Pausha Amavasya, Vik.Samvat 2074, Yugabda 5119: 16 January 2018
1. FESTIVALS: MAHASHIVARATRI, falls on Magh Krishna 13, corresponding to 13 February this year. There is a Shivaratri in every luni-solar month of the Hindu calendar, on the month's 13th night/14th day, but once a year the month of Magh, it is celebrated as Mahashivratri. It is dedicated to Bhagwan Shiv.
The celebration includes maintaining a "jaagaran", an all-night vigil and prayers, as this night as meant for "overcoming darkness and ignorance" in one's life and the world. Offerings of fruits, sweets and milk to Shiva are made; some perform all-day fasting and some perform meditative Yoga. In Shiva temples, "Om Namah Shivaya", the sacred mantra of Shiva, is chanted through the day.
The major Jyotirlinga Shiva temples such as Varanasi and Somnath are particularly frequented on Maha Shivaratri. The Mahakaleshwar Temple, Ujjain is one of the most venerated temples consecrated to Shiva where a large number of devotees gather to offer prayers. It is also widely celebrated in Nepal and places like Mauritius.-GoTop
2. ISRO LAUNCHES ITS 100TH SATELLITE: Bharat on January 12 successfully launched its 100th satellite along with 30 other spacecrafts including weather observation Cartosat 2 series onboard the Polar rocket from Sriharikota. This was Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle's longest-ever mission. With the successful launch, including 28 satellites from foreign countries, by the PSLV, Indian Space Research Organisation put behind a rare failure it encountered four months ago. "The launch of the 100th satellite by @isro signifies both its glorious achievements, and also the bright future of India's space programme," Pradhan Mantri Narendra Modi said in a tweet. "ISRO is starting 2018 with the successful launch.. All satellites have been released. So far Cartosat performance is satisfactory," ISRO Chairman A S Kiran Kumar said at the mission control room. -GoTop
3. ONLY BHARAT CAN THREAD THE WORLD IN A NECKLACE OF MUTUAL RESPECT - DR. MOHAN BHAGWAT: RSS Sarsanghchalak Dr. Mohan Bhagwat declared that Bharat is an immortal nation. Hindutva is our millenia old culture, threading all of Bharat in a necklace of mutual respect and strength. Hindutva respects all religions, castes and communities, all viewpoints and tries to hold them all in unity.
Addressing a two-day 'pravasi karyakarta sammelan' at Angul in Odisha on 25th December, he declared that the unity in diversity is our tenet to keep all united is the basic mantra of Hindutva. From times immemorial Hindutva has been holding us all together in this way to this day, whereas rich civilisations like Rome and Greece have become extinct.
Former chief justice of the Odisha High Court Justice Prafulla Kumar Tripathi Ji said our culture searches for faith even in the agnostics. Purva kshetra Sanghchalak Ajay Kumar Nandi ji, Sanghchalak of Odisha Purva prant Samir Kumar ji were other dignitries present on the occassion.-GoTop
4. PIOS BHARAT’S DEVELOPMENT ENVOYS: PM: Terming the Bharatiya diaspora as partners for country's development, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said they have an important position in the Government's Action Agenda- 2020. Inaugurating the first Persons of Bharatiya Origin-Parliamentarian Conference on 9th January at Pravasi Bharatiya Kendra, Delhi, he urged the lawmakers from across the world to act as catalysts in the country’s economic growth.
A total of 141 lawmakers from 23 countries took part in the conference organised by Ministry of External Affairs to engage the diaspora as part of diplomatic outreach.
"We neither have the intention of exploiting anyone's resources nor are we eye anyone's territory. Our focus has always been on capacity building and resource development," he added. Urging the POIs to invest in Bharat and be part of its growth story, Modi mentioned the string of economic reforms undertaken by his Government.
The PM also praised External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj for continuously keeping an eye on issues being faced by Bharatiya citizens abroad. The PIO lawmakers heard Modi with rapt attention. For many it was another opportunity to touch base with Bharat, a country their forefather left decades ago. For several others it was a chance to explore their roots for the first time. -GoTop
5. SPEAKER SUMITRA MAHAJAN LAUDS CONTRIBUTION OF PIOS AT MEET IN SEYCHELLES: Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan attended the Pravasi Bharatiya Celebrations' in Victoria, Seychelles, on 11th January.
