate icing (melted

Thick, Chewy Granola Bars Makes 16 bars

ABHIJIT BHATLEKAR/MINT

Ingredients 1M cups quick rolled oats K cup granulated sugar (or brown sugar) L cup oat flour (or wheat flour, wheat germ) K tsp salt K tsp ground cinnamon 2-3 cups dried fruits and nuts (could include dried cranberries, apricots, pecans, almonds, cashew nuts, dried figs, melon seeds, sunflower seeds, coconut flakes, walnuts, sesame seeds, flax seeds, dried apples or even chocolate chips) L cup peanut butter (optional) 1 tsp vanilla extract (optional) 6 tbsp melted butter (or olive oil) N cup plus 2 tbsp honey, maple syrup (or combination) 1 tbsp water

Oven fresh: (clockwise from top) Granola Bars by Whisk and Whip; Choco Combo Brownie Cupcakes from Foo­ daholics; Chocolate Lolli­ pops from Niki’s Desserts; and Oatmeal and Raisin Cookies from Elma’s.

Method Preheat the oven to 175 degrees Celsius. Line an 8x8-inch pan with parchment paper—place the sheet in such a way that two ends stick out. This aids in lifting the baked slab out afterwards. Lightly grease the parchment paper and the exposed pan.

Stir together all the dry ingredients, including the fruit and nuts. In a separate bowl, whisk together the vanilla, melted butter or oil, liquid sweeteners and water. Toss the wet ingredients with the dry (and peanut butter, if you’re using it) until the mixture is evenly crumbly.

Spread in the prepared pan, pressing the mixture in firmly so that it moulds to the shape of the pan.

Bake for 25-30 minutes, until brown around the edges. If it looks soft and almost under-baked, do not worry—it’ll set once cool. Cool in the pan completely on a cooling rack. Once cool, use a serrated knife to cut 2x2-inch bars or use cookie cutters to get the desired shapes. If the bars still seem crumbly, chill in the fridge for 30 minutes. To store, wrap the bars individually in plastic or stack them in an airtight container. In humid weather, it’s best to store bars in the refrigerator. They also freeze well.

—Recipe courtesy Samruddhi Nayak and Nina Subramani, Whisk and Whip, Indiranagar, Bangalore (adapted from the King Arthur Flour blog).

Gayatri Jayaraman, Komal Sharma and Pavitra Jayaraman contributed to this story.

VIDEO Learn how to make these recipes at www.livemint.com/ diwalibaking.htm

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ur children, aged 13 and 15, have been acting difficult during festivals in the last couple of years, and it is getting worse. They do not like a single sweet or savoury preparation, do not enjoy crackers, hate wearing festive clothes, and just don’t like visiting relatives. We have to coax them out of their rooms when people visit. I’m willing to let them be, but my husband feels (and I agree) that this is just snobbery and they must learn to enjoy the spirit of the season. They are the same with weddings too. Please advise how to deal with this. I don’t want them participating as if they’re doing the whole world a favour.

Well, for them, they are doing you a favour by agreeing to do so many things they dislike! But your concern is understandable. However, how does one get an adolescent and a teenager to change their minds? The snobbery part may be true, but there may also be an element of extreme boredom. The “spirit of the season” does not necessarily mean enjoying all the things that you have outlined. Perhaps you need to break these things down into necessary and unnecessary activities, and negotiate what

GOURI DANGE

LEARNING CURVE can be let go and what must be done.

If the “snobbery” part hassles you, then there is a larger issue to be tackled year-round really at other levels. If, for you, visiting relatives or at least being sociable and nice to people when they visit is important, then you need to have a sensitive chat with them about why they need to connect with people better—not just as a favour to you. If all year round you have nothing much to do with these relatives, it does seem artificial and difficult for the children to suddenly be able to show involvement with them. It makes sense to, pre-season, perhaps clue them in on who’s who in the larger family, and tell them something interesting about that person or family, so the children don’t think of them as strangers who have to be smiled at and hugged and feet touched.

All this means we can’t simply uncork “the festive season” on our children. We need them to have some small connect with who their family is and why they are important. Overall, many children this age are preoccupied with themselves and don’t have much mental space for what the fuss is about around festivals.

You need to negotiate with them whichever part of the festivities are really important to you, talking about which things they simply have to do and which they could learn to enjoy.

There could be a bunch of things you simply agree to let go.

How does one teach a six-year-old to accept gifts and say thank you without saying things like “I already have this”.

Or “I wanted a yellow truck, not red”.

Or “My uncle is going to give me a bat with Sachin Tendulkar’s name on it”. Or some such thing which makes the giver feel rejected? I have tried telling him that he must learn to just accept the gift with grace and thanks, and then he could tell us later if he doesn’t like it or wants something else. So now he just makes an awkward face and looks at us when he opens a gift that doesn’t appeal to him. Next, I will have to teach him to come up with fake joy and enthusiasm which doesn’t seem like a good thing to teach. What would you suggest?

Yes, the fake “I just loved your gift, it was exactly what I wanted” kind of adult-world social stuff…it really seems a pity to have to teach it to a six-year-old. However, to indicate to your child that rejecting a gift or dismissing it right there when he receives it, constitutes rude behaviour, is important too. Perhaps for a little child, besides telling him that it is rude, you need to give him alternative behaviour

and responses when he receives a gift he doesn’t particularly like. Towards this, there are three things you could explain and reiterate: a) that people make an effort to think of what he would like and he needs to connect with that effort and not with the thing itself sometimes. This is a rather abstract “it’s the thought that counts” concept for a little child, but see if you can find an age-appropriate way of introducing this concept to him; b) you need to tell him that it’s not a big deal if there is a gift he doesn’t like or won’t use.

He has, and will get, many things he does like, and a lot does not hinge on that one gift he has received but not liked, so he must learn to say a sincere thank you; c) you could use this as an opportunity for him to think of other, less fortunate children, and tell him that he must thank the person nicely, and that later he can

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PUNEET CHANDHOK/HINDUSTAN TIMES

give away that thing to a poor child or to an orphanage, among other things.

This might also give him a little perspective, which children need, on how not to take for granted that their every nuanced whim needs to be met. This is not to suggest that we guilt-trip our children when they show less appreciation for what they get. It’s just that the festive season is packed with lessons that can be subtly taught to all ages about sharing, caring, appreciating and not getting hung up on gifts without connecting to the people that gift them.

Gouri Dange is the author of ABCs of Parenting.

Write to Gouri at learningcurve@livemint.com

In the spirit: Don’t force your children to meet relatives during festivals.

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hat will be the perfect gift for my boss? Does my mother really care about the trendy new wine cooler in the market? Would my best friend rather have me look at her ever-expanding wish list first? How much should I spend on whom? The questions must have piled up.

Like every year, we make it easy for you to choose your Diwali gifts. From cutlery and action-hero toys to the quirky and most innovative diyas to Madhubala cushion

covers and lamps with tribal and ethnic motifs—we shopped for days to find something to suit every taste and budget.

There’s no better time to tell your near and dear ones that you thought of them while buying their Diwali gift. Go ahead, indulge.

Write to lounge@livemint.com

á Sony Bravia KDL­55HX925, at Sony stores countrywide, approx. `2.59 lakh.

ä Velvet Nawab Jacket by Canali, at DLF Emporio mall, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi; UB City mall, Vittal Mallya Road, Bangalore; and Palladium mall, Lower Parel, Mumbai, `69,500 onwards.

â Cosmic Leaf lamp, at Artemide, D­3, Defence Colony, New Delhi, `83,326.

{`50,000 ABOVE

ä Luxury smartphone in red carbon leather, by Tag Heuer, at Johnson Watch Co. and other luxury watch stores countrywide, `3.9 lakh.

ã Sentryman Explorer, limited­edition pen, at Alfred Dunhill, UB City mall, Bangalore; and DLF Emporio mall, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi, `2.64 lakh.

â Iconic metallic women’s bag, at Burberry, DLF Emporio mall, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi; and Palladium mall, Lower Parel, Mumbai, `72,000.

á Moon Phases steel and gold watch for men, Longines Master Collection, at luxury watch stores countrywide, approx. `2.09 lakh.

ä Philips HTS9520, at most leading elec­ tronics stores, `70,990.

á Billrocking Chair, at Hulsta’s design studio, Mahipalpur Extension, NH 8, Delhi­Gurgaon Road, New Delhi; and Dr E Moses Road, Worli, Mumbai, `65,000 onwards.

PHOTOGRAPHS: DIVYA BABU, PRIYANKA PARASHAR, ABHIJIT BHATLEKAR, PRADEEP GAUR & ANIRUDDHA CHOWDHURY/MINT; PRODUCT SOURCING: SEEMA CHOWDHRY, KOMAL SHARMA, GOPAL SATHE, GAYATRI JAYARAMAN, PAVITRA JAYARAMAN & SANJUKTA SHARMA/MINT

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THE GIVING ISSUE â Chocolate chest

by Patchi, at Select Citywalk mall, Saket, New Delhi; and Atria Mall, Worli, Mumbai, `15,000 onwards.

ä iPad case at Salvatore Ferrag­ amo, at UB City, Vittal Mallya Road, Bangalore; Grand Hyatt Mumbai, Santacruz East, Mumbai; and DLF Emporio mall, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi, `48,000.

ã Set of silk tie and pocket square, at Canali, DLF Emporio mall, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi; UB City, Vittal Mallya Road, Bangalore; and Palladium Mall, Lower Parel, Mumbai, `18,000.

{

`15,001­ `50,000

ä JBL On Air Wireless Airplay speakers (perfect for iPhone/ iPad owners), at electronics stores countrywide, `17,000.

ä Samsung Omnia W Windows Mango Phone, at Samsung stores countrywide, `19,900.

ã Faluknama Jali (decorative floor light), at Good Earth stores countrywide, a set of four costs `22,000 (`5,500 each).

á Candle stands (large, `14,400; medium, `11,700 and small, `9,000), at apartment9, N­Block Market, Greater Kailash­1, New Delhi.

ä Silver­plated bowl, at Episode, Grand Galleria, High Street Phoenix, Lower Parel, Mumbai; N­Block Market, Greater Kailash­1, and Select Citywalk mall, Saket, New Delhi, `21,130.

ã Silver Taj boxes, at Ravis­ sant, New Friends Colony, New Delhi; and Kemps Corner, Mumbai, `21,400 each, tray costs an extra `44,000.

ã Smoking pipe, at Porsche Design, DLF Emporio mall, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi, `26,500.

á Chair, at Address Home, Raghuvanshi Mills Compound, Lower Parel, Mumbai; and Khan Market and N­Block Market, Greater Kailash­1, New Delhi, `26,900.

ã Bal Ganpati, at Frazer and Haws, Main market, Lodhi Colony, New Delhi, `32,400.

ã Watch, Graceful

by Calvin Klein, at Calvin Klein stores countrywide, `20,400.

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ä Photo frame in gold

THE GIVING ISSUE Guccissima leather at

Gucci, at the Galleria, Trident, Mumbai; and DLF Emporio mall, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi. `23,500. ã Grainy leather belt for women, at Bur­ berry, DLF Emporio mall, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi; the Galleria, Trident, Mumbai; and Taj Krishna, Hyderabad, `17,000.

ã Lakshmi and Ganesh boxes, at Ravis­ sant, New Friends Colony, New Delhi; and Kemps Corner, Mumbai, `23,500 each. áSennheiser HD 25 headset, ideal for music and general entertainment, at most music and electronics stores, `16,990.

á Malabar chair at Good Earth, at Select Citywalk mall, Saket, New Delhi; Raghuvanshi Mills Compound, Lower Parel, Mumbai; and UB City, Vittal Mallya Road, Bangalore, `38,500.

ã Sony Xperia active Android phone with fitness features, at Sony stores countrywide, `19,900.

ä ST Dupont Olympio fountain pen and ST Dupont leather wal­ let set, at William Penn stores countrywide, `33,000.

ã Signature pochette at Tod’s, DLF Emporio mall, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi; and the Galleria, Nariman Point Mumbai, `55,000.

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á Money clip, at Salvatore Ferragamo, UB City, Vittal Mallya Road, Bangalore; Grand Hyatt Mumbai, Santacruz East, Mumbai; and DLF Emporio mall, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi, `11,000.

á Star Wars: THE GIVING ISSUE

The Complete Saga, a set of six movies, at Land­ mark stores coun­ trywide, `6,999.

á Rosary box, at Frazer and Haws, Main Market, Lodhi Colony, New Delhi, `9,800.

ä Playing cards and case, at Paul Smith, DLF Emporio mall, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi; and UB City, Vittal Mallya Road, Bangalore, `5,600.

á Ladies watch with enamel filling and turquoise stones, Raga Weaves by Titan, at Titan stores countrywide, `7,995.

{

`5,001­ `15,000

â Hourglass (`2,250), cork shade table lamp (`1,950) and clock (`1,050) set, at Renovation Factory, Khan Market, New Delhi.

â Delhi city keychain, at Tod’s, DLF Emporio mall, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi; and the Galleria, Nariman Point, Mumbai, `9,000.

