Sense international (india)-Hope for Special Children

The world exclusively dedicates December 3rd for special children of the earth. We in India conduct many programmes like sports and other competitions, cultural shows etc etc.

But many of us do not know that there is an organisation caring for the deaf blind and also for multiple disorder children. Sense International (India) is the first national non governmental organisation, a registered trust within India to support the development of comprehensive services for deaf blind people. Now it supports services to all multiple disorder children. The office is in Ahmedabad.

The main objectives of the organisation are, 1. To reach out to children with multiple disability who are not getting any kind of services, 2. To train parents the skills to improve the capabilities of the child and accept the child and understand the special needs. 3. Develop the staff and give them training in taking care and educating the children.

The organisation has set up so far 37 services in 19 states in India. Sense International has 3 net works functioning, “Abhi - Prerna” - for the Teachers Network, “Prayas”- for Family Network and “Udaan” for Network of persons with Deaf blindness / Multi Sensory Impairment

The organisation conducts seminar for 2 days in September wherein the children with parents, and teachers of different states are invited and they interact among themselves. Here the problems, lack of professional services, lack of facilities to the teachers are discussed in detail.

This year the seminar was conducted in Ahmedabad itself for 2 days, Sep. 19th & 20th. Though the representation from different states was less, the interaction was good, it seems. Parents felt the need for more trained teachers. But however the teachers vented out their grievances like lack of transportation , meagre pay scale etc. One teacher narrated the story how he had to travel 12 hours to reach the village, teach for 2 hours and travel back same 12 hours. He undergoes this ordeal 3 days a week. He gets only nominal pay which is far from sufficient, but gets immense satisfaction that the child is improving. (These informations were given by a parent who attended the seminar)

Some parents are happy that the child has improved a lot due real care from parents and teacher. One student from the special children school in Muttukadu, Chennai even got awards from state government.

These informations were given by a parent who attended the seminar this year.

The success stories of the children found in their website http://www.senseintindia.org/ are amazing.

I here quote a dream expressed by a 11 year old girl as seen in the website - 'I love the
breeze against my face, the feel of the sand as it flows from my fist. I can smell air and predict
rain. I want to be a meteorologist one day. The first deaf blind meteorologist of the world!!'

O' what a lively dream.

Our Government has brought out several social security schemes for them.

LIC once had a policy Jeevan Aadhar for disabled people. Now that has been closed and a similar schemes has been brought, it appears. However I understand that LIC has s separate wing for disabled persons which functions at their Teynampet Office, Chennai.

The awareness in the society, the organisation says, very very less. Once the parents become member, the organisation will take care of the kid with respect to education, securing job etc if the parents are not in a position to provide the same.

The future plans of the organisation are By 20 17 1. At least 1 deaf blind service provider will be available in each state. 2. About 70,000 deaf blind people (62,500 children and 7,500 adults) will be utilising quality, needs-based services. 3. No deaf blind child will travel more than a day to
get appropriate services.

E-mail: info@senseintindia.org
web site: www.senseintindia.org
Toll free deaf blind helpline : 1800 233 7913

Artifacts of Rural Women Entrepreneurs-Exhibition-cum-Sale

Andhra Mahila Sabha, a voluntary organisation has many units like Hospital and research centre, Women's college, Vocational Training Institute etc under its umbrella. All the units celebrate the birth centenary year of the founder president Padma Vibhushan Dr. Durgabai Deshmukh. The whole year July 2008 to July 2009 is being celebrated as the date of birth falls on 15/7/1909.

In this connection the Vocational Training Institute of Andhra Mahila Sabha, Luz Church Road, Mylapore, had organised an Exhibition cum Sale of Artifacts of rural women entrepreneurs from 22.1108 to 24.11.08 sponsored by NABARD.

NABARD: National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development is an apex body of Government and its main objective is to help Bank fund for rural development. NABARD gives the refinance in those cases. One of the main innovations of NABARD is formation and funding scheme of Self Help Group.

What is Self Help Group (SHG) ? Rural women with expertise in different avocation join together to form a group and select a leader amongst themselves. The banks will finance the group through the leader, and the other members get money commensurate to their small business output, profit. The leader maintains the accounts of each member and the loan is repaid by collecting from the sale proceeds realised by members.

This is only a broad outline of SHG. However SHG is one scheme which is extremely successful in India since its inception during 1991-92. The growth is incomparable to any other scheme and that can be assessed by the fact that some groups have Chairman, Secretary, cashier, treasurer etc. SHGs mainly consist of women groups but nowadays the facility extended to men groups also.

