The pilgrimage to Vaishno Devi shrine in Jammu and Kashmir will resume today. The yatra was under suspension for nearly five months in view of the coronavirus pandemic since March 18.
Chief Executive Officer of Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board, Ramesh Kumar said during the first week, there will be a cap of 2,000 pilgrims each day of which 1,900 will be from Jammu and Kashmir and the remaining 100 from outside.
Mr Kumar said that people will be allowed to undertake the pilgrimage after registration only through online in order to avoid any assembly at the yatra registration counter. The pilgrims will be required to install the Aarogya Setu App on their mobile phones. Wearing face masks and face cover is mandatory and they will have to undergo thermal scanning at yatra entry points.
Children below 10 years, pregnant women, persons with co-morbidities and those above 60 years have been advised to avoid the pilgrimage.
COVID negative reports of the pilgrims from outside Jammu and Kashmir and also from the red zone districts of the Union Territory will be checked and only those with negative reports will be allowed to move towards Bhawan. Ponies, pithus and palkis will not be allowed to ply on the tracks initially.
The CEO informed that booking and sitting of pilgrims in Atka Aarti area and Shradha Suman Vishesh Pooja will not be allowed till further orders.
The Manipur government has extended the complete lockdown till August 31 to contain the spread of COVID-19 in the state. With 192 more people tested positive yesterday, the tally rose to 4,390. New cases of COVID-19 continue to be detected amongst people who have no travel history outside the state.
A total of 78 people have been discharged in the last 24 hours, taking the recovery rate in the state to 55.53 per cent. Manipur now has 1,939 active cases. There have been 13 COVID-19 deaths in the state so far.
The Prime Minister announced that the Centre will soon launch Project Lion and Project Dolphin for the biodiversity conservation of these species to replicate the successes of Project Tiger. In his independence day speech, Mr Modi we have successfully carried forward Project Tiger and Project Elephant. The Tiger population has increased in India. In the coming days, we are starting Project Lion for the Asiatic lions. Mr Modi said Project Dolphin will focus on both river and sea dolphins. He said, this will also give a boost to biodiversity and also create employment opportunities.
The Prime Minister also announced that India will soon have a new cyber security policy. He said his government is aware of the threats arising from cyberspace and their potential impact to India’s society, economy and development. Mr Modi said, changing nature of cyber threats and warfare has prompted India to build a roadmap to overhaul its existing cyber security policy with an eye on challenges like social media, securing critical data and the need for new laws.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has launched the National Digital Health Mission (NDHM). Every Indian will have an Aadhar like ID card containing all relevant information about his/her medical conditions and treatments and tests. Addressing the nation from the ramparts of the Red Fort on Independence Day, Mr Modi said that the initiative which is completely technology based will revolutionise the health sector in India.
The vision of National Digital Health Mission is to create a national digital health ecosystem which provides timely and efficient access to inclusive, affordable, and safe healthcare to all citizens.
When we talk of the red-light area of any city, the image of women being clad in heavy make-up, adorned in shiny and bling clothes, standing on doors or windows, trying to attract customers by using different techniques comes into our minds instantly. Their livelihood depends on the arrival of customers, the more they arrive, the more these women will be benefited.
But what had happened to them during and after lock-down? How did they survive? Has the pandemic affected their business or has it shaken its roots? While reading an article I read that though their life was going on but the business has slowed down to the unimaginable level. They have opened the gates for their customers for the first week of August but only one or two customers are coming to visit.
They are following every protocol, the new customers are not invited and discouraged to come, those who come are made to wash their body in sanitizers, covered in mask and gloves and the whole place is sanitized like beds, door knobs etc to practice hygiene at the place. Because of lock-down many of the women had gone back to their native places and when the men who show up if they see less women, they don’t return back as they know there are less options.
Their essential needs and daily food needs are fulfilled by the local government, they go to government schools to collect essential items and non-essential needs are fulfilled by those clients who have been attached to the concerned brothels.
It looks from their faces that though business is going through dark phases but soon it will catch up and they will be able to live in bling again.
The Casteless Collective is a Chennai based Tamil indie band.
The band currently consists of 19 members including Tenma (leader and music producer), singers Muthu, Bala Chandar, Isaivani, Arivu and Chellamuthu, Dharani (Dholak), Sarath (Satti), Gautham (Katta molam), Nandan (Parai and Tavil), Manu Krishnan (drums) and Sahib Singh (guitar).