ã Brocade paisley cushion, set of four, at Zaza Home, Community Centre, Zamrudpur, New Delhi, `5,480 (`1,370 each).

â Ambiray tea light, at Swarovski stores countrywide, `5,100.

ä Leather trunk coffee table, at Nappa Dori Home, Hauz Khas Village, New Delhi, `8,800. ã Razer Hydra hybrid motion controller, at www.razerzone. com, `10,000.

á Silver brass­ finish vessel, at Good Earth, Select Citywalk mall, Saket, New Delhi, `5,200. á Wine bowl, at Episode, Grand Galleria, High Street Phoenix, Lower Parel, Mumbai; and N­Block Market, Greater Kailash­1 and Select Citywalk mall, Saket, New Delhi, `7,200.

á Dinner set, including six plates, bowls, glasses and table mats, at Zaza Home, Commu­ nity Centre, Zamrudpur, New Delhi, `5,820.

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ä Bird light, at Crazy Daisy, Mehar Chand Market, New Delhi, `600.

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â Bamboo fish lights, at Fabindia stores countrywide, `890.

á Net tray, at Zaza Home, Zamrudpur, Greater Kai­ lash­1, New Delhi, `600. ä Wooden candle stand, at Yellow Button, Indiranagar, Bangalore, `350.

ã Thermal cup, at HomeStop, Select Citywalk mall, Saket, New Delhi, `395.

{`1,000 UNDER

ã Framed mirror, at Crazy Daisy, Mehar Chand Market, New Delhi, `525.

á Lime juicer, at Home­ Stop, Select Citywalk mall, Saket, New Delhi, `699.

ã Flower hangings, at Maati, Hauz Khas Village, New Delhi, `800 (each).

ã Lemon container at HomeStop, Select Citywalk mall, Saket, New Delhi, `249.

â The Ramayan Kit (a set of seven puppets—Ram, Sita, Lakshman, Hanuman, Ravan, Surpanakha and Golden Deer), at Hamara Nischay, Sir Pochkhanwala Road, Worli Sea Face, Mumbai, `560 per kit.

â The Game of Mix­up Art, at CMYK, Mehar Chand Market, Lodhi Road, New Delhi, approx. `383.

â Candle stand, at The Bamboo Store, behind N­Block Market, Greater Kailash­1, New Delhi, `250.

â Lotus tea­light holder, at Address Home, N­Block Market, Greater Kailash­1, New Delhi; Raghuvanshi Mills Compound, Lower Parel, Mumbai; and Road No. 7, Banjara Hills, Hyderabad, `550.

ä The Penguin Book of Welsh, Scottish and Modern British Short Stories, at all leading book stores, comes as a set of three, `399 each.

â Eau de Parfum (5ml) by L’occitane, at Khan Market, New Delhi, `450.

â Experiencing Tarot: The Art of Healing, by Roopa Patel, available at all leading book stores, or at www.roopapatel. com, `799.

ä Watering can, at Fabindia stores countrywide, `530.

ã Ceramic tray, at Fabindia stores countrywide, `960.

â Wine stopper,

by Nana, at Nappa Dori Home, Hauz Khas Village, New Delhi, `850.

á Wooden domino, at Fabindia stores countrywide, `430.

ã Wall hanging, at Yellow Button, Indiranagar, Bangalore, `375.

â Brass enamel cutlery, at Fabindia stores countrywide, `730.

á Set of four chair tea­light holders, at Crazy Daisy, Mehar Chand Market, New Delhi, `500.

ã Baby laptop for 12­plus months age group, at Mothercare, Select Citywalk mall, Saket, New Delhi; Inorbit mall, Malad, Mumbai; SG Road, Ahmedabad; and Indiranagar, Banga­ lore, `899.

â Wine glass tea­light holder, at Silk Road and Beyond, N­Block Market, Greater Kailash­1, New Delhi, `595.

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ä Bird light, at Crazy Daisy, Mehar Chand Market, New Delhi, `600.

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â Bamboo fish lights, at Fabindia stores countrywide, `890.

á Net tray, at Zaza Home, Zamrudpur, Greater Kai­ lash­1, New Delhi, `600. ä Wooden candle stand, at Yellow Button, Indiranagar, Bangalore, `350.

ã Thermal cup, at HomeStop, Select Citywalk mall, Saket, New Delhi, `395.

{`1,000 UNDER

ã Framed mirror, at Crazy Daisy, Mehar Chand Market, New Delhi, `525.

á Lime juicer, at Home­ Stop, Select Citywalk mall, Saket, New Delhi, `699.

ã Flower hangings, at Maati, Hauz Khas Village, New Delhi, `800 (each).

ã Lemon container at HomeStop, Select Citywalk mall, Saket, New Delhi, `249.

â The Ramayan Kit (a set of seven puppets—Ram, Sita, Lakshman, Hanuman, Ravan, Surpanakha and Golden Deer), at Hamara Nischay, Sir Pochkhanwala Road, Worli Sea Face, Mumbai, `560 per kit.

â The Game of Mix­up Art, at CMYK, Mehar Chand Market, Lodhi Road, New Delhi, approx. `383.

â Candle stand, at The Bamboo Store, behind N­Block Market, Greater Kailash­1, New Delhi, `250.

â Lotus tea­light holder, at Address Home, N­Block Market, Greater Kailash­1, New Delhi; Raghuvanshi Mills Compound, Lower Parel, Mumbai; and Road No. 7, Banjara Hills, Hyderabad, `550.

ä The Penguin Book of Welsh, Scottish and Modern British Short Stories, at all leading book stores, comes as a set of three, `399 each.

â Eau de Parfum (5ml) by L’occitane, at Khan Market, New Delhi, `450.

â Experiencing Tarot: The Art of Healing, by Roopa Patel, available at all leading book stores, or at www.roopapatel. com, `799.

ä Watering can, at Fabindia stores countrywide, `530.

ã Ceramic tray, at Fabindia stores countrywide, `960.

â Wine stopper,

by Nana, at Nappa Dori Home, Hauz Khas Village, New Delhi, `850.

á Wooden domino, at Fabindia stores countrywide, `430.

ã Wall hanging, at Yellow Button, Indiranagar, Bangalore, `375.

â Brass enamel cutlery, at Fabindia stores countrywide, `730.

á Set of four chair tea­light holders, at Crazy Daisy, Mehar Chand Market, New Delhi, `500.

ã Baby laptop for 12­plus months age group, at Mothercare, Select Citywalk mall, Saket, New Delhi; Inorbit mall, Malad, Mumbai; SG Road, Ahmedabad; and Indiranagar, Banga­ lore, `899.

â Wine glass tea­light holder, at Silk Road and Beyond, N­Block Market, Greater Kailash­1, New Delhi, `595.

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THE GIVING ISSUE á Madhubala and

á Cocktail serving tray, at CMYK, Mehar Chand Market, New Delhi, `1,495.

Glee printed cushions, at Silk Road and Beyond, N­Block Market, Greater Kai­ lash­1, New Delhi, `810 and `750, respectively.

á Diwali crackers ceramic plate by Hamara Nischay, at Sir Pochkhanwala Road, Worli Sea Face, Mumbai, a set of six costs `1,800 (`300 per plate).

{

`1,001­ `2,500 á Tray, at Purple Jungle, Hauz Khas Village, New Delhi, `1,490.

ã Golden twirl tea light, at Silk Road and Beyond, N­Block Market, Greater Kailash­1, New Delhi, `1,295. ä Tribal lantern by IndyBindi, at Zaza Home, Community Centre, Zamrudpur, New Delhi, `1,950.

â Gift a service: The Wellness DhoomBox (`1,999) is a gifting services box. Categories include ‘adventure’ and ‘children’.

Available in silver, gold and platinum boxes in a price range of `500­8,999.

ã Card holder, at Paul Smith, DLF Emporio mall, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi; and UB City, Vittal Mallya Road, Bangalore, `1,500.

â Set of three tea­light holders in cutwork, at Fabindia stores countrywide, `1,330.

á Cheese knife

by Nana, at Nappa Dori Home, Hauz Khas Village, New Delhi, `1,250.

ã Basket, at HomeStop, Select Citywalk, Saket, New Delhi, `1,099.

ã S­shaped Ficus, a stress­buster plant, at Nurturing Green, Sahara Mall, DLF City­I, Gurgaon; and Tatsat Clothing, Hauz Khas, New Delhi, or www. nurturinggreen.in, `1,500.

ã Five tea­light holder, at Episode, Grand Galle­ ria, High Street Phoenix, Lower Parel, Mumbai; N­Block Market, Greater Kailash­1 and Select Citywalk mall, Saket, New Delhi, `1,150.

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THE GIVING á Amethyst Candle ISSUE Stand, at arttd’inox at home and kitchenware stores, or www.artdinox.com, `3,300.

á iPad bag, at CMYK, Mehar Chand Market, New Delhi, approx. `2,500.

á Scooter Charm, at Swarovski stores country­ wide, `3,150.

ã Platter, at Address Home, N­Block Market, Greater Kailash­1, New Delhi; Raghuvanshi Mills Compound, Lower Parel, Mumbai; Banjara Hills, Hyderabad; and Address Home, at Space Wise, Koraman­ gala, Bangalore, `3,000.

ä Bookends, at apart­ ment9, N­Block Market, Greater Kailash­1, New Delhi, `4,400.

â Gift tray with candles and tea lights, at Good Earth, Select Citywalk mall, Saket, New Delhi; Raghuvanshi Mills Compound, Lower Parel, Mumbai; and UB City, Vittal Mallya Road, Bangalore, `4,725.

{

`2,501­ `5,000

â Dead Space action figure, at Game4u Store, Mega Mall Mumbai; and www.game4u.com, `2,999.

â Branch holder candle stand, at Renovation Factory, Khan Market, New Delhi, `4,250.

ã Duck bowl, at Episode, Grand Galleria, High Street Phoenix, Lower Parel, Mumbai; N­Block Market, Greater Kailash­1 and Select City­ walk mall, Saket, New Delhi, `3,580.

á Table lamp, at Yellow Button, Indiranagar, Bangalore, `2,750.

á Hand­blown candle holder, by Klove, at DLF Emporio mall, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi, `2,600.

ä Logitech Tablet Mouse for Android 3.1, at most Croma stores, `3,455.

â Jute laptop bag, at Zaza Home, Community Centre, Zamrudpur, New Delhi, `4,000.

ä Peacock feather cushion covers (`890 each) and silk printed palash cushion cover (red, `660), and polyfill cush­ ions, `190 each, at Fabindia stores countrywide.

ã Dodo Lamp floor light, by Sahil and Sarthak, part of the duo’s Katran Lamp Collection, made with pieces of colourful cloth woven into ropes, at Zaza Home, Community Centre, Zamrudpur, New Delhi, `3,400.

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LEAD KINDLY LIGHT Help the visually impaired and children in need by buying ‘diyas’ and hampers they make

COURTESY CRY WORLD

B Y K OMAL S HARMA komal.sharma@livemint.com

····························

The long­lasting ‘diya’ A group of women based in Patankala, in Alwar district of Rajasthan, earn some extra pocket money every Diwali, thanks to their business collaboration with sisters Ayesha Grewal and Misha Grewal Soni of The Altitude Store—an organic products store at Mehar Chand Market in New Delhi’s Lodhi Colony. The sisters have partnered with the community of potters in Patankala to make diyas that are sold in New Delhi.

All proceeds go to the women.

“We’re into the third year of our initiative. While last year we sold 6,000 diyas, this year we aim to touch 10,000 diyas,” says Grewal. They burn easily for 6-8 hours, longer than most diyas last. “They are deeper and wider than the usual size that you find in the market, and the mitti (soil) that they’re made with is very pure. I believe that the depth and diameter ratio is what makes them last so long,” explains Soni.

Each diya costs `30. Available at The Altitude Store, Mehar Chand Market, Lodhi Colony, New Delhi. Call 49050404.

‘Diyas’ by the visually impaired The year-long hardwork of four members at The Blind Relief Association, New Delhi, is behind all the diyas and candles displayed at the Diwali mela held annually on the premises of the Blind Relief Association. An organization founded in 1944, the association’s Diwali mela is in its 28th year. “In the seveneight days of the Diwali mela, we sell candles, diyas and other Diwali gifts worth `50 lakh. All the proceeds are used for the benefit of the school, college and home for the 260 students and trainees at The Blind Relief Association,” says P.C. Mehta, the deputy executive secretary.

This year, the Diwali mela is on till 24 October at The Blind Relief Association at Lal Bahadur Shastri Marg, near Oberoi Hotel, New Delhi.

Diyas are sold at `60 a dozen and can go up to `26 a piece.

Candles range from `35-170 a dozen. To pre-order, email blindrelief@gmail.com, or call 65650969/70.

