Gopi in the Loo...

কথোপকথন

ভুল করে রাত জেগেছি আমি
ভেবেছি ঘুম ভাঙ্গাবে আলো,
অন্ধকারে নিশিযাপন
ভেজা কুয়াশার চাদর ...
বুঝতে পারিনি আলো তখন
আমার বুকের ভিতর
তিরতির করে দানা বেঁধেছে যে,
আজ সে মহীরুহ..
আঁচল দিয়ে আগলে রেখেছি
বুকের ভিতর আগুন,
এখন আমার রাতের সাথে
সম্মুখ কথোপকথন ...

When Gopi meets the little monster

Gopi's Boss s(t)ings!!!

একটু একটু করে, জীবন এগিয়ে চলে
শুকনো পাতা জমে থাকে
বই এর পাতার ভাঁজে...
রং চটা মলাটে আবছা হয়ে যায়ে স্মৃতি রেখা
বিকেল হলে মনে হয়
এই তো সকাল ছিল
কখন যেন দেরী হলো খেয়াল করিনি তো!
সেদিন যেখানে বৃষ্টি নেমে ছিল
সেখানে আজ হলুদ পাতার ভীর,
সেদিন যেখানে বন্যা হয়েছিল
সেখানে আজ শুকনো নদীর তীর;
জীবন দিয়ে জীবনকে চেনা
কুড়িয়ে পাওয়া চেনা অচেনা বীজ
মাটির নীচে লুকিয়ে রেখেছিলাম
নেশার মতন বেড়ে চলেছে
দিন প্রতিদিন...

colors

fabric

on the move....

e-Agriculture: the emerging face of Indian agriculture

Rapid innovations in Information Technology can be a gateway to social development. One such significant innovation is ‘e-Agriculture’ which has the potential to change the face of agriculture in modern times.

The term, 'e-Agriculture' refers to an emerging field that focuses on the use of Information Communication Technologies (in short ICTs) to improve information flow to farmers. This involves ingenious ways of conceptualizing, designing, developing and applying modern information and communication technologies in the rural arena with a focus on agriculture. The ‘ITC e-choupal’ model is an excellent example of e-agriculture in India.

But ‘e-Agriculture’ is not just an information technology; it promotes the integration of information technology with multimedia, knowledge and culture to improve communication and learning processes between various actors in agriculture locally, regionally and worldwide.

However there are challenges and the most important is to identify ways to make this technology accessible to the rural communities and to communicate technological advancements in local languages so that communities practice what they learn. For this to happen a constant process of dialogue and discussion is integral. One such endeavor is the ‘e-Agriculture Community of Practice’.

The e-Agriculture Community of Practice

The ‘e-Agriculture Community of Practice’(http://www.e-agriculture.org) is a global initiative by FAO and its partners where people from all over the world exchange information, ideas, and resources related to the use of ICT for sustainable agriculture and rural development. With over 7,000 members from 150 countries and territories, the e-Agriculture Community comprises stakeholders such as development practitioners, policy makers, planners, and information and communication specialists. The overall aim is to enable members to exchange opinions, experiences, good practices and resources related to e-agriculture, and to ensure that the knowledge created is effectively shared and used worldwide.

How does the e-Agriculture Community of Practice function?

The e-Agriculture community initiates and encourages knowledge exchange - between ICT4D (Information Communication Technology for Development) practitioners, international agencies, governments, universities, research organizations, NGOs, private sector, and the wider development community. Discussion topics are demand-driven and led by partner institutions that specialize in different areas of e-agriculture. The e-Agriculture community also runs a platform which is a virtual meeting and sharing place where users can share experiences, opinions and good practices related to agriculture. The website uses several web2.0 tools to provide interactive, up to date and relevant information to the community. Being a community-driven initiative, much of this depends on the existing and future members of this website to carry forward the revolution and to bring together like-minded and enterprising people from around the world to work together.

e-Agriculture Community of Practice in India 2010

Recently the ‘e-Agriculture Community of Practice’ supported a 3 day conference on e-agriculture as part of e-India 2010, from 4-6 August in Hyderabad, India. The purpose of the event was to bring policy makers, development professionals, researchers, academicians, community stakeholders and corporate officers into a discussion to strengthen linkages through knowledge sharing. Mr. Gireesh Kumar Sanghi, MP, Rajya Sabha, Hyderabad chaired this discussion.

