There is a tradition in muslim marriage known as “Mehr”, a compulsory payment by the groom to the bride at the time of marriage.
This Malayali muslim bride, Sahla Nechiyil went against the tradition to demand just 50 books where she had every right to demand gold, jewellery or cash as ‘Mehr,’ who hails from Kerala’s Malappuram district.
Image Credit: Indian Express
Sahla told Indian Express, ” I wanted to show the Malappuram Muslims that a wedding can take place without obsessing over the amount of gold transacted between both parties,” giving a hard hitting social message to the gold obsessed Muslim community in her region.
Sahla is a political science post graduate from Hyderabad university, who is now married to Anees Nadodi, who supported her decision. “Mehr is the right of the women, not the generosity of the man,” he added.
Anees Nadodi with the books Sahla demanded | Image Credit: Indian Express
Sahla handed Anees the list of the books she wanted and her husband went hunting for them, travelling from Kerala to Bangalore, to fulfill his wife’s desires, despite disapproval from both the families.
“They could not argue for long, because we were not doing anything against the religious texts,” said Sahla. Her book list included Islamic feminist literature, feminist literature, fiction and politics.
“The religious texts allow us to live according to our wish, yet these girls fear to speak up or decide for themselves,” she said. “Ani (Anees) had to struggle a little looking for the books I demanded. Making your husband struggle a little is the idea of mehr, anyway,” she added.
This 14 years old boy, Tushar Talawat had brought laurels to his gurukul and his country by winning the International Mathematics Competition organized by Abacus Learning of Higher Arithmetic (ALOHA) in Indonesia Yogyakarta. The student of Ahmedabad-based Hemchandracharya Sanskrit Pathshala won among 1,300 students who come from 18 countries.
Tushar has also excelled at similar contests organized at state and national levels. A release by BSM claimed that during the Gujarat leg of the competition in October last year, he had solved 70 questions in 3 minutes and 30 seconds defeating 5300 competitors.
At the national level competition held in Chennai during last year December, he solved 70 questions relating to addition, subtraction and multiplication of six digits in 3 minutes and 10 seconds, and defeated 4300 students.
Tushar also met the HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar who later tweeted, “Like Tushar, other students can really showcase their talent through various competitions”.
“Khaas”meaning ‘special’ in Hindi, is a unique travel agency company in Delhi which only hires visually impaired women and acid attach victims.
Founded by Akash Bhardwaj, “Khaas” is providing empowering experience to it’s physically challenged employees. The agency organizes domestic and international tours for corporate organizations, schools and colleges, other than industrial tours, family trips, adventure camps, etc.
All the work is done by the visually impaired employees – right from making appointments and helping with the presentations to closing the deals and even accompanying the groups on the trips if required.
“I was in Delhi’s Lajpat Nagar area during the Diwali celebrations of 2015 when I came across a lady selling balloons. She had acid scars on her face. When I asked her what had happened, she said a boy in her neighbourhood threw acid on her face and her husband abandoned her after that. She had two kids and was working alone to look after them. She used to work as the security in-charge in a mall before the attack, but no one was willing to give her a job after the incident. ‘Everyone talks about the importance of face value,’ she told me in proper English. So I decided to help people like her by providing them better employment opportunities,” says 32-year-old Akash Bhardwaj.
He further adds “The women I work with are talented and determined. But they did not have the right platform to showcase these qualities. So I have given them that platform and am trying to make it bigger.”
Currently “Khaas” has six employees in total who are all visually impaired. They reach the office located on the fourth floor, get it clean, set up and start the work without any external aid. These girls operate their PCs with the help of the JAWS (Job Access With Speech) program that helps visually impaired people read the screen with text-to-speech output. They are also adept at using smartphones. In the last 20 days, the six employees had made 75 calls, confirmed 19 appointments, and finalized over five tours.
Akash spent almost two months training the girls, including teaching them how to get to the office. He is further planning for the company’s second round of hiring 15 girls and training them. Some will come to the office while others with mobility issues will be able to work from home. He plans to hire acid attack survivors as well.
“They are so happy with their work that many of them say they would like to work on Sundays too. They enjoy coming to the office, working together, meeting new people and talking about worldly affairs. Some of them live in hostels and don’t have their families here. One of the employees is a 32-year-old woman who lost her husband. She has a seven-year-old daughter,” says Akash.
You can help Akash take Khaas forward by contributing here.
Following Mahatma Gandhi’s words “Be the change you wish to see in the world,” he did so and for all of us who travel on the roads in Bengaluru. He is an engineer named Benedict Jebakumar, a 44 years old systems engineer working at Intuit Technology Services.
He is combing the roads for nails since July 2014. He combed a record of 1654 nails off the road in a single day. Sometimes his bag gets filled and he has to return without collecting more nails. Till date, he has collected about 37 kgs of nails.
facebook.com/MyRoadMyResponsibility
He said “The main objective is to spread awareness among people. I will not stop till the authorities sit up and take notice”
It all started as he came to Bengaluru in 2012, he used to take the Outer Ring Road (ORR) to travel from his home in Banashankari to his office in Bellandur. His two-wheeler often got punctured on the ORR near Silk Board. Initially he thought of his bike’s tyre quality, but lately he realized that the same is caused due to the nails and most times they are alike and were found close to places near puncture shops.
Initially he started to collect the nails bare hands, but now he uses a foldable magnetic stick. He leaves his home early 7 in the morning, stops at the specific spots and clear up the area. And he repeats the same on his way back home.
