Children's Loss of Global Proportions

-
Almost one year ago (December 23, 2005) we tried to clear customs at Chennai port for a container full of donated items I had collected from my neighbors and the community for the children of Shanti Bhavan school. One of the items was one dozen small Globes donated by a crippled young lady I have known for years, and who is always thinking of our children at the school.

Well, the customs officer confiscated the Globe, saying that it doesn’t clearly show Indian and Pakistan controlled Kashmir. Well, India itself is hardly 2 inches in size on this small children’s educational globe my friend had purchased from a local school supply shop. There isn’t much space for such details, and after all, this is not about geo-politics. The officer tells us that he has been instructed to check all maps and globes shipped from abroad!

Are we a paranoid nation that doesn’t trust our own people’s judgment? To what extend do we go in such matters?

By the way, the items for which customs duty is charged include used children’s bikes, used classroom chairs, rejected paint in cans (when paint shops make mistakes when adding color, and customers reject), etc.

There is no use explaining that these used/donated items are for children from among the poorest families in the world. I guess the government (current and all past) has good reasons for these regressive policies. There are many crooks among us!

Further, we are a proud nation now to receive donations. Why can’t you buy them in India?

Please visit us at www.tgfworld.org and www.indiauntouched.com

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rape, Incest and Other Contradictions

-
The recent Delhi rape incident has elevated national attention about nonconsensual sex and violence.   There is no doubt that most reasonable people disapprove sexual violence against women. Yet, the picture about what constitutes rape is not clear in India. The subject is further complicated without any legal guidance on incest. For the starter, let me briefly describe the laws in India. Marriage for girls is permitted after 18 (except Muslim girls who may marry at 15) and 21 for boys.  But many underage marriages take place, and the government does not intervene. Sex with a “minor wife” below the age of 15 is punishable. But no one bothers if a man marries a girl below 15 as long as the couple does not disclose that they had sex with each other. There is no law in India concerning incest, often described as having sex between a parent and a child, or between siblings. If one is to believe ancient Indian writings, incest was not very uncommon. Today in India, sex with a clo
Read more

Self-confidence, the Answer to Better Learning

-
I am frequently asked by visitors to Shanti Bhavan from America whether our educational model would work in the West.  They are curious to know how caste and class prejudices experienced in India can be overcome by our graduates when they enter the workplace. These are complicated questions, and they need a broad explanation that cannot be fully covered in this blog. The landmark 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the case Brown v. Board of Education was meant to rectify the unequal status of racially separate schools. Now, even after several decades of desegregation measures, including busing children from some affluent families to poor neighborhood schools, their impact on the academic progress of minorities is being questioned. Many factors contribute to reducing the achievement gap in American schools, and racial integration may not necessarily be a solution to the difficulties faced in lifting the educational levels of minority students. As an Asian immigrant who came to Ame
Read more

A Second Front

-
It has been quite a while since I wrote my last blog. For some reason, I had concluded that there wasn’t enough readership interest in my personal notes and critiques of the country’s system. But recently, a friend of mine who stumbled upon my earlier blogs urged me to continue. Moreover, I had promised in my last blog to write about my experiences as an artillery officer along India’s western border with Pakistan, but I hadn’t kept my word. So finally I made up my mind to venture into writing blogs once again. My medical leave following the dynamite explosion in which I was injured while at Se La Pass was to last six weeks. I had returned home to Trivandrum sufficiently frost bitten to have my large ear lobes and nose turn dark, and skin pealing like a snake’s scales. It was a central topic in several hilarious conversations with guests when they visited our home, and I had a lot of stories to tell about my adventures in the snow-covered mountains of the Himalayas. Everyone wanted
Read more