In the end

e-Agriculture has made a stronger start in India that in many other developing countries; but it still has a long way to go. For it to benefit rural communities, the rural digital divide must first be bridged. Locally relevant digital content has to be developed or adapted; and access to ICTs should be made affordable for rural populations. Otherwise e-agriculture applications will remain beyond the reach of rural communities and will merely exacerbate the existing rural digital divide - leading to an ever-widening knowledge gap between information “haves” and “have-nots”.

Time to go back!

Time to go back.

It started with a lot of anticipation. Some happened, some didn’t. A few were manipulated and rest was destined. There were days when many came to support. Yet sometimes I walked alone miles after miles….
It was beautiful, it was ugly, it was harsh and it was fantasy. It continued, it hung, it overwhelmed and crashed.
I forgot to count because I was always bad with numbers. My numbers kept dangling from the branches as I moved on. There were crossroads, there were failures. But there was hardly any time to sit back and repent. It kept rolling in lightning speed as I had to run to keep the pace.

But I cherished every single day, every tiny moment. It was fast but never lost. It all accumulated inside me. They grew with me day by day. They became my reason for being.

Today I am going back but this cannot be the end. It always starts over and over again. It reminds me the day I came in with a promise to go back. Today I keep my promise and take the vow to come back again!

Alive!

It is getting dark outside. May be it will rain.

This part of the city is really beautiful. It’s green.
You can even listen to the chirping of the birds.
Sometimes I just feel like looking across the window. I could see the birds swiftly moving their tiny necks.
They are always flying with the flow of life. They are alive!

We have a lot to learn from these birds.
They fly high yet do not fear to come down.
But we strive for the height, reach there and then feel insecure all the time.
We stagnate, get saturated.
Still we don't want to come down. We forget where we actually belong.

কিছু থেকে যায়ে...(some still remain)

কিছুটা সময় হল
স্বপ্ন গড়িয়ে এলো
দু চোখ বেয়ে,

আধ খোলা জানালায়ে
আলো ঢুকে আসে
ঘরের ভিতরে

শুকনো পাতা ছড়িয়ে ছিটিয়ে
পরে আছে আনাচে কানাচে

সব শেষ হয়েও
কিছু থেকে যায়ে
মনের গভীরে ...

surprise

How do you feel when you talk to somebody after 15 years? Strange! Sometimes it takes ages to say that one "hello". Things would have been so different if we could have communicated earlier. But yeah we did not let this obvious thing happen so it finally happened as a surprise.

My way

I look at the sky. It is eternal. Sometimes it is dark, sometimes it shines. It always exists. No matter it is the time for the sun or the moon; no matter you recognize or not. It stays. Never retreats. Complains, cries, contemplates. It is human. It loves life. It slows down, rests, rejuvenates and restarts....

I do the same way!

maa meye

fullori

sakhi

anki buki 2

anki buki 1

International Youth Day

5 June. World Environment Day

international mother language day

May Day!!!

world no tobacco day !!!

Naturally different !!!

The story began when Ron (name withheld) was 15. He started realizing that he was different. Different from his other boy friends. He was more comfortable with girls. He enjoyed girly talk. Sometimes secretly experimented with his mother’s lipstick shades.
Ron is a ‘Kothi’ (transgender – male having feminine characteristics). But his story is not so simple. A diary of events followed when his secrets came out of the closet. Family, friends, society – everybody gave him that unusual look. And the story continued…….