The main motto of Andhra Mahila Sabha, as they quote, is "Building better lives for women"

So these two organisatons, NABARD & AMS together organised the Exhibition cum Sale of artifacts of women entrepreneurs belonging to SHGs from different districts.

Shall we visit the stalls now?

Jothi of Malligai, Arasu Suya Uthavi Kuzu from Kanakamma Chathiram, Thiruvallur dist. is engaged in making artificial jewellery with stones. She gets the raw material from Gujarat and does nice ear rings, chains, anklets, hip belt used in Dandiya dance etc. Her contact No. 9840645649.

Vasantham Mooligai Marundu Shop from Namakkal: All herbal products to treat obesity, allergy, hair fall, diabetes, constipation besides hair oil, massage oil, shampoo etc., were displayed. As there is general awareness among public for alternate medicine nowadays, people thronged this counter. Contact person P.Selvamani 94435 73225/9442792995.

Nehru SHG from Namakkal: Real nice quality cotton towels and bed spread spinned in their own power loom were exhibited and sold for nominal rate. The sale was overwhelming and they have bagged bulk orders from visitors.

Taramani Women SHG, Dharapuram: Beautiful garlands made of flowers from spongy packing materials of sober colors like rose, pista green, lemon yellow were displayed. Also a small mantap made of ice-stick and match stick with a Saraswathy idol inside looked perfect and artistic.

P. Rajeswari can be contacted on 9442922663.

There were also other fashion jewellery and artificial flower making stalls. Ms. Kamala Dhanasekharan from Mandaveli, Chennai can be contacted on 9380162037. She has a jewellery polishing shop at 56, V.C. Garden Street and belongs to Thendral SHG.

C.S.I. Embroidery Industry Natural Fibre Craft are from Kanyakumari District. Cushion covers, sofa covers, table spread, bed sheets materials are procured from the market in Karur and hand embroidered at the industry at Marthandam. Contact person Hebsibai Dharmaraj at 04651 270147. Hand bags and other baskets are made of natural fibre, a thriving craft and very typical of Kanyakumari. C.Thanga Jothi can be contacted at 94865 50922.

Out of 15 stalls only 2 from other state i.e., Andhra Pradesh.

One unique stall from Dharmavaram had exquisite designs carved on coloured leather. The designed piece can either be framed or fixed at any place with a cello tape. The contact persons from Dharmavaram Mr. Raju can be contacted at 99495 52185.

The other stall is the famous Kondapalli Doll Shop where the dolls are made of light wood with very artistic and realistic workmanship.

Madurai, Nellai, Kancheepuram, Rajapalayaman and Sivaganga had their representations.

Food for the participants for all 3 days was sponsored by NABARD and the accommodation and venue provided by Andhra Mahila Sabha.

What made Andhra Mahila Sabha to organise an exhibition like this? "We are bent upon the upliftment of poor women in the society" says Ms. Bhuvaneswari, the coordinator with a flicker in her eyes. How NABARD came into the picture? Tells Bhuvana, NABARD already sponsors their vocational training activity for computer education, car driving course and tailoring unit for women.

The entire show for three days was simple and the participants left satisfied having grabbed lucrative orders for the festive season ahead.

K.P. Astrology - Birth Centenary of founder Late Prof. K.S. Krishnamurthi

'Krishnamurthi Paddhathi' of astrology is the product of 40 years of research by the founder Late Prof. K.S. Krishnamurthi. Prof. K.S.Krishnamurthi was born on 1st November 1908 at Thiruvaiyaru, Tanjore district. He later moved to Madras ie Chennai. KSK passed away in March 1972. (source http://astropskp.com/)

Prof. KSK was blessed with three sons and two daughters. All the three sons, Sri.Ganapathy, Sri Hariharan and Sri. Subrahmaniam and one daughter Smt. Soundara Rajan practise astrology, K P Paddhathi. Sri. Hariharan heads the research institute opened by KSK, now functioning at Spencer Plaza, Chennai.

On 1.11.2008, the family members along with their students and other astrologers who practise K P method had arranged full day grand function at Sri.Dakshinamurthy auditorium, Mylapore.

The function had two sessions, morning and evening with a lunch break in between. The introductory and felicitation part took major time in the morning agenda and so the number of guest speakers were only 3. The audience, who all had a minimum knowledge in Vedic astrology were disappointed that they missed speech by the sons who were to describe in detail what is K.P. Paddhathi.

I was one among the audience in the morning session and could not stay for the next.

I present this article with the meagre information I could grasp and some study through different web sites on this subject.

K.P. Paddhathi is the outcome of 3 styles, 1. Vedic astrology for basics, 2.Prassna Jothidam for the time of approach for predictions and 3. its own unique system which differs from Vedic Astrology.

