Citizen Responsibility

Mission Shakti :What I liked

By Dr.Amrita Basu(MBBS,MS) on March 30, 2019

I liked playing one game of cards.That’s bluff.I lost inevitably.That’s one reason why I never tried poker.I am not very good at hiding what I feel.

That’s why I liked what Mission Shakti stands for.I can’t claim to grasp everything about #Mission Shakti but this is what I understood from various sources.

Things about Mission Shakti for the uninitiated (Source)

Mission Shakti is India’s anti-satellite(A-SAT) weapon initiative by DRDO and ISRO

It was launched from Odisha’s Balasore DRDO’s testing range.

Mission Shakti shot down an out of service Indian satellite.

The technology is complicated and not shared by any nation.

A low orbit satellite by unknown nation lying low and spying on India will be dealt quickly,quietly.

This technology will probably have commercial use both global and domestic.

For avoiding open warfare with enemy nations is in the card,we need good eyes in the sky,space,land,water and underground.

Even the walls listen so this high security news is mostly under wraps.Indian scientist have been researching this since 2012.

You can talk logic with people who understand about good will and humanity .What about those who are envious of everything India stands for ?Theres no way for people like that except scare them so much that they will think twice about treading on your toes.

Bargaining chips especially ones which are subtle can be great for diplomatic conversations in the present and the future.

What’s your take on Mission Shakti?

A few posts you may like:

Pulwama

Poverty ,population and sanitation

Women on Wheels:Azad foundation helps make women car driver

By Dr.Amrita Basu(MBBS,MS) on March 30, 2019

The world over women struggles with career options. Can women be professional chauffeurs? Can they become car drivers on hire? The problem of employment is bigger in the marginalized part of society. Lack of education and lack of family planning makes earning enough money difficult.
What happens when you have migrated from one place to another? What happens when you are not educated, have no skills and have several mouths to feed?

Population control, adult education, and skilling India, all have a role to play. Only the last option will help both in the short term. Women who are from the disadvantaged part of society, work under extraordinary circumstances to earn enough for their family.

Too many mouths and not enough resources make things worse. But how can you help? This is where the work being done by Azad foundation is important.

What is the Azad Foundation doing?

Azad Foundation is a charitable trust in Delhi strives hard to fight, the persistent gender inequalities in India. There is a need for finding non-traditional, safe, high-return earning options, for economically weak women in urban areas.
But is that even possible?
Yes, and they have shown the way!

Women on Wheels is a successful flagship program of the Azad Foundation and Sakha.

Together they helped more than 1600 socio-economically weak women to become employable.
Skilling and employability in the transport industry as chauffeurs paved the way for financial independence.
They have successfully provided safe rides to more than a million women.DTC’s first woman car driver, UN’s first woman driver was all part of the Azad family.

What is nontraditional work for women?

Training women to become drivers,
masons, electricians, plumbers, etc make work options available. Skilled work in a specific, high demand niche can help women make enough income while working with dignity.
To meet the 2030 agenda for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) you need to include women. The development will only be sustainable if its benefits accrue equally to both women and men, and women’s rights will only become a reality if they are part of broader efforts to protect the planet and ensure that all people can live with dignity and respect”

Now compare the following scenarios :

Shantaben, 45 years old, lives on a pavement in Ahmedabad city. She is an unskilled worker earning as a construction worker. Her life is a struggle every minute. From access to toilets, drinking water, food, childcare, and work.
At 300 rupees per day, she works 18 hours a day at the construction site and at home.She has no energy for anything else.

Somaben, 24 years old, has migrated to Ahmedabad from Banswara, Rajasthan, with her husband and 3 young children. Somaben lives and works in a construction site in
Ahmedabad. The challenging part is, she has a two-month-old, who is at the construction site with her, while she lifts heavy cement loads throughout the day. Let alone child care, she hardly has hardly any toilet breaks.
This is where Azad foundations Women behind Wheels is walking the right path. It is giving women in a marginalized part of society, a chance to get skilled and become professional drivers. A chance to earn a good living and live with dignity.

A few examples:

Shanti is a commercial chauffer with Sakha. Quite and confident she inspires confidence in her clients.
Azad Foundation India-women cab driver Chandni, studied up to the 10th standard and now she is financially independent.