DIVYA BABU/MINT

ANIRUDDHA CHOWDHURY/MINT

Organic health hampers by rehabilitated juveniles and orphans

‘Diyas’ inspired by child art Traditional earthenware diyas in matki or handi shapes in white, gold or colourful rangoli designs—CRY (Child Rights and You) World’s diyas this Diwali can spread the light far. “We have a set of artists who create these diyas with the help of several grass roots NGOs across the country,” says Purvi Malhotra, manager, media advocacy, CRY. The money raised from the sale of these diyas and other gifts goes to 5,242 villages and slums across India. “Diwali is about spreading joy, and this is a great way to contribute,” says Malhotra.

Sets of two or four diyas range from `25-495. For details, visit www.cryworld.cry.org

‘Diyas’ by the mentally challenged The traditional diyas in clay, hand-painted and decorated by the participants at the Manav Foundation, Mumbai, a nonprofit organization for the mentally ill, are an effort the group there looks forward to every year. The foundation caters to those suffering from mental illnesses of any sort, and participants in the activities here arrive

via referrals by hospitals and psychiatrists. Once here, the participants enrol in a cell called Swayam, where they learn marketing, sales pitches, etc., in an office environment—skills that make them feel they could be part of a real office and builds the confidence to join the mainstream where possible. “They sometimes get orders of up to 1,000 diyas and it might be daunting for some of us, but they get so excited and throw themselves into it,” says

Devaunshi Sampat Mehta, the social worker with the foundation. The proceeds go to the organization.

The participants also make chocolates and greeting cards for the festive season.

The Manav Foundation, Atlas Mill Compound, Mumbai; prices start at `35 for a pair of diyas and may vary, depending on the type. For details, visit www.manavfoundation.org.in

Syamantak in Dhamapur, in Maharashtra’s coastal Sindhudurg district, is a multi-skill residential education system without teachers or classrooms.

Santosh Desai, the organization supervisor, says the students here create solar dehydrators and grow organic vegetables to generate revenue. For the first time, they are doing Diwali hampers. Each hamper will contain 200g of halwa (made with organic bananas, desi ghee from cow’s milk, dates and sugar), 100g of Malabar Nut Malt (a herbal decoction of Malabar nut leaves, piper longum powder, black pepper, dried ginger and sugar), 50g of Utna (a scrub made from Ayurvedic ingredients used for a traditional Diwali bath in Maharashtra), 200g Hurali mix (a nutritious soup). Desai requests that since it is the first batch and an educational effort, people should have patience with the students while placing orders. The proceeds go to help rehabilitate the students.

Each hamper costs `400 with a handwoven bamboo box (`300 without the box). The cost includes transport charges to Mumbai and Pune. Email Santosh Desai at info@syamantak.org, or call 9404164945.

Lit up: (clockwise from above) Diyas by The Blind Relief Association, New Delhi; Diwali goodies at the Yashaswini Swavalambana Trust, Bangalore; and candle diyas by CRY World.

Hand­painted ‘diyas’ by young adults with intellectual disabilities The Bangalore-based Yashaswini Swavalambana Trust (YST) is an initiative by Foundation for Action, Motivation and Empowerment (FAME) India that works towards the rehabilitation and empowerment of children and young adults with neuro-muscular and intellectual development disabilities. YST trains those above 18 in vocational skills so as to enable them for life.

Training in painting and decorating terracotta items is a major activity. On Diwali, earthen objects such as diyas, plates, coasters and small idols are painted and decorated. Every Diwali, the trust gears up for corporate orders and even sells diyas at their Bangalore workshop. The proceeds go to YST and, in turn, the monthly wages of the people making them.

A pack of six of basic waxfilled earthen diyas cost `40. To place orders, call Gayathri Venkatesh, who supervises the workshops, at 26431515.

Gayatri Jayaraman and Pavitra Jayaraman contributed to this story.

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THE GIFTING ISSUE

ANIRUDDHA CHOWDHURY/MINT

WALLFLOWERS THE GIVING ISSUE

Three artists tell us easy ways to decorate this Diwali: paint a wall, make art on glass or refurbish that old trunk iving your home a pre-Diwali paint makeover is a great idea, but many of us avoid or postpone it because it requires effort, possible relocation for a few days,

G

allergies for some and an army of painters bound to turn your life upside down.

An easier and more creative way out of this ordeal is painting something smaller but significant yourself. Give

new life to an old wooden trunk, a cupboard or a chair, create abstract art on the corner glass tabletop or make the boring lobby wall the focal point of your home. Bring out the artist in you.

uu

available at a hardware store.

“For me, Diwali is about spreading joy,” says Aarohi Singh, a Bangalore-based artist. “And joy lies not only in buying new things, but redoing old ones. Why not repaint on something old that is full of memories? It’s like adding a new layer of memories to it.”

Singh had a passion for art as a child and picked up painting in school itself. By the end of 2008, she began exhibiting her work, which included canvasses as well as home products. Her work can be viewed at www.artbyaarohi.com

DIY art: Acrylic paints are easier to

from a photo, painting or your imagination, an easier way out is to use a stencil. These are readily available at stationery stores. Or you could create your own. u Print scaled-to-size images of your selected artwork on an acetate sheet, also called acrylic sheet. If you print over regular paper, it will tear during repeated use. An acetate sheet stencil can be used repeatedly and kept for future use. Cut out the design with a cutter or blade. When deciding what to paint, try silhouettes as these are easier to paint and don’t need much detail and fine painting. u Place the stencil on the trunk and start painting. You could use brushes, depending on the size and surface area of your painting.

You could also use cotton buds, swabs or sponge for texture. Don’t

dip the cotton in the paint completely, just touch and dab.

You could also use hands and fingerprints for creating interesting textures. u Pull out the stencil carefully.

With a fine brush, smooth out the edges. u After the paint has dried, ideally another 24 hours, put varnish over it with a new brush.

This will give a shine to the trunk and protect the paint and wood. Let the varnish also dry for 24 hours.

B Y K OMAL S HARMA komal.sharma@livemint.com

····························

Dress up your wooden furniture

What you need: Sandpaper, paint thinner or paint remover, brushes suited to how big or small the trunk is and how intricate your design is, and varnish—all

work with than enamel or oil paints. Brushes can be washed clean with water while the paint is still wet. Enamel or oil paints need turpentine or thinner to be removed off brushes, hands, etc.

Acrylic paints dry faster too. u Make sure the surface of the wooden trunk is smooth. Sand it down with sandpaper. Remove any old paint or polish with a paint thinner or remover. u Apply the thinner, wait for 10 minutes and scrape it off. Once the surface is smooth, put a coat of primer. This gives longevity to the new paint or it will start chipping soon. Let the primer dry.

Give it at least 24 hours. u While you could paint free-hand, drawing inspiration

Approx. budget: Brushes, `25-100; acrylic paints, `30-250; varnish and primer, `200 for a litre each; acetate sheet, `10. If you don’t have an old trunk, visit the kabadiwalla (scrap dealer) or a second-hand furniture market. It can cost between `1,000-25,000.

Trunk of memories: Aarohi Singh gave her old trunk a makeover.

ANIRUDDHA CHOWDHURY/MINT

tt Do up a wall Bangalore-based interior designer, Nidhi Agarwal, knows just how arduous it is getting a painting job done at home, which is why she suggests a quick stencil artwork for a wall.

“Diwali calls for something new.

A bright, metallic-painted motif on one wall in your home can bring spark and life to the whole space,” says Agarwal, who also runs her design label for home products called Artitude.

What you need: The stencil of your artwork, spray cans or a painting roller, interior wall paint (acrylic emulsion) and brushes.

DIY art: To create a stencil,

Wall of poppies: Nidhi Agarwal used a contrasting colour scheme to highlight the walls in her lobby.

identify your artwork. It could be a large graphic, like the poppy in this case (see picture), or a smaller motif you want to repeat. u This is ideal for a highlight wall—any wall in your home that has a contrast colour that may be matching with the upholstery in your room. Like a silver metallic poppy on a deep purple wall. In case you don’t have a highlight wall, invert colours—create a deep purple poppy on a cream wall. u For the stencil, take your

graphic to a printer who does laser cutting. Your best bet to find one in your city is to ask Just Dial, a search engine. Have your artwork printed on a thick cardboard, or medium-density fiberboard (MDF)—a board like plywood. It has to be done in a way that it’s a negative stencil—only the outline would be of the graphic, so that you can fill in with the paint inside. u Place the stencil on the wall and carefully paint on the insides. u Use spray cans or a painting roller for the best finish. Be careful that the paint doesn’t drip. A brush may not give an even finish but it’s good for textures. u Carefully remove the stencil.

You could add some free-hand painting too. You may need to smoothen out the edges. u Let it dry for 24 hours. Your wall is ready.

Approx. budget: Metallic paint (200g) at Asian Paints costs `170-200, while non-metallic costs `100-120; a 7x4-inch sheet of MDF (4mm thick) will be around `300; and laser cutting of a design (3x2-inch) costs `500-750.

DIVYA BABU/MINT

uu Make a glass painting “It involves a thought process, which gives them so much more meaning, to just hang on your walls or give away as gifts,” says Rohit Kant, a fashion design graduate from the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), New Delhi.

Kant runs a store of hand-painted, mixed-media creations called By Rohit Kant in Hauz Khas Village, New Delhi. Glass painting, he says, doesn’t have to be limited to framed paintings. “Once you’re confident, it could be used to make glass coasters, tabletops, lampshades or even try painting windows,” he says.

What you need: Buy a convenient-sized glass piece from your neighbourhood hardware store. Get the edges smoothened so you don’t cut yourself. Glass colours are

available at any good stationery store. These come in small dropper bottles. Camel is a good brand to start with. You will also need a black glass liner, some thin-nib permanent markers and spray paints if you like.

DIY art: Before you start, make sure the glass surface is clean and free of dust. u Unless you’re confident painting free-hand, take a printout of your artwork in the same size as the glass piece. u Place the graphic under the glass and trace on top with the glass liner. u Make sure your outline doesn’t have any open edges or the paint will spill out. You could use waterproof permanent markers to add to the thick outline. Leave it for 2-4 hours to dry. u Now carefully squeeze the

paint and spread inside the outline for an even finish. For different textures, you could use a brush. A trick is to use a straw. Drop a few drops of paint and use a straw to blow hard on a drop to scatter it for an abstract art look. u Let it dry for 6-8 hours. u Another trick could be to use both sides of the glass. Do the outline and the basic filling-in of paint on one side, and use the straw trick on the flip side. It will give a three-dimensional effect. The thicker the glass, the more pronounced the effect.

Approx. budget: The thicker the glass, the more expensive it will be. It should cost `40-50 per sq. ft. Glass paints by Camel, `60 for a set of six shades.

Imported brands can cost up to `175 a bottle. Framing costs, `80 for a sq. ft.

Tinted art: Rohit Kant says glass painting can be used to decorate tabletops and glass lampshades.

THE GIFTING ISSUE

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SATURDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2011 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

IT TAKES A VILLAGE T

he real India lives in villages. You’ve heard that before.

You know that the urban-rural divide is so large that they are literally two disparate worlds.

In some ways, more than ever, these two worlds are inching closer. For both urban and rural India, education is the biggest game changer, small-sized families are becoming the norm, and easy mobility has changed lives. Agriculture is no longer an attractive option for village youngsters, who look for opportunities in cities. The cellphone has transformed the way information travels in rural India.

Yet fundamental, age-old problems are unresolved: The girl child is unwanted, child labour is rampant, many in villages still travel a few kilometres every day for water or firewood, schools operate without electricity, morning ablutions are a behind-the-bush affair and children as young as 5 or 6 trek 3-4km to get to school.

HELPERS OF THE HANDICAPPED www.hohk.org.in

Who is helping our villages bridge these concerns? Can you help in small ways?

To find out, we visited villages in Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Haryana, and visited non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and a few for-profit organizations working in various fields—from female foeticide, water conservation, child labour, use of solar power, organic farming, self-governance, dealing with AIDS and primary education to alternative means of livelihood. We met individuals who have committed themselves to rural development even though that means a life of constant challenge, of overcoming scarce resources. Some of the results are truly transformative.

We hope these stories inspire you to give, and be part of the cycle of positive change.

TRAINING FOR SELF­RELIANCE

In a remote village in southern Maharashtra, this facility helps people with handicaps become independent PHOTOGRAPHS

B Y A RUN J ANARDHAN arun.j@livemint.com

···························· our-year-old Prathama, affectionately called Pari, greets everyone multiple times with “namaskar”. This continues till she gets distracted by her friend, Lavanya, and the two girls scamper off to a heated discussion.

Pari’s parents are at work less than 100m away, but Lavanya’s parents are home briefly after lunch—Dinkar B. Bhagat and Mina, both afflicted by polio, will return soon to the cashewprocessing unit where they will join Pari’s parents at work as soon as the power comes back.

In Swapna Nagari, the Bhagats are an exception in the sense that they are part of a small group of families which live in separate quarters. The rest of the inmates stay in a hostel. All of them work within the colony set on 12 acres near the More village of Kudal taluk in Sindhudurg district.

This region, on the southernmost tip of Maharashtra bordering Goa, is known for its expertise in frying fish. But Swapna Nagari has other defining characteristics that set it apart.

