In 1997, Scientist Lal Singh founded the NGO Himalayan Research Group (HRG) in Shimla, to offer grassroots innovative solutions. When Singh learnt about the difficulty village women faced heating water in remote areas, he innovated the Solar Hamam, which warms water within minutes and works all day, to help people across villages to have warm water throughout the day.
Have you ever thought of building a house without using cement and bricks? Vaanmathi, the founder of Container Care from Chennai, uses marine containers to create beautiful homes, site offices, hospital rooms, and marriage halls. Vaanmathi hopes that the cost of constructing container houses will be more affordable in the future, so that she can build a home for every person who approaches her.
Happy Women’s Day! Every year, International Women’s Day is celebrated across the globe on 8 March. The day is observed to acknowledge and celebrate the cultural, political, and socio-economic achievements of women, all over the world. This year, the theme, ‘Embrace Equity’, is created to make people understand the difference between Equity and Equality and to highlight why creating equal opportunities is not enough. According to the International Women’s Day website, ‘Equity recognizes that each person has different circumstances and allocates the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome’.
Jhunbala Malick, a tribal woman from rural Odisha, started her life anew in 2018, after ending an abusive marriage. Today, she contributes 10,000 rupees every month to her family and treats her 70-year-old ailing father with her hard-earned money by working as a farmer and selling agricultural produce. Jhunbala said that she feels more confident and self-reliant after realising her potential and advises other women to become independent.
Architect Shruti Dandekar from Maharashtra, found her passion for quilting after the birth of her son in 2009. She bought her first sewing machine in 2012 and realised that she loved making portrait quilts. In 2015, Shruti’s work was displayed at Quiltcon, the world’s largest quilting convention, held in the United States. Her quilt depicting Shivaji Maharaja’s coronation, was displayed at the Indian Quilt Ceremony and America’s Quilt Convention in 2019 and 2020, respectively.
The festival of colours is around the corner. Holi is celebrated annually as a ‘Spring Festival’, in different parts of India. It is a celebration of joy, liveliness and close bonds and is marked with great cheer and happiness across the nation. This year, the festival will be celebrated on 7 and 8 March. Happy Holi!
Friends, Mohan Munusamy and S. Udhayakumar, share a common dream. They hope to make healthcare accessible to those who need it the most but cannot afford it. So, they founded, ‘The Foundation for Friendly Environment and Medical Awareness (FEMA), an NGO which offers free medicines through their evening clinic, to patients for a one-time registration fee of only 30 rupees.
Hailing from a family of musicians, Violinist Natarajan, aims to impart his knowledge of the violin to the younger generation in Thanjavur, as he feels only two or three violinists are currently practicing in the city. The 76-year-old has been teaching violin lessons to his students since he was 31. Natarajan said that he wants Thanjavur to retain its name for music.
The Uttarakhand health department plans to set up a ‘Mother Milk Bank,’ the first such facility in India. Through this initiative, the state government aims to reduce the infant mortality rate in Uttarakhand and to give nutritional elements of the mother’s milk to a new-born, whose mother died during childbirth. Under this scheme, lactating women can donate their milk to the bank.
Swastik Saurav Das, alumni of IIT Madras, from Balasore, Odisha, with his fellow IITians Ashish Sharma and Siddarth Dag, co-developed India’s first indigenous motorised wheelchair, ‘NeoFly and NeoBolt’, to make mobility on streets easier for wheelchair users. NeoFly is a wheelchair, that can be customised according to the body type of a person facing locomotor disability and NeoBolt is a motor-powered clip-on which converts NeoFly into a safe, roadworthy vehicle.
