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Friday 21 April 2017

Civil Service Day

The Civil Service Day is celebrated on 21 April every year. The purpose for this day is to rededicate and recommit themselves to the cause of the people. It is observed by all Civil Services.

Monday 17 April 2017

World Hemophila Day

Nicking your finger with a knife while chopping some tomatoes for a salad is just a nuisance for most of us—we utter a choice word or two, rinse the cut, apply a disinfectant and maybe a band-aid, and then proceed to go on with our lives. The same goes for, say, tripping and falling—most of us will just get up and keep on going, not giving the situation any more thought and barely noticing the bruise that may appear afterward. Unfortunately, there are people whose very lives may be put in danger because of such seemingly minor accidents: hemophiliacs. Hemophilia affects approximately 400,000 people worldwide, many of whom are not fully aware of their condition or are not getting the treatment they need. Because a relatively small percentage of the world’s population suffers from hemophilia, many people are not aware just how serious this condition is and how much more difficult and dangerous it makes the lives of those who have it. And this is where World Hemophilia Day comes in.

The History of Hemophilia Day
Hemophilia was first discovered in the 10th century, when physicians started to take a serious interest in people, especially males, who were bleeding to death after sustaining only minor injuries. At that time, it was called Abulcasis. Unfortunately, due to the limited technology of the day, it was impossible to research the condition properly. Numerous famous historical figures are thought to have had hemophilia, especially members of the European royal families, and it was often treated with aspirin which thinned the blood of the hemophiliac further, causing the symptoms to worsen. Then, in 1803, Dr. John Conrad Otto of Philadelphia began to study people he called, “bleeders” more extensively, recognizing it to be a hereditary illness that was most often passed onto males from by their healthy mothers. In 1937, hemophilia was officially divided into two types: A and B. Though no cure for hemophilia has been invented till this day, the sickness can be controlled by administering clotting factors on a regular basis in order to avoid spontaneous bleeding episodes.
World Hemophilia Day was created by the World Federation of Hemophilia in 1989, and the date it’s celebrated on, April 17th, was chosen in honor of the founder of the organization’s birthday, Frank Schnabel. The day’s purpose is to raise awareness about the disease as well as other bleeding disorders and also to raise money for the treatment of those who cannot afford it.

How to Celebrate World Hemophilia Day
Numerous events are organized every year on World Hemophilia day, filled with educational presentations and other events that promote an awareness of the disease and those who suffer from it. If you are unable to attend, you could consider making a donation to the World Federation of Hemophilia to help support their fight against this debilitating condition, especially in the poorest parts of the world. Another thing you could do is find the World Federation of Hemophilia’s Facebook page and proceed to share some of the many infographics they post in order to help your Facebook friends become more informed as well. The same goes for Twitter—follow the World Federation of Hemophilia, and retweet their tweets about this day. It may not seem like much at first glance, but social media has proven itself to be incredibly powerful on many occasions, especially when it comes to getting the word out about an important cause. Even the smallest of gestures can make a world of difference!

Thursday 13 April 2017

Ambedkar Jayanthi & Good Fri Day




Jallianwala Bagh Massacre Day


The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre (also known as the Amritsar Massacre) was one of the saddest events, that will likely never fade away from our memory. It was so horrific and saddening that even today, people are left wondering if it could have been avoided. Unfortunately, almost a century later, we haven’t received an apology or had closure.
For those not aware, on 13th April 1919 (which was also the festival of Baisakhi), people gathered at the Jallianwala Bagh to peacefully protest the arrest of two leaders Dr. Satyapal and Dr. Saifuddin, despite a curfew being declared. The protest, however, was not a non-violent one. On the order of General Dyer, the troops fired on the crowd for ten minutes resulting in the death of about 1000 people and injuring an equal number. To save themselves, people resorted to jumping into a nearby well and it is said that 120 bodies were recovered from here after the massacre.