Mahajan lauded the significant contributions of the people of Bharatiya origin in Seychelles and said they have not only enriched the culture there and imbibed it, but have also proved their mettle in diverse fields thereby contributing to the country's industrial and economic development.
The LS Speaker remarked that the exchange of visits of parliamentary delegations between the two countries has given tremendous impetus to bilateral relations.-GoTop
6. AFTER CONSTITUTION, ARMY, RSS KEEPS BHARATIYAS SAFE: FORMER SUPREME COURT JUDGE: After the Constitution, democracy and the armed forces, the RSS is the factor that has made people in Bharat safe, and that the idea of secularism should not be kept away from religion, retired Supreme Court judge K T Thomas has said. Addressing an RSS instructors' training camp in Kottayam on 31st December, Thomas also said, "If an organisation has to be given credit for freeing the country from the Emergency, I would give that to the RSS."
Thomas said he feels the Sangh imparts discipline to its volunteers for "protection of the country". He said: "Snakes have venom as a weapon to defend (themselves against) attacks on them. Similarly, the might of man is not meant to attack anyone. I appreciate the RSS for teaching and believing that physical strength is meant to guard (oneself) against attacks. I understand that the physical training of RSS is to defend the country and the society at the time of attacks."-GoTop
7. PRESIDENT KOVIND INAUGURATE ARSP PIO CONFERENCE: The President of India, Shri Ram Nath Kovind, inaugurated the International Conference of PIO Parliamentarians, organised by Antar Rashtriya Sahayog Parishad - Bharat in association with the PIO Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, in New Delhi on 10th January.
Speaking on the occasion, the President said that the Indian diaspora has climbed to appreciable heights in almost all the countries where it has found a home. It has contributed to the well-being of that country and of that society - enriching the economy and adding to intellectual wealth and local culture. Others on the dais included Shri SP Shukla, Minister of State for Finance; Ambassador Virendra Gupta, President ARSP.-GoTop
8. WORLD LOOKING AT BHARAT WITH HOPE: V-P NAIDU: Bharat is moving on the path of growth and reforms and the entire world is looking at the country with a hope, Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu said on 7th January while speaking at the convocation ceremony of Malviya National Institute of Technology at Jaipur. He said decisions like rolling out of GST and demonetisation were revolutionary steps and widely appreciated. They might have led to temporary pains but they are for long term gain.
He encouraged the students and parents to respect and speak their mother tongue at home and also motivated them to work for the motherland.-GoTop
9. YOGA BIG HIT IN NIGERIA: An Indo-Naija Yoga Fest has just been concluded in Nigeria. At the event in Lagos, people practised yoga with great enthusiasm as they have been doing of late in this country even while observing winter festivities like Christmas and the New Year Day, the second of which is just about a week away.
Nigerians are experiencing the immediate psychological effects of yoga: decreasing anxiety and increased feelings of emotional, social, and spiritual well-being. The local population is taking up yoga also as a form of mind-body exercise. It’s a widespread therapy used to maintain wellness and alleviate a range of health problems and ailments.
Yoga demonstrations had started at the event with the lighting of ceremonial lamps and prayer for the world's health and prosperity. Participants of a yoga competition held at the venue were judged by the way of their performance to reach the final stage of asana, perfect postures, exhibition of methods, the time for which one stayed in a given asana and the contestant's return to the original posture.
Awards were presented to outstanding yoga enthusiasts and committed members of the Afro-Asian Development Community as well as sponsors of the event. There were bouncing castles, food games for children and adults that graced the occasion.
President of the Afro-Asian Community Initiative for Development and Indo-Naija Yoga Fest Sanjayvipul Srivastava stated this at the 2017 Indo-Naija Yoga Festival which took place at the Bharatiya Embassy in Lagos with about 400 Nigerians along with 15 other nationalities living in the city including diplomats of various countries. The fest was attended by counsellor in Lagos Rakesh Sharma. He said that modern science had started accepting yoga and even the United Nations had started observing 21st June as the International Yoga Day. -GoTop
10. HSS ANNOUNCES ELEVENTH ANNUAL "HEALTH FOR HUMANITY YOGATHON"! Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh USA (HSS) announces the eleventh annual "Yoga for Health, Health for Humanity Yogathon" also known as “Surya Namaskar Yajna". The 16-day event from January 13th to January 28th, 2018 aims to create awareness about Yoga and its advantages in achieving a healthy body, mind, and spirit. Surya Namaskar integrates simple Yoga postures in 10-steps that, along with easy breathing technique, can provide immense health benefits to both the body and the mind.
