Nagu in Florida, US

This is my second trip to Florida, US. We had a horrible experience when we visited US for the first time, Wilma the most powerfull hurricane in florida struck right on our place, We had to suffer the entire week because of that, No power, No Telephone, No Shops !!!.

In Contrast to the first time visit, We enjoyed fully during this trip with work, play, people and places. Even we conducted three cricket matches with our colleauges over there.

As I always liked I visited different places inside Florida. Even we attended Air and sea show by US ARMY (I had a call from US Army to join them :-)) ), Cultural festival by carribeans, etc..., Last but not least we got good friends which i like most. Altogether this trip was an unforgetable one.

SIFY ALAMBANA

I was working with Sify for 1 and half years, During this period i got to know about Sify Alambana (Alambana Means Support), a non-profit social organization run by spouses of Associates which focuses on older kids mostly drop outs from schools due to financial reasons. When i intracted with peoples of Alambana, i was able to identify there real motivation behind this noble action.

The Alambana philosophy is to improve the quality of life of the under privileged members of society by focusing on education, health and the environment. The special focus of Alambana is to facilitate the under privileged to move up the socio economic levels by meeting their aspirations using information technology.

Other than adopting an goverment school they also take three months course named Alambana Vidya on which they teach Personality Development, Computers , Spoken English and more, Which will cost much if taken outside, more than that they provide the transpotation and reading materials free of cost to these kids. The teachers are knowledged and more service oriented, hats off to their service.

At present they have successfully completed 16 batches comprising of 22 students each.There are many students who have got good jobs in many organisation after complition this course. Following is the Invitation for the Next Batch, If you know anybody who falls in this category, Inform me or contact Sify alambana directly, Lets support their noble cause atleast by passing on this message.

SIFY – ALAMBANA TRUST


ABSOLUTELY FREE

¯ BASIC COMPUTER COURSE
¯ SPOKEN ENGLISH
¯ PERSONALITY & CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT
CLASSES
¯ I – WAY & FORUM TRAINING
¯ BUS PASS, NOTE BOOKS & PENS ARE PROVIDED

*HURRY UP!!!!*

Applications are invited for the 17th Batch

· Course (9.00 a.m.- 4.00 p.m.) for 4 months, at Little Mount.
· Minimum Qualification - 10th (Pass / Fail).
· Age - 18 to 21.
· Monthly family income should be below Rs. 3500/-.
· Contact immediately - Phone No. 2235 4770 – Extn. 2144,
between 9.00 a.m. and 4 p.m.

Entrance Test & Interview:

· Entrance Test on Saturday, 27th of May 2006. (Bring your lunch)
· Test Timings 9.00am onwards.
· Selected students will be having their interview on June 3rd, 10.00am to 4p.m.
· Bring your original 10th or 12th mark sheets, Ration Card and your
Bio-data with full residential address.
· Venue: SIFY, PLA Complex, No. 35, Velachery Road, Little Mount,
Chennai- 15.

Visit to Ambedkar Foundation - A foundation for dalits

As I promised to Sherene (Dalit Activist) and Ebe (CRY Volunteer Co-Ordinator) on saturday 25th March 2006 I visited Ambedkar Foundation in Otteri, Chennai. It is a typical slum area, but they have build a Concrete building for this foundation. When I entered the building, ground floor had elderly peoples, I think it is a homage for elders, I had to go to First floor, to my dismay the stairs had no light and it was total dark !!!. Somehow I managed to reach the first floor, Sherene and her husband were waiting with the students.

I was the only one to be from CRY and ebe confirmed his presence after some time. Meanwhile shrene was complaining about an Anglo Indian whom they have appointed for teaching English to these people, who failed to come to clases regularly. She is paid 2000 rs/Month for just training classes an hour in the early morning (which is hard for a social organization like this). If they could find any one who can teach English near by, then that would be grateful for them.Sherene asked me to carry on after giving a small info on her visit to CRY last week. I was working with children's so far, this is the first time I am going to chat with youngster's.

My motto to be there to motivate the students such that they find no difficulty in learning English, which is the barrier for them now.There were around 12 students. All of them are dalit Law College students, born and brought up in different parts of tamil nadu.

I started by asking them to tell something about themselves in English.

Munnar, a lovely view from Hill top 

Enjoying beauty of nature in Munnar, India 

In my Office 

Dalit's - Are they Untouchables ?

March 19th 2006 is one of the unforgettable day's in my life.

In CRY (Child Rights and You) we had a volunteer meeting organized by Mr.Ebenezer (CRY Volunteer coordinator, Chennai), Around 20 persons attended the meeting. One among them was a Dalit Activist and member of organization named "Research and Action" dealing with "Situation of Dalits in Schools".