Formed in the year 2017, the band was started by Pa. Ranjith and Tamil Indie Musician and Composer, Tenma, founder of Madras Records. The band’s name originated from the phrase ‘Jaathi Illadha Tamizhargal’ which was coined by the 19th century anti caste activist C. Iyothee Thass. He was a social activist who urged Dalits across Tamil Nadu to register themselves as Tamils without caste in the first census in 1871. The band makes music to protest and rebel against the age-old caste-based discrimination and violence. Their songs are political which speaks against the inequalities of the caste system and oppression of women and minorities in Tamil Nadu.
The leader and music producer of the band, Tenma was preparing to put together a group of indie musical artists for the Madras Indie Collective in 2017 when he got the idea from Pa. Ranjith, of training Gaana musicians for it. They prepared auditions for over 150 applicants and looked for artists who had a socio-political motivation in their lives as well as musical strengths. A mixture of Gaana, hip hop, rap and folk musicians were brought together. About 19 singers were selected for the initial ensemble.
Jai Bhim Anthem (2018), Quota (2018), Magizhchi (2018), Vada Chennai (2018), Thalaiva (2019), Dabba Dabba (2019) are popular singles of the band.
It has broken caste boundaries by engaging with the current social and political issue in the state. Instead of making music for entertainment alone the band has tried to eradicate discrimination through its music. Their main intention is “to create political awareness through music and art” because “art which makes us question discomfort is beautiful”. The band is a collective without caste which aims to eradicate caste based and religious discrimination through music.
The Casteless Collective had their very first concert on January 2018 in Chennai. It was their first performance in front of more than 4000 people. The 19 members including one female artist, all dressed in identical grey suits gave a wonderful performance. Their cries of “Jai Bhim!” would be greeted with thunderous applause. They did not expect such a big entusiastic crowd and it was a very emotional experience for all of them. This was also because most of the artists came from small backgrounds and they had mostly performed in one or two funeral processions. The instumentalists who played katte and chatti were really overwhelmed as these instuments were restricted to only funeral events.
It was not a concert that had people head-banging or jumping to the beat of drums. Instead, the audience listened to the songs with rapt attention. They broke into applause and shouts of agreement whenever the lyrics hit home. The Bhim Rap, a song on BR Ambedkar’s life and work, was met with a very enthusiastic reception. So was the rap song that condemned honour killings in the name of caste pride which was a major social evil in Tamil Nadu. Another popular track, Madrasin Magizhchi, spoke about the small joys of living in Madras, despite being poor.
They say that people often ask them about the song lyrics and the stories about their experiences, so a discussion has begun. The band believes that social problems cannot be solved unless it is spoken about. Without discussions around caste-based discrimination one cannot attempt to eradicate the social evil. Their songs have already fulfilled their aim and created a stir among people. We hope that the band achieves greater heights and reaches out to everyone out there who has been a victim of caste discrimination and that it becomes successful in eradicating the malpractices of the system.
Today Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has declared about ‘One Nation One Health Card’ scheme on the event of 74th Independence Day in his ceremonial speech. This was on cards since long and is going to be implemented in order to transform the health care system of our country. A person’s medical history records including all the treatments, tests etc which the person has undertaken will all be stored at a digital database. The data can be accessed from anywhere by authorised personnel only in the country and now s/he doesn’t have to carry all his/her report files.
It is not mandatory for now as those who don’t want can opt out from the service, same goes with the hospital as well. Those who want to have an experience of the service will be issued a Unique ID to log in into the portal. This scheme will run in different phases. For starters, Rs 500 crore budget has been allocated for the first phase.
The major issue which people are worried about is the possibility of data breach as the topic of data safety is selling like a hot cake nowadays. But officials are saying that strict privacy features are going to be incorporated to save people’s private data. They clarified more by saying that without permission of willing citizens none of the doctors or hospitals can access the data of health cards.
Indian packaging industry accounts for 4% of the global packaging industry, making it the sixth largest in the world. The increasing demand for packaged food products, coupled with the convenience offered by plastic packaging material have helped in the growth of plastic packaging as well as flexible packaging solutions. According to Packaging Industry Association of India (PIAI), the flexible packaging industry in India is growing by a CAGR of nearly 25%, Food & beverage industry is the largest consumer of flexible packaging products, accounting for nearly 70% of the total consumption. The demand from pharmaceutical industry for flexible packaging products has been growing by a strong rate and is expected to continue in the coming years. Bottle grade PET chips are used in manufacturing PET bottle, which finds application in food & beverage industry for packaging purposes. The demand for pet bottles has experienced remarkable growth as their consumption and application have dramatically gone up in various consumer goods segment for food and non-food application.