Tuesday 11 April 2017

Jyotiba Phule Jayanthi



Jyotiba Phule

Born: 11 April, 1827 
Place of Birth: Satara, Maharashtra 
Parents: Govindrao Phule (father) and Chimnabai (mother)
Spouse: Savitri Phule
Children: Yashwantrao Phule (adopted son)
Education: Scottish Mission's High School, Pune;
Associations: Satyashodhak Samaj
Ideology: Liberal; Egalitarian; Socialism
Religious Beliefs: Hinduism
Publications: Tritiya Ratna (1855); Powada: Chatrapati Shivajiraje Bhosle Yancha (1869); Shetkarayacha Aasud (1881)
Passed Away: 28 November, 1890
Memorial: Phule Wada, Pune, Maharashtra

Jyotirao ‘Jyotiba’ Govindrao Phule was a prominent social reformer and thinker of the nineteenth century India. He led the movement against the prevailing caste-restrictions in India. He revolted against the domination of the Brahmins and struggled for the rights of peasants and other low-caste people. Mahatma Jyotiba Phule was also a pioneer for women education in India and fought for education of girls throughout his life. He is believed to be the first Hindu to start an orphanage for the unfortunate children.+

Childhood & Early Life
Jyotirao Govindrao Phule was born in Satara district of Maharastra in 1827. His father, Govindrao was a vegetable-vendor at Poona. Jyotirao's family belonged to 'mali' caste and their original title was ‘Gorhay’. Malis were considered as an inferior caste by the Brahmins and were shunned socially. Jyotirao's father and uncles served as florists, so the family came to be known as `Phule'. Jyotirao's mother passed away when he was just nine months old.
Jyotirao was an intelligent boy but due to the poor financial condition at home, he had to stop his studies at an early age. He started helping his father by working on the family's farm. Recognising the talent of the child prodigy, a neighbour persuaded his father to send him to school. In 1841, Jyotirao got admission in the Scottish Mission's High School, Poona, and completed his education in 1847. There, he met Sadashiv Ballal Govande, a Brahmin, who remained his close friend throughout his life. At the age of just thirteen years, Jyotirao was married to Savitribai.

Social Movements
In 1848, an incident sparked off Jyotiba’s quest against the social injustice of caste discrimination and incited a social revolution in the Indian society. Jyotirao was invited to attend the wedding of one of his friends who belonged to an upper cast Brahmin family. But at the wedding the relatives of the bridegroom insulted and abused Jyotiba when they came to know about his origins. Jyotirao left the ceremony and made up his mind to challenge the prevailing caste-system and social restrictions. He made it his life’s work to hammer away tirelessly at the helms of social majoritarian domination and aimed at emancipation of all human beings that were subjected to this social deprivation.
After reading Thomas Paine's famous book 'The Rights of Man', Jyotirao was greatly influenced by his ideas. He believed that enlightenment of the women and lower caste people was the only solution to combat the social evils.

Efforts Towards Women Education
Jyotiba’s quest for providing women and girls with right to education was supported by his wife Savitribai Phule. One of the few literate women of the time, Savitribai was taught to read and write by her husband Jyotirao. 
In 1851, Jyotiba established a girls' school and asked his wife to teach the girls in the school. Later, he opened two more schools for the girls and an indigenous school for the lower castes, especially for the Mahars and Mangs. 
Jyotiba realised the pathetic conditions of widows and established an ashram for young widows and eventually became advocate of the idea of Widow Remarriage. 
Around his time, society was a patriarchal and the position of women was especially abysmal. Female infanticide was a common occurrence and so was child marriage, with children sometimes being married to men much older. These women often became widows before they even hit puberty and were left without any family support. Jyotiba was pained by their plight and established an orphanage in 1854 to shelter these unfortunate souls from perishing at the society’s cruel hands.

