Samanvaya News Room

A meeting of young scholars working in different areas of interest is being organized by Art of Living in Bangalore between 13-15 June, 2008. Ram has been invited to present his research work on understanding the historic links among the Indian Ocean communities.

Priya's learning binge continues... The last weekend she has been doing puppets and getting to narrate stories through them! She has some cute puppets that now adorn the Samanvaya reception!

When a renowned teacher, scientist and a deeply spiritual human being wants to give up his life for a cause, the nation should stop to take note of his concerns. Prof. G.D. Agarwal of IIT-Kanpur had announced a fast-unto-death to protest against the damming of the river Ganges in the Uttrakhand region. A blog has been set-up to highlight the issues he is protesting against and managed by Team Samanvaya and an on-line petition too has been set-up .

Priya has been on a learning binge recently picking up new skills in the process. One of her long term dreams came true recently when she attended a film making workshop in Bangalore, here is Priya behind the camera.

Our on-going revision of our website continues. Currently, the Work section in the website is getting revised with the Services section fully done and a new client list added. The partnership and initiatives pages are being re-done and as can be seen by the work-in-progress sign board at the bottom of both the pages, they will go through the process and we will finish the process soon. The Information section with the News Room, Help Section and Feedback is also fully done. The RSS help for both the news room and knowledge alerts are now available. The Learning and About Us sections are long overdue for revision. We know that some of the pages have been carrying 'will be up shortly' for too long, well, we will get around to doing that too in this round of revision we hope. Keep coming back to check up for the revised website. There is a vast amount of original material that is getting added to the Learning section as part of this revision. Ram

Samanvaya has initiated a Scoping Study on the 'Knowledge Dimensions of NREGA and Social Security Net' . Details on the background and study soon in our website. This study will be conducted with seed support from KICS . Other organizations too have shown interest in pursuing this study.

It was as shock to hear about the sudden and untimely demise of Mr. Davidson, the administrative office of CCD, Madurai on the early hours of Monday the 5th, May. Mr. Davidson was the communicator for CCD, writing all the mails that went from the central office, responding to queries and holding the post when many of the CCD core team members were out in their various projects. It was our pleasure to get to know this warm elderly gentleman who with his rich voice immediately put anyone who called for information to CCD at ease. A conservative Christian, Mr. Davidson had earlier worked for a few years in West Asian countries where practicing of any religion apart from Islam was banned. He along with a few more had been part of a under-ground church, regularly meeting for their prayers and service. On being caught and imprisoned, he preferred to return to India rather than suffer not practicing his faith in such a country. During those days he had even released religious albums in which

I met Gopal Singh Chauhan in SIDH Sanjeevani programme many years back. Recently met him again in the meeting at Sarah. He has expressed interest for a short term internship with Samanvaya during the months of June and July. He is currently pursuing a scholarship before embarking on a change programme in his native town of Bikaner in Rajasthan. - Ram

It's great to be back at the old Samanvaya office in Madhavaram, and working on the website like old times. Not to forget the endless cups of Coffee. It's Labour Day, so we labourers of Samanvaya are hard at work. Please do visit the output of our labour, and dont forget to leave your comments and thoughts.

Samanvaya website The Samanvaya website was completely rehauled with a new design and web features. However, it has been in Beta all these days. We are out of beta!! We welcome you to visit the new site, make use of the resources and references in our knowledge section, or if you prefer lighter reading, take a look at our team columns and anecdotes, or just browse through for new ideas and possibilities. And, dont forget to leave your comments for us through the feedback section.