There are many hidden and visible Rons in our society. They belong to the MSM (male-who-have-sex-with-men) community – one of the most neglected communities in India and many other parts of the world.
Earlier many of us used to feel that MSMs are offshoots of the hip hop western culture. But the ground reality is a complete contrast to this thought. This is just a human quality that can exist in glamorous cities as well as in remote villages. Oxfam India and partners have evolved our thoughts and started working with the MSM communities addressing their needs and rights. Our one such intervention is in the Kalakhandi district of Orissa with two partners – Parivartan and FARR (Friends Association for Rural Reconstruction).
In Kalahandi, Parivartan with support from Oxfam India has organized an MSM support group called “Bhawanis”. Presently “Bhawanis” has 93 members and is registered under Society Registration Act. The group operates a drop-in centre in the district running vocational classes for the group members, training peer educators, providing referral services and raising awareness on HIV and AIDS.
There are many issues of concern specific to the rural MSM population. Most important being poverty. Social exclusion and lack of employment opportunities often compel them to get involved with low-paid sex work, entertaining six to seven clients a day, usually without condoms. Shockingly, at times for more money, they even have sex with known HIV infected persons without any protection. Moreover many MSMs have regular male partners with whom they continue to have unprotected sex. All these proliferate in the formsof grave health problems with spread of HIV and making the MSM population one of the most high-risk communities in getting HIV infection. With introduction of confidential testing facilities more number of MSMs are identified with presumably high rate of HIV infection.
According to Mr. Sunil Patel, Secretary, Parivartan, “more than 90% MSMs interviewed by Parivartan, worked as paid sex workers and were completely unaware of the need of condom usage.” Therefore when we started working with the group one of our primary agenda was to disseminate information on HIV and AIDS and educate MSMs about the benefits of condom usage. But continuous intervention complemented with extensive research made us realize that information is not sufficient unlessit is exercised. And for that we have to revamp their self esteem and confidence. Long term behavior change communication initiatives interspersed with small and large group discussions and sessions on personality development slowly shaped changes. Today most of the group members fearlessly say – “no condom, no sex.” They realize health is costlier than money.
We have also linked many of them with micro-finance institutions. Financial assistance from these institutes helped them start their own small-scale business initiatives.
Initiatives are also taken at village and district levels. Few members of “Bhawanis” are trained as peer-educators. They set up information stalls at the weekly markets and railway stations, demonstrate messages through street theatre and conduct regular meetings at “Pally sabha” and “Gram sabha” on topics such as – MSMs and social stigma etc. Fortunately all these have seeded considerable changes in the local societal thinking perspective.
Orissa State AIDS Control Society and other NGOs and INGOs (International NGOs) visited and appreciated our approach. In continuation to this we decided to move on and replicate this model in the Koraput district of Orissa. Ekta is our partner in the district and the name of the new group is “Jagruti” meaning “the awakening”.

Happy Women's Day!!!

In the year 1908, 15000 women marched through the city of New York demanding shorter hours of work, better pay and voting rights. That was the dawn of International Women’s Day which was finally recognized and celebrated worldwide in 1911 to salute the economic, political and social achievements of women – yesterday, today and tomorrow. Since then many things changed. Yet so many remain the same. From the late night streets of Delhi to the pubs in Mangalore, with the most hideous forms of violence against women in Afghanistan to the recurring acid attacks in Pakistan – women continue to struggle for their existence till date. I believe in equal rights and opportunities of all women on earth and appreciate the extraordinary saga of every ordinary woman.
Happy Women’s Day!!!Proud to be a woman.

Independence Day Alarm

Someone asked me this morning what’s that one thing that I would like to ignore this Independence Day.

Well, I would like to get rid of that alarm tone on my cell phone that pricks my dream balloons every morning and wakes me up. No matter it’s the sun or rain outside, the irksome alarm will start buzzing near my ear sharp at 6 am. I start pushing the snooze button and try to knot the broken strings of my dream but alas! Just when its time to tie the knot, ten minutes is over and the alarm is back.

This independence day I want to have the freedom to sleep. Sleep as long as I want. Dream as much I can. Time will roll on like the aisle and let my dreams grow on both sides. Grow like the green grass, thorny like the wild flowers. Thorns that the alarm rather dares to touch.

TRANSFORMING INDIA – MY VISION AND PLAN

Vision
India, a country with colors and contradictions, laced with beautiful cultural exchanges. Be it amidst the bustling crowds of Mumbai, the historic monuments in Delhi, remotest rural bases in South India or the hilly curves in the North-East, at every corner there is a new experience to learn. That is India, my India. My vision is to rediscover India as a true democracy where each one is empowered to know his/her rights to confidently voice their opinion that can lead to community action to solve public crisis.

Redefining India is not an easy job. But nothing is impossible when there is a proper plan to achieve it. In a true democracy, every individual counts. Therefore let there be an individual called ‘Tara’, who could be a male or female, a Hindu, a Muslim or a Dalit, from a rural or an urban background. Let ‘Tara’ be the face of India, the reflection of my vision for India.

