How Safe is Your Child!

An open debate on ragging requires you in the Rotary House coming Monday. Open your hearts, and interact with some of the people who had been in the thick of ragging issues.  But each one of us as a Parent is concerned. Even if your children have grown up and married, YOU have equal responsibilities as grand-ones to have a say on this issue and get our society rid of this malice. 

And those of us who are the teachers, and heads of educational institutions, have double responsibility since the parents put their little ones in the care of their teachers for most hours of the day. 

In whatever little time we have for the meeting, let us be there, to raise our voice, and make the tri-city area, or for that matter all that area within our influence, "Ragging Free".  Can we do something about this?

Show us the way.  Thrash the issue out with the panelists, Rtn. Subhash Marriya, former principal of DAV College, Chandigarh, Rtn Deepak Sibal, a leading lawyer at Punjab and Haryana High Court;  Dr. Mangla Dogra, a parent; and our view own Rotaractors who are perhaps been through this rut too. 

And to sum it up all we have the leading judicial mind and our former Rotarian, Mr. Justice Hemant Gupta, Hon'ble Judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court. 

Let's be there.

Blood Donation Camp

Rtn. PP K.K. Gupta and his family organised a blood donation camp yesterday at their factory in which employees of his factory participated enthusiastically. His son Vinay was amongst the first to donate blood.  Rtn. Pres Dr S.K. Duggal, Rtn PP J.B. Bhasin, Inner Wheel President Kanchan Bhasin, Rtn PP Anil Khanna, Ann Usha Gupta, and members of their family, and I were present at the camp. 

Rtn. Gupta has always been supportive of every good cause, and his dedication to Rotary ideals is exemplary. 

In all 73 units of blood were collected in which the team of our Rotary & Blood Bank Society Resource Centre, led by Dr. R.S. Shah, conducted the camp.

Slumdog Millionnaire

David Denby, the movie critic of New Yorker dismisses Slumdog as “fairy tale for adults” and states:  “What I will remember of ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ is a disorderly exploitation of disorder, a kind of visual salad of glowing rotten fruit, constantly tossed. I object to the way that the director, Danny Boyle, orchestrates Jamal’s life.  Boyle has created what looks like a jumpy, hyper-edited commercial for poverty—he uses the squalor and violence touristically, as an aspect of the fabulous.”

The editor of La Lassurophobe on the other hand says, “Boyle has captured the rich tapestry of Indian life, expressed how a country so mired in such extreme poverty can manage to triumph as one of the world’s great democracies nonetheless.  The Bollywood dance number that finishes the picture shows there heroic people thumbing their nose at tragedy and daring to be happy despite their circumstances.  Rather than turning into bleak, morose devils yearning to bring forth a dictator like Stalin, the people of India choose hope and defiance.”

Bravo we say to Slumdog Millionaire; it winning 8 Oscars would be a minor victory for those who struggle for democracy throughout the world.

Dear members, what do you think the movie means for India and its image? Would you like to discuss this issue with the much accomplished Ms. Neelam Man Singh who has established her forte all over the world through theatre and who has studied other societies while treating the audiences the world over to some excellent plays directed by her.

Ms. Neelam Man Singh will be our chief guest this Monday, 2^nd March 2009 and talk to us on the current debate of what Slundog Millionaire means to India and the world.

AP