Efforts Towards Elimination of Caste Discrimination
Jyotirao attacked the orthodox Brahmins and other upper castes and termed them as "hypocrites". He campaigned against the authoritarianism of the upper caste people and urged the "peasants" and "proletariat" to defy the restrictions imposed upon them. 
He opened his home to people from all castes and backgrounds. He was a believer in gender equality and he exemplified his beliefs by involving his wife in all his social reform activities. He believed that religious icons like Rama are implemented by the Brahmin as a means for subjugating the lower caste.
The orthodox Brahmins of the society were furious at the activities of Jyotirao. They blamed him for vitiating the norms and regulations of the society. Many accused him of acting on behalf of the Christian Missionaries. But Jyotirao was firm and decided to continue the movement. Interestingly, Jyotirao was supported by some Brahmin friends who extended their support to make the movement successful.

Satya Shodhak Samaj
In 1873, Jyotiba Phule formed the Satya Shodhak Samaj (Society of Seekers of Truth). He undertook a systematic deconstruction of existing beliefs and history, only to reconstruct an equality promoting version. Jyotirao vehemently condemned the Vedas, the ancient holy scriptures of the Hindus. He traced the history of Brahmanism through several other ancient texts and held the Brahmins responsible for framing the exploitative and inhuman laws in order to maintain their social superiority by suppressing the "shudras" and “atishudras” in the society. The purpose of the Satya Shodhak Samaj was to decontaminate the society from caste discrimination and liberate the oppressed lower-caste people from the stigmas inflicted by the Brahmins. Jyotirao Phule was the first person to coin the term ‘Dalits’ to apply to all people considered lower caste and untouchables by the Brahmins. Membership to the Samaj was open to all irrespective of caste and class. Some written records suggest that they even welcomed participation of Jews as members of the Samaj and by 1876 the 'Satya Shodhak Samaj' boasted of 316 members. In 1868, Jyotirao decided to construct a common bathing tank outside his house to exhibit his embracing attitude towards all human beings and wished to dine with everyone, regardless of their caste.

Death
Jyotiba Phule devoted his entire life for the liberation of untouchables from the exploitation of Brahmins. Apart from being a social activist and reformer, he was also a businessman. He was also a cultivator and contractor for the Municipal Corporation. He served as Commissioner of the Poona Municipality between 1876 and 1883. 
Jyotiba suffered a stroke in 1888 and was rendered paralyzed. On 28 November, 1890, the great social reformer, Mahatma Jyotirao Phule, passed away.

Legacy
Perhaps the biggest legacy of Mahatma Jyotirao Phule is the thought behind his perpetual fight against social stigma that are enormously relevant still. In the nineteenth century, people were used to accepting these discriminatory practices as social norm that needed to be enforced without question but Jyotiba sought to change this discrimination based on caste, class and colour. He was the harbinger of unheard ideas for social reforms. He started awareness campaigns that ultimately inspired the likes of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar and Mahatma Gandhi, stalwarts who undertook major initiatives against caste discrimination later.

Commemoration 
A biography of Jyotiba was penned by Dhananjay Keer in 1974 titled, ‘Mahatma Jyotibha Phule: Father of Our Social Revolution’. The Mahatma Phule Museum in Pune was set-up in honour of the great reformer. The Government of Maharashtra introduced the Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Jeevandayeeni Yojana which is a cashless treatment scheme for poor. A number of statues of the Mahatma have been erected as well as several street names and educational institutes have been rechristened with his name – eg. Crawford Market in Mumbai is rechristened as Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Mandai and the Maharashtra Krishi Vidyapeeth at Rahuri, Maharshtra was renamed Mahatma Phule Krishi Vidyapeeth.

Published Works
Jyotiba had penned a number of literary articles and books in his lifetime and most were based on his ideology of social reforms like the ‘Shetkarayacha Aasud’. He also penned some stories like ‘Tritiya Ratna’, ‘Brahmananche Kasab’, ‘Ishara’. He wrote dramas like ‘Satsar’ Ank 1 and 2, which were enacted under his directives to spread awareness against social injustice. He also wrote books for the Satyashodhak Samaj that dealt with history of Brahminism and outlined Puja protocols that the lower caste people were not allowed to learn.

