Tag Archives: 2012
Pustak Promos
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/ Prashant
Have received an encouraging response to Pustak so far, and I would be going out to collect a few books tomorrow from some locations…
Here is another promo poster for the campaign
Pustak – A ShikshaDaan Initiative
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/ Prashant
Please do check the following presentation on details of the initiative. Feel free to ask questions and/or distribute the link further to gather support for this project..
Need books, magazines, and loads of support!
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/ Prashant
Starting work on a Book Collection project for a school library near Lucknow with ShikshaDaan… Support in the form of books/international magazines or volunteering to drive the project in your own capacity welcome!
Some high level activities to be included…
1. Collection centers in and around NCR for a couple of weeks required. If you could get some work around in your organization and collect it from people, GREAT!
2. Volunteers to drive around and collect it from homes/offices
Some more..
- Planning to start in about a week’s time
- Work on what is required (Books, magazines, journals etc.)
- Putting the team in place
Please leave a comment here if you would like to be involved in any capacity…
Clay and Dust Weekend
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/ Prashant
First half of the last weekend was spent making things out of clay.. here are a few pictures…
And this was followed by shooting a rally in the summer heat accompanied by loads of dust, on the sunday!
Though I completely sucked at shooting the Rally, it was a huge learning experience nonetheless! I am looking forward to a few more events and hoping to get better with time at shooting the motorsports!
Vote for my friend Manu
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/ Prashant
A very dear friend of mine, Manu is one of the contestants in the FBB RJ Style-o-meter contest… and I need everyone at Chai ki Dukaan to help me get more votes for him… Here is what you need to do..
• Go to http://www.facebook.com/fbbonline/app_429999373692037
• Please click on the tab “FBB RJ styl-o-meter”
• Select RJs in Delhi
• Vote for RJ MANU- Dilli ka DABANG
Or
Go to https://www.runtimesolutions.in/facebookers/fbb_rj/city_delhi.php
Look for RJ Manu and click on Vote now!
Sustained initiatives would make a better impact
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/ Prashant
The progress so far…
- My first fund raiser involved sale of paintings by kids which had won a prize in the competition organized by myself and a few friends in Moradabad, UP. We managed to raise about Rs. 13000 in a short duration of time and give that money to Sankalp, a unit of ASK India.
- My second fund raiser was called 30on30…. It was about raising Rs. 30000 by selling 30 of my photographs.. and it went on to raise Rs. 79000 in about a month’s time. This money was donated to Sankalp again.
- My third fund raiser was called 1ka100. It involved a drive from New Delhi to Mumbai, and involved donations which would support every km of that drive. More than Rs. 70000 were raised and divided in two for two NGOs that the core team personally selected.
Time to do something substantial again, and this time around it has to be bigger than ever!
A question that I ask is: If I was able to raise about Rs. 200,000 by taking up a cause and with some outstanding support from a core team.. What could we do with more people leading from the front, and a core team formed which would sustain these initiatives… Reach out to more people, get more people involved, get more speakers, be more active..
The idea this time around would not be to do a one off drive, but build a model that would sustain itself…
Next post, I hope to write about a few ideas that I have, and understand your perspective on those…
In addition to all of these things that I intend to do, taking photographs for NGOs has been and would always be a core of my social responsibility…
We the ________ people!
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Why don’t we sit down and try to fill in the blanks?
We the corrupt people?
We the emotional people?
We the strange people?
We the Indian people?
We the undisciplined people?
We the hard-working people?
We the rich people?
We the poor people?
We the sensitive people?
We the people who care?
I like to believe that we do care.. in some form or the other, and someone gets some benefit too! but our care at times is limited to that one week of inspired living right after we see a TV program like Satyamev Jayate!
Last month including yesterday, I’ve had some long conversations about what does it take for people to contribute to the welfare of society. My conversations were limited to mostly how a larger percentage of people in big corporates are not willing to donate something as little as Rs. 100 a month to a cause.
Let’s look at the potential… for a company of about 5000 employees, I would assume that everyone is taking home atleast Rs. 10000 every month on an average. Rs. 100 would not be more than 1% of their monthly salary for atleast 60% of this population. Assuming they are ok with donating this 1% of their salary, we are looking at an average of Rs. 3,00,000 every month which can be donated to a cause. Let do some more maths.. how about looking at the annual potential for this 5000 people strong company? Going by the above calculations, this organization can donate Rs. 36,00,000 every year.
A couple of NGOs that I know need not more than Rs. 15000 per annum ensure one kid’s education all inclusive (including fee, uniform, books, and food). Time for another calculation… Rs. 36,00,000 could help sponsor 240 kids. and what does this take? Rs. 100 a month from every individual in a company of 5000 out of which only 60% people (3000) are willing to donate. The issue is that these 3000 individuals who are willing to give away Rs. 100 every month are extremely difficult to find!
