Parivartan
Parivartan is a people's movement started by Magsaysay award winner Arvind Kejriwal who is trying to achieve justice, democracy and transparency in operation of a government and put an end to corruption. We need more examples of such fights which have affected direct lives of marginalized section and also encourage and appreciate efforts of those who have taken up this struggle. Watch this
Video which encompasses one such effort of dedicated folks of parivartan.
Grim solution they embraced
Growing number in
suicides of the farmers in Maharashtra is a suppressed voice of helplessness and lack of support reaching them. About 600 farmers have committed suicide within a year and the relief help proferred has either not reached or will take about 2 to 3 years to actually benefit them. So, is it that by the time help actually takes its effect there will approx. 2000 farmers dead and of course, that many families left
mourning?
Simple Living
Found this interesting article by another A.I.D. volunteer, Arun Sripati, from another chapter. He has described his personal struggle towards simpler life and his thinking in this transition phase.Thanks to Arun for sharing it!
As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.
-- Henry David Thoreau
The main AID webpage proclaims a rather contradictory mission: "Learning humility, purity and simple living from those who don't take too much from the earth... targeting the problems of hunger, disease, and oppression that sadden their lives..." – We want to remove poverty and we want to live simply! This contradiction reflects a curious order in nature: when poverty is forced on you, it is violence – but when you choose poverty, it becomes an enriching expression of non-violence.
My experiment with simple living began a few years ago, when I was moving into a small apartment. I had furniture, clothes, books, papers, utensils, etc. – there was space for all this or for myself but not both! So I had to decide what I wanted and do away with the rest. I noticed that I was doing what great saints have suggested all along: that simplification brings peace of mind. I decided to try it systematically, even if it was inconvenient for the moment. Note: Even if.
So I began: I donated my old clothes and cut down on using paper and plastic. I sent out letters to marketing companies – and stopped receiving junk mail. No more TV. No multi-tasking (tough one!). I tried to check email only three times a day (no way!). I tried eating simpler, unprocessed food. I decided to tell the truth more often. I haven't gotten all the way in any, but I continue to try.
What good did it do? Isn't it making things "less simple" if I save one-sided printouts for rough work? What else will I do on Friday nights if I don't watch the Pirates of the Caribbean? Yes, I do have to bat all those googlies, and convince myself too. But I feel the positive effects of these choices sinking into me, bringing me peace of mind. Simple living reduces your wants, strengthening your mind, freeing up mental space and bringing greater meaning to what you do possess.
Today, my life is still far from simple, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that every attempt to simplify yielded immediate benefits. So my humble suggestion about simple living is this – try it. Your choices will be different from mine, but you will invariably experience the joys of simple living.
I will be glad to hear about such experiments: it will inspire me to live simpler.
Arun Sripati, is a postdoctoral researcher in neuroscience at the Carnegie-Mellon University. He completed his B.Tech in Electrical Engineering from IIT Bombay and his PhD from the Johns Hopkins University. Arun is a volunteer with AID since 2000.
What does development mean to us?
In an effort to create and generate awareness amongst our growing minds AID Tempe will organize monthly discussions on various issues that affect us. It is important, that we understand these issues more deeply in order to provide competent and sustainable solutions to problems that we are seeking answers to. Below are the snippets from the first discussion held during weekly meeting on July 29, 2006:
How is development related to environmentalism? How much does development conflict with the environment, and is it always destined to be this way? Also, is environmentalism overemphasized?
Perhaps at no point in history have we been more environmentally aware than we are now. But the danger of an environmental catastrophe – if we are heading towards one – does not seem imminent to the majority of us. And this is the reason why concern for the environment is only slowly translating itself into action. Evolution has hardwired us to react only to immediate threats; we are therefore quick to consign environmental problems, whose effects accumulate gradually, to posterity. There is some truth to this: the effects of environmental mismanagement are already evident, but the brunt of our actions will be borne by those who come after us.
Development in its current form is at odds with the environment. Ever since we stopped being hunter-gatherers and took to agriculture ten thousand years ago – a remarkable shift, probably the most pivotal in human history, yet hardly recognized – we were destined to take the trajectory that has brought us to where we are now. And it appears that we shall continue along this path, though we have begun now to think of some corrective measures.
All this leads us to a number of important questions; it is difficult to have any clear or optimistic answers to these questions. But the answers to some of the questions might be clearer by the end of this century.
Can development ever be adapted to suit the environment? Can the world ever sustain a population of 8 or 10 billion? And will a growing population and diminishing resources lead to major conflicts, conflicts larger in scale than the world wars of the last century? Can developing countries ever hope to have the same standards of living that countries in Europe and North America enjoy? Will technological advancement, much maligned by some environmentalists, be an unexpected savior in some roundabout way?
-Hari
Vision of a Developed India
-Sudhir