Competitive Scenario in Indian flexible packaging industry is fragmented with large number of small and medium sized players and few large players. These large players are characterized by conversion capacities above 5000 tons per annum, equipped with modern facilities, as well as offer printing solutions to films ranging from co-extruded to sophisticated multi-layer laminates. India PET chip manufacturing industry comprise of few large players like Reliance Industries, Filatex India Limited, JBF Industries, and Dhunseri Petroleum. These large players account for a significant majority of the total production in India, with Reliance Industries being the clear leader. The dominance of Reliance Industries could be attributed to the ease of availability of raw materials (which is produced internally, as Reliance Industries has strong backward integration capabilities).
Rapid growth in demand for packaged food products coupled with increasing shift to flexible packaging from other traditional packaging have helped in increasing the demand for flexible packaging products.Considering the growth potential inherent in Indian packaged food industry, the future demand for flexible packaging products from food & beverage sector looks strong.The demand from pharmaceutical industry for flexible packaging products has been growing by a strong rate and is expected to continue in the coming years.The demand for pet bottles has experienced remarkable growth as their consumption and application have dramatically gone up in various consumer goods segment for food and non-food application. This growth in PET bottle usage has directly resulted in higher demand for bottle grade PET chips manufactured in the country.
Edge computing is a networking concept that seeks to get computation as close to the database as possible to reduce latency and bandwidth utilization. Simply put, edge computing involves running fewer cloud operations and transferring those operations to local sites, such as on a user’s phone, an IoT system, or an edge server. Bringing computation to the edge of the network minimizes the amount of long-distance communication between a client and a server that must occur.
Imagine a safe house with dozens of high-definition IoT video cameras. Those are ‘dumb’ cameras that essentially emit a raw video signal and send it continuously to a cloud server. On the cloud platform, a motion-detection program takes the video output from all the cameras to guarantee that only clips of action are transferred to the file archive. It ensures there is a persistent and substantial burden on the building’s Internet connectivity, as a large amount of video content being transmitted absorbs considerable bandwidth. Besides, there is a very heavy load on the cloud storage which will concurrently process the video footage from all the cameras.
Consider now that the processing for the motion sensor is pushed to the edge of the network. What if each camera used its internal computer to run the application for motion detection, and then submitted footage as needed to the cloud server? That will result in a substantial decrease in the usage of bandwidth, as most of the video footage would never have to move to the cloud server. The cloud service will now only be responsible for maintaining the relevant video, ensuring the system could connect with a greater range of cameras without overloading. And it feels like edge computing.The cost reduction alone will be a catalyst for several businesses to implement an edge-computing architecture. Companies who adopted the cloud for many of their applications may have noticed that bandwidth costs were higher than anticipated.
However, the main advantage of edge computing is potentially the potential to process and store data more efficiently, making for more effective real-time applications that are vital to businesses. A smartphone scanning a person’s face for facial recognition will need to run the facial recognition algorithm via a cloud-based database before edge computing which will take a lot of time to process.
For an edge computing model, considering the capacity of smartphones, the algorithm may be operated locally on an edge server or gateway, or even on the smartphone itself. Applications like virtual and augmented reality smart cities and even construction-automation systems need fast processing.Worldwide, 5 G broadband systems are introduced by networks that offer the advantages of broad speed and reduced latency for devices, enabling businesses to switch from a garden hose to a firehose for their network bandwidth. Instead of merely providing quicker speeds and advising companies to start storing data in the cloud, several providers are focusing on cutting-edge computing approaches in their 5 G implementations to provide quicker real-time processing, especially for mobile devices, connected cars, and self-driving cars.
It’s obvious that while the original aim for edge computing was to minimize IoT system latency costs over long distances, the proliferation of real-time apps needing local processing and storage resources would push the technology forward in the coming years.
So I am concluding this article here. Hope you guys enjoyed this!
As we all know what has happened in last 5 months due to lockdown.Every sector in the country was on lockdown leaving the FMCG sector for essentials products.Every other part whether the railways,airways,roadways was at complete halt through which there was no movement any kind in the country.International dealings also came to halt.
