Lunar Eclipse

CELESTIAL WONDER: The century’s longest and darkest total lunar eclipse saw the moon immersing deep inside the umbral (darker) shadow of the Earth. The next such eclipse will take place in 2141

Where Schools House Dreams

To bridge the gap between mainstream schools and the poor, NGOs find a way out

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Pooja Vashisht wants to become a teacher. The 12-year-old lives with her parents who are dhobis in a small shanty in Ahmedabad. Reena Nayka, a dwarf, in Gujarat’s Navsari, is today her family’s breadwinner. She’s come a long way from almost starving. Rajnikant Patel, now may be mentally challenged but he’s an award-winning weightlifter. In Surat, a paanwalla’s daughter Tanvi Joshi, who lost her left leg to polio, is pursuing MBBS at Baroda Medical College.

Making it possible for each one of them to stand on their feet and live their dream are hundreds of NGOs across the country who set up, fund and help educate the ignored and the marginalized, bringing hope and changing lives.

It’s clichéd to say that it took India more than 60 years to make education a basic right. Despite that, formal education is structured such that it remains inaccessible to staggeringly large sections. The poor, the disabled, those living in remote areas, even the city poor, have little, if any, access to education.

Yet, to educate India is its favourite cause, a national priority. There was barely a whimper when the government introduced a 2% education cess a few years ago; the idea of education captures every citizen’s imagination. Not leaving it to governments, thousands of NGOs, religious organizations and of late, companies, have made every effort to make access to education, and providing it, a reality.

Take 1956-born Kanu Tailor, who lost both legs to polio when he was 11 months old. “At school, my classmates would laugh at me,” Tailor says. “But that only firmed my resolve to pursue my goal of empowering the disabled.” In college, he met other disabled who narrated their tales of suffering, from callousness of the able-bodied to the state government’s apathy.

Tailor set up the Disable Welfare Trust of India in 1991 to provide free education and training for disabled from poor families. Samaritans donated generously. In 1997, he set up a school in 10 rooms allotted by Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC). The school had 118 poor disabled children the first month itself. By 2005, there were 400, but Tailor dreamt of a barrier-free school. In 2006, SMC allotted him land. His higher secondary school, built at a whopping cost of Rs 15 crore has 415 children.

Enabled by the school, polio-affected students chase their dreams. If daughter of diamond-polisher Shilpa Ambalia is studying homeopathy with one leg disabled, Deepak Vyas says he dared to dream of becoming a dentist only because of “Kanu sir”.

“There are 50 million disabled persons in India and only 1% of disabled children complete schooling,” says Tailor, who also helps students find jobs. Further, the trust has industrial training, a computer centre, employment guidance and a marriage bureau. In addition, it says it puts between Rs 1,000 and Rs 1,500 in fixed deposits for all students every year.

It’s going this extra mile to help beyond schooling that makes a crucial difference. Mumbai-based Parivartan, founded in 1997 by Shakil Ahmed, focuses on kids below age six. The idea is to ensure that underprivileged children in the sprawling slum of Antop Hill, home to migrants mostly from UP and Bihar, get admission in government schools. Community workers monitor the progress and ensure that parents don’t withdraw the kids from school. But before the balwadis for the below-6 were set up, Parivartan’s victory came when it ensured that the high-crime area got its own municipality school.

Interestingly, once a school is set up, it helps the marginalized in myriad ways. Reena Nayka of village Dhorikui in Gujarat’s Dangs district was considered a burden by her family. Born a dwarf, the family believed she had no future. But eight years ago, Nayak sought work at Mamta Mandir, a facility for hearing and speech-impaired and mentally challenged children, in the hope of getting two meals a day. At Mamta Mandir, she did more than get two meals.

She studied up to Class XII and now teaches children to make toys. She is also her family’s breadwinner. Over the last 40 years, Manav Kalyan Trust which runs Mamta Mandir has transformed the lives of many physically and mentally challenged children abandoned by families. Founded in 1971 by Mahesh Kothari, a disciple of Vinoba Bhave, it’s home to 572 children and young adults and provides education upto class X. It also trains the handicapped. “They train in printing, weaving, learn woodwork and even diamond polishing. They earn while learning,” says Nilesh Shah, a trustee. In his bid to help, a leading Mumbai-based diamond merchant set up a special polishing cell where 40 disabled work.

