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Anshu Gupta – Ramon Magsaysay Awardee

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Syskool
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Anshu Gupta

ANSHU GUPTA

A man who started his career as a freelance journalist is now known as the ‘clothing man’ of  India. Anshu Gupta is an alumnus of  Indian Institute of Mass Communication who holds a double post graduate diploma in journalism and advertising and Public Relations. He also holds a masters degree in economics. Anshu, who sincerely believes in the receiver’s dignity than in the donor’s pride left a lucrative corporate job in 1998 to start a NGO called GOONJ in 1999 with the mission of bridging the ever increasing gap between the urban prosperity and rural poverty.

Anshu Gupta

Anshu Gupta is a name that knows how to work wonders with the urban waste in order to cater to the basic needs of the rural poor. In this way, he is not only addressing the herculean task of managing urban waste but also triggering an unprecedented way of bringing social development in some of the most backward and remotest of the places in our country. What makes him different from other social workers is that he has transformed the sufferers into stakeholders in his projects. Anshu clearly wants to justify the saying, “be the change you want to see in the world” as he emphasises on making the rural poor realise their potential and to make them stand on their own feet and he has been quite successful in doing that as people are seeing themselves as changemakers and voluntarily working on the developmental projects which will eventually benefit them in the end. In this way he also generating employment opportunities which help them economically.

Anshu has catered to diverse issues such as water, education, environment, health and roads in the rural areas and he has brought home the point that waste is not actually waste, it can definitely be used as a resource if worked upon creatively and efficiently. He earned the title of ‘clothing man’ when his NGO, Goonj initially emphasised on clothing as a basic need and the way the discarded clothes can be recycled into sanitary napkins, bags, mats and other useful materials. The heaps of donated clothes are segregated and reprimanded for the right use and then the needy people can earn them with pride and dignity after associating themselves with the developmental work. He has also started the ‘Not Just a Piece of Cloth’ (NJPC) movement under which reusable clothes are collected from urban households and then clean cloth sanitary napkins are prepared and distributed among the poor women. Women from slums are employed in this project which again brings home the idea of living with dignity and not under charity.

Anshu Gupta is the recepient of Ramon Magasaysay award for the year 2015 for his innovative vision in transforming the culture of giving in India and and for recognising cloth as a sustainable development resource. He has also been awarded with CNN-IBN Real Heroes award. Anshu is an Ashoka fellow who was also conferred with ‘Social Entrepreneur of the year award’ by Schwab Foundation. He was also listed by the Forbes magazine as one of India’s most powerful rural entrepreneur.

 

20 Reasons to Be Proud of Indian Railways

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Syskool
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17

1. Indian Railways is the largest railways network to be operated by a single government and is the world’s third largest network with a total length of 127,760 km.

2. Indian Railways-owned the longest railway platform in the world at Kharagpur with a length of 2,733 feet. Now, breaking the record, Gorakhpur station has recently taken its place with a span of 4,430 feet.

Read More: The World’s longest railway platforms are

3. UNESCO has included the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, and the Indian Mountain Railways (Darjeeling Himalayan Railways, Nilgiri Mountain Railways and Kalka Shimla Railway) UNESCO’ World Heritage site list. All three trains of Indian Mountain Railways have been functional for some 100 years. The Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus is a classic fusion of Gothic art with Indian architecture.

Indian Railways

4. Indian Railways has five luxury trains. Namely Royal Rajasthan on Wheels, Palace on Wheels (Rajasthan), The Golden Chariot (Karnataka and Goa), The Maharajas’ Express (begins in Delhi but the itinerary differs) and The Deccan Odyssey (begins in Maharashtra but itinerary differs).

5. The Vivek Express (Dibrugarh to Kanyakumari) travels a distance of 4273 km, which is the longest run in the railways. The shortest run is taken by a few scheduled services between Nagpur and Ajni – a total of 3 km.

Read More – India’s Longest Railway Routes

6. Srirampur and Belapur are two different stations in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra. They are both situated at the same point on the railway route but are located on opposite sides of the track.

7. Mathura junction has the maximum number of routes emerging from it. 7 of them include – Broad Gauge (BG) line to Agra Cantt, BG line to Bharatpur, BG line to Alwar, BG line to Delhi, Metre Gauge (MG) line to Achnera, MG line to Vrindavan and MG line to Hathras.

8. The resonance frequency of the suspension for the coaches is kept as close as possible to 72 bpm or 1.2 Hz while designing. The human body is most comfortable at 1.2 Hz frequency as it’s one of the most fundamental frequencies of our bodies (normal heartbeat) – which is why people sleep soundly in trains. 