In coming months as everything is unlocking phase wise,it is important to maintain every sector their market size,market growth and new possibilities into different markets.There is also need of an great expertise in reviving the economy in a phase manner for the government.Due to having cash crisis for the MSME,and many other sectors government announced Rs 20 Lakh crore stimulus for the growth of the country due to this economic crisis.
Due to this fiscal deficit of the country is going to widen significantly.In June there was green shots visible as the economy started to revive and there was increment in the economy so it looked a good sign.As we also know that the global economic contraction is on cards.It is not only India but different countries as well who are announcing the stimulus packages to come out of such economic crisis.But it is not easy for every country to announce such large stimulus packages on their own they are taking hefty debts to avail the package to their citizens.
If we talk about India’s debt it is at the level of historic height,and interest rates are at historic lows,credit-driven growth is likely to be modest at best.In this case to grow independently Prime Minister Of India Narendra Modiji announced the vision to become “Atmanirbhar” it means not to depend on anyone make your own products.Due to this saying such as “Vocal For Local” are used by many people nowadays.It is clearly seen that slowly and steadily people will start using more “Made In India or Make In India” products so that economy will get a great boost to it.
So not only for India but for every country it is a crucial time for the next three to four months so that they can make their think-tank team and work on how the country can be recovered from such crisis.We hope for the best.
Commercial surrogacy was legalised in India in 2002. India has around 3,000 surrogacy clinics. This increased medical tourism to India. According to a 2012 report by Confederation of Indian Industries the income by surrogacy is $2 billion per year. But since there are no strict regulations regarding surrogacy in India which gave rise to a lot of problems. Some of them being exploitation of surrogate mothers, abandonment of surrogate child and Embryo rackets.
Thus, the Law Commission of India highlighted need for a law to regulate surrogacy and in its 208th report it proposed to stop commercial surrogacy completely. This is because due to lack of legal framework and interference of middlemen some of the surrogate mothers did not have any knowledge of the contract or agreement of surrogacy or were paid less than what was promised.
So after the recommendation of Law Commission of India notification was put out by the Government of India in 2015 where surrogacy was banned for foreigners. In 2016 the surrogacy regulation bill was passed in Lok Sabha. But the bill lapsed in 2019 when the parliament disolved. After this the Surrogacy Regulation Bill 2019 was brought by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. This bill was brought in April 2019 in the Lok Sabha and was passed in August 2019. The bell is still pending in the Rajya Sabha because it was sent to a committee for further discussions.
This bill states that Surrogacy Boards will be created in both Central and state levels. Commercial surrogacy is not allowed, it allows only ethical altruistic surrogacy. Only Indian couples with minimum 5 years of marriage are eligible to go for surrogacy. For this they need a certificate which will be a proof of them be medically infertile. They will also have to give undertaking in which they will have to state that they will not abandon the child out of surrogacy in any condition. Sec selection will be illegal. As for the surrogate mother she should be a close relative of the couple. She should be between the age of 25 to 35 having a child of a own and should also not have been a surrogate mother before. She will also get an insurance coverage which will be valid till some time after delivery. The Surrogacy clinics have to be compulsorily registered.
Happy Independence Day to all of us as today, it has been 74 years since we have achieved freedom. From then onwards we have come a long way. We were able to get this freedom as the fight was fought by male and female freedom fighters. They fought with our tormentors by fighting and bearing their responsibilities without even a furrow on their face. Today, women have gone a way ahead in society and achieved many impossible achievements. From being soldier to scientist, from being chef to aeronaut, from being teacher to politician, they are ruling and grabbing success in all the areas of this country and making the countrymen proud day by day with their hard work and achievements.
But still there are many facets of society where women are considered as the weakling, of inferior stature who don’t have the right to speak or achieve whatever they want. When we talk about giving more freedom to women or getting equal pay then some men will come out and say Why more freedom? They have been given reservations, maternity holidays and what not. So, why more freedom?
I would like to ask them a question: when you come from the office or workplace, you become so tired that you just want to relax but when your wife, mother or sister comes from the office, you want her to work in the kitchen. When you are just working in the office, she is managing the whole house, her office, her periods and if she is a mother then child as well. But you will say that it is just a meagre work which is of no value. But when she is unwell and you have to work then that work becomes a herculean task and you feel yourself as some superhuman who is managing all things alone and you will brag about it in front of everybody that how humanae you are that you share responsibilities with your other half.