Vedic Astrology has a definite horoscope set basing on the date, time and place of birth. It takes the centre of the house as the point and predictions made taking into account the natal chart and the gochara effects of major planets like Saturn, Jupiter and the nodes.

In K P Astology the ruling planets basing on the sign lord, star lord and sub lord for both lagna and Moon and the week day planet are first listed, the lagna being arrived at basing on the time a person approaches for prediction. If Rahu and Kethu are in the sign whose lord owns another sign and that planet is one among the ruling planets, then the nodes are also listed.

If any ruling planet thus arrived happens to be retrograde, that planet is to be eliminated.

Also the planet owning 8th and 12th place from the relevant house that is being studied, if happens to be a ruling planet, that should also be eliminated.

The ruling planet thus arrived gives the source, its star lord gives the effects & results and the sub-lord gives the final direction. ( source http://www.jyotishsolutions.com/kp.htm)

Prof. KSK divided each star into 249 divisions and each division called 'sub' and the ultimate result depended on sub. This explains the diverse destiny of twins born on the same star.

K P system considered the cusp as the point in contrast to the centre point of the house that is being considered in Vedic Astrology

Thus if the prediction for a particular event which will take place within a day, the time when the Ascendant will cross the ruling planet will be the result. Similarly for events within two or three days, the movement of Moon is taken for calculation, for events within a month, the Sun's movement is studied to pin point the day and time and for yearly events Jupiter's movement or the dasha, bhukthi, anthara are studied for fixing the events date and time of happening. (source http://www.kpastrology.com/kpbasics.htm)

People practising this method say that KP system gives the accurate prediction and the calculations are very scientific in nature.

Late prof. K.S.Krishnamurthi could do all the calculations manually when the usage of computers was not in vogue.

The function started at around 10.40 A.M on 1.11.2008 and the bust statue was unveiled by Sri. S.V.Shekar, cine actor, stage artiste and MLA of Mylapore constituency. It was also announced that two new books written by KSK will be released in the evening.

I once again submit that I have no proficiency in any kind of astrology, but can understand the basics a bit.

So I humbly request the readers to feel free and comment on the shortcomings and enlighten me. Any further/allied information is also most welcome.

Surasamharam by Singaravelar of Mylai

"Mayilaye Kayilai: Kayilaye Mayilai" meaning Mylapore of Chennai city is Kailash, the abode of Shiva, for all his devotees.

All Shiva/Murugan temples of south India, particularly Tamilnad, celebrate Kandasashti on the sixth day following Deepavali Amavasya.

Devotees fast all the six days and throng Murugan temples on Sashti (people call it peria sashti) day. Surasamharam takes place in the evening.

The Story: On the request of Indra, the king of Devas, the young lad Kumaran (Muruga), the son of Shiva and Parvathi sets out to fight the demon king Sura and all other Asuras associated with him. Sura takes Muruga lightly being a young boy. But Muruga fights fiercely and beheads Sura. But Sura's head gets replaced by different forms, like lion. elephant, goat etc. Muruga destroys all the heads. Finally he takes the form of a Mango tree which Muruga splits into two parts. Then Sura realises the godliness in Lord Muruga and expresses his wish to be with the Lord forever. The two split parts become his vahana & flag. Thus Peacock is vahana of Muruga and Cockerel his flag. Indra, pleased by this, gives his daughter Devasena in wedlock to Muruga. Devasena's wedding is celebrated in all the temples the next day.

Now we move to Mylapore, Lord Kapaleeswara temple. This temple is supposed to be one of the oldest temples of Madras ie Chennai and has the tradition of celebrating all the festivals according to the norms specified. Kandasashti Kodiyetham took place on 28th October, but the sashti was conducted only on 4th November, while all other temples celebrated on 3rd.

The norm, says Sri.Sambamurthy Sivachariar, is that the theerthavari is done on the day when sashti thithi exists in the morning atleast for '10 nazhigai' , and only on the 4th Nov. there was sashti thithi in the morning for '11 nazhigai' . Hence the Surasamharam by Singaravelar of Sri Kapali temple took place in the evening on 4th November in the North Mada Street of Mylapore.

Though it was simple compared to other famous Murugan temples, the spirit of mylaporeans was lively, as always it used to be, and the crowd enjoyed the full episode as though they themselves are fighting with Sura. Children, youth and the elderly, alike were throwing paper arrows on the idol of Sura when he was retreating from Muruga, vanquished repeatedly. The entire 1 hour fight was really a thrill.

The finale was grand, with 'Seval & Mayil' reaching the deity dancing all through the path.

Mayilaye Kayilai: Kayilaye Mayilai.