In 2001 Hindustan Unilever launched Project Shakti. It trains rural women, called Shakti ammas, in business and financial skills to help them start their own micro-enterprises. They become rural retailers of the company’s products. According to the company, more than 200,000 women are active in the program across 22 states.
Hindustan Unilever describes them as giving their communities “a trusted physical retail presence.”
In Uttar Pradesh, India’s campaign against polio relied on the Social Mobilization Network, known as SMNet. Its mobilizers were described as “deeply respected in the community.” Each one looked after 350 to 500 households. The network also engaged local religious leaders and community influencers.
In Uttar Pradesh, more than 59 percent of the cases of wild poliovirus had been among Muslim children.
In 2005 India’s National Rural Health Mission created the Accredited Social Health Activist, or ASHA. The target was an “ASHA in every village.” The guidelines state that an “ASHA must be primarily a woman resident of the village.” She should also “be able to reach out to the community.”
By 2018 India had 939,978 ASHAs.
In the Bharatiya Janata Party’s election organization, a panna pramukh is the head of a page of the electoral roll. A page lists about 30 to 35 voters, usually five or six families who mostly live near each other.
Before the Gujarat election of 2022, ThePrint reported that the members of each page committee are the “primary contacts to reach all voters on our page.”
Bichauliya. The Rekhta dictionary translates it as mediator, arbitrator, go-between and middleman. Its Hindi definitions add a person who mediates to settle a deal, a person who steps in between to get something done, and a person who arranges a marriage or an engagement.
In 1985 the 52nd Amendment added the Tenth Schedule to the Constitution of India. Under it, a member of a legislature is disqualified if he “votes or abstains from voting in such House contrary to any direction issued by the political party” to which he belongs, without its prior permission.
The vote does not cost the member his seat if the party condones it within fifteen days.
In Premchand’s story Bade Bhai Sahab, Elder Brother, the narrator’s brother is five years older. He stays in the same class year after year. The younger brother gets good marks in his exams. The elder brother keeps lecturing him all the same.
Samajh kitabein padhne se nahin aati, duniya dekhne se aati hai. Understanding does not come from reading books. It comes from seeing the world.
The story is chapter 8 of Sparsh, the NCERT Hindi textbook for Class 10.
In “The Wit that Won Hearts,” a chapter of Poorvi, the NCERT English textbook for Class 8, King Krishnadevaraya takes offense when his queen yawns during his poetry. Tenali Rama brings special paddy seeds to court and turns the talk to the person who will plant them, and to yawning. The king yawns himself. Tenali Rama says: “Your Majesty, is there anyone in this world who does not yawn? It is as natural as breathing.”
In Karan Johar’s Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (2001), Yash Raichand, played by Amitabh Bachchan, disowns his adopted son Rahul, played by Shah Rukh Khan, for marrying Anjali, a young woman from Chandni Chowk. The father objects to the difference in class.
In the confrontation with Rahul, the father closes the matter: Keh diya na… bas keh diya! I have said it. That is all.
Tad viddhi pranipatena pariprashnena sevaya. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna tells Arjuna how to learn from a teacher. In the translation by Swami Mukundananda: “Learn the Truth by approaching a spiritual master. Inquire from him with reverence and render service unto him.” This is verse 4.34.