9. The railways function on an operating ratio of 94%, that is, it spends 94 paisa on every rupee that it earns. The amount of Rs. 4 saved from every Rs. 100 earned is minuscule and the revenues of the railways have been suffering because of the negligible revision of prices.

10. The diamond crossing (dubbed so by railways themselves), in Nagpur, is one-of-its-kind, from where trains go East, West, North and South.

You May Also Love to Read: Salient Features of Railway Budget 2016

11. The Indian Railways is constructing the world’s highest rail bridge over Chenab. The bridge will be 1,315 meters long and will use up to 25,000 tonnes of steel. The idea was initially conceived in 2008 but the project was paused due to safety concerns. The work, however, began in 2010 and it is expected to be completed this year.

12. The longest tunnel in the country is Pir Panjal Railway tunnel in Jammu and Kashmir which is 11.25 kms long.

13. The busiest junction in the country is Howrah junction in Kolkata with as many as 974 trains stopping there daily.

14. All the electric appliances (fans, lights) in rail coaches function at 110 volts instead of the Indian standard 220 volts. It is a very effective counter-measure against thieves!cantt-railway-station-038

15. The mascot for Indian Railways is Bholu, or Bholu the guard elephant, which was designed by National Institute of Design. It was unveiled on 16th April 2002.

16. The oldest working Indian locomotive still in use is the Fairy Queen, which worked with a steam engine. It was built in 1855. After retiring in 1909, it was relaunched in 1997 and operates as a tourist train between Delhi and Alwar. It travels at a speed 40 km/h.

You May Also Read: Indian Railway Zones and their Headquarters

17. The Indian Railways is the world’s eighth largest employer with a total of 1.4 million employees.

18. Computerized reservations began in New Delhi in 1986.

19. Indian Railways launched an awareness campaign train on World AIDS Day, December 1, 2007, called the Red Ribbon Express.

20. India has eight Railway Museums – in Delhi, Pune, Kanpur, Mysore, Kolkata, Chennai, Ghum and Tiruchirappalli. Out of these, the National Railway Museum in Delhi is the largest rail museum in Asia.

Don’t Miss: Indian Railway Facts

A Pakistani was asked If He Wanted To Shoot An Indian Family Crossing Border

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Syskool
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6
India and Pakistan Hate

A random call to a Pakistani and an Indian revealing how much people of two nation hate each other. And common man of which nation got hate for other nation. RJ Naved called up an Indian and a Pakistani to ask if he wanted to shoot a family from enemy country crossing border, there reply were shocking. Listen yourself.

People want peace, people believe in humanity, people have respect for life, people don’t like to kill each other. Like us, they also don’t want to shoot an Indian family just because they are from India.

Last Day of Dr. Kalam Recollected by His Advisor – Heartbreaking

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Syskool
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Dr. Kalam Sir
It has been eight hours since we last talked – sleep eludes me and memories keep flushing down, sometimes as tears. Our day, 27th July, began at 12 noon, when we took our seats in the flight to Guhawati. Dr. Kalam was 1A and I was IC. He was wearing a dark colored “Kalam suit”, and I started off complimenting, “Nice color!” Little did I know this was going to be the last color I will see on him.
Long, 2.5 hours of flying in the monsoon weather. I hate turbulence, and Dr. Kalam had mastered over them. Whenever he would see me go cold in shaking plane, he would just pull down the window pane and saw, “Now you don’t see any fear!”.
That was followed by another 2.5 hours of car drive to IIM Shillong. For these two legged trip of five hours we talked, discussed and debated. These were amongst hundreds of the long flights and longer drives we have been together over the last six years.

As each of them, this was as special too. Three incidents/ discussions in particular will be “lasting memories of our last trip”.