Plan
In my independent democratic India, Tara is born with an absolute food security and an assured health and medical facility lifelong. With age Tara comes under the umbrella of education. This education is uniform for every single child born in India. It is child-centric, need and interest based with the support of lifeskills. Through this education Tara becomes aware of his/her rights and learns how to exercise these. This education system capacitates Tara to understand that he/she has the right to protection against every violence, abuse and discrimination no matter which strata of the society he/she belongs to. In sometime when Tara steps into the autumn of adolescence, there is enough peer and adult groups to address Tara’s adolescent know how’s with care and share. And then its youth, the spring time. Time to take some new moves. With social guidance and mentoring, Tara learns to take decisions in life. Tara participates in community actions, gets inspired to give back to the society, and encourages youth-adult partnerships for a balanced solution to a grave social crisis. Now Tara is all set to stand perfect. Tara is self-dependent, well-informed and socially empowered to create own identity. At this crossroad of life Tara chooses the best way to serve the nation based on his/her interest and capacity. The state has enough employment opportunities to commensurate Tara’s career choice.

Tara’s lifecycle remains unchanged even if he/she is born as a disabled or differently-abled child. The state will not look down upon Tara instead support him/her with special education systems with specific trainings and equal employment options in the work front.

My Tara is sensitive, open but not rootless. Tara has the undaunted strength to stand against deforestation and environmental degradation. Tara can be the leader to mobilize the community to say no to plastics or stand for the prevention of HIV/AIDS. Tara believes in equal distribution of resources across the Indian population. Tara realizes the importance of agriculture in India. He/she is not ready to be just ‘mall-nourished’ (swallowed by the shopping malls). Tara demands hand in hand progress of rural and urban India challenging the top-down paradigm to development. Tara values every individual in India and lives in democratic governance. Tara is not one. Tara is many, every. And this is their India. Tara’s India. My India.

"Generations Together"

Face to Face

Combat Trafficking. Save our children.

“It has been three years since then but I could still recall every bit of that chilly wintry night. At midnight Mausi, the brothel owner gushed in my room and took me along with my ten other friends in a small dark room. There was a mirror in that room with a death trap behind. It was a hidden chamber. Mausi removed the mirror from the wall, opened the door of that chamber and we were forced to get inside it, hands and legs folded. The door was locked immediately. There was absolute darkness inside. We could not move, could not breathe. It was so suffocating. Death was hovering around us. I was about to sacrifice my senses when that miracle happened. The door opened and we were rescued by the men in uniform. They saved me after four years of imprisonment in Kamathipura. But they could not save Jyoti, my friend. She was stamped inside the chamber before the police could reach.”

That was the story of Ruhi (name withheld), 15 years old who was rescued by the cops from the Kamathipura red light area in Mumbai. Ruhi was born in a small village in Maharashtra wherefrom she was trafficked at the age of 12.

Ruhi is not an exception. Every year in India thousand of women and children get trafficked. Trafficking of women and children has emerged as the third largest industry after arms and drugs trade. According to many, trafficking is a low-investment, high-profit business. Girls are bought for a little as Rs. 1000 per girl. Young girls especially between the age group of 12-18 years continue to be the main targets of traffickers. This is because the clients are more eager to have sex with virgins. Situation is same worldwide. Young boys and girls are bought and sold like cattle and they become the victims of extreme physical and sexual exploitations. Sexual exploitation puts victims at greater risk of contracting HIV/AIDS, creating further problems for the victims.

Child Trafficking involves moving girl and boy children from one place to another and placing them in conditions of forced labor. The practice includes forced sex work, domestic servitude, unsafe agricultural labor, sweatshop labor, camel jockeying especially for boys, construction or restaurant work, and various forms of modern-day slavery. This global violation of human rights occurs within countries and across borders, regions, and continents.

It is difficult to be precise about the exact number of children trafficked. Estimates based on the reports of law enforcement agencies, researchers and groups working with survivors and communities indicate that hundreds of thousands of children have been or are vulnerable to being trafficked from South Asia. Police estimate that more than 15,000 women and children are smuggled out of Bangladesh every year and NGOs estimate that 160,000-250,000 women and girls from Nepal are held in India’s brothels; 35 per cent of them were taken on the pretext of marriage or with offers of lucrative jobs. NGOs report that the numbers are growing, and that trafficking is affecting communities where it was formerly unknown.

Combat trafficking is a multi-layered process. It begins with the identification of traffickers. By the term ‘trafficker’ we mean every single person involved in the trafficking nexus including the person who gains the confidence of the child and takes him or her away from home, people giving shelters at various transit points during the transportation of the child from the source to the destination, people who are at the destination point to use the child for exploitation and the clients who demand this exploitation.