She is Sherene, she was accompanied by her husband who is also a dalit activist and two law college students. On first look, She is very black and wore T.shirt, Jean and had hair cut short. One can easily guess that she is an tough girl. She was born and brought up in Kerala, after marriage she came to chennai.

When Ebe asked her to speak about herself and her activities, she started with the birth of dalits. I will describe those as she said.

History of dalits starts with Aryans Invasion, then peoples were living in groups while men will go for work, women's will stay inside home. This is the period when Smuruthi and Sruthi defined. Smuruthi speaks about law and sruthi speaks about vedas. Smuruthi had Varnas and Avarnas. Avarnas is opposite of Varnas. i.e un-touchables and unseables.

According to Manu which comes under the above category says un-touchable should close their mouth when they speak to upper caste, So that their saliva is not spit on the upper caste peoples body. Un-touchable should carry broom tied up to their body so that whenever they leave the place of an upper class, they will clean the place and move and they should not study and also it says women's are sexual objects !!!.

When British invaded india, Dalit's started converting to Christianity just because a white man was touching him and speaks to him in a gentle manner. First fight for right's of Dalit Education was happened in trivangore in the same period.

Dalits - Mean's Oppressed or broken People. Recent happenings in chennai which was witnessed by Sherene are, dalits were forced to sit separately in Perambalur schools and a girl is punished by her teacher just because her hair touched the teacher body when she was standing near her.Still dalits are given separate glasses in perambalur tea shops.

There was one un-bearable incident when some dalits (who drum for funeral's) hesitated to participate in a funeral for not allowing to sit and eat with the upper class peoples, the upper class guys caught the wife’s of those hesitated to participate, un-dressed and made them walk throughout the village.

There are also incidents when upper class men’s asked the women’s of dalit community to sleep with them if they need water. These incidents made sherene to think why we are suppressed and what can we do to it. This thought was made in to action when an Dalit guy with amid opposition and threat won election and became M.L.A, He was threatened to withdraw the post which he refused and went to Police to lodge complaint for threat on his life, while returning from the police station he was brutally murdered, Shrene say she happened to see the body of that guy without head.

She decided to work with the dalits for which she was jailed for 6 months when she was pregnant. Her husband was also jailed for years, when they came out of jail they had no property left since all of them were spoiled by the so called upper class peoples, she says she used to sleep with her 6 month old baby in koyambedu market. Even during the jail period it seems the jailer beating on her stomach asked whether he can make her give birth to be baby there itself, how brutal.

She was not ready to give up the motto she was working, she started looking after the dalits in different angle, now they work with two groups of people Non-dalits and Dalits, to dalits they try to teach them so that they can match the levels of so called upper class peoples, instead of taking knife they try to make them stand up-right and look into someone eyes and say we are dalits and we are proud of it. She also says that instead of achieving something in quota try to achieve in merit. On the other hand they try to spread the message of equality between the non-dalits who are ready to accept, she says it is of no use to change and too don’t care those who are conservatives, if I can make some people think and get some support for my voice, it is success for me.

She also spoke about dalits women’s and girls. Moslty the school going girls are affected because of discrimination. She says she heard two male teachers talking, one asks the other to bring a particular girl and he will rape her, when the other said it will create problem, his response was that "Who will care for this Dalit Dog", ridiculous. Mostly gang rapes happen in dalit communities. She also witnessed Polls on which 110 peoples from 75Villages were beaten and hospitalized for voting !!!.

She is now working with the dalit Law College students, who study the subjects in Tamil and asked to debate in English in Courts. These guys because of shyness never make it to the court at all, she is trying to teach them English. She says you can easily identify a Dalit boy in a large group he will stand folding his hands and with his head down.

She says it is just because of the information they got, which said you people cannot improve , you people are born to serve somebody and it is also same information given to the upper class people who are in wrong perception. Now it is time to give them right information.

I have always loved to see a girl like her, with an aggression. Nothing can stop her. I wish best wishes for her and salute for her desires.

Hope i have given some information to you, so that next time when you could spread and bring some awareness among others, don't fall in argument with anybody, just convey them the message that's it. If you are willing to work with these guys on improving their skills do not forget to contact me, I will lead you to sherene and their team.


Just post you comments/views/grievances if any on this subject.

Applying for Permanent Account Number (PAN) in India

Last year when i applied for a PAN through online, It was new to most of my colleagues and mostly people were applying through some agents paying 300 - 600 rs which costed just the 65 rs for me.

Then i helped numerous people to get the PAN. Now i think this would be an apt place to write about how you could apply for a PAN through online.


There are namely two sites which are needed for you to apply for PAN

http://tin.nsdl.com

http://www.incometaxtn.gov.in

Step 1

http://tin.nsdl.com

This link is for applying new PAN, when you enter the link , you can see a box with "Online Services" where you can select "PAN Application" from the drop down.

Step 2

First Step will lead you to a page where you can select "Online Application for New PAN (Form 49A)".

