“In the country where women were worshipped are now being ignored and insulted in various aspects of life just because they themselves have forgotten that they are the shakti, which runs the entire world. Reminding them of their strength is the real empowerment of women today,” said former Pramukh Sanchalika of Rashtra Sevika Samiti Pramilatai Medhe at a function held in Delhi on March 8. Over a hundred women from national capital attended the function.

Pramilatai further said just complaining everytime will lead the women nowhere. They will have to take lead in all spheres of life without being trapped in any degradation caused by the growing influence of western culture. “Our all activities should be to enhance the glory of our country and it is also our responsibility to prepare the progeny, which enhances the glory of this nation in all respect of life,” she added.

Akhil Bharatiya Sah Karyavahika Smt Asha Sharma said to be intellectual does not mean to be highly educated as low literate women can also be intellectual. She said Vandaniya Lakshmibai Kelkar was the example of it as she despite being low educated formed the Rashtra Sevika Samiti in 1936. She said just demanding rights will do no good as we have to follow our duties too. Noted television actress and former president of BJP women wing Smriti Irani said so-called educated women need more empowerment than the low educated women. India is a country where educated women are forcefully aborting their child. Till date one crore female infants are still being killed in wombs of their mothers. Women don’t knock the doors of law just because they can’t see their own family standing in a court room and being questioned by police. Narendra Modi has helped 25-30 lakh women get employment in Gujarat by providing them free training and we would be such government to help improving the situation of women, she said. Educationist Smt Alaknanda Ashok and Smt Preeti Srivastav also spoke on the occasion.

—Heena Nanda

Arogya Bharati to work for positive health in villages

Arogya Bharati, the premier organisation dedicated to the sphere of health in rural areas, has come up with a new initiative to spread positive health in rural India. “We have been working on ‘Swastha Gram Yojana’ from 7 years in a village in Gujarat. Results of our efforts in that village are very encouraging. We have demonstrated a positive impact on many health parameters. Hence we now want to replicate the experiment across number of villages in different parts of our country,” said Dr Hitesh Jani, HoD at Gujarat Ayurveda University in Jamnagar and convener of ‘Swastha Gram Yojana’.

“We have developed a 10 point programme to be followed under the ‘Swastha Gram Yojana’, which includes environmental protection, clean drinking water, developing collective thinking about the health issues in the village and promoting discussion over such issues, developing ‘Health Card’ scheme for health monitoring, cleanliness drive, de-addiction etc. We are also in process of enhancing the programme with the help of institutions and individuals who have worked in the area of rural health,” Dr. Jani added.

He said there is a vast gap between the health facilities in cities and the rural area which makes the task of rural welfare tougher. While working on the issue, we realised that the scenario can be altered by creating awareness about positive health in the rural area. If we can create an environment where people will be motivated to follow a positively healthy lifestyle and they could be provided with guidance from experts in the field of health, health conditions of an area like say a village can be altered within a stipulated time frame. Once we came to this conclusion, we started to experiment it at the Surya village in Jamnagar district of Gujarat and 7 years down the line we can easily see that this works, he said.

Protect the Hindus in Bangladesh?

Memorandum to President of India on plight of Hindus?

President of India Shri Pranab Mukherjee has been appealed for the protection of Hindus in Bangladesh and also their properties from the Muslim miscreants. In a memorandum submitted on March 10 by President of Sant Mahamandal of Bangladesh Mahamandaleswar Priyabrata Brahmacharee who is also adviser to Human Rights Congress for Bangladesh Minorities (HRCBM), said the miscreants in Bangladesh destroyed temples, houses and shops belonging to Hindus across the country between 2012 and 2013.
“The post-election violence with a communal frenzy that occurred from January 5, 2014 throughout the country, especially in the districts of Jessore, Satkhira, Gaibandha, Dinajpur, Netrakona, Jaipurhat, Rangpur, Thakurgaon, Panchagarh and Rajshahi, and some other places is nothing new, but this time it was unprecedented. About 2,500 houses and temples were burnt down in post-poll violence and 10,000 temples and houses demolished so far since February 2013 as estimated by different quarters, writes Dhiraj Nath, a former adviser caretaker
government in 2006,” said Mahamandaleswar Priyabrata Brahmacharee.
The memorandum said the Hindus of Bangladesh are somehow managed to survive but periodical persecution, with plea or without plea of their own, against the Hindus continued in 1990, 1992, and 2001 and their lands not yet restored as it is turned into Vested Property. The self-contradictory “State Religion Provision” and “Vested Property Act” compromised making the State pledge meaningless.

News in Brief

Samskritam finds new adherents in Chennai

Aasana Aandiappan is a popular yoga teacher catering to high end customers. His yoga sessions on television channels receive considerable viewership. He claims to have over 1000 yoga students in counries like Hong Kong. Recently Aandiappan was the chief guest in the valedictory function of a Samskrita Bharati sambashana shibiram in Chennai. While speaking, he insisted that students of yoga should have knowledge of Samskritam because original yoga texts and the names of the aasans are in Samskritam. This shibiram is one of the 70 simultaneous shibiram during first week of March. Over 600 people benefited by shibirams. (VSK Chennai)

Hindu Help Line launches women safety project

On its third anniversary, the Hindu Help Line launched a special project for women safety. Named as ‘Ojaswini’, the project aims at making women aware of their safety while doing their routine work at home or in public. ‘Ojaswini’ plans to hold small group meetings with many housing societies, women’s groups in varied social strata, parents-teachers associations, domestic help organisations, schools/colleges, offices, etc to discuss the issues related to their safety, risk zones and solutions. It will empower women to protect themselves with the help of local police/social organisations. Women and college going girls who wish to support their families with additional earnings will be helped by ‘Ojaswini’ in creating safe job opportunities/ working from home to earn etc. It also plans to be a ‘reliable friend’ of women with whom they can feel free to share their joys and sorrows.

So far the Helpline has benefited over 76,000 people. ‘Hindu Ratna’ Awards were also conferred on the occasion. For this year, Nana Palkar Smruti Samiti was felicitated with the Award for serving the patients and their relatives in Mumbai. Smt Sunanda Patwardhan of Pragati Pratishthan was also honoured for running various educational, health, self-help service projects in hilly terrain of Jawhar and surroundings in Thane for Warli Tribals and others.

Families get-together at Sangh Karyalaya

Imagine, housewives playing traditional game of pebbles (ammanai in Tamil), pallanguzhi, pandi, paramapadam etc. in the portico of Chennai RSS Karyalaya, with hundreds of children and youth watching in delight. This happened on March 2. The occasion was ‘Sakthi Sangamam’, an informal gathering of families of RSS sympathisers, an annual affair held between 3.30 in the afternoon and 8.00 in the night. The highlight of the programme was informal chit-chat that over 1700 persons from over 750 families, men, women and children had with Kshetra, Prant Sangha/Vivida Kshetra Adhikaris in all the three floors of the Karyalaya. In addition to the traditional games, there was a power-point presentation on ‘Glory of Bharat’, health tips by Ayurveda experts, and symposium on Hindutva in daily life by Sri Mahadevan (Prant Sadasya), Sri Srikanth (Zilla Sah Karyavah), Sri Vinod (Zilla Bauddhik Pramukh) and Smt Durgadevi.

(VSK Chennai)