Saturday 8 April 2017

Scientist of the day - Hugo von Mohl

Hugo von Mohl was a German botanist who was a major figure in the emerging fields of plant anatomy and physiology in the mid-19th century. His research on the plant cell, in particular the cell wall and cell division, paved the way for the development of the cell theory. His works helped in establishing botany as a distinct scientific field. Born into a socially respected family as the son of a statesman, he received a classical education. From an early age, he displayed a keen interest in botany and mineralogy, subjects which he pursued in his leisure time. He studied medicine on growing up, but his deep interest in botany led him to Munich where he collaborated with a group of distinguished botanists and began his research. His research covered diverse botanical fields, and he gained much attention for his description of the behavior of the protoplasm in cell division. Appointed a professor of botany in Tübingen, he spent his entire career there, immersing himself in research whenever he was not teaching. Over the course of his career he made many valuable contributions to botany, especially on the anatomy of the plant cell. He was the first to propose that new cells are formed by cell division and also provided the first clear explanation of the role of osmosis. 

Childhood & Early Life
Hugo von Mohl was born on 8 April 1805, in Stuttgart, Germany. His father, Benjamin Ferdinand von Mohl, was a Württemberg statesman. Hugo had three brothers.

Major Works
  • Hugo von Mohl made several significant contributions to the study of plant cell. He first described the behavior of the protoplasm in cell division and demonstrated the cellular origin of vessels and of fibrous cells. He also performed important anatomical work on the stems of dicotyledons and gymnosperms.
Awards & Achievements
  • He was made a corresponding member of the Institut de France in 1838.
  • The Order of the Crown of Württemberg was bestowed upon him in 1843, conferring upon him a title of nobility.
  • In 1850, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
  • He was elected foreign fellow of the Royal Society in 1868.
Personal Life & Legacy
  • Hugo von Mohl never married and dedicated his entire life to scientific pursuits.
  • He suffered from ill health during his later years which affected his productivity. He died suddenly on 1 April 1872, at the age of 66.


Friday 7 April 2017

World Health Day


World Health Day

The World Health Day is celebrated by the people all across the world every year on 7th of April under the leadership of World Health Organization to draw the mass people attention towards the importance of global health. World Health Assembly was held first time in the year 1948 in Geneva by the WHO where it was decided to celebrate the World Health Day annually on 7th of April. It was first celebrated worldwide in the year 1950 as the World Health Day. Varieties of events related to the particular theme are organized on the international and national level by the WHO.
It is an annual event being celebrated for years to raise the common public awareness towards the health issues and concerns. A particular theme is chosen to run the celebration and take care of the health for whole year. Global Polio Eradication was also one of the special themes of the year 1995 of world health day. From then, most of the countries have become free of this fatal disease whereas in other parts of the world its awareness level has increased.
World Health Day targets all the health issues on global basis for which several programs are organized yearly by the WHO and other related health organizations at various places like schools, colleges and other crowd places. It is celebrated to remember the establishment of the World health Organization as well as draw the attention of people towards the major health issues in the world. WHO is a vast health organization working under UN for addressing the health issues on a global basis. Since its establishment it has addressed serious health issues including chickenpox, polio, smallpox, TB, leprosy and etc from various developing countries. It has played a significant role aiming to make the world a healthy world. It has all the statistics about global health reports.

How World Health Day is Celebrated

World Health Day is celebrated worldwide by the government, non-government, NGOs including various health organizations at many places by organizing programmes relating to the public health issues and awareness. Participated organizations highlight their activities and supports through the media reports by means of press releases, news and etc. Health authorities from different country take part in the celebration with their pledges in order to support on the health issues worldwide.
Varieties of activities are done in the conference of health workers to encourage people to maintain their health in the presence of media coverage. Debates on the related topics, art exhibitions, essay writing, competitions and award ceremony are organized to fulfill the aim of world health day.

