I Speak my mind

     A report on infant mortality in the latest issue of “Down to Earth” magazine was a revelation to me in all sense. They have reported the worst in infant mortality rate (IMR) is a district in UP named “Shravasti”. They have reported it is the worst place to be born in entire India, where every 103 infants out of 1000 dies. They claimed that such a degradation is not lonely because of low female education but the lack of infrastructure and its geography plays an equal part. There are many districts in rural UP where, the denial and refusal of doctor’s doing their duty doesn’t affected much, thanks to the mid-wives and health centers. The report outlines the condition of health centers where babies are born, they say some uses high watt incandescent bulbs as incubators. There are many near by districts which were managed to lower IMR considerably without the help of Hospitals and Doctors. Doctors refuse to work in such rural areas where there is no basic infras...

Year was 1970, a young woman from a far away land, set foot on India, inspired by her soldier great grandfather’s diary of 1857. She was then working in the film field and had worked with many renowned directors. That was her first visit to the blessed land of “Bharat”. Then again in 1972 she returned to India, but this time to “Kerala”, the god’s own country. That was the beginning of a hard core relationship between a state and an angel, who fell in love with the culture of Kerala. She is Smt. Pepita Seth, born and brought up in England. In honour of her contributions to the state of Kerala, she was awarded with “Padma Shri”. She never had a proper educational background, as she put it “In my family education was only for boys not for girls”. She devoured books at young age. By 2000, she forever left her home-land for the love of India and Kerala’s art forms, but till 2000 her life was kind of in-between India and England . With her previous experience with cameras, (in 1994...