HSS initiated this health awareness project in 2006. Since its inception, participants from 40 states actively took part via various Yoga Centers, community organizations, schools and colleges regardless of individual faiths and beliefs, have participated and collectively performed over 4 million Surya Namaskars. Community leaders and many elected officials across the nation have appreciated this initiative and encouraged their residents to participate and gain the benefits of an overall healthy lifestyle. -GoTop
11. HYDERABAD RUNS TO ADD STRIDE TO SEWA BHARATHI'S PROJECT FOR UNDERPRIVILEGED GIRLS: Gachibowli Stadium witnessed a run for a cause with title "Run for a Girl Child" on Jan 7th Morning. It was a Seva Bharathi's fundraising and awareness run for its Kishori Vikas project which aims at empowering underprivileged girl children living in slums.
Dr. Mahesh Sharma, Hon. Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Culture and Tourism and Civil Aviation flagged off the 5K run in which more than 7000 people ran from Gachibowli Stadium to University of Hyderabad. Prior to the run there were Surya Namaskaras, light exercises and Zumba Dance to warm up the enthusiastic participants.
During his talk Dr Mahesh Sharma said, "India is a land of Gods and Goddesses and our Goddesses have been sources of inspirations to us. Women like Lakshmibai and Sunitha Williams have done wonders to the country. It is high time we support the 50% of our population. "Bethi Bachao-Bethi Padao" is dream of Modi ji and Seva Bharathi's this Kishori Vikas project is a step in that direction."
Seva Bharathi's Kishori Vikas program is designed to educate and empower adolescent girls in slums, bastis and villages. Seva Bharathi is currently running more than 100 Kishori Vikas centers benefiting more than 2500 girls. Each Kishori Vikas center provides education, vocational, health and other developmental activities to 25 girls in a slum for 2 hours a week. -GoTop
12. NATIONAL ARCHIVES DISPLAYS SANGH'S STAND ON J&K PLEBISCITE: A month-long exhibition on Jammu and Kashmir, which opened at the National Archives on 11th January, seeks to highlight just how the founding president of Jan Sangh, Shyama Prasad Mookerjee, warned former PM Jawahar Lal Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah about the far reaching consequences of getting the Instrument of Accession signed in Kashmir.
A portion of the exhibition is on Mookerjee's contributions in a section titled 'Shyama Prasad Mookerjee on Jammu & Kashmir issue' and on the agitation which sought full integration of the state with Bharat. Focusing on the Jan Sangh ideologue, the exhibit draws from four letters that Mookerjee wrote and that are on display; two each to Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah, a January 9, 1953, letter to Nehru said, "It is high time that both you and Sheikh Abdullah should realise that this movement will not be suppressed by force or repression. ..The problem of Jammu and Kashmir should not be treated as a party issue."-GoTop
13. BHARAT HAS PLAYED A MAJOR ROLE IN LIGO RESEARCH, SAYS NOBEL LAUREATE KIP THORNE: Kip Thorne bagged the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2017 along with Rainer Weiss and Barry C Barish. The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) is a large-scale physics experiment and observatory to detect cosmic gravitational waves To a question on India’s role in the development of LIGO, he said, "That's absolutely right. There were three major directions of research here. One was the experimental side of things - development of detectors - and India didn't play much role in that. But the second thing was to understand the shape of the waves that we were likely to see, which was essential for us to compare and get information out, and there India played a major role with contributions especially from Bala Iyer (now head of India LIGO), who computed the shapes of the waves from black holes spiralling together and neutron stars spiralling together. The third strand was data analytics techniques; there the pioneer was Bernard Schutz from Germany who trained (Sanjeev) Dhurandhar from IUCAA, who did a lot of work along with Satyaprakash. India's role has been very big."
14. TWO BHARATIYA-ORIGIN MPS GET PROMOTED IN THERESA MAY'S GOVERNMENT RESHUFFLE: Two 37-year-old British Bharatiya MPs have moved from the backbenches to junior ministerial positions in Theresa May's government reshuffle. Suella Fernandes and Rishi Sunak are the same age and were both elected in 2015.