It’s not that I am generalizing that all men are the same but, in my lifetime, I have seen only some men whom I can count on my fingertips who actually share responsibilities. This is just a glimpse in life of a woman from the working sector. Now I will talk about girls and women who are residing in villages. The story is entirely different there. The girl goes to school with lots of dreams but gets married as soon as she finishes school or she has just entered college. When that girl becomes a wife, she bears responsibility for the whole house along with its inhabitants. But at least there was a hope that they were able to go to school or college.
But the arrival of this pandemic COVID-19 and lockdown has made their situation become more pathetic. During the lockdown period, they were locked in the house with their tormentors and they abused women in whatever they wanted. There was an article in ‘The Hindu’ that ‘For the first time in 10 years, domestic violence complaint calls by women surged, such a pattern has not been for 10 years.’ The situation grew out of hand because when locked with their perpetrators they can’t go out and ask for help. So many of the women opted to still take a bold step by calling on helpline numbers, by hiding in their rooms, fearing that someone might hear them and they will become subject to abuse again.
Whereas women were seeing such worse conditions, the girls in several areas saw totally different and devastating situations. There are many areas in India where parents who are not much well off, to ease up their burden are marrying off small girls who have not even turned 18. Their parents either because they belong to a weak economic class, or as the administrative surveillance was not up to mark because of COVID-19, or as they would not have to shell a lot of money because of people’s limits, they opted for marrying their girl off who has not even crossed the tender age. One of the major roles which has played in early marriage of these girls is also that schools are closed because of lock down and schools used to play a huge role in the lives of these young girls. From sanitation to keeping check on their health, from keeping track of their studies to investigation of their absence, they kept all the data because of which parents also used to adhere to the fact that they can’t marry their daughter or son at an early age or they will become subject to punishment by law. Now as there is no such check they are doing according to their wish.
This is my innermost desire that a day should come when we are builders of this society; when we are not given a place, whereas we know it’s our place; when male members of family don’t help but share responsibility; when we are taken as a weakling but as the strongest creation of Nature, who we actually are.
These Indian villages are more liveable and happier than any other Indian cities, villages and towns. They are model villages of India resulting from individual initiatives and NPO initiatives often using the Indian government schemes.
Piplantri
Piplantri village of Rajasthan is a hope for Indian development and prosperity as many families still mourn the birth of a female in the community. Whenever a girl is born in the village, her family and all villagers come together to celebrate this occasion by planting 111 trees. Both are raised with equal respect. To provide financial security, a sum of Rs. 21,000 is contributed by the villagers and Rs. 10,000 is given by the family for every girl and kept as a fixed deposit which can be liquidated once she turns 20. In return, the parents are asked to sign a legal affidavit, which makes it mandatory for them to educate her, and prohibits them to make her marry before the age of 18. This move also tries to demolish the notion of girls being a burden on their parents. To save the plants from termite, villagers plant aloe vera around them. More than 3 million trees and aloe vera plants have been planted till now which is generating livelihood for many families. The trees planted include Neem, Sheesham, Mango, and Amla. This unique initiative was started by former village sarpanch Shyam Sundar Paliwal as ‘The Kiran Nidhi Yojana’ after he lost his daughter named Kiran in 2006. On Raksha Bandhan, girls tie Rakhi to tress. The villagers claim that this tradition has brought immense harmony in the village, and not a single police case has been registered in the last 7-8 years. Several villages nearby have started to adopt similar practice. The village today has eco-friendly gas stoves, toilets, solar lights, anganwaadi, healthcare centres, air-conditioned panchayat hall and modern schools.