This identification should be followed by strong conviction which could be done with the help of the following legal provisions in our country like – the Immoral Trafficking Prevention Act (ITPA) 1956, the Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) 1979, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) 1989, the UN Protocol to prevent, suppress and punish trafficking in person especially of women and children, 2000, SAARC Convention, National Plan of Action, Juvenile Justice (JJ) Act 2000, Indian Penal Code (IPC) 372 and 373 for buying and selling, IPC 34 for use of force and IPC 366 and 366A for kidnapping and Swadhar Scheme.

The next step is rescue of victims and protection of survivors of trafficking. Rescue operations need to be very systematic and prompt. Ideally police and NGOs should be part of a rescue process ensuring the rights of the survivor during and post rescue. Protection of the trafficked victim includes all steps towards the redressal of their grievances thus helping the victim survive, rehabilitate and establish herself/himself.

Apart from prosecution and protection, we need to take care of lot of crosscutting social issues in order to eradicate trafficking from the roots. Like strategies should address the issues of livelihood options and opportunities by focusing on efforts to eliminate poverty, illiteracy etc. There should be special packages for women and children in those communities where entry into Commercial Sexual Exploitation (CSE) may be perceived as the only available option. Education and other services should be oriented towards capacity building and the consequent empowerment of vulnerable groups. Also gender discrimination and patriarchal mindset are important constituents and catalysts of the vulnerability of women and girl children. This manifests itself in several serious violations of women and child rights such as high incidence of female foeticide and infanticide and the discrimination against women in healthcare, education and employment. Since these are vulnerability factors that trigger trafficking, prevention strategies need to be oriented accordingly.

Natural calamities and manmade disturbances do exacerbate the vulnerability situation. Therefore relief and aftercare programmes need to have specific components focused on the rights of women and children. At the micro level the prevention of trafficking in the source areas requires a working partnership between the police and NGOs. Public awareness campaigns and community participation are keys to prevention programmes. Prevention is best achieved by community policing. Creating legal awareness is one of the most important functions of any social action programme because without legal awareness it is not possible to promote any real social activism. Legal awareness empowers people by making them aware of their rights, and can work towards strengthening them to develop zero tolerance towards abuse and exploitation.

Considering the fact that trafficking is a cross-border activity, immigration officials at the borders need to be sensitized so that they can network with the police as well as with NGOs working on preventing trafficking.

Help lines and help booths are very important for providing timely help to any person in need. It will be appropriate if the Child lines all over India, NGOs working on child rights, missing person bureaus and police help lines are linked together as a formidable tool against trafficking.

Trafficking is a ‘basket of crime’ that could be prevented only if the police, judiciary, government and NGOs work together hand in hand. We have to understand it is ‘our problem’ and we have to take a vow to combat trafficking before it is too late to save ‘our children’.

Save The Tigers

all about life

Last night was endless
It was dark
It was cold
Last night I was all alone.

The mountains appeared as pillars of hatred
Rivers gave up life
Abomination crushed the morning dews
And hopes were in disguise.

Last night my dreams were demeaned
Thoughts were killed in the womb
Aspirations were turned into ashes
And the stars refused to gleam.

Combat Trafficking. Save our Children.

Story of Ruhi........

“It has been three years since then but I could still recall every bit of that chilly wintry night. At midnight Mausi, the brothel owner gushed in my room and took me along with my ten other friends in a small dark room. There was a mirror in that room with a death trap behind. It was a hidden chamber. Mausi removed the mirror from the wall, opened the door of that chamber and we were forced to get stacked inside it, hands and legs folded. The door was locked immediately. There was absolute darkness inside. We could not move, could not breathe. It was so suffocating. Death was hovering around us. I was about to sacrifice my senses when that miracle happened. The door opened and we were rescued by the men in uniform. They saved me after four years of imprisonment in Kamathipura. But they could not save Jyoti, my friend. She was stamped inside the chamber before the police could reach.”

That was the story of Ruhi (name withheld), 15 years old who was rescued by the cops from the Kamathipura red light area in Mumbai. Ruhi was born in a small village in Maharashtra wherefrom she was trafficked at the age of 12.

Ruhi is not an exception. Every year in India thousand of women and children get trafficked. Trafficking of women and children has emerged as the third largest industry after arms and drugs trade. According to many, trafficking is a low-investment, high-profit business. Girls are bought for a little as Rs. 1000 per girl. Young girls especially between the age group of 12-18 years continue to be the main targets of traffickers. This is because the clients are more eager to have sex with virgins. Situation is same worldwide. Young boys and girls are bought and sold like cattle and they become the victims of extreme physical and sexual exploitations.

cont....