Ex-barrister Fernandes has been made parliamentary under-secretary of state at the Department for Exiting the European Union (DExEU) led by Brexit negotiator David Davis. The new role is a step up from her previous low-ranking position of parliamentary private secretary to HM treasury ministers.
Another Brexiteer and hedge fund millionaire, Sunak, the son-in-law of Infosys co-founder and billionaire N R Narayana Murthy, has been appointed as parliamentary under-secretary of state at the new ministry of housing.-GoTop
15. BAKULA THROUGH IMAGES: Eminent Buddhist saint who is also known as the modern architect of Ladakh, Kushok Bakula Rinpoche is being remembered all over the country as part of his birth centenary celebration. A photo exhibition based on his life was organised at Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Art (IGNCA) on December 20. The exhibition was inaugurated by Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Shri Kiren Rijiju in the presence of Ambassador of Mongolia to Bharat Shri Gonchig Ganbold, RSS Akhil Bharatiya Sah Sampark Pramukh Shri Arun Kumar, Shri Lama Lobzang from Ashoka Mission and others.
Inaugurating the exhibition Shri Rijiju said, "Late Bakula Rinpoche was a monk-activist and helped in the cause of peace and spreading the teaching of Lord Buddha in different parts of the world." -GoTop
16. SHRI VISHW NIKETAN: Pravas: Dr Sadanand Sapre, sahsamyojak Vishwa Vibhag will tour Mozambique and South Africa. Visitors: Sumant Pathak, USA
FOOD FOR THOUGHT: The highest education is that which does not merely give us information but makes our life in harmony with all existence. Rabindranath Tagore -GoTop
JAI SHREE RAM
A NEUROSCIENTIST EXPLORES THE "SANSKRIT EFFECT"
James Hartzell
MRI scans show that memorizing ancient mantras increases the size of brain regions associated with cognitive function
A hundred dhoti-clad young men sat cross-legged on the floor in facing rows, chatting amongst themselves. At a sign from their teacher the hall went quiet. Then they began the recitation. Without pause or error, entirely from memory, one side of the room intoned one line of the text, then the other side of the room answered with the next line. Bass and baritone voices filled the hall with sonorous prosody, every word distinctly heard, their right arms moving together to mark pitch and accent. The effect was hypnotic, ancient sound reverberating through the room, saturating brain and body. After 20 minutes they halted, in unison. It was just a demonstration. The full recitation of one of India's most ancient Sanskrit texts, the Shukla Yajurveda, takes six hours.
I spent many years studying and translating Sanskrit, and became fascinated by its apparent impact on mind and memory. In India's ancient learning methods textual memorization is standard: traditional scholars, or pandits, master many different types of Sanskrit poetry and prose texts; and the tradition holds that exactly memorizing and reciting the ancient words and phrases, known as mantras, enhances both memory and thinking.
I had also noticed that the more Sanskrit I studied and translated, the better my verbal memory seemed to become. Fellow students and teachers often remarked on my ability to exactly repeat lecturers' own sentences when asking them questions in class. Other translators of Sanskrit told me of similar cognitive shifts. So I was curious: was there actually a language-specific "Sanskrit effect" as claimed by the tradition?
When I entered the cognitive neuroscience doctoral program at the University of Trento (Italy) in 2011, I had the opportunity to start investigating this question. India's Vedic Sanskrit pandits train for years to orally memorize and exactly recite 3,000-year old oral texts ranging from 40,000 to over 100,000 words. We wanted to find out how such intense verbal memory training affects the physical structure of their brains. Through the India-Trento Partnership for Advanced Research (ITPAR), we recruited professional Vedic pandits from several government-sponsored schools in the Delhi region; then we used structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at India's National Brain Research Center to scan the brains of pandits and controls matched for age, gender, handedness, eye-dominance and multilingualism.
What we discovered from the structural MRI scanning was remarkable. Numerous regions in the brains of the pandits were dramatically larger than those of controls, with over 10 percent more grey matter across both cerebral hemispheres, and substantial increases in cortical thickness. Although the exact cellular underpinnings of gray matter and cortical thickness measures are still under investigation, increases in these metrics consistently correlate with enhanced cognitive function.