Piplantri village picture source: speakzeasy.wordpress.com
Punsari village
Punsari village of Gujarat is regarded as India’s smartest village. It is rurban village. The word ‘rurban’ (rural+urban) refers to an area which has the economic characteristics and lifestyles of an urban area while retaining its essential rural area features. The village has clean and proper roads, schools and education system, 24-hour electricity supply in every household, school bus and public transport system, proper water supply and RO treated drinking water with minimum charges. The classrooms are air-conditioned. There is a good communication system between the panchayat office and the whole village to keep people well-informed and be available for help anytime they need. A public address system which covers the entire population with the help of about 140 loudspeakers installed all over the village. The village has good healthcare services and employment opportunities. It is a model village of India where there is WIFI, all chowk monitoring by CCTV cameras, solar street lights, with literacy rate of 100%. There is a bio metric system for Gram Panchayat Employees. The transformation of this village is achieved by the efforts of the village sarpanch (headman) Himanshu Patel through effective planning and utilization of central and state government funds. Mr Patel leads an 11-member committee which runs the village affairs including five are female members. Mr Patel says the village council has spent 140m rupees ($2.28m; £1.43m) on development schemes between 2006 and 2012. The state chief minister at that time was Narendra Modi, current Prime minister of India who envisioned to stop migration out of the village. It has been a partial success , as 15-20 families have returned to the village from the cities like Mumbai in recent years.
Punsari village documented
Mendha Lekha village
To enter this Maharashtrian village, we have to walk through a bamboo entrance, which points to the rich growth of bamboo in this village. The villagers living here are mostly the Gond tribe of Madhya Pradesh. There is a notice board at the entrance which says “At the centre, there is Delhi government. At the state, there is Mumbai government, but here we are our own government.” This shows the pride the 450 people take in the way they have used an unexpected opportunity that came their way to reap a fortune. Mendha Lekha became the first village in India to secure community forest rights (CFR). The village is famous for the bio-diversity of its deciduous forest and the struggle of its tribal community towards self-rule. Nearly 80% of the village area is forested and under the legally-recognised control of the villagers represented by the village general assembly (gram sabha). This whole land can be inherited and used but cannot be not sold. Mendha Lekha has proved that legal security of their rights to control, use, manage and protect their own resources and lives, through processes of self-powering, can make people end poverty, maintain food and water supply, and protect local biodiversity. And all this takes place much more effectively than capitalism and development programs created by central government.
Mendhe Lekha village and its story
Dharnai village
This village in Bihar has never seen electricity until 2014. The village is now fully solar powered. With the help of Greenpeace, the village installed a solar-powered micro-grid, which provides 24×7 electricity to more than 450 households and 50 commercial establishments. The entire project cost them 3 crores. Earlier, were forced to struggle with kerosene lamps and expensive diesel generators. This changed the lives of the villagers in many socio-economic and personal aspects. It created opportunities for female residents to access the public and personal spaces and move after sunset. Children can now study after sunset. People no longer needed to finish cooking before the sunset.
Dharnai village documented
Mawlynnong
This north-eastern village of India is considered as Asia’s cleanest village. Located in Meghalaya, the village has many beautiful and interesting places which include a strange sight of a big rock balancing on another rock. The main occupation of the villagers is agriculture and also offer community based eco-tourism opportunities. A dustbin made from bamboo plant is found throughout the village. All the waste from the dustbins is collected and stored in a pit, which is later used as manure. The villagers plant trees to ensure that the virgin forest is kept intact and also replenished and are currently working towards plastic ban. The village has a literacy rate of 90%.
This Bihari village is an ecological village which practices organic farming and have prospered since then. Apart from that, the village has proper water conservation systems and cleanliness is maintained throughout the village. No one in the village is suffering from any kind of serious illness. Every house in the village has electricity supply and uses biogas to save electricity and fuel. All the farmers of Kedia village, followed the ‘Living Soils’ approach under ‘Food for life’ campaign’ run by Greenpeace. This approach is targeted to restore the ruined agricultural practices, by reducing chemical dependency and improve soil health through nourishment of the soil with biomass-based organic practices and materials. By applying scientific methods, existing knowledge and experiences the farmers successfully restored the soil of their village by coordination and collaboration with government for machinery. The villagers till date use only groundwater and lake water for irrigation. The unique toilets of the village households have no underground tanks so that the human waste can be used as a natural manure later on. The results have brought prosperity and happiness to the villagers by ending the dependence on commercial chemical-based materials and enjoying healthier yields with a up to 80% reduce in cost of inputs. The village organizes and celebrates a festival of organic farming called ‘Jashn-e-jaivik’. Greenpeace mentioned that they were able to make organic farming easier and successful in this village “With the help of many governmental schemes like ‘Swachh Bharat Mission’ and ‘Jaivik Krishi Yojana’ besides MNGREGA. Inspired by this, other villages around Kedia have also started adopting similar methods.
Picturesources: 1. India times, 2. Gaon connection and 3. Greenpeace.