Why World Health Day is Celebrated

World Health Day celebration focuses on increasing the life expectancy by adding good health to the lives of people and promoting healthier living habits. Youths of the new era are also targeted by this event to prevent and make them healthy to make the world healthy and free from AIDS and HIV.
Disease spreading vectors like mosquitoes (malaria, dengue fever, filaria, chikungunya, yellow fever and etc), ticks, bugs, sand flies, snails and etc are also spotlighted by the WHO to make the world free from a wide range of diseases caused by parasites and pathogens. It provides better prevention and cure from the vector-borne diseases spread by vectors and travelers from one country to other. WHO supports various health authorities on global basis to make their own efforts for the public health problems to enhance better life without any diseases.
Some of the objectives of why it is being celebrated yearly are listed below:
  • To increase the public awareness of various causes and prevention of high blood pressure.
  • To provide detail knowledge of getting prevented from various diseases and their complications.
  • To encourage most vulnerable group of people to frequently check their blood pressure and follow medications from the professionals.
  • To promote self care among people.
  • To motivate the worldwide health authorities to make their own efforts in creating the healthy environments in their country.
  • To protect families living in the disease vulnerable areas.
  • To teach travelers and send them a messages about how to get protected from the vector-borne diseases while travelling.
Themes:

The theme of World Health Day 2016 was “Diabetes:Scale up prevention, strengthen care, and enhance surveillance”.

The theme of World Health Day 2017 is “Depression: Let’s talk”.

Thursday 6 April 2017

Birth anniversary of Babu Jagjivan Ram



Babu Jagjivan Ram, a Union Minister, freedom fighter and Dalit leader, was born on 5 April 1908 in Chandwa village, present-day Bhojpur district of Bihar to a Dalit family. His father, Shobhi Ram, was in the British army but later resigned, bought farmland in Chandwa, and settled there.
Jagjivan Ram was sent to the village school but soon after, his father died. His mother, Vasanti Devi, however, made sure that his education continued. 
In 1922 when he joined Arrah Town School, he realised that discrimination against Dalits was still rife. He protested against the school’s shocking decision to have separate pitchers of water for so-called ‘untouchable’ students.

Later, a meeting with the renowned nationalist leader Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya, who had come to visit the school, inspired him.
He went on to study at the prestigious Banaras Hindu University (BHU), and later secured a B.Sc. degree from the Calcutta University. Caste discrimination was unfortunately prevalent in those days in BHU as well. In 2007, when Jagjivan Ram’s daughter Meira Kumar, the then Union Minister for social justice and empowerment, was invited to speak about her father’s days at the BHU — during the inauguration of the Babu Jagjivan Ram Chair — she said that he was even denied haircuts by local barbers.

Political rise
Jagjivan Ram’s successful organisation of a workers’ rally in Calcutta brought him to the attention of leaders like Subhas Chandra Bose. In 1934 Jagjivan Ram was involved with relief work in the aftermath of the Bihar earthquake. In 1935 he was nominated to the Bihar Council. He decided to join the Congress.
  
His first wife died in 1933. Two years later, he married Indrani Devi, the daughter of a Kanpur-based social worker.
Jagjivan Ram was jailed during the Quit India Movement in the 1940s. A year before Independence he became a minister in the provisional union cabinet. Subsequently he was labour minister in independent India’s first union cabinet under Jawaharlal Nehru.  
He later held other cabinet posts such as communications and transport & railways in the Nehru regime.

After Indira Gandhi became Prime Minister, he held several important posts in successive cabinets led by her, including minister for labour, employment, and rehabilitation; minister for food and agriculture; and minister of defence. It was during his tenure as agricultural minister that the Green Revolution took place. India defeated Pakistan in the 1971 war when he was the defence minister.

The renowned agriculture scientist M.S. Swaminathan, who worked closely with Jagjivan Ram, wrote in The Hindu in February 2008: “Babuji [Jagjivan Ram] was deeply concerned with issues of social inclusion in access to new technologies….[He] felt that small and marginal farmers might not be able to purchase the new seeds and the fertilisers needed for enabling them to realise the full genetic potential for yield of the new strains. Therefore, he initiated the Small and Marginal Farmers and Landless Labour Programmes in order to provide the needed credit and inputs to those who would have otherwise been bypassed by new technologies.”