Fifty-six of the 63 residents here are physically challenged, but Swapna Nagari takes care of them only in theory. It’s the inmates who take care of the place.

The project, started 10 years ago, came up on donated land in the middle of practically nowhere. The barren plot often got separated from More village by the Karli river that flooded over a mud road during the monsoon.

Today, there’s a bridge connecting Swapna Nagari once you get off NH 17 from Sindhudurg.

Here, Naseema Hurzuk, who founded Helpers of the Handicapped in 1984 as a public trust, started a hostel, farming, dairy farming and a cashewprocessing unit. Volunteers went door-to-door in the Sindhudurg region, which at that time had more than 3,500 handicapped people, according to a district administration survey, and coaxed parents to send their children to Swapna Nagari so they could learn to be self-sufficient.

That, in a word, is the idea

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behind the centre, self-respect.

“Nothing is free here,” says Hurzuk, who was 16 when she became paraplegic. “We pay the workers and they, in turn, pay for the boarding facilities.”

Physically handicapped men and women get vocational training in agro-based skills here. The centre, including the cashewprocessing unit, their main industry, employs about 100 people.

There is a dairy with 16 cows and some coconut trees—all the produce is first used for the inmates and the remaining is sold.

Over the years, the attraction of the centre has spread beyond Sindhudurg, with people coming here from Karnataka and Goa as well. Allahbaksh Shaikh from Bijapur, Karnataka, is one of them. The 22-year-old sits in such a way behind his table that his missing leg is not visible. Hurzuk says he cuts (cashews) faster than a machine, which are in the other room being tended to by Shobha Kamble, who is mentally challenged. She is shy, giggles to every question asked, but upon much coaxing, says she came here as a baby many years ago and cannot think of “working or living” anywhere else.

Shaikh, father to the month-old Armaan, met his wife Sabina at this centre. Their parents were opposed to the marriage, also because they were underage at the time, but Hurzuk would have none of it. As soon as they turned marriageable age, the wedding was organized in the facility itself, the dining room doubling up as the wedding hall. Hurzuk says she does it often, encouraging inmates to find their own mates or arranging it for them because she says parents usually oppose such a union.

“We don’t have to go anywhere; this place is whole in itself,” says 19-year-old Lalita Gangadhar, who came here four months ago from nearby Kolhapur. Gangadhar, who has polio, sat at home for four years after graduating class VII because her parents did not believe there was anything left for her to pursue. A former teacher, who had been to one of Helpers of the Handicapped’s camps, suggested Swapna Nagari to Gangadhar,

who was only too relieved at the opportunity. She helps with shelling the cashews.

Two people work in the boiler room, where the cashews are boiled. They’re then taken to the cutting room, where a few others like Shaikh cut them, apart from the machine that Kamble operates with a colleague. Then there is the routine of shelling, sorting and grading, each process conducted by a different bunch in different rooms. These are then sold in the wholesale market though the facility is open to starting a retail outlet as well.

A quarter of the running costs are generated from the sale of cashews, milk and coconuts. The rest comes from donations.

Inmates get fixed salaries based on the nature of their work.

“There are no barriers here, it’s about building self-confidence and self dependency,” says Hurzuk. “They can earn money and send it home. Isn’t it amazing that we hardly get any benefits from the government but these handicapped people are paying the government through taxes?”

BY

ABHIJIT BHATLEKAR/MINT

`10,000 to this NGO can

• Get fruits for three­four months for the children • Buy a refrigerator • Buy more grading tables

Volunteers can

• Help market cashews in the retail market • Update the NGO’s database • Help with the next venture, which is to make bricks

Pride of place: Fifty­six of the 63 residents are physi­ cally challenged; and (above) Swapna Nagari employs 100 people in agro­based industries such as processing cashews.

SLIDE SHOW VIDEO To watch related videos and slide shows, visit www.livemint.com

THE GIFTING ISSUE

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NAVDANYA www.navdanya.org

THE GIVING ISSUE

A NON­CHEMICAL GREEN REVOLUTION

By promoting organic farming, this organization hopes to help Indian farmers become self­sufficient PHOTOGRAPHS

BY

PRADEEP GAUR/MINT

B Y R UDRANEIL S ENGUPTA rudraneil.s@livemint.com

···························· hakur Das, 62, sifts through unhusked grains of basmati on the terrace of his two-storeyed house on the outskirts of Dehradun. The floor of the terrace is a carpet of gold—his rice harvest spread out to dry in the crisp September sun. Das’ basmati is special. It’s grown from indigenous seeds that make the Dehradun variety of basmati one of the best known in India, in soil that has no chemical fertilizers or pesticides.

It has not always been like this. Like most farmers in the area, Das was convinced that chemicals were needed to get a good yield. Then in 1995, Das was contacted by Navdanya, a non-governmental organization (NGO) that promotes organic farming. “They asked us about our farming practises, our yield, the rates at which we sell,” says Das, “and offered us alternatives which we liked. They assured us that our old practice of using gobar khaad (a natural fertilizer made of cow dung) will work, and taught us other techniques of organic farming.”

Navdanya began in 1987 when physicist-turned-environmentalist Vandana Shiva decided to promote organic farming to stave off the environmental hazards of using chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and to protect the biodiversity of indigenous seeds.

“We started making farmers aware of the benefits of organic farming much before people even knew about the concept in India,” says Abhishek Jani, 32, Shiva’s son, and marketing-incharge for Fair Trade at Navdanya. “By weaning the farmers away from chemicals and store-bought seeds, our aim is to make them more economically independent.”

Navdanya claims this also has a profound impact on food security since organic farming practices demand inter-cropping to keep the soil fertile. “Organic farmers make sure they are not just growing rice or wheat. They are growing veggies, pulses, etc., that they will sell in their village and use themselves,” says Jani. “Monoculture farmers are dependent on the market for food. People say organic produce is for the rich—that’s not true. It’s for the rich and for the poor farmers as well who are growing it.” Monoculture farms, which grow just one type of crop, are the norm for large farms and need huge amounts of chemical inputs.

Navdanya works in 16 states with small and marginal (below 1 hectare) farmers only, who account for more than 70% of farmers in India. Vinod Bhatt, 50, additional director of Bija Vidyapeeth, an institution set up by Navdanya which runs free courses on organic practises for farmers, says there are two basic requirements for farmers to become self-sufficient—when they don’t have to buy seeds, and when they have their own fertile land. “We teach farmers how to sort their best seeds and store them so they can reuse their own seeds,” says Bhatt. “Traditional seeds, as opposed to hybrids or GM (genetically modified) seeds, work best because they

T

Green and gold: Thakur Das processing his organic basmati on his farm near Dehradun; (above) inside the seed bank at Navdanya’s BijaVidyapeeth; and (right) Navdanya’s Vidyapeeth farm used for organic farming research. are well adapted to the region.”

Bija Vidyapeeth, in Ramgarh village on the outskirts of Dehradun, is spread over 45 acres, most of which is used to study farming practices. It also houses a massive “seed bank”, which contains more than 1,300 varieties of indigenous seeds, including more than 500 varieties of rice and over 100 varieties of wheat. The seed bank is Navdanya’s most crucial tool to protect India’s biodiversity. In fact, setting up community seed banks across India was one of the first priorities of the organization. The seed banks also lend farmers in the area as much seed as they

need for free. If the crop from these seeds is successful, the farmer is required to give 1.25 times the amount of seeds he got in the first place back to Navdanya or to other farmers in the area. Through extensive research among farmers whose crops did not fail in the event of a natural disaster, Navdanya has amassed saline-resistant, flood-resistant and drought-resistant seeds. In 1999, after a cyclone devastated Orissa, Navdanya’s seed bank in the area distributed saline-resistant seeds to farmers. In 2004, after the tsunami in Tamil Nadu, the same seeds were given to farmers there.

`10,000 to this NGO can

• Get more farmers organic certification

Volunteers can

• Be part of the research teams disseminating information on organic farming and agricultural policy

SLIDE SHOW

“It’s in moments of crisis that people look at alternatives, and where alternatives catch on,” says Jani. “Large parts of Orissa and Tamil Nadu now use our saline-resistant and flood-resistant rice varieties.” Navdanya also retails organic produce that they procure from farmers under their umbrella. This direct procurement by Navdanya is seen by many farmers as the biggest benefit of joining the organization. Mukundi Lal, 72, and his 40-year-old son Anand, who run a farm in Bhorpur, near Dehradun, say it has gone a long way to alleviate their financial insecurities. “We

used to take our grains to the mandi and leave it there,” says Mukundi, “and we had no idea if it was going to be bought, and what price we will get for it. Now our yield is bought immediately by Navdanya for instant cash.”

Anand proudly shows us their organic set-up: A vermicompost pit where his two children dip their hands to bring up fistfuls of earthworms, a gobar gas plant whose byproduct is gobar khaad, and a large room to store their best seeds for the next crop.

“Look at these beautiful corn kernels,” Anand says, beaming, “we know how to spot the best seeds, it’s in our blood.”

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BAREFOOT COLLEGE www.barefootcollege.org

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2011 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

POWERED BY THE SUN

An organization that is teaching women from India, Africa and Afghanistan to become messiahs of light PRADEEP GAUR/MINT

B Y S ONYA D UTTA C HOUDHURY ···························· n the hamlet of Bhopa ki Dhani, Rajasthan’s Ajmer district, 150km from Jaipur, 25-year-old Santosh Devi shimmies up a wooden ladder. This is quite a feat, considering Santosh is wearing a sari and is carrying a heavy toolkit. On the roof of the building, she checks the solar panel for any problems; Santosh is the solar engineer for the village.

Later in the day, after her round of the villages (she has four under her, including her own), Santosh returns to her village of Balaji ki Dhani, where she works at a table fitted with solar photovoltaic modules, connectors, wiring equipment, a soldering iron and a range of components.

There are many women like Santosh in Bihar, Sikkim, Andhra Pradesh and, yes, now even in Africa, who are being trained by Barefoot College in Tilonia, Rajasthan, to become solar engineers. This non-governmental organization (NGO), founded in 1972 by Sanjit “Bunker” Roy, a social entrepreneur and educator, works with rural communities in the field of solar energy, water management techniques, education and women’s health.

There is special emphasis on solar energy. The organization launched its solar electrification work in villages in 1986, teaching the village communities to use solar-powered cookers, reverse osmosis, or RO, for water purification and solar lighting at the night schools Barefoot College runs in these villages. “Solar

I

Rural electrification: Barefoot College is currently training 35 women from Africa in Tilonia to become solar engineers. (power) is a way to improve the lives of the rural poor who earn less than a dollar a day and have to cook with highly polluting technologies,” says Roy, who believes that the clean, non-polluting and decentralized nature of solar technology can help empower rural women and hence the communities. It can also help reverse migration to cities, by giving communities the skills that would enable them to earn their livelihood in the vil-

APPROPRIATE RURAL TECHNOLOGY INSTITUTE www.arti­india.org

lage itself. Hence the creation of “solar engineers”.

Barefoot College takes in illiterate, rural women and transforms them after a six-month course at its campus in Tilonia into solar engineers. “We rarely train men—they all want certificates, and once they have them, they want to leave the village in search of employment in the cities,” says Roy. Kewal Chand, 30, is one of the rare men to be trained as an engi-

`10,000 to this NGO can

• Run a night school for 20 children for three months SLIDE SHOW

neer at Barefoot College. He came for training to the college 10 years ago from a village in Barmer district on the Indo-Pakistan border. Today, he is back in Tilonia—this time as an instructor.

“It’s only people like him, now trained, who can teach villagers with patience and compassion. A high-powered teacher simply won’t work,” says Roy, explaining why Barefoot College prefers to hire villagers as instructors.

In 2005, Roy visited Afghan-

istan, in partnership with the Norwegian NGO Norwegian Church Aid. They successfully installed solar lights in a village in the Faryab region, training three women, including a 55-year-old grandmother, to be a solar engineer.

The success of the Afghanistan project led to the start of solar training in different countries in Africa. Currently, as part of a programme supported by the ministry of external affairs, women from countries such as Liberia, Sudan, Tanzania, Sudan and Bhutan come to Tilonia to train to be solar engineers. The Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) programme pays the air fare and fee for the six-month training course for these mothers and grandmothers from overseas who will go back and help light up their villages.

ITEC has so far trained nearly 300 women from 28 of the world’s least developed countries (LDCs).

A grant from the US’ Skoll Foundation has covered the cost of training people from 10-15 countries.

The current group of 35, from different countries, is learning the trade through a mix of broken English, gestures, symbols, charts and manuals. It’s tough, but the women are purposeful and positive. Says 39-year-old Alaffa Mwamba from Tanzania, speaking through her friend and interpreter, Fatma Juma, who is also training: “I miss my family, my children, but I am happy that I can come and learn here and go back and give my village light.”

