In a massive bid to address the huge problem of adult illiteracy in Madhya Pradesh, where the 2011 census put the number of adult illiterates at 1.07 crore, Rotarians across the state, led by RID 3040 (MP has four Rotary districts), have been working with the state government agencies addressing illiteracy.
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Remember the good old song by Andy Williams that was so popular in the early 1960s?
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The Rotary Club of Chennai Bharathi, RID 3234, has adopted a fairly new and interesting method to tackle mental wellbeing…. by pressing into service a triple combination of sound, art and dance therapies to engage a large number of people, with the special focus being on those who are dealing with various issues related to mental health.
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In July this year, Rotary Bangalore South Parade, RID 3191, in association with optical products manufacturer Carl Zeiss, launched the project Gift of Sight to provide 15,000 spectacles and 1,440 intra-ocular lenses (IOLs) to individuals undergoing cataract treatment across Karnataka. The project will be implemented every year at the Sri Sathya Sai Sarala Memorial Hospital located in Sathya Sai Grama, Muddenahalli, in Chikkaballapur, 60km from Bengaluru.
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RC Delhi Safdarjung, RID 3011, along with the NGO Smile India, organised a dental check-up programme for 100 children with special needs at the Vision Special School in the city. Besides complete dental examination by professionals, and lessons in oral hygiene, the camp also included application of fluoride to the children’s teeth to reduce the risk of developing caries. Fluoride helps strengthen tooth enamel, making it more resistant to acid attacks from plaque bacteria and sugars in the mouth, explains club president and dentist Priya Oberoi.
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Before eagerly urging people to join Rotary, it’s essential that they understand its roots — its purpose.
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During his recent visit to India, incoming RI President Mario de Camargo inaugurated a vocational centre at a residential facility put up for special children and adults in Nagpur by RC Nagpur North, RID 3030. The cost of the vocational centre was over Rs.4 lakh.
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As Rotary president, one of the key priorities of RIPE Mario de Camargo will be “to retain you all, keep you engaged as too many — 155,000 Rotarians — are quitting Rotary each year. But we don’t own Rotary as we are here for a purpose, and we have to keep it going for the next generation with a good succession plan,” he said, addressing the membership conclave in Hyderabad.
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Having lived in Delhi since 1958 I have some very fond memories of it, before it started becoming a gas chamber about 40 years ago. Very few people now remember Delhi as it was before the Asian Games of 1982. Those games turned the old bucolic and bureaucratic Delhi into a boom town and it has not stopped booming since then. The fixed population of Delhi today is around three and a half crore. Another crore or so people float in and out annually. In 1980 the population was barely 70 million, mostly rural, living in the areas of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh surrounding Delhi like Gurgaon and Noida. Indira Gandhi’s farmhouse, by the way, was on the very southwest outskirts of Delhi. Today it’s south central. All those rural areas have been assimilated into a single toxic zone called the National Capital Region (NCR) and they are fully urban now. The NCR is so huge that when you fly into Delhi you can see the pollution the region causes rising up to 15,000 feet and extending some 200 miles in all directions. This is largely because in 1980 there were barely a lakh motorised vehicles. Today there are around three million.
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