The great plunder

Our national resources are being systematically plundered for years and decades. With government connivance, of course. Legal and illegal private mining of coal, bauxite, iron ore, etc. has unsettled the tribal habitats and lay the areas waste. Forests have dwindled in the hands of the mafia, while the poor tribal has been for ages refrained from damaging the forest by bringing too many firewood! Poor collectors of Kendu leaves have been exploited for ages.

The privileged classes of India - the few honest people and those thieves - are responsible. By omission or by commission.

Foodgrains rot while hungry children die!

The multidemensional poverty studies of the UNDP has revealed that more poor people live in the eight poorest States of India than in 26 poorest countries of Africa. A huge number of children are dying every year here in our country for want of food.

Lacs of tons of food grain, lying over open grounds, are rotting, thousands of tons have been burnt. In spite of the directives from the apex court, the union minister for agriculture has ruled out the possibility of distributing the grains among the poorest of the poor.

Bhopal tragedy

The Bhopal disaster happened in 1984, when many of today's young men were either not yet born or just toddlers. Now they have an opportunity to have an idea of how a section of powerful Indians let the offenders go scot-free by paying a meagre sum of money. Some of the best known Indian lawyers, ministers, and government functionaries worked on behalf of the offenders. Some 15,000 to 20,000 people died, but who on the corridors of power really cares? Some ordinary citizens have been patiently working there for years and decades. So they were harassed by our own police. Yet they are still trying to do their bit. The environment was devastated, water got contaminated with toxic chemicals to such an extent that even today people are getting affected with deadly disorders and diseases. Many children are born disabled. Are we men? India today has too few men worth the name. Swamiji knew this problem well. So, he emphatically repeated, 'Make men first.' Come up, young men who feel. Let us work hard to this end.

Visit the Mahamandal website

Visit the Mahamandal website for news updates and the upcoming events including training camps.

Right to Education

Every child does have a right to education. That is his or her birth right, inalienable right, whether you pass a Bill to make an Act or not. Of course, the Act makes it mandatory for the governments to ensure that children get education. A welcome move indeed, a bit too late though - coming after 63 years of Independence. But we have such an Act to protect child workers, and we know how much it really worked. We remember once more: 'No Nation is great or good, because Parliament enacts this or that, but because its men are great and good.' 'So, make men first.'

Childhood lost

A unit of the Mahamandal is organizing weekly literacy and awareness programmes for working children and other children who are even younger and cannot yet work. It is a novel experience and an eye-opener for some of the young men who are conducting the classes. The children are very eager to learn new things and play. They enjoy even the smallest gifts, for perhaps no outsider ever loved them from the heart before. The adolescent boys did not know their country's name or map, nor that the earth revolves around the sun. They knew no games, for they work from dawn to dusk. We see such children at every roadside tea-stall, we know they are there in so many hazardous occupations throughout the country. There are a few crore of them, nobody knows the exact number. They are from villages, they are from urban slums! Educated young men who are associated with the Mahamandal should understand these post-Independence problems emerging out of lopsided development. Do you apply your minds to these problems with a bleeding heart?

No complacency

The Economic Survey of India, recently published by the Ministry of Finance, Government of India, says that 80 % of our rural population will be considered BPL (Below the poverty line), if India's official criterion of 2400 kCal of daily food intake (for rural population) is applied. However, the present estimations are based on 1820 kCal for rural areas, which leads to the figure of about 42% BPL in rural areas. Shocking! Isn't it? The criteria for determining the BPL are changing and the governments have some schemes to aid them, without altering the fundamentals. Even those schemes are not properly implemented by our Babus and their elaborate machinery that has to limp in the midst of extreme corruption and political interference. So, what are going to do? Shall we be satisfied that the Indian economy has been less perturbed by the global meltdown? Shall we regularly overlook the suffering of the masses? We have become used to the appalling situation. Our first duty will be to break down this complacency and to bring about a sense of gravity and urgency.

What is the purpose?

What is purpose of the Mahamandal? Arranging camps and study circles and giving young people some engagement, so that they become 'goody goody boys' and stop disturbing the established order? Not at all. Is it then for a little social service for the sake of self-satisfaction? By no means. Our object is to rebuild India and, for that purpose, to increase the number of 'Ignited Minds' on a nation-wide scale. Swamiji entrusted the young men of India with this duty and no less. Let us ponder, let us try to understand the gravity of the prevailing crisis and the import of the plan of the Mahamandal in this context. And let us prepare ourselves. We must not be satisfied with the little we have done. For unnumbered millions are still starving!

Vivekananda is being born everyday

Vivekananda was not born just on a particular day in January 1863. He is being born every day in the hearts of millions of young men and women. Ability to visualize his life - even a little of it - would give us new light. That young man - so full of inner purity, so full of strength! His audacious questions, his fearless doubts, his scientific temperament, his soul-stirring thirst for true Life! And, above all, his oceanic heart, the tempest of his heart at the sight of others' sufferings! Do we not see hunger and destitution all around even today? Do we feel, we who consider ourselves his followers? It is not easy to follow Vivekananda. Yet, we must not give up. What do you think about it?