Write to lounge@livemint.com

FIRES WITHOUT SMOKE

By improving kitchen conditions in tribal schools in Thane, Maharashtra, this group tackles a serious but invisible problem of public health and ecology ABHIJIT BHATLEKAR/MINT

B Y S UPRIYA N AIR supriya.n@livemint.com

···························· ithoba Medge, the principal of the Shri Gagangiri Adivasi Shikshan Prasaarak Sanstha in Hiradpada, Thane, came to teach at the residential school for tribal children when it began in 2003. Its long, low-roofed buildings were not yet complete, and the class III classroom where he taught faced the kitchen shed, where school workers turned out breakfast, lunch and dinner for hundreds of their new charges on large, traditional cooking fires.

“There were times when even we spluttered from the smoke,” he says, remembering the classroom. “Our eyes would water and become red.” After months of working in the choking smoke and heat of the small shed, the cooks themselves were making meals by running into the shed at carefully timed intervals to stir, roast and flip, and then run out again, coughing.

Then, last year, the Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI), based in Phaltan, Maharashtra, offered the school a solution: new cookstoves. By improvising with their own raw materials, putting in some time and effort to train themselves in building the new stove units and paying for the small parts they could not make or manufacture themselves—like the metal grate suspended under the mouth of the stove—they built a unit with four cooking fires, for dal, rice, vegetables and a large,

V

flat skillet for chapatis.

The effect was extraordinary.

The cooks found their work time reduced by half, plus there was no smoke or indoor air pollution.

Their use of valuable firewood, cut from the spectacular green hills around the area, went down by 40%. The children were delighted that the rice was softer than ever and the phodni (tempering) for the vegetables didn’t overpower their taste buds with its smokiness.

“The chapatis used to be halfcooked,” Medge explains, “because no one could bear to stand over the tawa. We used to worry that it would make the children fall ill. But there’s none of that now.”

Hiradpada is about 10km from the taluk centre of Jawhar in Thane district. Jawhar bustles energetically, but as the landscape drops away from the road, winding around rolling green hills, dotted with coppices of the Australian babool tree and fields of five-fingered millet, human settlements are fewer, much less concentrated. The population, largely from the Gond and Warli communities, but also others like the Mahadev Kolis and the Katkari, brings children to stay in “ashram schools”, essentially large boarding schools where they may stay around the school year.

To schools like Medge’s at Hiradpada, or the smaller government school of Jamsar village (about 4km from the taluk centre), this simple scientific fix

No smoking: Women using an ARTI stove to cook a mid­day meal at a school in Jawhar, Thane. to their difficulties goes a long way. A September 2011 factsheet from the World Health Organization (WHO) states that nearly 2 million people die prematurely every year, thanks to illness directly attributable to indoor air pollution.

Smoke from stoves releases dangerous toxins, including carbon monoxide and the carcinogenic benzopyrene. Kitchen workers—mostly women at homes and smaller schools, and males in kitchens like the one at Hiradpada, where there is plenty of heavy lifting to be done—suffer acutely from eye and lung irritation, spending up to 3 hours at a time over traditional Indian stone-and-wood stoves in closed kitchens.

“As for the sheer drudgery

involved,” says Ramchandra Hanbar-Deshmukh, president, ARTI, and a veteran researcher of rural technology, “no one has ever calculated its effects”.

ARTI, which has been working with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as well as the government to develop rural technologies since the 1970s, has been an NGO itself since 1996. Its work begins with research and development, studying and developing ways to make rural life easier, and also involves evangelizing these technologies in places where basic amenities are often hard to come by. Efficiencies like modern, gas-fuelled cooking ranges require resources to which villages like Jamsar don’t typically have access: The government makes provisions for LPG cylinders in school

kitchens allied to its Mid-Day Meal Scheme—but the cylinders rarely turn up.

The solution has been to improve on traditional models of kitchen equipment; making them easier and cheaper to use, and much more environmentally friendly.

“We don’t build these cookstoves for free,” Deshmukh explains. “Something built for free becomes a one-time donation, without much value. That is why we come to these schools and say: ‘Train with us, let us provide the expertise that you don’t have, and use your own money to buy whatever small things you can’t make.’”

ARTI has been implementing its cookstove programme since mid-2010 in various parts of Thane. It is largely supported in this endeavour by the Central government, for whom its work ties in with a broader push to introduce smoke-free cooking to villages. In tribal schools, where hundreds of children come to live and study, Deshmukh hopes that the children will see the changes an inexpensive, simple technology can make to their lives at home, and then carry the story back to their parents and families.

At Hiradpada, as principal Medge invites Deshmukh back to his office for tea and poha, the old kitchen shed falls along the way.

“See this,” Medge says, and points to the roof of the shed, a grimy, unremitting black. “That’s what the old stoves did.”

Volunteers can

• Get trained in the cookstove project by ARTI and go out and help recreate the technology in other communities, both rural and urban • Work with ARTI, especially if they are scientists and professionals who would like to develop or carry forward rural technologies

SLIDE SHOW VIDEO

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SATURDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2011 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

UNICEF­IKEA www.unicef.org/india/

THE GIVING ISSUE

DEATH BY COTTON

For years, children from the border areas of Rajasthan have been trafficked to Gujarat to work in cotton fields. They’re now being enrolled in school PRIYANKA PARASHAR/MINT

B Y A NINDITA G HOSE anindita.g@livemint.com

···························· n Kanba village in Rajasthan’s Dungarpur district, 13-yearold Sejal Kharadi is cheerless about packing away her textbooks.

It’s the last day of classes before school shuts for the Diwali break.

This time last year, she was huddled with 11 other children in the back of a Maruti Gypsy making its way back from Gujarat. After months of work in cotton fields, they were being delivered back home for the festive season.

Kharadi is one of the many Bhil tribal children who constitute the migrant workforce of Gujarat’s cotton fields. According to the third National Family Health Survey (2005-06), about three million children in the age group of 5-14 are involved in child labour in Rajasthan—and a majority of them are in the agriculture sector.

The use of children has increased along with the growing demand for Bt, or genetically modified cotton, which requires manual crosspollination between June and September. Children are preferred because they have nimble fingers and can pick from the low cotton plants faster than adults.

Kharadi’s work days stretched from 5am-6pm with an hour’s break for lunch. She and the other children—who slept in tin shelters in the fields—took turns to prepare their meals.

This year, no one from Kanba has gone to Gujarat’s cotton fields.

While many children returned with severe stomach aches or fever over the last few years, a boy called Jignesh died last year: He’d inhaled too much pesticide.

Sindhu Binujeeth, a Dungarpur-based consultant for Unicef, which works in the area of child protection, explains that the children face significant health risks from exposure to pesticides, long hours and lack of rest while working in the cotton fields. Sexual abuse is rampant. The price they’re paid for their loss of child-

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hood: `60 a day. Parents, generally unaware of the appalling conditions their children face, often negotiate advances with the “mete”, or middleman, in an attempt to fight their desperate poverty. Unicef is working towards reversing this trend with the support of the Ikea Foundation, the charitable arm of Ikea, the home furnishing giant, which sources most of its cotton from India and wants to ensure that it involves no child labour.

“No father wants to make his child work. But I needed another earning member,” says Ramesh Kharadi, Sejal’s father, a labourer.

Kanba’s sarpanch, a headstrong woman called Mani Roat, penalized families by cutting down on their government rations. “Over the last year, we’ve stopped at least 70 children from Kanba from working and enrolled them in school,” says Roat, who has a chant: “Kalam sena zindabad, safed mout murdabad” (Long live the pen army, condemn death in cotton fields).

The Unicef-Ikea project is working closely with government systems. This year, they’ve funded the operations of 10 checkposts—each of which has four-six Home Guards manning it—at critical border points to check migration. The state government is also expanding its efforts to prevent children from working by surveying households. With their combined efforts, over the last few years, child migration to cotton farms has come down from 30,000 to 1,500, according to P.C. Kishan, Dungarpur’s former district collector.

Part of Unicef’s efforts are in linking vulnerable families to social protection schemes such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and self-help groups such as the People’s Education and Development Organization (Pedo), a local non-governmental organization (NGO), which helps women band together to buy seeds, fertilizers

POSITIVE WOMEN NETWORK www.pwnplus.org

Spinning dreams: ‘Rescued’ children—Sailesh Damor (12) and Kokila Damor (13) at Kanba village. and cattle. “We need to straighten out the problems that underwrite child labour. It’s a twisted chain,” says Ramila Vyas, Pedo’s founder.

While villagers are gradually realizing the benefits of sending—and keeping—their children in school, and looking at means other than child labour to supplement their income, middlemen still do the rounds looking for potential labour. In Amarpura village, only 37km from the scenic city of Udaipur, we meet Savitabai whose 10-year-old son Dinesh had almost been lured away. “The children who’ve worked for many seasons manage to save some money. The younger ones see them returning with new clothes and mobile phones, and they think going to a cotton farm is the only way to get

`10,000 to this NGO can

• Provide 12 classrooms of 30 children with activity­based learning cards. These learning aids are crucial to children’s learning effectiveness • Provide one ‘anganwadi’ centre with an early learning kit

SLIDE SHOW VIDEO

one,” says Savitabai.

Dinesh’s plans were intercepted by a Village Child Protection Committee of 15 women set up by an Udaipur-based NGO called Unnati Sansthan, which has recently got Unicef’s support. “We found out through other children where the mete had asked Dinesh to come that evening,” says Kalibai, the committee’s president.

“We sat him down to explain what happens to boys and girls when they go far away to work.”

To keep children like Dinesh in school, the committee members have also designated volunteers as escorts. Children as young as 6 have to walk 8km, sometimes 9km to the nearest school. Volunteers such as Rooplibai, a 50-year-old woman with a bright blue sari draped around her hair, have

THE POSITIVITY PRINCIPLE NATHAN G/MINT

A sisterhood that empowers and supports those with HIV to lead a normal life B Y V IDYA P ADMANABHAN vidya.p@livemint.com

···························· Sarasu lives a hardscrabble life in a dark shack in Palavanatham village, about 450km south-west of Chennai. She says she is 40, but looks older. She has lived by herself since she was abandoned by her husband Balasamy 15-20 years ago. “I’m taking these medicines, right? My memory is going,” she says, explaining why she cannot remember when her husband left.

About three years ago, Sarasu developed a cough that wouldn’t go, and vomited several times.

Doctors at a private hospital in the nearest town, Virudhunagar, diagnosed her with HIV and directed her to the local government hospital for daily antiretroviral drugs, which the government issues free of cost. She is not sure how she contracted the virus. She hasn’t told anyone in her neighbourhood about her condition, but knows there are questions about her recurring fevers. “No one will eat anything that I cook,” she says.

She goes out each day to sell

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taken on the responsibility of escorting the children to school.

She sets out at 6am everyday, picking up around 60 children along the way, helping them make their way through steep jungle paths to school. She waits in school to take them back, and has been sitting in on classes herself. “I’m in class VII now,” she says with a broad smile.

If Kanba and Amarpura are to be taken as examples, school enrolment across villages in Dungarpur has increased exponentially. “Rescued” children across the district are regularly attending school.

The Unicef-Ikea project is attempting to consolidate the efforts of different NGOs with a centralized District Child Protection Committee (DCPC) office which they set up in January. At its head is Kantilal Chobisa, a retired deputy superintendent of police.

When vehicles are stopped at the checkposts, Chobisa sends a team of aid workers and policemen. The mete and driver are slapped on with charges under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act. Twenty-eight of the children rescued this year by DCPC were put in a Unicef rehabilitation centre in Surpur village for a few months, after which they were either sent back home or enrolled in special hostels run by the government. “We maintain progress reports of the children,” says Chobisa. “If a child misses school for more than five days, school administrations have orders to call the DCPC office.”

We visited one of the checkposts at Malmata, not too far from the Gujarat border, where the guards have been on a day and night vigilance. There had been no incidents of child trafficking so far, and the “season” was about to end. But while things are looking up, it is evident that the malpractice is a deep rooted one. Two hours after we left, we learnt that a jeep with six children was stopped.

They were going to Gujarat.

her wares—plastic combs, mirrors, balloons—and when she has sold goods about `50 worth, she returns home, makes a rice porridge, eats it and lies down to rest. Her four brothers and their families living nearby have little to do with her.

Sarasu’s isolation might be even deeper if not for the women of the Positive Women Network (PWN), a non-profit organization that focuses on counselling a n d t r e a t m e n t r eferrals for women and children who are HIV-positive, or whose lives have been affected because of the virus.

As is the case with most its members—the non-governmental organization’s (NGO’s) preferred term for people who avail of its services—a PWN outreach worker first met Sarasu at the antiretroviral therapy (ART) clinic three years ago at the Virudhunagar Government Hospital and invited her to the network’s drop-in centre to talk about her situation.

Now, when it is time for Sarasu to refill her medicine each month at the hospital, one of the outreach workers takes a public

bus to Sarasu’s home and accompanies her to the hospital, making sure she gets her refill (some members need encouragement to stay on their daily drug regimen with its gruelling side effects, say PWN workers).

