PULSE POLIO PROGRAM AT BANJARA COLONY

Dear boys and girls

Yesterday (21st Jan. 2011), HEARTS Trust members GK Rao, Srinivasa Reddy and Ravi Kumar have participated in the Govt's Pulse Polio Immunization Programme. 12 students from Vidya Jyothi Institute of Technology (VJIT) led by Siva Kumar (the only girl student being Bindu) and 16 students from Anadha Vidyarthi Griha, Narasimhapuri colony, Kothapet, Hyderabad have also participated in the Pulse Polio Programme at Banjara colony, Hayathnagar.

The program started at 8.30 AM at the Anganwadi chool in Banjara Colony by two nursing students and the anganwadi teacher Ms Vijaya. The target children were 322 given in the chart. All the students and the HEARTS members divided themselves into 6 groups and visited each and every house and sensitized the parents to bring their children to the polio camp for immunization.

By 12.50 PM, 338 children were immunized to our pleasant surprise. Some of the children from the surrounding colony SBI colony also were brought for immunization.

HEARTS Trust thanks all the children from VJIT and Anadha Vidyardhi Griha for their passionate involvement in the noble program and for making it a success.

HEARTS Trust also thanks all its members, associates and wellwishers for their good wishes although they could not participate physically in the program.

GK Rao

RELATION BETWEEN MALNUTRITION AND FOOD SECURITY

Dear brothers and sisters, 9^th Jan. 2011

By now, you will appreciate the need to reduce the extreme malnutrition of 46% among the children of India. Reducing malnutrition will improve child health, reduce child mortality, enable children to go to school, and to gain productive employment.

Availability of nutritious food and safe water will enable the girl child to grow well, go to school, take up gainful employment or vocation, and give her strength to bear and give birth to healthy children. It will also reduce malnutrition in pregnant and nursing mothers and reduce maternal mortality.

Better nutrition will enable the people to cope with environmental stresses and climate change in a better way.

You will appreciate that, in this way, better nutrition will naturally lead to higher national economic growth.

Again, reducing malnutrition is dependent on food security. If sufficient food is not available in the country, prices of food grains will increase, and the poor can’t afford to purchase food grains.

Food security is again dependent on sustainability of agriculture.

This again is dependent on good agricultural production, productivity, remunerative prices to farmers, adequate inputs like seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, technical assistance, soil testing facilities at reasonable rates or on subsidy. Storage or refrigeration facilities, transportation facilities, marketing facilities, proper trading facilities etc. for the grain produced and necessary policy support etc.

In case of natural calamities or crop losses, loan waiver, loan rescheduling, interest waiver or interest subsidy etc.

Helping the farmer in times of natural calamities is not only helping the farmer to cope with the vagaries of nature, but helping food security and helping ourselves to obtain food at reasonable prices and for ensuring nutritional security particularly for the poorer sections. Otherwise, food prices will become unaffordable to common people and lead to social unrest.

Again, to ensure sustainability of agriculture, sustainable agricultural practices need to be adopted, like:

Organic farming

Non-pesticide based crop management

Integrated Pest, insect and weed management – environmental sustainability

Mixed cropping and alternate cropping

Soil erosion control and fertility management

Environment and ecology management - to ensure proper pollination

Integrated water shed management

Integrated Poultry management

High yielding varieties

Forest management – to ensure biodiversity and supply of diverse seed varieties

I think now you can appreciate the importance of food security of the nation to nutritional security of the large masses, particularly the children of the country.

Now, friends, do you want to become part of the campaign to reduce malnutrition in the children of India? Come, let us work hand in hand.

EDUCATION - DESIRABLE AND EXISTING

My dear young brothers and sisters!

I am unable to resist the urge of communicating with you.
Today, we will discuss about Education and its meaning and relevance to present day world.

Education, as I understand, should inculcate a spirit of enquiry, innovation, drive away superstition, instill a scientic temper, inspire a quest for knowledge and wisdom, develop character, inculcate values, rouse the inner urge of a child to learn and excel, not for competition against others, but against oneself.

It should have the potential of making India a world scientific power, an India with eternal values, a true democracy which values human rights, child rights, tribal rights, womens' rights, rights of the vulnerable and weaker sections. It should cultivate empathy, friendliness, compassion, truth and non-violence, value for the intrinsic worth of man irrespective of his social and financial standing.

It should give freedom, dignity, liberty, and teach brotherhood and oneness of all living beings.

It should never be limited to measuring the worth of an individual by marks and grades but by the capacity and capability and potential of a student of think, analyze, assimilate and innovate and contribute to the knowledge pool and to the society as a whole.

It should give the freedom for the student to choose his own chosen, avowed field of study, experiment.

Education should be inclusive, pro-poor, common, universal, compulsory, integral, humanistic, environmentally sustainable, friendly, GREEN.

But, what is the status of present day education? Is it real education?

It is mostly based on rote learning, cut throat competition among peers, career oriented, not knowledge and wisdom oriented, corporatized, profit oriented, elite oriented.

Can it deliver the goods to the nation which aspires to become a super power? If the same trend continues, and if we the students and parents do not want to change this system lock stock and barrel, there is no deliverance to the children and students of India and to the Nation India.

We must demand the powers that be to transform the education system to what it must be for the good of our motherland and the prosperity of all its citizens.

If you have any views, please do share.

Your dear GK Rao

PERSONAL HEALTH GOAL

My dear young brothers and sisters and sweet children!

Have you at any time identified your goal or goals? How many types of goals do you think are there?

Perhaps in a nutshell, there may be the following types of goals:

· Health

· Professional & Career

· Financial

· Family

· Friends

· Social

Ancient Indians believed in the dictum:

“Shareeramaadyam khalu dharma saadhanam”

which means the body a vehicle for doing good things in this life.