There is enough information available with individuals and organizations about good NGOs, which are validated and audited against multiple parameters, and I am sure if we want we can find out atleast one NGO which is doing a good job on the ground. I know of a few personally, and I am in the process of finding out about more.
If you are reading this and wondering what can you do about it, here is what I think you can…
- Leave a comment on this post and if you are ok a way for me to reach out to you
- Find atleast 1 person other than yourself who is willing to part with 100 bucks a month for an year
That’s it! I would work towards bringing the right information to the willing donors, and let them take a decision. I have been able to play an instrumental role in raising funds earlier with about 4 projects which were mostly individual driven, and am looking for support to start with another!
Let me know if you are willing to do what it takes!
April is here…
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/ Prashant
And this is usually the month, when I am in the worst of my moods! I question myself, I challenge myself, I am critical about what I have been doing so far, and I see a lot of “should not haves” in my past year!
Why?
I was born in this month! that’s why! My new year begins every year in the month of April, and I more often than not feel sad about what I have been able to do over the last 12 months. Not that they are bad, or I did not achieve things.. more often than not, from an external perspective, I do fairly well.. and there are times when I know it myself.. but I cannot lie to myself! I know there is something which was missing, and I hate myself for it…
This year does not seem to be any different! and like every other year, I am going to think about how it has to change, it has to improve…
Experimental
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/ Prashant
The next few days (or a week) are going to be a bit experimental for Chai ki Dukaan.. While there is no impact on the content, you might find the look and feel different every time you visit the website… that is because I am experimenting a little with the wordpress themes to find something more suitable, elegant and fast for the website…
Apologies for the inconvenience, however I hope you understand that I am doing it to improve the Chai ki Dukaan experience!
Elephantasia
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/ Prashant
I don’t understand what the fuss is all about.. Who lost, who won, why did a party lose, why did the other win the recent elections in Uttar Pradesh… The reason is pretty simple in my opinion!
If you remember, the Election Commission had ordered the, then, UP Government to cover all statues of Elephants in the State… This was done on the 7th of January! this is exactly where the downfall started!
I think the secret of wins in UP are all hidden in the respective party’s election symbols, for example!
Bahujan Samaj Party, or BSP had its symbol covered… Now no one knew suddenly forgot that the elephant was BSP’s symbol! After all covering all these statues meant that there presence would not impact the voters! We were expected to forget the Elephant = BSP = Behen Mayawati! Whatever seats that BSP managed to get were probably because of the wild elephants in the Rajaji National Park, and Jim Corbett, which could not be covered with plastic sheets. And some which have been domesticated, and again could not be covered!
Congress, by this logic should have won a lot as the summers were arriving, and there are not many people who cover their palms in this weather… also Congress kids have been shaking too many hands all around in UP… Now what went wrong for them, was the fact that while they were happily shaking hands with people in UP, the symbol of Congress, the Palm, seems more like a slap on the common man’s face!
BJP, got a few seats here and there, because of their symbol being visible in the village ponds, and a handful of high profile resorts all around in the state…
Now the big one… Samajwadi Party… They won, simply because no one (read Election Commission) bothered to asked the state government to ban the use of cycles till the elections were over! And with the fuel prices increasing almost every two months, more and more people are taking on cycles.. more cycles, more support for SP… every time a faithful BJP or a Congress or a BSP worker would use a cycle the vote bank shifted to SP’s favor… and it kept happening till SP won the elections by a huge margin!!!
How long = f(time) or f(distance) or f(fun)?
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/ Prashant
If someone would ask me how long it takes for you to travel to work, I would have a few options to respond with..
Takes me X minutes, or its X kms, and you figure, or interestingly, I could respond by saying that it takes me 24 songs to reach my office 🙂 or maybe 36! It was almost this number when I used to drive the 45 kms to work in about 90-120 minutes one way every day! I don’t miss those days at all!
Last night, it took me 1 song to reach home! Radha running like a dream at a 3000 rpm (guess the speed, if you’d like), windows rolled down with the nippy wind hitting my face, and queen playing in the background at a volume and quality that would put a lot of car audio systems to shame… “I want to break free“!
Some Queen songs are just unbelievably detoxifying! This one is one of them! Not to forget that the artists of yesteryears seemed to real! So Analog! (There is something going on in my mind about Analog and Digital for weeks, and I have to write it down before I forget)
On a side note…Veda, when you are old enough to get a license and drive, I am going out on long drives with you! Our favorite music, our favorite roads and a destination unknown!