Today, more than 20,000 members like Sarasu derive strength from the sisterhood cultivated by the network, established in Chennai in 1998 by four HIV-positive women. PWN operates five drop-in centres in Tamil Nadu mostly with funds from Central and state AIDS-control organizations. The NGO has had a rural focus from the beginning, according to PWN president P. Kousalya. “In rural areas, there’s very little information (about HIV/AIDS) as compared to urban areas,” Kousalya says.

“There are fewer health services.

There’s more discrimination—hospitals shunt people around.” At the societal level, though there is less open discrimination than in urban areas, according to Kousalya, the internal dynamics in families and communities as a result of HIV could make life very difficult for those infected, making an outlet

Second life: B. Sarasu, a daily wage earner, is grateful for PWN’s support. such as PWN “a very good platform for them to share their problems”, she says.

The workers are always discreet when they visit, Sarasu says, and on the rare occasion when neighbours ask about them, she describes them merely as health workers. During a recent visit, PWN worker Padma Easwari chided Sarasu for neglecting her vitamin supplements, which Sarasu claimed were inconvenient to take while on her itinerant job.

`10,000 to this NGO can

• Buy three sewing machines and help conduct basic tailoring training for three women • Buy ‘papad’­making ingredients and help train 10 women SLIDE SHOW

After the monthly hospital visit, Sarasu goes with the PWN worker to the network’s drop-in centre, where she gets a meal and `10-20 for the bus ride. She also gets the occasional packet of cooking oil (the centre tailors its services to the needs of each individual). But above all, she gets from PWN the courage to face her condition.

“They told me, ‘We all have it’,” Sarasu says, referring to the fact that most of the women employed by PWN are HIV-positive. “Why are you scared?”

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SATURDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2011 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

NO STATE FOR GIRLS

A village and an NGO highlight the reasons why the girl child has little chance of survival in Haryana and elsewhere PRIYANKA PARASHAR/MINT

B Y S EEMA C HOWDHRY seema.c@livemint.com

···························· alola village in Ambala, Haryana, has much to grapple with. But what’s foremost on every man’s mind here is that they are discriminated against when it comes to jobs because they are from a border district (Ambala is on the border of Punjab and Haryana). The fact that only one-third of its under-18 population comprises girls, does not bother the menfolk much.

As part of educating the community and wrapping up their project Meri Shakti, Meri Beti in this village, Manasi Mishra, head, research and knowledge management department, Centre of Social Research (CSR), conducts a talk on female foeticide, its negative impact on society and the Preconception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT) Act, 1994.

Set up in 1983, CSR is a Delhibased organization whose core mission is to restructure gender relations. Among other projects, it has been running Meri Shakti, Meri Beti in three areas of Delhi since 2005 and in approximately 20 villages in Kurukshetra and Ambala since 2009. “Your boys will remain unmarried. If girls are killed, then brides will have to be bought. You will pay dowry to get your boys married. Your girls, they can take care of you in your old age,” Mishra drones on. The meeting takes place on the veranda of the local school and is attended by around eight married women, a couple of teenage girls, half a dozen boys of varying ages and a few children.

Most boys are outright dismissive of the talk on female foeticide that Mishra is giving. “We know about the issue through TV and

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Internet, but there are many girls in our village,” says Sandeep. Yet he contradicts himself when he says that in this village of 2,000 residents, of which approximately “900 are voters” or people above 18, 65% of the under-18 population is male. The boys who flank Sandeep carelessly throw figures about a “Jat galli” (a lane where Jats live) in their village where in the under-18 age group, there are 44 boys and just two girls.

None of them seem to comprehend that there is something alarming about these figures.

A former constable and strapping man of about 25, who wishes to remain anonymous says, nonchalantly: “Hum to ek joda, ek baccha per vishwas kerte hai ab (We now follow the one couple, one child rule).” He adds, “We have no jobs, and it is tough to bring up more than one child. So when we have a son, we stop trying for another child.”

There are several reasons why the girl child has very little chance of survival in rural India, and going by his logic, it seems that the family planning message that has made inroads into villages has actually done so at the cost of the girl child. Mishra also explains that while the old reasons of why girl children are not preferred remain (dowry, perceived economic viability of having a son), new factors have cropped up too.

“Parents in villages are concerned about the chastity of the girl child, and find it tough to protect her all the time. Also, they are scared about this trend of marriages breaking up and the rise of violence against women.” All this information was gathered in a baseline survey that CSR conducted in these villages at the start of the project.

State governments often refuse

AGASTYA INTERNATIONAL FOUNDATION www.agastya.org

Spread the word: CSR workers conduct a talk on female foeticide in Salola village. to circulate information about the PCPNDT Act through gazette notifications or just don’t spend enough on updating informational material about female foeticide for the masses. Also, the bickering between government medical bodies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) sometimes acts as a deterrent to the cause of the girl child.

The poetry-spouting chief medical officer (CMO) and district appropriate authority, PCPNDT Act, Ambala, Satish Aggerwal says the only way to correct the sex ratio anywhere in the country is to take constant action.

“NGOs can only act as motivators, but the (ability to take) real action lies with the government.” In the nine months since he took over, he claims to have “sealed” nine ultrasound machines and raided 17 medical practitioners in his district. He states that no NGO has any role in this. “They give us no information, have not told us

`10,000 to this NGO can

• Train two domestic violence counsellors • Help design and print 1,000 copies of a one­page pamphlet

Volunteers can

• Work as domestic violence counsellors after training SLIDE SHOW VIDEO

where to conduct raids. NGOs have to work in the field and get us information so that we can conduct more raids,” he says.

But Ranjana Kumari, director, CSR, counters: “We are not spies of the state. NGOs cannot really work at giving (such) reports.

Who will create awareness then?

Such investigations are the government’s job. The Haryana government is totally insensitive to the issue of female foeticide. This is one state that has the maximum honour killings, dowry deaths are on a rise too, there is low education for the girl child. Why is it like this? The political class of Haryana is not taking responsibility for eradicating this issue.”

According to Kumari, in projects that work on a one-year grant at a time, the maximum amount of time goes into building a rapport. “Haryana is a place where we need to build this rapport, and it is tough.

From the beginning, it has been

SCULPTING SCIENTISTS ANIRUDDHA CHOWDHURY/MINT

This foundation opens up science to more than 100,000 rural children every year B Y P AVITRA J AYARAMAN pavitra.j@livemint.com

···························· t’s 9am. Students of class IX at the Noolkunta Jila Parishad High School in Chittoor district, Andhra Pradesh, are sitting impatiently as their class teacher marks attendance, when they spot the yellow Agastya International Foundation bus driving into the school premises.

Back from Dussehra vacation, the students at this governmentrun school can’t contain their excitement. They are delighted that their first day won’t be spent in the classroom. They will going to the 172-acre Agastya International Foundation campus—a 40-minute bus ride from their school—in Gudivanka, near Kuppam, where they will learn science as part of a free programme run by the foundation.

Far from the drone of theorybased science classes, for the children, learning at Agastya means experimenting with chemicals in a laboratory, picking flowers for botany lessons and putting together simple robots at the robotics centre.

“We pick up students from the same class from various schools in villages and small towns within a 30-40km radius from

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tough to work with the authorities because they doubt the intentions of NGOs. They have the attitude that NGOs are here to eat money. The presence of an NGO makes CMOs very uncomfortable. Mistrust between us causes (more) problems.”

Kumari believes that “the process of attempting to reverse the practice of female foeticide takes at least a decade in any area. It cannot be done in a year or two.”

Want to combat female foeticide? Then, in Kumari’s opinion, “give people the financial incentive to have a girl child. Increase the economic worth of a woman— that’s the bottom line.” She cites the example of the Ladli Scheme run by the government of Delhi, under which parents with two girl children are given monetary assistance as a way ahead. “Society will change only when women will be viewed as an economic asset to the family,” she says.

here on a daily basis,” says Jayamma, an administrator at Agastya, which is supported by the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, a government of India initiative for the universalization of primary education across India.

The children, from classes III to X, spend the entire school day on the campus and usually pack their mid-day meals (free in all government schools) in boxes to eat there. Each student gets to visit the centre at least four-five times in one academic year, says Shibu Shankaran, the campus head.

The Agastya story began in 1999, when Ramji Raghavan, a former non-resident Indian and banker returned to India from London with a desire to work in the field of rural education. “I am not a scientist, but I always thought that I wanted to start a space that would spark creativity,” says Raghavan. The idea was to encourage learning that would move away from the conventional rote-based learning.

“In 1998, I was chatting with P.K. Iyengar, the former head of the Indian Atomic Energy Commission, and he told me that India has had great success in creating scientists in the middle and higher classes, but has

somehow failed to disseminate a scientific temper among the masses,” he says. This was the big idea that Raghavan was looking for, and Agastya was born with the aim to take science to the masses.

Raghavan set out to create the science centre that is now a state-of-the-art campus in a rocky wasteland in Chittoor district. Initial financial hiccups meant that Raghavan had to alter his plan. Instead of starting with a campus, he rolled out a mobile lab in August 2002. The lab, equipped with low-cost models donated by the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education and a trained teacher, was an immediate hit with the children in Kuppam, where the pilot project began.

“The mobile lab also helped us sense the enthusiasm with which children would take to learning,” says Raghavan.

Agastya now has 60 mobile labs that travel around Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, adds Raghavan.

On the day we visited the centre, there were 625 rural students on the campus which has labs dedicated to physics, chemistry, botany, math, robotics. The discovery lab is modelled after the

`10,000 to this NGO can

• Purchase models for teaching various science concepts • Fund the teachers’ training programme SLIDE SHOW VIDEO

Exploratorium in San Francisco, US. Bhishma’s Chair in the discovery lab is the most popular model—it is a chair with a bed of nails. “Sit on it ma’am,” a child urged, “see, it doesn’t hurt,” he proclaimed in Telugu, and then started to explain in mathematical terms: Pressure is equal to force divided by area.

Most of the teachers at the centre come from the surrounding areas and instruct the children in Telugu, also the medium of instruction at the local schools. “But language is rarely a barrier. The form of teaching is very demonstrative,” says Shankaran.

The foundation has 400 fulltime staff, of whom 60% are

Little Einsteins: Children at the Agastya campus learn scientific concepts through models. instructors. In addition to the free programmes for rural children, the foundation also conducts community reach programmes every evening; instructors go to villages and conduct workshop on topics such as medicinal plants and hygiene for both adults and children. “The community reach programmes help us mobilize those who are hesitant to send their children to school,” says Jayamma, adding that the ultimate aim at Agastya is to help children learn and make learning fun.

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RANTHAMBORE FOUNDATION www.ranthambhorefoundation.com

CALL FROM THE WILD

With eco­awareness programmes in schools and livelihood generation programmes, the Ranthambore Foundation is integrating the locals to save the tiger PRADEEP GAUR/MINT

B Y A NINDITA G HOSE anindita.g@livemint.com

···························· he students of Tiwari Bal Niketan at Kundera village in Rajasthan’s Sawai Madhopur district can rattle off the gestation periods and expected life spans of 30-odd animals.

They can also identify pugmarks and calls from the wild. But the questions that get all of them to raise their hands during an environment quiz are: What is the state animal of Rajasthan? What is the national animal of India?

“Chinkara! …Tiger, tiger, tiger!”

For the last two decades, Ranthambore Foundation has been conducting environmental awareness programmes for children in Sawai Madhopur, home to Ranthambore National Park, which is spread over 1,334 sq. km, and is inarguably one of the best places in India to see a tiger in the wild.

Tiger conservationist Valmik Thapar set up the foundation as a non-profit non-governmental organization (NGO) in 1987 with an aim to “integrate locals with the greater cause of protecting the tiger and its ecosystem”.

While healthcare was the entry point into the tribal communities that lived inside or just outside the area now designated as the national park, its primary focus is environmental education now.

Their evangelist is Hanuman Prasad Sharma, a poet who works as the coordinator of the foundation’s education projects.

Sharma joined the foundation in 1992 and goes around village

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schools conducting weekly classes. The foundation’s project currently affects around 8,000 children in 20 schools across 40 villages in the district. Sharma, or “Masterji”, has his own curriculum, a 96-page book called Hamaara Paryavaran Evam Vanya Jeevan (Our Environment And The Wildlife). “We teach children about the riches of the forest early on. Working with the people is important because deforestation is one of the greatest dangers that the tiger faces today,” says Sharma. “The children grow up to be responsible citizens. And they shame their parents out of going into the forest for firewood.”

Sharma uses songs, rhyme and even skits to get his message across in Hindi and Dhundhadi—the dialect of Rajasthani spoken in Sawai Madhopur.

Because of a paucity of funds, every child doesn’t have a copy of the book; they take turns to share the few their schools have been given.

The foundation conducts an annual exam in October across schools. Three students who top the exams in each age group are given scholarships that range from `500-1,000 a month.