He started a Facebook page named `My Road, My Responsibility’ in October 2014, where he documents his daily findings along with a photograph of the nails on weighing scales.
He explained that the authorities were either lethargic or that the problem was not big enough for them to pay attention.”It causes a lot of inconvenience to commuters. They might fall down from the vehicle or even get into accidents,” he pointed out.”Two arrests have been made in the past but miscreants were released within three months and the nails were back on the road.”
He noted that in the absence of CCTV cameras or official validation for puncture shops, it becomes tough to pin people down.
Jebakumar hopes that someday , authorities will find a permanent solution to this menace.”Till then, I will continue as I am helping many people,” he said.
Yes, I’m a nine-year-old girl. But I’m still a serious reporter says Hilde Kate Lysiak
This 9 Years old Pennsylvania girl, daughter of a New York Daily News reporter, Hilde Kate Lysiak is a self made reporter, editor and a publisher of Orange Street News started in 2014. She publishes her own Newspaper from her website and has published more than 100 stories at her website.
“Hilde Lysiak is persistent, confident, a little spunky and not afraid to knock on your door to get the story.” says NBC NEWS, Sept 27, 2015
Whenever she gets information about any news or crime, she reaches to the spot cycling on her bicycle, with her pen, diary and camera ready to shoot and tries to show the real facts behind the incident.
“I didn’t start publishing Pennsylvania’s Orange Street News so that people would think I’m cute. I want to get the truth to people, even if it makes grownups mad” says Hilde.
The Orange Street News devoted to the Selinsgrove area claims to be the only newspaper for the area and showcases the truth about the story before other local media. Hilde has shown that there is no age to find your passion and go for it. Her determination has made her successful and today she is featured in most of the high profile media houses.
This is what the major media houses have to say about Hilde:
“Watch out Mort Zuckerman! There’s an 8-year-old Pennsylvania girl who’s poised to become the news and media mogul of the next generation.” — New York Times, Sept 15, 2015
“The nation’s most ambitious newspaper publisher rides around her tiny Pennsylvania town in a bright pink bike and plays with Barbie in her spare time.”—New York Daily News, Sept 12, 2015
“A lesson from an eight-year-old girl who proves your never too young to find your passion…I’m in love with this girl. She’s a winner.” — NBC TODAY SHOW, Sept 27, 2015
“I don’t think people should be able to decide for me who I should be and what I should be doing. I never began my newspaper so that people would think I was cute. I started the Orange Street News to give people the information they need to know,” says Hilde.
She further adds, “if adults don’t think we can do something, then it is hard for us to believe that we can. And then how will we have great things in this world? Kids should know that if they work hard, they can do amazing things. Kids can do exceptional things and still be kids!”
In first week of April 2016 she came to popularity after reporting about a murder in the locality and when criticised, she replied to critics in the following words :
Those of you who think I need to mind my place, I’ll make you a deal. You get off your computer and do something to stop all the crime going on in my town and I’ll stop reporting on it. Until then, I’m going to keep doing my job.
The world requires such heroes with passion and dedication for their work who can bring real changes in the society’s thinking and make something challenging for the betterment of this world. These young minds have enormous capability for creativity, innovation and new thinking in their own new way.
We wish Hilde goodluck and success in her efforts.
Fairness is not the only certificate of beauty. Dark is also beautiful and the new social campaign #UnfairandLovely is proving it and changing the widely held belief across the world.
Three friends from University of Texas, Austin have recently started the campaign #UnfairandLovely to prove this world that the dark is beautiful. Pax Jones, a 21-year-old black student created a photo series featuring stunning images of her Sri Lankan classmates, sisters Mirusha and Yanusha Yogarajah.
Even in matrimonial sites in South Asian countries, women with “fair complexion” are in high demand than to the dark skinned women, which has resulted millions of men and women around the world have opted for bleaching their skin. This belief, shaped by societal attitudes and reinforced by media messages, is destroying the self-worth of countless people, young and old.
In this campaign they have appealed the Dark colored women to send selfies with the #UnfairandLovely who are undermined with the belief and disgust of being less beautiful than the fairer women.
Results of such misbelief is that skin whitening creams are becoming a big business across the world. Consumers are encouraged to believe that lightening their skin tone a shade or two will enable them to win ‘better’ jobs and spouses and generally improve the quality of their lives.
Over the years, various campaigners have tried to challenge this belief – they argue that beauty is more than skin deep and that dark is beautiful too. Bollywood actress Nandita Das is also associated with alike campaign named dark is beautiful.
Campaign “Unfair & Lovely”is becoming a hit on social media (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) with #unfairandlovely – named after the highly popular Indian skin-lightening cream Fair and Lovely.
How it all started: Pax told when she was clicking images of Mirusha and Yanusha, they faced absurd comments. She clicked their pictures and they both commented colorism is a social evil underneath. While posting this image on social media many dark colored women started commenting and connecting. This resulted for us to start this campaign under #UnfairandLovely. Pax says it’s a platform for the dark women across the world, which aim to terminate the discrimination for dark colored people. People across the world are supporting the campaign and it’s becoming a hit on Instagram.
“In college, I was abused by a South Asian person who had lighter skin. And someone once threw a bleach balloon at me.” Such incidents are deeply humiliating says Mirusha Yogarajah to BBC.
“We wanted to start a conversation and I think we have succeeded in that” says Ms Jones.
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