Author: Rotary News
Meet your Governors
A Rotarian since 2005, Sethu Shiv Sankar was initially drawn into Rotary by the inspiring service projects and motivational
Read moreUnderstanding mental health challenges in youngsters
My neighbour was perplexed when her 20-year-old nephew constantly complained to her that someone was following him every time he steps out of the house. He even insisted that she accompany him which she did one night, and reassured him that there was no one shadowing them. Another day he verbally abused the apartment complex security person saying that he was laughing at him when he was not. The young man was suffering from schizophrenia, a serious mental disorder. It took a while for the family to understand his state of mind and provide him psychiatric help.
Read moreRAHAT medical camp in MP does 5,000 surgeries
The look of relief on the parents’ face when they saw their son cured of a congenital disorder at the camp was our most cherished gift,” says PDG Dhiran Datta, chairman of the RAHAT medical mission hosted by RC Jhabua, RID 3040, for a week in February, at Jhabua in Madhya Pradesh. The 12-year-old boy was suffering from a condition where his right arm was stuck to his cheek, and fingers intertwined with his mouth. “A year after his birth we had taken him to a couple of sadhus who said that he was cursed. We had accepted his condition until now. These divine men (Rotarians) have now saved our son and no words are enough to convey our thanks to them,” said the mother, with tears rolling down her cheeks, recalls Datta.
Read moreCancer detection vehicles donated to Tata Hospital
RC Dombivli Midtown, RID 3142, through a CSR grant of Rs.35 lakh from Bharat Petroleum Corporation has donated a 25-seater bus and a Mahindra Bolero to the Tata Memorial Centre (TMC) in Khopoli, an industrial city in the Raigad district of Maharashtra.
Read moreStrategies to beat the summer heat
For those who live in tropical climes, the advent of summer is not a signal to bask in the sun and forget the blues of the winter. It serves as a reminder of the hot torrid months ahead when the rivers run dry, and people look heavenwards to rain clouds for deliverance from the heat. Of course, their hopes are a touch soured when the meteorological department predicts a hotter summer than previous years and the possibility of a delayed monsoon.
Read moreCSR projects in schools, hospital & villages
In a major fillip to classroom and sanitation facilities at the Government Primary School in Aralumallige village in the Doddaballapur taluk, a part of Bengaluru rural district, RC Bangalore Lakeside, RID 3191, joined hands with ITC Filtrona to build two classroom blocks, two toilet blocks and a mini science centre through a CSR grant project of Rs.32 lakh.
Read moreBike for the big burn
Do we consume food — or does fast food consume us? This might seem like serving paranoia on a platter, but all. this business buzz around ultra-processed food (UPF) causes brain-fade or brain fuzz. Your resistance caves in to the hounding TV commercial and newspaper ads and advertorials. Welcome to the club that believes “Dieting is easy. I have done it a hundred times.”
Read moreEco-friendly stoves make women happy
All the 10 tribal families at Sindalachiwadi village in Raigad district of Maharashtra are happy that they don’t have to suffer a daily ordeal while preparing meals in their mud huts. With their new biomass, smokeless stoves donated by RAC Panvel Elite, RID 3131, “cooking has become easy and painless for us. Also, the cooking time is reduced by around 40–50 minutes. With mud chullahs we were exposed to excessive smoke, suffered from frequent cough and eye irritation,” says Pallavi (35).Also, that chullah had to be fed with firewood from tree branches, and this resulted in shrinking green cover in their village.
Read moreKalam: A remarkable People’s President
Dr Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam’s life as a student was very challenging, filled with hardships and struggles. There was a time when he had to sell newspapers from door-to-door to support his family and for his education. He came from a very modest background and journeyed from Rameswaram, Tamil Nadu, to the Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Delhi, and became the President of India. He was truly the People’s President. He contributed immensely to the development of the country both as a scientist and as a president. He was an exceptional teacher, an aerospace scientist and a staunch nationalist who was a great dreamer and visionary at the same time.
Read moreGet ready for summer madness
Summer is here, more or less. The next 100 days will be hot and hotter. I live in North India where — as I think an Englishman wrote in the 18th century — it gets so hot that when stray dogs chase each other, they prefer to walk. I have vivid memories of the North Indian summers in the 1950s and 1960s. They were extraordinarily cruel. Then came the afforestation programmes surrounding Delhi with lakhs of trees. That changed things. Thus, before the trees grew fully, there used to be very massive dust storms. The Arabic word for them is khamsin. There would be hot winds that would gust at about 100kmph, fully laden with billions of tonnes of dust. The entire sky would turn black-brown and the sun would vanish behind the swirling muck.
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