Hence, it is clear that there is absolute necessity of preserving and protecting and nurturing our body in a healthy condition to prevent and to cure diseases if any.

Now let us understand what is health.

The World Health Organization defines Health as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”.

Today, we will consider the simple tips for keeping good health in every way. Perform them Regularly.

1. Early to bed and early to rise makes you healthy, wealthy and wise.

2. Take 4 glasses of water (1 to 1.5 litre) after you wake up in the morning, after brushing.

(Take a total of 2 to 3 litres (8 glasses) in a day. )

3. Walk for 5 minutes, light stretching and bending etc. – empty your bowels

4. Go for a morning walk - for 30-40 minutes followed by 5 minutes of jogging. Enjoy the songs of the birds, the beauty of flowers, trees, leaves, gentle breeze, the sunny light etc.

5. Take at least 15 minutes exercise – bending, stretching, twisting, aerobics.

6. If you have time, perform few selected yoga aasanaas - for 15 minutes

7. Perform praanaayaam – anuloma viloma for 5 minutes, kapaalabhaati for 5 minutes – for mind and spirit

8. Perform meditation for 10-15 minutes – for mind and spirit

9. Take one glass of lemon water mixed with honey

10. Take seasonal fruits, dry fruits, nuts, green and leafy vegetables, dates etc. in abundance

11. Always be happy, cheerful, sharing, helping, inquisitive, innovative – this will improve your health.

12. Avoid / control drinking coffee, tea

13. Avoid smoking, liquor, fast foods, oily foods, cool drinks etc.

14. Heavy breakfast, medium lunch, light dinner – take balanced diet

15. Maintain regular timings for food – prevents acidity and other complications

16. Take early dinner and maintain 2 hours gap between dinner and going to bed

17. Walk or cycle for short distances – green living – protects your health and environment

18. Maintain a gap of at least 2 hours between taking food and exercise/yoga/praanaayaam

19. Keep cool, respond and not react for external situations – avoid anger

20. Empathize with others – it will promote love (prema), friendship (maître) and compassion (karuna) and be truthful in thought, word and deed. It will purify you physically, mentally and spiritually.

If you keep good health, then alone you will have the power and capacity to study, understand, assimilate, absorb and recall what you have studied. This will enable you to contribute to your growth and allow you to do your bit to your fellow beings.

A diseased body, a troubled mind or a tormented spirit will not allow you to absorb however much you read.

For exercises/yoga/Praanaayaama/Meditation, you can refer to any standard book on Yoga from Ramakrishna Math or Swami Sivananda or Chinmaya mission or Bhikshamaiah Guruji.

If you perform the above health regimen, you can prevent and reduce obesity, several diseases and maintain excellent health

Hence, your Health Goal can be the following:

Gaining Perfect health in a period of 6 months (?) and sustaining it over a long period of time by proper health regimen.

If you have any ideas for healthy living in addition to the above, please do share for the benefit of others.

GREEN LIVING FOR YOUTH

My dear young brothers and sisters!

What do you mean by youth?

As I understand, youth it is essentially a state of mind and not of body. We can call a very old man a young fellow if he exudes the bubbling enthusiasm of a young person and bent on transforming the world around him.Conversely, even a very young boy, if he is superstitious and lazy, devoid of enthusiasm may be called an old fellow!

Hence, I expect you to develop a positive bent of mind and a everlasting enthusiasm to bring in a bit of change in the world for better. This needs a positive change in your attitude, which will bring in the necessary change in yourself.

By transformation, I mean a total change in you for the better, which will in turn bring in change in the way you do things. This will gradually lead to change in the world, however small it might be.

I think by now, you must have studied environmental science in your basic courses.

By green, I mean environmentally benign, friendly and sustainable. Less air and water pollution, less contamination, less wastage, less destruction, less consumerism, less killing, less injury, less deforestation.

It would also mean more saving and conservation, frugal living, integration, more protection, more biological diversity, less vehicular and industrial toxic emissions, afforestation, organic farming, soil conservation,

I would say, green education, that is, education which will promote green living, or living in tune with the nature and environment, conserving natural resources and all life forms.

For example, when it comes to eradication of hunger in the world which is the 1^st Millennium Development Goal, organic farming which involves raising crops without using chemical fertilizers and pesticides and instead, using natural organic manures, compost, bio-pesticides like neem-based azardirectin etc. This system has been recommended by the Japanese agricultural scientist Dr Fukuoku.

There are many individuals and organizations working for organic farming like Dr M.S. Swaminathan of Swaminathan Research Foundation, Dr Seeta Ramanjaneyulu of Centre for Sustainable Agriculture (CSA), Deccan Development Society (DDS) etc.

Organic farming will make farming sustainable by reducing the input costs like seeds, chemical fertilizers, pesticides etc., reducing soil erosion, pest and insect attacks, enhancing soil health by maintaining necessary temperature, moisture and life in the soil, enhancing quality and nutritive value of crops, reducing exposure of farm labour to toxic chemicals, making quality seed available to the farmer for the next crop, enhancing biodiversity by preserving the natural insects and birds which help the pollination and reproduction. It would also enhance the natural resistance of crops to harmful pests and insects and preserve the natural friendly insects and birds of the crops

Now I think you have got an idea of the need for preserving the environment and green living for your own future, for the future generations and for the whole earth and its life forms.

Thus man has the responsibility of ensuring the well being of all the living beings around him which alone will ensure his own well-being. This is the secret of symbiotic living, that is, mutually dependent living.

Now, I would invite you to come out with your experiences and learning to enable me to imbibe from you.