We won’t talk about how bad the rich are and how tolerant the poor have become. Unlike a Bollywood script, we excuse ourselves from the class stereotypes and emotional brouhaha so that some tangible change can be worked towards without wasting any more time. Our cinematic classifications are so deeply rooted in our collective memory that we can no longer recall the origin of most of our biases. Case in point - the broken Indian village. Who first introduced a village with innumerable poor farmers under the evil domination of an opportunistic money lender? Of course, the money lender, bad guy as usual, would lend the money, get dodgy documents signed or imprinted with the poor farmer’s thumb and then he would force himself upon the unwary farmer’s widow or hapless daughter. As time proceeded, the setting changed locations but without changing mentalities. The village was replaced by a city where the rich became posh and the poor remained squalid. This disproportionate change in social strata comes into the picture as soon as a ‘city’ comes into the picture. There’s something about the idea of a ‘city’, I think, that speeds things up – both the rise and the descent.
As soon as a place decides on becoming a city, it seems as if unfairness and disproportion are automatically associated with it. What are we talking about? LAVASA. Located near Pune, Lavasa has been granted an enviable portion of electricity in the face of 6 other villages [Dasve-Ramnagar, Bhoini, Mugaon, Koloshi, Gadle, Dhamanhol and Sakri, situated barely 60 km away from Pune city] who still run their daily business with the help of Kerosene lanterns. With the rising prices of essential fuels, we highly doubt the longevity of this arrangement. The geographical viability of Lavasa and SEZ status granted could have something (or everything) to do with it. The villagers have lobbied for the Right to Electricity (surprisingly, not a fundamental right) with the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (MSEDCL) since 1995 however; the officials are yet to take concrete action in this regard.
Inactivity on the part of officials and the exploitation of innocuous villagers propelled Mahesh Kamath to stand up and do something substantial to avert further agony. ‘Solar lanterns’ is the answer. As an alternate solution to the power deficiency solar lanterns are an ingenious solution. As you might know, irrespective of which resource our villages are deficient in, sunlight is always abundant. The solar lanterns Mahesh Kamath plans on introducing stay lit for 4-5 hours with a single recharge and have an average life of 15 years with a negligible amount of maintenance. You are needed here. The first target is providing lamps to 50. It can’t be difficult for an entire country.
The JaagoRe event page http://www.jaagore.com/event/taking-stand-improving-living-conditions
Provide your support in any manner possible. The event is on till December this year. The target is not huge. We can make it before time and move onto bigger goals. If the government doesn’t stop unfair treatment we can certainly go out of way to help those who are in need. This is your chance to light up lives and show the corporate interests that big money isn’t always needed to make big change.
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