India, undoubtedly is a land of cultures, diversity and uniqueness. As Swami Vivekananda stated, “It teaches not only tolerance, but also acceptance. Various languages, cultures, practices have flourished throughout the nation with all their multiplicity. It has therefore retained it’s originality, in spite of the advent of modernity. In other words, some of these arts have become successful in coping with the dynsmism of the society by undergoing some changes in it along with retaining it’s original essence. Every such community inherits it’s own way of life and culture. However, all such diversities are blended together by epics like Ramayana, Mahabharata and other Puranic stories. It has become the common hold which brings all the diversities yo lead a harmonious life.
We can take a example of South Canara. It is not an exception to this. Yakshagana, Harikatha, Bhutakola, Kambala and so on represent the uniqueness of our culture. While Kambala and Bhutakola glorify our local ethnicity, Yakshagana and Harikatha through the recitation of mythological stories uphold common life and simultaneously educate the younger generation to lead a humble and meaningful life.
Value education is must to the younger generation, both for peaceful existence and national progress. Hence it would be a good idea to educate them in this direction by exposing them to such arts which not only provide entertainment but also develop a deeper insight and introspection, distinction between good and evil, along with the imparting human values among them. This in turn, reduces cruelty, inefficiency, increases love for truth, justice and universal welfare.
I have seen number of Yakshagana episodes in my childhood. I have always associated myself with the divine and just personalities, both in their joys and sorrows acknowingly. I have shed tears for their downfall and pains and have also rejoiced in their joys and victories. Therefore, we have been brought up in such a way that we are not only cleansed to injustice but also made to respond to another’s agony.
In this way, people through their involvement with these kinds of regional arts, get cleansed from all evils and have been imparted virtues without bothering much about the trivialities of life. While an innocent mind is fascinated by its miraculous nature, the matured mind is fashioned by its historicity. However, as they delve into it more and more, they discover something which makes the world more tangible and intangible. By and large, there is necessary for the exposure of children to the regional arts which not only cultivates passion for literature, but also open their thoughts to the harsh realities of life and show the path towards solving problems.
Mudras are the gestures or poses performed since early times. It helps to stimulate different parts of the body involved with breathing and to affect the flow of prana bindu, boddhicitta, amrita or consciousness in the body.
Dharmachakra mudra: Dharmachakra in Sanskrit means the ‘Wheel of Dharma’. This mudra symbolizes one of the most important moments in the life of Buddha, the occasion when he preached to his companions the first sermon after his Enlightenment in the Deer Park at Sarnath. It thus denotes the setting into motion of the Wheel of the teaching of the Dharma. In this mudra the thumb and index finger of both hands touch at their tips to form a circle. This circle represents the Wheel of Dharma. The three remaining fingers of the two hands remain extended symbolizing the middle finger represents the ‘hearers’ of the teachings, the ring finger represents the ‘solitary realizers’, the Little finger represents the Mahayana or ‘Great Vehicle’.
2. Varada mudra: This mudra symbolizes charity, compassion and boon-granting. It is the mudra of the accomplishment of the wish to devote oneself to human salvation. It is nearly always made with the left hand, and can be made with the arm hanging naturally at the side of the body, the palm of the open hand facing forward, and the fingers extended. The five extended fingers in this mudra symbolize the following five perfections: Generosity, Morality, Patience, Effort,and Meditative concentration.
3. Dhyan Mudra: It is also known as Samadhi or Yoga Mudra. It is performed with the help of two hands, which are placed on the lap and place the right hand on the left hand with stretched fingers (thumbs facing upwards and other fingers of both the hand resting on each other.)
4. Abhaya Mudra: It is a gesture of fearlessness or blessing that represents the protection, peace, benevolence, and dispelling of fear. It is performed with the help of right hand by raising to shoulder height with bent arm, and the face of palm will be facing outward with fingers upright whereas the left hand hanging down while standing. This gesture is characteristic of Buddha Shakyamuni and Dhyani Buddha Amoghasiddhi.
5. Bhumisparasa: Earth Touching Mudra,is the most famous mudra. In this mudra the right hand is poised with the fingertips downward and “touching the earth”, with the palm facing inward. The left hand is in the meditation (dhyana) mudra. When the Buddha became enlightened, he touched the earth with this mudra during his meditation. The earth was touched and witnessed the awakening.
Eduindex 
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