Most interestingly for verbal memory was that the pandits' right hippocampus-a region of the brain that plays a vital role in both short and long-term memory-had more gray matter than controls across nearly 75 percent of this subcortical structure. Our brains have two hippocampi, one on the left and one on the right, and without them we cannot record any new information. Many memory functions are shared by the two hippocampi. The right is, however, more specialized for patterns, whether sound, spatial or visual, so the large gray matter increases we found in the pandits’ right hippocampus made sense: accurate recitation requires highly precise sound pattern encoding and reproduction. The pandits also showed substantially thickening of right temporal cortex regions that are associated with speech prosody and voice identity.
Our study was a first foray into imaging the brains of professionally trained Sanskrit pandits in India. Although this initial research, focused on intergroup comparison of brain structure, could not directly address the Sanskrit effect question (that requires detailed functional studies with cross-language memorization comparisons, for which we are currently seeking funding), we found something specific about intensive verbal memory training. Does the pandits’ substantial increase in the gray matter of critical verbal memory organs mean they are less prone to devastating memory pathologies such as Alzheimer's? We don't know yet, though anecdotal reports from India's Ayurvedic doctors suggest this may be the case. If so, this raises the possibility that verbal memory "exercising'' or training might help elderly people at risk of mild cognitive impairment retard or, even more radically, prevent its onset.
If so, the training might need to be exact. One day I was filming four senior pandit teachers demonstrating the different recitation speeds. Partway into one session all four suddenly stopped. "What’s wrong?' I asked. "One of us made a slight error," came the response. "I don’t mind," I said. "Yes, but we do," and they restarted the entire recitation from the beginning. ( scientificamerican.com, January 2, 2018) -GoTop
VIVEKANANDA KENDRA: NURTURING THE ROOTS
MR Lalu
The 40 years relentless servics of Vivekanand Kendra have emerged as torch-bearer of social change in the north-eastern region of the country
Nothing happens by chance. There is a reason behind everything. A seed to sprout and a child to be born in the world, everything happens with a reason. The reason and the output are correlated. A seed sown on the ground sprouts and grows and becomes a tree. The purpose of the seed sown on the ground is to grow into a big tree. Every thought and every act ideally fulfills this seed theory. Such was the process of sowing the seeds of quality education in Arunachal Pradesh by Vivekananda Kendra.
It was in the year 1977 that the organisation with its visionary founder president Shri Eknath Ranade's great efforts did start seven Vivekananda Kendra Vidyalayas (VKVs) in different areas of the state.
Tremendous was the hard work, unfathomable was the enthusiasm, immeasurable was the dedication and gigantic were the hurdles. But never did he give up half way. The goal was already set. The plan was worked out and the work was planned out. As an organisation that was the childhood stage and now the Kendra has branches across the country. Many young men and women who joined as full time workers were posted in different areas of the state to take up the task. They left their homes willing to embrace service as their mission and Arunachal as their home. Some are alive today, but some are not. The educational scenario of the state has changed a lot by now. But the days of tremendous hard work can never be forgotten.
Dedicated persons were appointed from different parts of the country as teachers. They belonged to all the states of the country, who left their luxuries as youth and decided to serve the land of rising Sun. Meager was their salary and minimum was the number of the students enrolled in the beginning. Many of the parents did not want their children to be sent to school. They thought tilling the land was enough to fill their stomachs. Finding children for the school was one of the hardest tasks. Teachers climbed up the hills and crossed the rivers and slept in village huts in the intricate areas of the state to convince the villagers about the importance of education. They were initially misunderstood and doubted by the innocent villagers.
Convincing People
Convincing the public about the need of educating their children was not easy. Who would believe someone who comes from the other corner of the country wanting to take the kids to a far away school? What would happen to the kids when they are away in their schools living with strangers? All these questions were patiently heard by the life workers and the teachers. They never argued when they were orally injured. They never complained when one of them fell sick. They silently took care of the other until he recovered. Sometimes they had to carry one among them on their shoulders to the distant medical centre, sometimes a dead body to the distant village. They walked for miles on foot and had blisters on their souls, but never slowed down their pace because the goal was already set; to bring education to the people of the state and help them come out of the world of illiteracy. Scholarships were granted to those children who were admitted to schools. Essential things like bathing and washing soaps and clothes and other materials were provided free of cost. The teachers helped the children to take bath and brush. Sometimes the teachers had to give the children a nice bath and dry them with towels. Life-workers and the teachers carried rice bags on their back to the schools. They went to the forest together to collect wood. They cooked food for the kids and took them to hospitals when they fell sick.