First, Dr. Kalam was absolutely worried about the attacks in Punjab. The loss of innocent lives left him filled with sorrow. The topic of lecture at IIM Shillong was Creating a Livable Planet Earth. He related the incident to the topic and said, “it seems the man made forces are as big a threat to the livability of earth as pollution”. We discussed on how, if this trend of violence, pollution and reckless human action continues we will forced to leave earth. “Thirty years, at this rate, maybe”, he said. “You guys must do something about it… it is going to be your future world”
Our second discussion was more national. For the past two days, Dr. Kalam was worried that time and again Parliament, the supreme institution of democracy, was dysfunctional. He said, “I have seen two different governments in my tenure. I have seen more after that. This disruption just keeps happening. It is not right. I really need to find out a way to ensure that the parliament works on developmental politics.” He then asked me to prepare a surprise assignment question for the students at IIM Shillong, which he would give them only at the end of the lecture. He wanted to them to suggest three innovative ways to make the Parliament more productive and vibrant. Then, after a while he returned on it. “But how can ask them to give solutions if I don’t have any myself”. For the next one hour, we thwarted options after options, who come up with his recommendation over the issue. We wanted to include this discussion in our upcoming book, Advantage India.
Third, was an experience from the beauty of his humility. We were in a convoy of 6-7 cars. Dr. Kalam and I were in the second car. Ahead us was an open gypsy with three soldiers in it. Two of them were sitting on either side and one lean guy was standing atop, holding his gun. One hour into the road journey, Dr. Kalam said, “Why is he standing? He will get tired. This is like punishment. Can you ask a wireless message to given that he may sit?” I had to convince him, he has been probably instructed to keep standing for better security. He did not relent. We tried radio messaging, that did not work. For the next 1.5 hours of the journey, he reminded me thrice to see if I can hand signal him to sit down. Finally, realizing there is little we can do – he told me, “I want to meet him and thank him”. Later, when we landed in IIM Shillong, I went inquiring through security people and got hold of the standing guy. I took him inside and Dr. Kalam greeted him. He shook his hand, said thank you buddy. “Are you tired? Would you like something to eat? I am sorry you had to stand so long because of me”. The young lean guard, draped in black cloth, was surprised at the treatment. He lost words, just said, “Sir, aapke liye to 6 ghante bhi khade rahenge”.
Dr. Kalam meets the guard who was part of his convoy.
After this, we went to the lecture hall. He did not want to be late for the lecture. “Students should never be made to wait”, Dr. Kalam always said. I quickly set up his mike, briefed on final lecture and took position on the computers. As I pinned his mike, he smiled and said, “Funny guy! Are you doing well?” ‘Funny guy’, when said by Kalam could mean a variety of things, depending on the tone and your own assessment. It could mean, you have done well, you have messed up something, you should listen to him or just that you have been plain naïve or he was just being jovial. Over six years I had learnt to interpret Funny Guy like the back of my palm. This time it was the last case.
“Funny guy! Are you doing well?” he said. I smiled back, “Yes”. Those were the last words he said. Two minutes into the speech, sitting behind him, I heard a long pause after completing one sentence. I looked at him, he fell down.
We picked him up. As the doctor rushed, we tried whatever we could. I will never forget the look in his three-quarter closed eyes and I held his head with one hand and tried reviving with whatever I could. His hands clenched, curled onto my finger. There was stillness on his face and those wise eyes were motionlessly radiating wisdom. He never said a word. He did not show pain, only purpose was visible.
In five minutes we were in the nearest hospital. In another few minutes the they indicated the missile man had flown away, forever. I touched his feet, one last time. Adieu old friend! Grand mentor! See you in my thoughts and meet in the next birth.
As turned back, a closet of thoughts opened.
Often Dr. Kalam would ask me, “You are young, decide what will like to be remembered for?” I kept thinking of new impressive answers, till one day I gave up and resorted to tit-for-tat. I asked him back, “First you tell me, what will you like to be remembered for? President, Scientist, Writer, Missile man, India 2020, Target 3 billion…. What?” I thought I had made the question easier by giving options, but he sprang on me a surprise. “Teacher”, he said.
Then something he said two weeks back when we were discussing about his missile time friends. He said, “Children need to take care of their parents. It is sad that sometimes this is not happening”. He paused and said, “Two things. Elders must also do. Never leave wealth at your deathbed – that leaves a fighting family. Second, one is blessed is one can die working, standing tall without any long drawn ailing. Goodbyes should be short, really short”.
Today, I look back – he took the final journey, teaching, what he always wanted to be remembered doing. And, till his final moment he was standing, working and lecturing. He left us, as a great teacher, standing tall. He leaves the world with nothing accumulated in his account but loads of wishes and love of people. He was a successful, even in his end.
Will miss all the lunches and dinners we had together, will miss all the times you surprised me with your humility and startled me with your curiosity, will miss the lessons of life you taught in action and words, will miss our struggles to race to make into flights, our trips, our long debates. You gave me dreams, you showed me dreams need to be impossible, for anything else is a compromise to my own ability. The man is gone, the mission lives on. Long live Dr. Kalam.
Your indebted student,

Srijan Pal Singh

Dr. Kalam Sir with his advisor Srijan Pal Singh

Don’t Miss: 10 Well Known Presidents of India

10 quotes from our beloved Dr. Abdul Kalam that will Inspire us always

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Syskool
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54
Motivational Quotes by Dr. Abdul Kalam

 

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