Deepali A determined young woman from Ahmedabad, Deepali has exceeded her life expectations in becoming a professional driver.
The first two stories were vastly different from the last three. The difference is Shanti, Chandni and Deepali are now skilled and have control over their life. Azad foundation helped them get financial azadi.
The Women on Wheels programme started in 2008 in Delhi. Now it reached Jaipur, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, and Indore.

Who is this programme for?

Young women
Aged 18-35years
Living in slums and resettlement colonies in cities.
Socioeconomically backward.
School dropouts.
Interest to learn
Hardworking

Women on Wheels programme helps socially excluded females, move from the margins to the mainstream economy.

A few statistics

2016-17, 582 women enrolled in Women on Wheels programmes across India.

322 women achieving their permanent license, which was a 41% increase on the previous year.

How do Women on Wheel help?

Women on Wheels give technical, self-empowerment and self-development training. It’s a way to learn, how to be a car driver.
Qualified women drivers are enrolled with a partner, Sakha Consulting Wings Pvt Ltd. They help employ female chauffers for Sakha cabs. The goal is to serve women customers with a women car driver in India.
Azad works with both government, business and non-governmental partners to give the highest quality training.
They help trainees get citizenship document.
They help them get accident insurance.
They also help them open a bank account.
They help with uniform and also registering a mobile phone number.
Self-defense, protecting themselves from violence and soft skills for communication and crowd management is also a part of the curriculum.

Testimonials from Women on Wheels alumni are proof of their commendable work.

“WHEN I WAS TRAINING, I WOULD FEEL LIKE I COULD STAND ON MY OWN FEET, I COULD DO ANYTHING. BECAUSE OF THAT I FEEL LIKE I’M LIVING MY LIFE FREELY TODAY – RESHMA, DELHI”

I LIKED SELF-DEFENSE THE BEST. WE WERE TAUGHT HOW NOT TO TOLERATE ANY NONSENSE ON THE ROAD. THOUGH I HAVE NOT HAD A NEED TO USE IT, I AM SURE I WILL BE ABLE TO PUNCH IF REQUIRED!” – MADHU PAWAR, JAIPUR

We can’t do everything all at once. What we can do is, skill those who need our help and who are willing to work for it.

Do you want to help?
Share the story of Azad by sharing this post with your friends and on social media. When women work and earn, can social change be far behind?

Poverty Population and Sanitation:Elephant in the room!

By Dr.Amrita Basu(MBBS,MS) on March 4, 2019

Poverty.It’s a sad word. Money troubles are a more polite and genteel word. I grew up in a middle-class family and we had real money troubles. Credit card debts and bad money choices by a parent, can cause chaos in even regular income families.

That’s why I learned deeply, the value of financial independence, of striving for financial freedom, the value of education and the other side of poverty. Abject poverty makes you helpless. Borderline penury makes your choice limited. In most cases, you have a choice to stop wrongful expenditure and spending more than your means. Here in comes the need for awareness. A small family is a happy family for multiple reasons. The biggest one is this.

If as a society we want to come forward to help people stay afloat and rise, platitude will not help. Nor will gyaan. What will help is straight talk and believe it or not, population and poverty are directly correlated.

How to Fight Poverty in India?

Does the chicken come first, or the egg? Do we fight poverty or the population explosion? Does a bursting India mean rising poverty? Or is this even more complicated?

Awareness about methods of contraception

Access to the entire range of family planning methods and a need for compliance is much needed. If you talk about carrot and stick, additional benefits for those who plan their family right. Cash surplus, tax benefits anything. But it needs to be done now.

The basic math of family planning and economics

If you talk about sanitation and poverty like #BLogchatter is doing through their #causeachatter social campaign, you must remember that more the population,

Higher the waste
Higher the sewage
More resources needed.
Earth has a limited capacity.
It’s not just money, but the ability of our Mother Earth, to accept the load!

Uneducated, unemployable population with poor health means, you have scanty resources to generate. The Government or the individual can do even less, if those you want to help don’t understand the problem.

For that, we need a carrot. Additional benefits for those who plan their family right

Long term goals

Contraception =Population Control =Additional Benefits .