“Given that there aren’t any other awards or scholarships around, the Ranthambore Foundation scholarship is really sought after. That’s why they’re fighting for that book all the time,” says Jagdish Prasad Sharma, the principal of Tiwari Bal Niketan, smiling. Apart from the exam, Sharma also oversees

CENTRAL HIMALAYAN RURAL ACTION GROUP (CHIRAG) www.chirag.org

elocution competitions, nature rallies and nature clubs for the village children—all of which have had a seemingly deep impact. Bharti Gautam, a 13-year-old class IX student who received a scholarship from the foundation last year, says she wants to be a veterinarian.

Part of the foundation’s efforts to wean the locals away from depending on the forest for their livelihood has been to provide them with alternatives. In Padli, a village with around 130 families, farmers were given high-yielding Jersey and Hollister cows in the early 1990s, and the foundation facilitated a milk cooperative for farmers to sell milk daily. “We used to earn `400-500 a day. Poora gaon khush tha (the entire village was happy),” says Prithiviraj Minna, the retired sarpanch of the village. “With farming, we earn money once in six months. It’s a risky dhanda (business).” With the dairy pulling out, the programme has now concluded but the village still wears a look of prosperity. “These cows were like goddess Lakshmi. We all got silver when they came.” Minna is a progressive farmer: his two sons and one daughter are teachers today and he uses biogas in his kitchen.

The Ranthambore School of Art is another one of the foundation’s efforts at income generation. With its studio right at Sawai Madhopur’s tourist hub, the artists who create oil, watercolour and charcoal paintings there receive between `2,000-4,000 for each artwork

Love thy neigh­ bour: Students at Tiwari Bal Niketan.

`10,000 to this NGO can

• Buy 400 copies of ‘Hamaara Paryavaran Evam Vanya Jeevan’ • Fund a visit to the Ran­ thambore National Park for 100 children SLIDE SHOW

sold. In November, with new funding from the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), the school will be conducting free professional training classes for the youth.

Narayan Singh, the artist who runs the school independently now, was himself a beneficiary of the foundation’s work and joined as a student in 1992.

“We’re looking at preparing at least 40 artists over the next two years,” he says. “We want to some day have our own exhibi-

tion space and gallery.”

“Several projects we started out, whether in healthcare or art and craft, are now independent bodies. We didn’t have funds to do anything beyond our education projects over the last decade,” says P.K. Sen, the former director of the government of India’s Project Tiger, and the foundation’s executive director.

Sen has just signed the contract with RBS for funding. The foundation also received `30 lakh from the Art Tiger project last year, which brought together Indian artists to create tiger sculptures for charity.

With the new funding, the foundation hopes to expand its activities with the arts and crafts outfit Dastkar, anti-poaching training and capacity building at the Ranthambore School of Art. In 2000, Thapar withdrew from the foundation’s work because of his disenchantment with state politics and the failure to get different factions united in a singular effort. “We need a completely new model to save the Indian tiger. The government needs to make this a special project,” he says.

“There needs to be better coordination with the government of India, the state and other NGOs to promote and support field activities.”

Meanwhile, things are changing slowly for the people of Sawai Madhopur. Every restaurant or dhaba you go to will have a tiger poster. And when you turn the menu card, the message is always the same: Save the tiger.

WATER WARRIORS

How simple efforts in water conservation by this group may solve the water crisis in the hills—and even in the plains PRADEEP GAUR/MINT

B Y S EEMA C HOWDHRY seema.c@livemint.com

···························· t’s not a trek meant for unfit, city-bred people, especially if they are not nimblefooted. From Suyalbari, the last point till which a car can travel, the only way to get to Bhadyun village in the Nathukhan district of Uttrakhand is on foot. The 3km walk to the hamlet involves a steep incline, an uneven rocky path and narrow pagdandis (tracks) that run through the forest and are usually less than half a foot wide. Bhadayun has around 12 families, living in three clusters.

Yet this is one of the villages that the Central Himalayan Rural Action Group (Chirag), a non-governmental organization (NGO) based in Nathuakhan has chosen to work with for their “Kumaon Spring Recharge Initiative” that started in 2009.

Chirag started working in Kumaon in the field of curative healthcare and community forestry in 1987. Besides these, the group now also undertakes soil and water conservation work in the area as well as works in the field of empowering women and primary education.

With the growing water shortage in the hills, water conservation has become a pressing concern. According to Chirag, irregular rain and changing land use patterns are the principal factors contributing towards the mountain springs drying up.

“We knew springs were drying

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up in the hills and (we) believe that if you want to address the issue of water in the mountains, and even in the plains (because springs do end up feeding the rivers), then you have to look for ways to recharge mountain springs,” says V.K. Madhavan, executive director, Chirag. Put simply, it means creating conditions which allow more water to seep into the soil and hence add to aquifers (a wet underground layer of water-bearing permeable rock).

“We knew very little about water that goes into the soil. We always thought of ground water in context of the plains; we never wondered what it means in the mountains,” says Madhavan.

“When we started to think that mountains also have aquifers, we wondered how does water from rainfall get fed into these?”

It was questions such as these and the realization that water shortage in the hills could not be dealt with by forcing the government to install water pipelines that motivated Chirag. “The water in these pipelines also comes from the springs. So if we have to address the problem of shortage, then we must look at ways to keep the springs alive and not just transport water from one place to the other,” he says, adding, “at a conservative estimate, about 15% of the water in rivers such as the Ganga comes from the springs. If they dry up, there will be water shortage all around.”

Bhadyun was chosen because

Spring of life: The revival of this water source at Bhadyun has stopped families from migrating. four years ago, a spring that had been dry for a few decades, came alive following a good rainfall. Dhanawati Devi, around 70, recollects that when she came to Bhadyun as a bride, one of the best things about the village was the spring. It meant no walking around the hills for miles just to get two pots of water. In fact, there was enough water, she says, to even take care of the livestock. But two decades

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ago, the spring dried up. Families started migrating because of acute water shortage. Her son, Ramesh Singh, a mason by profession and a part-time farmer, was also contemplating moving to the plains near Haldwani.

“We had been asking the government to give our village a water pipeline connection, but that was taking a long time. I had almost decided to move out of Bhadyun when the saroot (mouth of the spring) came alive in 2007-08,” says Singh.

“Two years ago, the Chirag people approached us and talked about recharging the spring. The plan included creating taals (pits) in certain areas in our farms, planting certain kinds of shrubs and fodder plants, and changing the slope of our farms. They said this may help our spring never to dry up,” he says. Creating percolation pits at certain points near a spring helps accumulate rainwater and gives it a longer time to seep into the soil rather than gushing over the surface. Strategically planted vegetation and correct sloping of farmlands also does the same job.

Vikram Kaushal, in-charge, Kumaon Spring Recharge Initiative, Chirag, who has been trained at the Pune-based Advanced Center for Water Resources Development and Management, says it was not easy initially to convince the villagers to work on these initiatives. “It was tough to make them understand that we were

not after their land. Sometimes they were not convinced about changing the slope of their farms because they felt it would damage their land. Also, they felt percolation pits on their land would mean less area for planting crops.” Sometimes these pits had to be made in another village on the other side of the mountain. Those villages has no access to the spring and hence were not interested in helping out. “We had to explain to them that by giving a small piece of their land they were really helping the whole region.”

Everywhere Chirag works, the onus of ensuring that the project goes ahead lies with the villagers. Chirag moved ahead only when the residents of Bhadyun were convinced. The villagers agreed not just to get their land surveyed by geologists, but also worked at digging the pits, etc. “Our belief has always been that whatever work we do for the community, it must be in partnership,” says Madhavan. The Bhadyun project cost `53,300 out of which `16,600 was collected by the villagers and the rest was given by Chirag. At present Chirag has worked on recharging 30 springs in Uttarakhand and 14 more are being looked at. After that they will stop for a while to assess the results. Kaushal and Madhavan both say it is too early to say if their efforts have be successful. “We need to assess the data for at least another year,” says Madhavan.

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SEVA MANDIR www.sevamandir.org

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2011 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

ENABLING PEOPLE TO PARTICIPATE

654 villages in Rajasthan are following a model of governance the entire country could use DIVYA BABU/MINT

B Y S HREYA R AY shreya.r@livemint.com

···························· ess than 60km from the shimmering prettiness of Udaipur, parched and cracking is Madla village in the rugged interiors of southern Rajasthan. It’s an unusual sight for a Sunday afternoon. A group of daily wage labourers, having taken the day off, are assembled in a quiet hut next to a swaying maize field. The womenfolk of the village, with ghunghats (veils) in kaleidoscopic colours covering their faces, are equal participants in the discussion that’s unfolding.

This is a meeting of Madla’s Gram Samuh, a collective of the village’s households, over the issues of water and sanitation. Every fortnight to a month, the samuh gets together to debate and take decisions on health, education and other issues of development affecting the village.

Their proudest achievement has been the village school, built by the government but run entirely by the samuh—the teachers’ salaries are paid from the gram vikas kosh (collective village fund) formed out of contributions of residents.

“Children matriculating from here score an average of 80-85%, the highest average in the district,” beams Dhula Ram Bhagora, the sarpanch, who’s also at this meeting. Much before he became a member of the official local governance machinery, Bhagora was an active samuh member.

The Gram Samuh and Gram Vikas Committee, the elected body that runs a notch above the samuh, are concepts intro-

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Community building: A samuh meeting in prog­ ress at Madla village in southern Rajasthan. duced—and reiterated over a period of 30 years—to the village by Seva Mandir, the nong o v e r n m e n t a l o r ganization (NGO) that has activated similar processes in 654 villages in the region. Seva Mandir’s approach to development isn’t about doling out 10 blankets to the “poor” every winter, but empowering people to participate in their governance; simply put, enabling people to produce their own blankets.

When it started out in 1968, Seva Mandir’s focus was adult education. With time, it expand e d t o o t h e r a r eas such as health, livelihoods and natural resources management. Many of Seva Mandir’s members—like Bhagora—went on to join the local panchayats, thereby carrying forward the vision of the local community

into the official governance machinery. “But getting elected wasn’t enough; we realized that we needed to strengthen our groups’ capabilities for real development.

Instead of asking for entitlements, we needed to engage more actively in the processes of governance,” says Shailendra Tiwari, who heads Seva Mandir’s Natural Resources Development unit in Udaipur.

And that’s exactly how this meeting progresses. The villagers organize themselves into groups, and map out the sources of water, be it their neighbour’s well, or more contaminated sources like a pond.

The women are talking more, the older ones, louder and with greater authority. The participation of women in matters of governance, like many other

`10,000 to this NGO can

• Train the staff and pay their salaries

Volunteers can

• Participate in an ongoing programme, like conduct evaluative studies, or a diagnostic study for a new one • Help with documentation, like preparing reports

SLIDE SHOW

things in the area, has also been a contribution of Seva Mandir’s work. No one knows the household better than the women.

Once they have mapped the sources of water, they decide as a group what their options are. At the start of the meeting, the facilitator for this meeting, Ronak Shah, had outlined the importance of 100% sanitary conditions: “Remember, if one person in the village gets diarrhoea or related illnesses, everyone else in the village is prone to it.” This also means that members of the community must cooperate—and the more privileged ones with personal wells must offer their wells to the rest of the community, else their own health is at risk. This is the ultimate aim of Seva Mandir: community building. “If we want true

development, we must build a society that moves beyond the individual and work towards community benefit. Most problems related to development are because of fragmentation in society. We work towards a collective vision in communities that they will want to be involved in,” says Priyanka Singh, CEO, Seva Mandir, in Udaipur.

Once the community decides what they want built or changed in their village, Seva Mandir steps in. This also means that the villagers have to come to a consensus themselves; in case of conflict or indecision, Seva Mandir pulls out of the project.

The water and sanitation issues of Madla, for instance, adds Singh, require construction work that won’t take more than 20 days. “It takes a few days to construct a few toilets and chlorinate tanks/wells. But that’s not what this is about, these are also processes around which we build solidarity. Only by meeting, deliberating and discussing among each other can people actively participate in their governance,” she says.

Giving up on a day’s wages is a big deal for farm labourers subsisting on daily wages, and Seva Mandir offers no compensation for their losses. At least in an individual sense. But every time they attend a meeting and participate, they come closer to making collective gains. This time, it’s probably a few dry toilets and chlorinated tanks. Next year, it might be another school. As a village resident Kamal Lal Bhagora says, “Bigde to bigde kaam, lekin meeting karna anivarya hai (If the day’s work is spoilt, so be it, but having the meeting is crucial).”

HOW TO CHOOSE A WORTHY CAUSE With millions of NGOs clamouring for a share of the burgeoning philanthropy pie, professional facilitators help cut through the din B Y C ORDELIA J ENKINS cordelia.j@livemint.com

···························· n the last decade, as Indian philanthropy has developed beyond straightforward charitable giving to a local temple or school, and spread into a vast network of donors, philanthropic foundations, corporate programmes and causes, the question of how to choose a worthy cause and whether to trust that your money will be well spent has become pressing.

India has over 3.3 million nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), according to a 2010 government study, but accurate figures are hard to gauge, given that there is no central authority holding information related to philanthropy or charities. But fewer than 500 have been able to manage enough scale to be “effective” (more than $100,000, or around `49 lakh, in income), a 2010 Bain & Co. study found.

