Happy New Year !

First of all, I must apologize for this long silence! My friends and well-wishers have been asking what has come off me.... Why haven't I updated my blog. Well, for two reasons I suspended my habit of writing the blog. One, the year 2010 was very hard.... and I found it difficult to say a Happy New Year ! And second, I needed a reason to be happy about.... And I found one. So, a Very Happy New Year 2011 to all my friends, benefactors, well-wishers in India, Germany, United States, Netherlands, Belgium and many other parts of the world !

I have a reason to be happy. In December 2010 I worked hard to start an SMS based early warning alert system for India that could be sent out in some of the regional languages as well. And we succeeded ! On 1 Jan 2011, I could inaugurate and test the system through unicode technology in five Indian languages (Hindi, Bangla, Nepali, Tamil and Telugu) other than English. The English services began on 1 July 2010.

The second success came by way of my support to some of the Self Help groups of women in parts of Uttar Dinajpur district, around Raiganj. Since these women's groups had been dropped from support by Social Welfare Insititute, the animators of these groups asked me several times to help them and guide them. And I am glad to announce that there are now about 80 women's groups who are a well-knit unit, and I am supporting them personally for the remuneration of some of the field staff, and with technical support from a friend's non-profit. The groups have registered themselves with a Trade License, so that their products can be sold in the open market. I am absolutely proud of the activities and work of lady animators like Mrs. Jayanthi Pramanik and Mrs. Anita Roy.

The third success is on the way.... But I am not going to tell that in this! Wait for the next blog.