Help comes also from the classroom. Started as part of course curriculum, a voluntary education programme at IIM-Ahmedabad took a shape of its own. Today, students run Prayaas, where they teach and pay tuition fees for 30 slum kids. Most of the funds, says IIM-A student Abhishek Ranjan come from alumni. Many sponsor a child or more for a year.

Reports by Mohammed Wajihuddin in Mumbai, Dayananda Yumlembam in Ahmedabad, Himansshu Bhatt in Navsari, Melvyn Thomas in Surat

WHERE THERE’S A WILL: Students make diyas at the Disable Welfare Trust (above), a Prayaas session in Ahmedabad (left)

At school, my classmates would laugh at me. But that only firmed my resolve to pursue my goal of empowering the disabled
Kanu Tailor |
DISABLE WELFARE
TRUST, SURAT

It will be a coppery red moon tonight

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Mumbai: The city will witness the darkest lunar eclipse in 40 years on Wednesday. But the major attraction will be the colour of the moon which will turn coppery red.

During the eclipse, the sun, moon and earth will align and the moon will pass through the earth’s shadow, which is also called Umbra.

“I don’t want to miss the event as it comes once in four to five decades. If I get a clear sky it will be the most joyous moment of my life,” said a stargazer Shiva Mane from Kalyan. Some of the enthusiasts in Navi Mumbai, Chembur and Sion will be going to secluded places around the city. These places are called sky stations. From here, the sky looks clear and better.

Nehru planetarium programme coordinator, Suhas B Naik-Satam, said the eclipse, which will be visible across India, will begin at 11.53 pm on June 15 and end at 3.32 am on June 16.

If the skies are clear, the planetarium will arrange for telescopes so that the general public can watch the spectacular event. Naik-Satam said that the last time such an eclipse took place was on August 6, 1971.

School’s deal with coaching class alleged

STD XI ADMISSIONS

Shibu Thomas TNN

Mumbai: A Pune parent has moved the Bombay high court alleging that his son’s school has handed over admissions for an entire division for standard XI to a private coaching class. A division bench of Chief Justice Mohit Shah and Justice Ranjana Desai on Friday in an interim order restrained the Vikhe Patil Memorial School in Pune from finalizing the list of admissions for the division.

The court has issued notices to the school and the private coaching class FIT-JEE. The school has also been asked to submit the marks obtained by students who are proposed to be admitted to Standard XI for the current academic year.

The court was hearing a petition filed by Sandeep Joshi, whose son Shubhankar, a student of the

school, passed his standard X exams from the school this year. According to Joshi's lawyers the school has two divisions with a capacity of 40 each for standard XI. While one division was filled up with students on the basis of merit, the petition alleged that the second division was given to the coaching class and admissions to it were through an examination conducted by the private institute.

“The school has practically sold one class consisting of 40 students of standard XI to the private coaching class,” claimed the petitioner. The petition urged the court to direct the school to give admissions to both the divisions on merit and not on the basis of a “private arrangement’’ between the school and the coaching class. Joshi has asked for a stay on the final list of admissions for standard XI.

Mum team’s solution for flat feet wins award

Shreya Bhandary TNN

Mumbai: Five city students have brought accolades to the country by winning the Open European Championship of the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science & Technology) Lego League held in The Netherlands earlier this week. These students came up with a simple solution for people suffering from flat feet.
Ansh Verma from Ecole Mondiale World School, Shikhar Bakhda, Anant Kandoi and Parth Mehta from Jamnabai Narsee School and Harshvardhan Raje from Singhania School in Thane got together for the first time at the children’s technology workshop in Juhu and the idea germinated in the minds of one of their parents. “Ash and Harshvardhan both suffer from the condition of flexible flat feet, whereby they are unable to walk properly, slap their feet, and due to the lack of arch, experience pain when participating in sports at school,” said Asha Sundararajan, director of the workshop. This is what encouraged them to work out a solution to this problem.

“The students came up with a simple solution of using touch to measure the foot pressure and motors to engage in the dynamic movement of the foot,” Sundararajan said.

It took the team six months to complete the project. “During school, we would rush to the workshop immediately after school and work on the solution. Once ready, the team set for The Netherlands on the first of this month.

Sixty-seven projects coming from various countries across the globe were being presented one after another at the FIRST Lego LeagueAdding a touch of Indian culture to their presentation, the entire team went on stage barefoot. The presentation was selected as the winning project on June 4.

