216 BONDED CHILD LABOURERS HANDED OVER TO DON BOSCO

24 January 2015, there was high drama at Don Bosco Navjeevan at Ramanthapur of Hyderabad. Here Don Bosco looks after destitute children picked up from the streets. All on a sudden, with no advance warning, the police turned up at our centre with 216 children who had been rescued from bonded labour. The children are mostly from a State in North India.

The Salesians, the staff of Navjeevan, and above all, the children residing with us have been going all out since then till today, to welcome the children, to feed them, to cheer them up, care for those with wounds, etc. The CWC, the labour department, the CID, the Revenue department, etc., are busy partly trying to take the credit or and partly to sort out the issues about returning the children to their families.

There is satisfaction at the recognition given to Don Bosco as the organization to turn to when there is need for service for children on a massive scale. There is acknowledgement that Don Bosco can handle a problem of any size and without any prior notice, if it is for the benefit of children in need. On the other hand, it is sad that this violation of laws enacted forty years ago is being discovered only now, and only as a result of a counter-terrorism combing operation!

SELF-DESTRUCTIVE  NARCISSISM

College students Yakub, Iqbal and Afzal were on their way to Agra to visit the Taj Mahal on Republic Day. When they reached the railway crossing at Mathura near Kosikala, they decided to take an “eye-catching” selfie on the railway tracks, as close as possible to a speeding train. They jumped off the tracks too late and were killed on the spot.

This is not the only way the craze for selfies is killing us. Some glory in posting a selfie several times a day! We may not be losing our physical life, but the narcissism it feeds destroys our personality, our attitudes and our relationships. We certainly need to love ourselves; but need to control an excessive focus on ourselves and our looks, and our efforts to constantly attract the attention of people to ourselves .

A  NEW  EDUCATION  POLICY  FOR  INDIA

It seems, on Republic Day, 26 January, the government is going to declare the start of a process to formulate a new education policy to replace the one shaped in 1986.

It is interesting that the process will last one full year and they will start consultations at the village level, going on to the Block level, District level, State level and the final at the national level. They will invite the participation of everyone.

With Don Bosco’s large network of academic schools, vocational schools, colleges and university, our thousands of Self-Help Groups and other community based organizations under our 11 Provincial Development Offices, and even our parishes, and our highly qualified educators, the Salesians could contribute a lot at all levels. Participation right at the grassroots village level is important as, probably for the next higher level they will be inviting the more vocal and capable ones to participate. 

Perhaps we need to do some strategic planning to see how we could get involved in this process that is so vital to the nation as well as the primary concern of the Salesian congregation!

GOOGLE IT !

GOOGLE  IT !

Shubham Banerjee was in class VIII last year when he asked his parents, “How do blind people read?” They told him, “Google it!” He did. He kept reading more and more on the topic and understood the problems faced by the blind, especially as it costs so much to print books in Braille. Shubham went on to search for a solution and developed a low-cost machine to print texts in Braille.

The normal response of a parent, teacher or adult to such questions used to be, and perhaps still is, to explain to the child the concept of Braille. We give information but do not arouse further curiosity in the child. Acquiring knowledge is, today, not as important as knowing HOW to acquire knowledge, where to look for it, how to get it verified, ……..

At age 13 Shubham has been funded by Intel to set up a company for the mass production of his machine. At 13, he is the CEO of a company with a great future, a company that will contribute greatly to enrich the lives of millions of people.

Rather than spoon speeding our children with information, we could feed their curiosity and push them to seek knowledge in all ways possible!

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AGRICULTURAL  ART  OR  ARTISTIC  AGRICULTURE  ?   -  BOSCONET  THOUGHTS

Sam Van Aken is associate professor in Syrcuse University’s art department. He grafted over forty varieties of stone fruit trees on to a single tree. Among the fruits are peaches, plums, apricots, nectarines and cherries. In spring the tree displays its marvellous beauty by producing a variety of flowers in different colours, shapes and sizes.

This is not the first successful work or art of this type for this professor. In a previous project called ‘Eden’, he had grafted vegetables and flowers together. Then he came up with a large project for a great orchard growing over forty varieties of stone fruit trees. When he could not find the money to support such a large scheme, he came up with the idea of having just one tree, but producing all these varieties of fruits on it.

It is great that an ART professor has mastered the technology for this type of grafting. Could ‘art’ of this type be also of great practical and commercial value to poorer farmers with only tiny plots of cultivable land?

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STRANGER  THAN  FICTION   -   BOSCONET  THOUGHTS

A man on a bike, with a lady as his pillion rider. He is driving fast. They come to a point where the road splits off into two – one rising up as a flyover and other a road at the ground level. He hesitates on the choice of road to take. At the last second he takes the flyover. The turn was so sudden that he loses control of the bike. They hit the wall of the flyover. Both of them fly forward, off the bike and down on to the road below the flyover.

The boy hits the road and falls unconscious (later, at the hospital, he is declared brain dead). The girl falls on to the roof of a van parked on the road below. She rolls over its windshield and falls to the ground. She picks herself up and shakes some dust off her clothes. She walks over to the boy and sees that he is unconscious (perhaps dead?). She searches the pockets of the man, takes his purse and mobile phone and coolly walks off the scene!

This is reported to have taken place in Chennai on Tuesday, 5 August.

What sort of relationship did these two people have? What made the girl go pillion riding with this boy? What sort of a human being would do what this girl did?

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R  U  +ICTED ?   -   BOSCONET  THOUGHTS

India now has two centres for the rehabilitation of those suffering from what could be called “IT addiction” – uncontrolled use of the internet, video games, smart phone, social media, etc. The first centre was at NIMHANS, Bangalore, and the second started functioning three weeks ago at Sarvodaya Enclave in New Delhi.

A study by NIMHANS says 73% of teenagers in Bangalore are suffering from psychiatric distress. Victims of the addiction have eye strain; serious negative impact on their studies; difficulties with the family and with their social life; and neglect of recreational activities. Some suffer from insomnia, inability to concentrate and constant irritation.

When addiction reaches the level where a child will not even touch her food if the wi-fi is not working at home, there is every reason to be concerned.

Like most other excellent things in life, the products of IT are so fantastic when used responsibly, but so harmful when abused !

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