Step 3
Step two will lead to a page where you can see instructions on how to fill the application form. At the bottom of the page there will be a box on which you can select "Individual".

Step 4
Now you are in Form 49A - PAN Application, Those fields marked with * are essentials. In the top right hand side you can see four boxes with * mark. "Area Code, AO Type, Range Code, AO Number" to fill these boxes, once again go to the first page (Step 1), you can see "Detailed Search" at the right hand side bottom. Select "PAN AO Code" from the drop down.


Step 5

Step 4 will open a new page, Click on the First letter of your City given at the bottom of the page (example click on C for Chennai). In the popup page click on the city name. This will once again lead to a new page, where you can see

Ward/Circle/Range/ Commissioner

Description

Area Code

AO Type

Range Code

AO Numbe

Now you have to know your Ward/Circle/Range/Commissioner to get exact Area Code
for go to the Second Link

http://www.incometaxtn.gov.in

(Note : If you can understand the Description, you can easily get the Area Code and other details , if so skip the Step 6)

Step 6

In this link click on the Menu "Locator" , Each click following will open a new page
Click on the "know you officer" on this page

Click on the distirct or city you belong to
(Example : Chennai City)

Click on the Category you belong to
(Example: Salary)

Click on the sector on which your company falls
(Example : Private Sector Employees)

Click on the income range you belong to
(Example : Income >= 2,00,000)

Click on the range in between your names first letter falls
(Example: First Alphabet of name - L - R).

Now you can see the "office" column and get the required information (Example: DCIT SALARY CIRCLE V CHENNAI).

Step 7

Use the details you gathered from Office column to locate the Area Code and other details in the page from Step 5. For Example for DCIT SALARY CIRCLE V CHENNAI it will be

CHE

C

275

1

Fill the same in the Application form.

Step 8

I Guess all other details you can fill in the form, last but not least use credit card rather than cash payment, since by paying through credit card you will get the Pan Number in 5 Days through mail. Once you finsihed with the details , you have to get the printed copy of the Acknowlegement generated at the end of this transaction, Paste a Photo and with the proof's you have mentioned in the form, send the same to Income tax department, mailing address is given in the acknowledgement itself, donot forget to mention your acknowlegement Number in the top of the Mailing Cover. Note down the Acknowledgement number, it will be used in future for tracking the status of the PAN.

I guess this information is more than enough for applying new PAN. If you think you can add some information please put some comments.

Happy Taxing

Munnar Trip - March 3 rd - 6th

This time, our team of college friends decided to spend some time outside chennai, after 6 years. Our last visit was to kodaikanal during college final year, unforgettable moments. Then we were students , Now we all are professionals. We wanted to revive those memories. The place decided was Munnar, beautifull hills of kerala.

Vasanth and Senthil organised the trip, out of 15 , 12 members were onboard.

Vasanth, Senthil, Balaji, Guna, Praveen, Prem, Sundar, Arun(Tamil), Sathish, Mani(Vasanth Friend), Nanda, Nagarajan(Myself).

Vasanth and senthil did had good plan for the trip. We boarded the train on 3rd, in the train itself we had a unforgetable event, Nanda was captured by an T.T.R. for smoking on platform . Angry, eventhough we enjoyed the moment with Nanda becomming the center of attraction. We had lots of things to speak, eventually we are spending time with our team after long period so we were chatting for long time and slept only few hours before we reached Dhindukkal.

We took a van from thier which was booked already as per plan. We stopped at Theni for breakfast and headed towards Munnar, Munnar hills had lots of pin point turns which made most of us uneasy, but only two of us succeded in geting their foods out as Vommit. Those two took the front seat, we named them Vommiting Brothers (If one stops other starts ). They never took the back seat in van until we returned from munnar .

God's own state has lots of things to offer, Munnar has mostly tea estates, you can see greenish tea plants all the side. Even those who does not know how to enjoy the beauty of nature will admire this place. Our camera never stopped clicking. (I have 291 Photos in my camera alone, we had 6 camera's altogether, Imagine!!!).Check out the photos of Munnar.

We reached the Restaurant las palms during mid day, we booked four rooms , three in each room, Maintenance was very good and too interior decorations by the mangement. It also had seperate room for games which had T.T(My new found favourite), CHESS and Carom. We did not wanted to waste the time and so planned to visit any near by place as soon as we complete the Lunch.

Language is not a barrier for us in Munnar, since most of the population knows Tamil.

Food, biggest problem for a tourist in Munnar. We found a hotel named "Saravan Bahavan" in Munnar and thought it might be a franchise of our own "Saravana Bhavan", Unfortunately the food they served was too bad and the service was too worst.

To get some more photos and our rap dance (indeed we are great dancer, esspecially Sathish) Visit http://www.balajiraghavan.com