FINDING THEIR FEET: The Mumbai team with their project for coping with flat feet at the competition held in The Netherlands

STABILITY DECODED

Found: Why a moving cycle doesn’t fall over

Washington: Scientists have shed a new light on a century-long question on why given sufficient forward speed, a bicycle pushed sideways, will not fall over. The TU Delft team, in collaboration with scientists from Cornell University, centred on the following intriguing question: why is a bicycle self stable, above a certain speed? You add speed to a bike and can then give it a sideways push without it falling over.

Until recently, the consensus within the scientific community was that the stability was very closely related to two factors. First, the rotating wheels of the bicycle were supposed to provide stability through gyroscopic effects. Secondly, it was thought that the ‘trail’ played an important part. Trail is the distance by which the contact point of the front wheel trails behind the steering axis. But a new study puts paid to this old notion once and for all.

“We have known for years that the generally accepted explanation for the stability of the bicycle was too simple. Gyroscopic effects and trail do help, but are not essential for stability,” said researcher Arend Schwab of the 3mE faculty at TU Delft. “In our publication in Science we have now shown not only theoretically but also by means of experiment that our insights are correct,” said Schwab. Together with doctorate student Jodi Kooijman, he designed and constructed a bicycle with which it could be shown, in an experiment, that both gyroscopic effects and trail are not necessary for a cycle to remain stable by itself above a certain speed.

This is the so-called Two Mass Skate bicycle. It has small and counter rotating wheels, which mean there is no gyroscopic effect to speak of, and a small negative trail. And yet the bicycle remains stable. Schwab said, “We have demonstrated that the mass distribution is also important for stability, especially the location of the centre of mass of the bicycle’’s steering mechanism.” For a bicycle to be stable, the steering mechanism has to be unstable; if the bike falls, the steering should fall even more quickly. ANI

‘Handling remote students was a challenge’

Mini Joseph Tejaswi TNN

Bangalore: They are truly an “enterprising couple”. The husband-wife entrepreneur duo, K Ganesh and Meena Ganesh, has struck gold again with their sale of Tutor-Vista to the Pearson Group. Ganesh had started the online tutoring firm in July 2005 with a funding of $2.15 million from Sequoia Capital. Now the firm has been valued at close to Rs 1,000 crore. In 1990, Ganesh set up his first venture, IT&T, with five partners from HCL, where he used to work. That company specialized in maintaining and integrating computer systems. It went public in 2000 and parts of it were then sold to iGate. In 2000, Ganesh and Meena floated BPO firm CustomerAsset. Two years later, it was sold to ICICI for around $20 million. Ganesh also backed startup KPO firm Marketics, which was sold to WNS for $65 million in 2007. He has worked with HCL, Wipro British Telecom, a VSAT company that became Bharti British Telecom. Meena has worked with NIIT and Microsoft and as CEO of Tesco India. Ganesh spoke to TOI after the Pearson deal. Excerpts:

Now that your company has a single majority owner, will you exit this business soon?
This is only the end of our first innings. It is just the halfway point and we are resetting the clock at this point to take TutorVista to a $1 billion company from $213 million now in the next five years. We still own 20% in the company and Pearson will have 76%. Our exit will happen after we reach the $1 billion milestone.

What was the level of business clarity you had when you floated TutorVista?
Five years ago, it was only a paper plan. We were getting into a business which had noparallel or existing model. So the risk was high. Level of clarity was quite low. We were pragmatic. We took an incubation facility at IIIT-B at Electronics City in Bangalore because we were not sure of paying up the 10-month rental advance etc. Neither did we want to make investments in furniture and fixtures.

What were the challenges you faced?
The biggest hurdle was related to handling “remote” issues. Remote students, remote market, handling remote tutors between remote locations, and the general remote nature of the business. But in the first 18 to 24 months, we could see the model working. We hit our firstmillion dollars in 2007. We saw us actually becoming the biggest B2C Indian company in the education space serving the US market, without even employing a single person in the customer market.

How happy are your investors now?
In December 2006, we got another $3 million from Sequoia; Lightspeed Venture Partners gave us $7 million while another $750,000 came from Silicon Valley Bank. Since then, our valuation, branding and reach have gone up significantly and all our investors including Manipal Education are happy. Now Pearson is going to give us further branding, positioning, resources and a global platform.

K Ganesh & wife Meena