Babuji’s legacy
In 1977 shortly after Indira Gandhi announced elections, signalling an end to the emergency, Jagjivan Ram, together with a few other politicians, became part of the Janata coalition by forming the Congress for Democracy.

As the historian Ramachandra Guha writes in India After Gandhi: “[Jagjivan] Ram was a lifelong Congressman, a prominent minister in Nehru’s and Indira Gandhi’s Cabinets and — most crucially — the acknowledged leader of the Scheduled Castes. . . . It was [Jagjivan] Ram who had moved the resolution in the Lok Sabha endorsing the emergency. His resignation came as a shock to the Congress, and as a harbinger of things to come. For Babuji was renowned for his political acumen; that he chose to leave the Congress was widely taken as a sign that this ship was, if not yet sinking, then leaking very badly indeed.”

Between March 1977 and August 1979, Jagjivan Ram was the Deputy Prime Minister in India’s first non-Congress government. But he didn’t get the country’s top job. “There is little doubt that Babuji provided the fatal blow to the Emergency regime. Not surprisingly, he was the frontrunner to the prime minister’s post,” Ajay Bose wrote in the Outlook magazine in May 2010. “But he was thwarted at the last moment by a powerful lobby led by peasant patriarch Charan Singh. . . .” 

By the time Jagjivan Ram died (on 6 July 1986), the political fortunes of another powerful Dalit leader — Kanshi Ram — were on the rise. But Kanshi Ram’s Bahujan Samaj Party sought to, at least in its initial years, distance itself from the legacy of the tallest Dalit leader of the Congress.

As a dedicated Congress member for most of his life and by virtue of the important ministerial posts he held, Babu Jagjivan Ram occupies a unique position in the arc of Dalit political mobilisation that spreads from Ambedkar to Kanshi Ram and Mayawati. But to look at Jagjivan Ram only through a caste lens would be a disservice to his memory and achievements.

Monday 3 April 2017

Scientist of the day - John Harrison

 John Harrison
(03 April 1693   To  24 March 1776)
John Harrison, considered to be one of the greatest clockmakers from England, was the inventor of the marine chronometer, a device that helps to establish the longitude of a ship at sea and makes long distance sea travel safer. His invention marked a landmark in sea travel and revolutionized the way sailors had been sailing on the seas previously. The problem of accurately establishing the longitude was so acute that the British Parliament announced an award of ₤20,000 to whosoever would come up with a practical solution. The son of a carpenter with a deep fascination for clocks, Harrison set out to solve the problem. He worked hard for several years designing numerous models of clocks. Several of his clocks were tested with favorable results by the Royal Society though none of his initial models fitted the requirements necessary to win the prize. After working, re-working and improvising his clock models for almost three decades, he came up with an appropriate solution—a marine watch that could successfully measure the longitude during sea travel. The uneducated carpenter was successful in solving a major problem of sea faring even before scientists and astronomers could come up with a solution. By designing the accurate marine chronometer, Harrison had come up with a solution for one of the most puzzling technological problems of the 18th century. 
Major Work
  • He invented the marine chronometer—a clock that precisely determines longitude by means of celestial navigation. It was a major technological development of the 18th century that took him more than three decades of hard work to achieve.
Awards & Achievements
  • He was never awarded the official Longitude Prize of £20,000 though he was paid £10,000 and £8,750 in separate installments. He was also awarded several grants by the Board of Longitude for continuing his work till the development of the H5.
Personal Life & Legacy
  • He married Elizabeth Barrel in 1718. They had a son. His wife died in 1726.
  • His second marriage was with a woman, also named Elizabeth. This marriage lasted 50 years and produced two children. His son William assisted his father in designing and developing clocks and watches.
  • He died on his 83rd birthday in 1776.