Shri A Balakrishnan, vice president of Vivekananda Kendra, the person who was instrumental in establishing VKVs in Arunachal Pradesh with Eknathji, elucidates an incident. "I personally had the opportunity to listen from him about the hardships of those days. Once a teacher fell seriously sick and had to be carried on the shoulder by him and another person to Tezu for further treatment. The man who was recently appointed then got seriously depressed and fell ill feeling isolated in the wilderness of the mountains in the interior village. The teacher had to be tied on a long piece of bamboo and carried on the shoulders all the way to Tezu," says Shri Balakrishnan. The most thrilling part of the incident was that, the teacher having been treated and cured in his hometown in the southern part of our country came back and worked in the same school for some more years.
Steady Progress
Obviously, progress is a slow process. Nobody expects it to happen overnight. What we require to do for it is to have patience and wait as it happens in the case of a seed which falls in the land and sprouts and grows into a gigantic tree. It happens with individuals and societies and even with nations. The stories of civilisations are the stories of this slow and steady progress. People often look at the top of the tree, its might, beauty and the fragrance of its flowers but never the roots that lie underneath gradually struggling to feed the branches. The underlining principle, which needs to be focused on, is the process of sowing the seed, without which dreaming a tree becomes impractical. The tree gives us shade and flowers and fruits and behind its expansion lies the selfless hard work of people who tilled the soil and watered it. Celebrating its 40 years of service in the state the VKVs are giving a tribute to those who sacrificed their yesterdays for our today.
By establishing schools with residential facility, the Vivekananda Kendra was reinstating the ancient Gurukul system wherein the students stay with teachers in a homely atmosphere. Slowly, situation began to improve. People were convinced of the purpose of Vivekananda Kendra's presence in the state. The systematic initiatives by the VKVs brought smiles to both parents and students. The entry of VKVs in the field of education began to accelerate the speed of educating the youth. The concept of telephone, TV and internet was a remote idea in those days. Road connectivity was poor. Except for the letters, no communication with the family members was possible. Still the schools functioned and prospered. The teachers sat with their children and taught them. They sat together and had their food. Sometimes, they had to stay awakened throughout the night to fight the wild animals. They beat drums and yelled at a seasonal visitor, a tiger from the hills. Many a times it was difficult for them to save the bamboo sheds from the trampling of wild elephants. They washed and cleaned the others’ wounds. Such was the dedication and love they had for each other.
Thousands of children have passed out from different schools with flying colours. Let us remember the unsung heroes of those days who tilled the land for us. Many of the students became doctors, engineers, politicians, journalists, IAS officers and many hold good positions in the state administration. Above all, the underscoring contribution of the institution in the state has been its molding of a new generation with a great optimistic and patriotic approach for the society and the state and thereby for the country. It is a matter of great pride for the organisation and the state that the students who had come out of the VKVs have become the torch bearers of the state by becoming the messengers of the man-making principles of the patriotic saint of India, Swami Vivekananda. The alumni of VKVs have been instrumental in bringing out positive changes in the state with respect to education and social development. The State Government has always been helpful by strengthening the VKVs in its mission of imparting quality education.
The world is becoming more chaotic day-by-day with conflicts and skirmishes everywhere. The main thing that we can do to establish peace and tranquility in the world is to bring back an attitude of gratitude for everything which is capable of making positive changes around us. Everyone has one's squirrel's share to do and we in VKVs have been trying to make our generations of students aware of this holistic approach towards social life. We need to do a lot for the state and for the country just like the roots which lie under the soil, without being bothered about the name or fame but fully conscious and aware of their duty, to strengthen the tree, to help it flower and bear fruits and help it survive for years giving shade and solace to generations who take refuge under it. Celebrating forty years of service in a grand manner the Kendra is once again reminding its slogan to all the stakeholders that service to man is service to god. (The writer is coordinator of Vivek Kiran Project in Arunachal Pradesh, Organiser Weekly 14 January, 2018.) -GoTop
SHRI VISHWA NIKETAN vishwav@bol.net.in www.shrivishwaniketan.blogspot.com