Short term goals I think is skilling India

Each person gets skilled at a vocational course for generating additional income. Whatever your level of education, adult education can always increase your chances. Don’t stop now. The sky is the limit. Vocational training, urban and rural small farming projects, animal husbandry are all possible in small ways. This helps to create a culture of decreasing food shortage. When people are not hungry, their brain and body both work better. Hunger is painful and you will know that, only if you have ever gone hungry!

Questions were asked by Blogchatter at a Twitter chat, to raise awareness about Poverty and its impact on sanitation. Answering a few questions my way. You may agree, you may not. The point is you do something at your level and I do something with my resources.

How do you think poverty impacts the privileges received by a citizen?

Poverty and lack of awareness is a vicious cycle. People don’t know they have to encash cheques. They keep cheques received under the mattress. Poverty, lack of education, poor health, lack of awareness all drive down to deeper poverty.

Poverty Causes

Why do you think poverty exists?

In India and Mother Earth, Resources are limited. The population is bursting, India is going to overtake China soon! Baby making needs to have some limits. Poverty, population and education have deep connections.50k per month ten kids,50k per month one kid, what’s better? Do the math.

It’s not a simple question and the math is more complicated. But you understand, right? If you are reading this and understanding, you are privileged and the top ten percent of India’s literate population. The rest who need awareness, are not on Twitter and not reading this Blog.

Will it help if you speak in their language? Yes, it will.

Will it help if we do this offline? Yes, it will. But to reach them, the socio-cultural community heads, need to come forward for this to work. Talking about family planning can get you in hot water, in the wrong places.

Effect of Poverty

From your eyes, what has been the biggest impact of poverty on our society?

Poor health, education, and employability all take a nose dive when there’s poverty. Hunger is the first battle to fight. It’s not just in Hunger games that we need to win, but also in real life.

[bctt tweet=”There’s a reason we talk about roti kapra aur makan in that order! #Causeachatter” username=”misra_amrita”]

Sanitation & Poverty

Sanitation is the basic privilege of clean drinking water and proper sewage disposal. How does poverty impact this basic privilege?

That’s why #Swachhbharat and Toilet ek prem katha, is bang on. It has a deep role. Rising population excessive waste. But do we first battle hunger or sewage? Both need to start at the same time. But for it to work and be sustainable, we need a limit on the number.

[bctt tweet=”Unlimited population means this effort becomes unsustainable. #Causeachatter ” username=”misra_amrita”]

What do you think we as citizens can do to help uplift the poor?

No one can uplift. You have to lift yourself up.

We can help create awareness
Educate all women and men
The skill of all men and women.A difficult initiative, but a much needed one to make any real change possible.
Marriage and age of first pregnancy need to be strictly followed. Poor health leads to excessive resource use but still, childhood malnutrition lingers. Malnutrition occurring in an underage mother is unlikely to have better results.
Population in India is an asset and a problem at the same time. Its now time to remove the factors, which make it a problem.

Read: Empowering Rural Women

Statistics about Population of India

The population of India 133.92 crores
China138.64 crores‌
The United States of America32.57 crores

The low female literacy rate means there’s a problem with family planning and population control measures. Literacy doesn’t mean they are educated enough to take measured choices. In many instances its the ability to write their own name with no understanding of the written language in their vernacular or any other language.

What is replacement-level fertility rate?

Replacement-level fertility rate, is the average number of children a woman has to have, to keep the population at a constant size, is 2.1. India is closing in with the overall number of children per woman at 2.3.(Source)

If women in a nation or a region or a group have fewer than 2.1 children each, population decreases. If women have more than 2.1.then we will see the population continuing to rise.

Employable population in India

The percentage of employable population in India has achieved a 5.6 percent increase, from 33 percent in 2014 to 45.60 percent in 2018.Engineers are still most employable.

Final thoughts:

I feel, contraception choices are rarely exercised by the men and many women have zero access, especially in the strata who really need it. Too many babies, too soon, when you can hardly support your own health, is an irresponsible decision.

Parenthood needs responsibility and people are responsible for their choices. Only if you can support yourself and your family, can you grow your family? This needs to be a choice and not necessarily a rule. After all, we are all responsible for our own choices. Blaming other people is easy and useless.

If you can’t reign in population, if you don’t want to do family planning, there’s not enough money in the world to eradicate poverty or prevent destitution.

Writing this to lend a voice to #Causeachatter with Blogchatter.

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