An increased number of potential givers combined with an almost uncharted sea of charitable organizations has prompted the

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setting up of a number of facilitating organizations with the purpose of linking potential donors with trustworthy and like-minded causes.

Organizations such as GiveIndia, Credibility Alliance and CAF India offer to vet NGOs on behalf of the giver and point philanthropists in directions they might not otherwise have considered.

They exist in a variety of forms.

GiveIndia (www.giveindia.org/) has a large online platform which offers more than 200 choices of certified organizations across fields, including disability, education and helping the elderly. “We ensure that at least 90% of your contribution reaches the organization you support (as against the average of 60% for the NGO sector),” says the website. GiveIndia’s CEO Dhaval Udani says that assuaging givers’ fears is important. “These are the fears we see: Is the money really going to go where they are saying it’s going to go? Will it go to the beneficiaries or be spent in administration costs?” he says.

For the first-time giver (or even

the established one), the cluttered field of NGOs can be overwhelming. Online portals such as GiveIndia or the year-old facilitating organization Samhita (www.samhita.org/) are good at weeding out the less effective or untrustworthy ones. Samhita, which was set up by the Nadathur Group, a private investment firm established by N.S. Raghavan of Infosys Technologies, presents its chosen charities in terms of specific programmes or achievable tasks in “units” that the giver can pay for. One unit of `600 could provide a tribal child with a set of clothes, while a unit of `10,000 will provide a rickshaw designed by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), New Delhi, for slum residents of Paharganj and Sadar Bazar, in Delhi.

A ticker counts down how many units per project are still needed. If a giver is feeling particularly generous, he or she can always buy the lot. “Donors care more about the simple details,” says Priya Naik, CEO, Samhita. “Otherwise they might feel like their `500 doesn’t lead to anything, which is why we came to this project-level model.”

Easy-to-navigate tabs list clear information on “How it works”, “For companies” and “For NGOs”.

Samhita surveyed 400 NGOs, 1,200 donors in India and the US, and 50 social enterprises before launching. “The NGOs said they needed access to resources in order to scale up, and the donors said they were happy to donate, but they had two issues. They didn’t know where to find credible organizations, and they wished those organizations would ask for more than just money: volunteer experi-

ence or expertise. Those organizations had never stayed in touch with them after they donated, so they had no way of knowing how the money was used or if it was used at all,” says Naik.

Amita Puri, CEO of CAF India (www.cafindia.org/) that has been working in the country for more than 10 years, says the vetting process has to be carefully designed.

CAF signs a memorandum of understanding with the chosen NGO on the allotment of a grant, specifying what the NGO will do, ABHIJIT BHATLEKAR/MINT

The right one: Is your money being used for the cause you support?

what the time frame is and asking for quarterly reports and details of spending. There are certain conditions. “It shouldn’t be a political organization,” she says. “There shouldn’t be more than two people who are related to each other on the organization side, and it should have community involvement.” CAF India representatives also do checks in the field.

Naik says Samhita is suspicious of some aspects of the vetting process employed by other organizations. “Most ask for legal documentation, but documents can be faked, so we weren’t comfortable starting there. Even if one goes to field, the NGOs tend to put a show on for you. So we speak to five people who know the NGO intimately and don’t have a vested interest in lying to us. We ask them to give five references, just like a university application.” Even here, there are problems. Says Naik: “There were times when all references would be employees, or were donors who have said they don’t know where the funds are going.”

Nevertheless, most facilitating organizations agree that through a combination of factors it is possible to get an accurate picture of how an NGO is working and to ensure that the money is being spent properly.

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SATURDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2011 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

GRASSROUTES www.grassroutes.co.in

A STEP TOWARDS SUSTAINABLE TOURISM

On top of a forgotten hill, the centuries­old Mahadeo Koli tribe makes way for tourists, ushering in a new way of life ABHIJIT BHATLEKAR/MINT

B Y G AYATRI J AYARAMAN gayatri.j@livemint.com

···························· ven the gods make way for progress. Waghdev, who guards Purushwadi village in Maharashtra’s Ahmednagar district from wild animals, and the tribal goddess Zakoobai, who, villagers belive is so powerful that she upturns idols of Maruti into the river, have now learnt to share space with new gods like Shiva, Ram and even Nirankari Baba.

Off the Ghoti-Sangamner highway, a winding road leads to the remote lair of Pur Oonch Wadi (Hamlet on the hill). Here Dattatraya Kondar, or “Dattaji”, 24, in an XLRI Jamshedpur tee and jeans underneath his kurta-dhoti, welcomes guests with a tray of kumkum and hibiscus. “Welcome to Purushwadi. I am your guide,” he says in rehearsed Hindi. Then, he cranks a rechargeable lantern and guides us in the fading twilight down hilly paths, passing by the river, the fields and the huts of the 109 families of his tribe.

In the pitch dark, they tell you tigers come. They make you switch off your lantern, close your eyes and reopen them to get accustomed to the dark. The blanket of shooting stars makes you forget the toilets are still primitive here. Pitch a tent under a banyan tree. Only in the morning do they let you know you were sleeping on a 200-year-old ancestral grave.

The Watershed Organisation Trust (WOTR), a non-governmental organization (NGO) for water conservation, had been working in Purushwadi for five years when

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Grassroutes won a grant from WOTR and registered itself as a service-oriented private limited company (Grassroutes calls it an “UnLtd” company)—in 2006. For local boys like Datta, who tried to be a courier boy in Mumbai eight years ago, it meant not having to leave the village in search of employment again.

An XIM Bhubaneswar class field study recently indicated Purushwadi’s average household income rose 20% over a two-year period since 2008. Grassroutes invests `17 lakh and two-three years to make a village touristready—setting up toilets, tents, training villagers. Then, it markets the village to tour groups. Grassroutes has three villages in Maharashtra—Purushwadi, Walvanda and Shiroshi.

Inir Pinheiro, a founder-member of Grassroutes and an awardee of the Karmaveer Puraskaar for Social Justice and Citizen Action 2008-09, explains why they follow a “for profit” business model: “For sustainability, you must have environmental, social and financial sustainability. Village systems are socially stable because the community is at the centre.

Environmentally, the community ensures people don’t tear down fields to put up hotels.

Financially, ventures depend on grants. Once a grant dries up, you have to make sure the tourist returns to ensure this sustains.”

Forty-five per cent to 50% of the money from each tourist goes towards paying “service providers” such as guides, housekeepers, and cooks—functions villagers

VILLAGE WAYS www.villageways.com

The hosts: The villagers of Purushwadi pull out all the stops to welcome guests. share on a rota basis; and into a corpus fund for the village. The rest of the money pays Grassroutes salaries, marketing costs, etc. “The fund is in a joint bank account with our NGO partner (WOTR),” Pinheiro says. Villagers can apply for the fund for anything except religious or political purposes. It also ensures that villagers who don’t participate directly in tourism benefit.

A village committee ensures the villagers have a say in all processes—including deciding their

Volunteers can

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SLIDE SHOW VIDEO

rates. “I get `60 as a guide, `50 is my per day labour when I work in the fields,” Dattaji explains.

The village police liaison, “Police Patil” Poppatrao Kondar, 50, a committee member, says: “The biggest benefit has been to women. They also get money for their cooking now—`3 for tea, `10 for breakfast, `30 for a meal.”

Some villagers stayed aloof.

Ramnath Kondar, who once opposed it, now leases his house to Grassroutes for tourists to sleep in. “Everyone understands

money,” Pinheiro says. The corpus fund is now `1.45 lakh over four years, Police Patil says.

Komal Kondar, 14, a class IX student, wants to be an engineer. She runs to meet the women bankers and engineers on holiday. “I can also be like them,” she chirps. An old man demands a lantern of his own, and wants Pinheiro to buy one for him. “What do you think? I don’t have `1,000?” he asks, offended. Thanks to the tourists, now they do.

SURVIVING THE FOREST

A tourism venture built on sound communal principles brings new hope to five villages inside the Binsar sanctuary PRADEEP GAUR/MINT

B Y R UDRANEIL S ENGUPTA rudraneil.s@livemint.com

···························· ust an hour’s hike from the checkpoint that announces your entry to the Binsar Wildlife Sanctuary sanctuary in the Kumaon region of Uttarakhand, Dallar village appears like an arcadian dream. Rustic stone houses with rugged slate roofs peep through the thick foliage of oak, pine and rhododendron forests.

The houses are staggered along a slope that gently undulates into a thickly forested ridge. There’s just one problem. Most of the houses are empty.

A decade back, Dallar had more than 120 people. Now, there are 32. In 1988, when Binsar was declared a sanctuary, the five villages inside Binsar lost their right to use timber from the forest and tap resin from the pine trees. Soon after that, the villagers began migrating from the area in droves in search of a livelihood, leaving most villages deserted except for the older residents.

In 2006, a travel company called Village Ways introduced a rural tourism effort covering the five villages—Dallar, Satri, Gonap, Risal and Kathdara—inside the Binsar sanctuary, in an effort to arrest the migration, and maybe even slowly reverse it.

The Village Ways concept is simple: Tourists come on bespoke hiking tours inside the Binsar sanctuary, with a trained villager

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acting as a forest guide, and stay at least one night in one of the villages. More often than not, the hiking tour covers all five villages, with at least one night’s stay in each.

But this is not a homestay project—instead, each village has a guesthouse that can accommodate up to six people, and the revenue generated from the visitors’ stay is shared equally by the families in the village. The guesthouses charge Village Ways `800 per tourist per day, inclusive of all meals.

Guides and porters, who are also hired from the villages, are paid separate salaries by Village Ways.

In turn, Village Ways charges its guests according to the package it provides them, which can include all transport and airport transfers, etc. A 10-day Delhi-to-Delhi trip, with stays in all five villages, costs `41,850 for a single guest, inclusive of all costs. In 2010-11, the combined income for the five villages from Village Ways initiative was `5.58 lakh. The 12 guides on their roster made around `2.25 lakh.

“Before Village Ways came here, we had no work at all,” says Kasturbanand Bhatt, a 28-year-old resident of Dallar who works with Village Ways as a hiking guide. “If it wasn’t for them, every young man would have gone from the village.”

Bhagwati Bhatt, 54, who is a cook at the Dallar guesthouse, says that three families, including her own, have come back to the villages since Village Ways started operations. “It will be difficult to get a lot

of people back because they left a long time ago,” Bhatt says, “but at least those who are still here won’t be compelled to leave.”

It all started from a mountain hotel with a storied history, called Khali Estate, just metres from the entry point of Binsar sanctuary.

The sprawling chalet, once the centre of the freedom movement in the region, and then a favourite holiday home for the Nehru family, passed down to a local family who turned it into a resort. In 1999, a British tourist came to stay on the estate and trek in the area. Himanshu Pande, 36, whose family owns the estate, organized the treks for him. The tourist was Keith Virgo, an award-winning rural development consultant, and he came back with friends who were also into rural development. Soon Himanshu, his wife Manisha and father Mathura, and Virgo were discussing ways to implement development projects in the area.

“We used to walk in the villages, and there was a feeling that the sanctuary areas were highly neglected,” says Manisha, 33, one of the founder-directors of Village Ways. “We thought of building cooperatives, but finally focused on community-based tourism because we had experience in the industry.” In 2004, the founding members began holding talks with the villagers and conducting research—they came up with a well-structured plan. “There were lots of initial doubts from the vil-

Trailblazer: Village Ways trained Hem Joshi to be a forest guide. lagers,” says Mathura, 65, “but our whole model was based on transparency, on involving the villagers at every stage. They thought we will take their land— we told them, ‘No, you will own everything we build here.’” The nine founders of Village Ways pooled in their own money to fund the construction of the guesthouses—`18 lakh was distributed among the five villages, 40% as a grant and 60% as a

10-year loan. Village Ways provided separate grants for all the utensils, linen, furniture and the solar panels that provide hot water and electricity in the guesthouses.

Committees were formed in each village, and made owners of the guesthouses. Village Ways arranged for hospitality, hygiene and cooking training for the villagers. A few selected people, including two women, were given exten-

sive training as forest guides. This entailed flora and fauna training, first-aid and spoken English classes. “We are like a split between an NGO (non-governmental organization) and a tour operator,” says Manisha.

In 2006, Village Ways became operational in Binsar.

Bhatt, who used to work as a casual labourer hopping from city to city to make ends meet before he came back to Dallar to join Village Ways, says that in 2010, his village earned `1.24 lakh from the project. Says Bhatt: “`90,000 was distributed among the eight families in the village, and the rest was used to pay for the land rent, loan repayment, etc.”

The village communities are involved at every level. The villagers provide organic farm produce for the guests and are paid market rates by the committee. Hem Joshi, our sprightly 23-year-old guide, who showered us with a wealth of entertaining information about the flora of Binsar, using Latin names and local names of trees and plants with equal felicity, says he makes `40,000 on an average every year.

“If it wasn’t for this,” he says with a smile, “I would have been a daily labourer.”

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