I'm soggy and drippy,
drenchy and mulchy,
I've been sneezing with wheezing,
just for one late night's dining!

I've got to learn a big lesson today. One should start believing in the meteorology department. If you are anything like me, and think of them as buffoons running a total Farce, then you're in for shit, deep shit, like I was today, just a few minutes back!

YOU HAVE GOT TO START BELIEVING THOSE CLOWNS IN THE METEOROLOGY DEPARTMENT!

Had some doubts and views (not so brilliant, but hey, cut me some slack) during my Human Development class today.......






1. Why are all the countries striving to increase the life-expectancy of their populations?
Isn't there supposed to be a population explosion?


2. Who said that the world is biased towards men?
I see that the female life expectancy beats its counterpart's for any given age of a person! Isn't death considered the most intriguing awe-inspiring nerve-wracking and fear inducing of all the events in life?

Version 1:

But first can you sing me a lullaby,
or else, do sprinkle the sleeping dust,
Oh please! do the thing you do best,
That magic of urs whatever it might be......

Version 2:

But first sing me a lullaby,
sprinkle the sleeping dust,
Oh please! do the thing you do the best,
That magic of yours, whatever it might be!

Cheers! This happens to be my first personal post on this blog that I created for this sole purpose. I have to thank Prashant of Tatsat, though, for because of him, did I start blogging after quite a while, again.

Now, the clock shows 3:38 AM and there is not even an ounce of sleep lurking in any corner of my head! Damn the Nestle company. They make such good Iced tea, gulped too much of it, and it's kicking in. So, what do I do? Start blogging!

Do tell me, which version sounds better?

A Socially conscious shop has been defined as one that sells sustainable, eco-friendly, recycled products. Being a socially conscious shop also means supporting the community, local artists, NGOs and Fair Trade Organisations.

With a focus on triple bottom line, Tatsat a retail store in Hauz Khas works as a bridge between marginalized producers and markets. Established as ‘Shop with a cause’ in Delhi, it offers most of the products sourced from either NGOs or fair trade organizations or green producers. Tatsat offers numerous alternatives to sweatshop production in pottery (glass, stone and ceramic), stationary (paper pulp, recycled paper, elephant poo), jewellery (glass beads, metallic, paper, wooden), and other miscellaneous products for office/ home use (banana fibre, jute, cloth) and handloom fabrics.

By procuring these products from NGOs, self-help groups, fair trade organisations and socially conscious companies, Tatsat offers customers an alternative to sweatshop production bringing them closer to nature and rural artisans. Every purchase you make improves the lives of poor artisans. Here is a list of the various suppliers of Tatsat: 

CFM - Community Friendly Movement. As a supply chain manager for many artisan communities CFM provides a one stop shop for retailers and wholesalers who are looking to source quality handmade products from India. They provide handmade jewelry and bags.  

AADI - Located at Hauz Khas, AADI works with disabled people. They provide handmade paper products.  

Prerana - Prerana is a brand of handicrafts and lifestyle products promoted by ESAF, a registered charitable society working to mainstream the marginalized people through micro-finance and enterprise development. They provide coir and banana fibre products. 

Himjoli - A Kumaon based NGO. Provides skin care products and other traditional products like terracotta diyas, terracotta trays. 

Mura - A collective that provides Shibori fabric, sarees, salwar kameez fabric duppattas and other textiles.  

Two Eco-friendly Companies:  

Haathi Chaap! - Provides Environment-friendly, organic and safe paper made from elephant poo. 

Green Somethings - Provides Plants and hand-made soaps. 

Here is a small video that gives you a walk-through of some of the jewelry that they have put up in their shop: .

Jewelry at Tatsat from Muralidhar Duvvuri on Vimeo.

If you have any interest or queries, please address you mails to tatsat297@gmail.com

IMPORTANT **This post has been written by me for the Weblog, "Tatsat - People, Planet and Profits" in my capacity as a contributor to that weblog. This is just a reproduction. If you liked this post, then please visit http://tatsat297.wordpress.com/ and go through the whole blog.**

I came across this piece of reading in a Community Friendly Movement website.

Commercial supply chain dynamics do not by themselves address the challenges of third world employment and quality of life issues. However, it is apparent that global trade, essentially in the worldwide industries can either exploit for unilateral gain, or collaborate to "share gain" for overall development of work force.

Corporate Social Responsibility has become a major issue these days for the many major MNCs, who have been establishing in-house fund-managers and PR managers to mange their Brand Image both in the developing countries where they have their back-ends of their supply chains and also at the destination countries for their goods/services. . . . But then, such an arrangement which is dictated by the market forces cannot always be totally reliable. This is where the Government and the Community can get involved. Since last year a new debate had been cause for lots of firewood being burnt over various intellectuals meeting and discussing about the extent of involvement that the government should be undertaking in both the developmental activities as well as maintaing the economy from falling of a cliff. How much should a Government interfere, and at which segments of its peoples life can it interfere?? . I found this in a recent Swaminomics article, "Cash transfers better than drought relief works"

I became a journalist in 1965, when two successive droughts killed thousands and forced India to beg for US food aid. India's share of global food aid was so large then that a best-selling book claimed that India was unviable and should be left to starve, conserving food aid for viable countries.

A lot has changed since then, we're still being affected by droughts and as has been discussed in the above-mentioned article, the major difference since then till now is that, India has far less percentage of people who are starving. This is because of schemes like NREGS which provided the people in the drought affected regions some much needed purchasing power, this in-turn decreased the sufferings from mass-starvation, though probably not mass-hunger. Maharashtra was the first state to adopt this strategy and succeed. Government involvement in relief works has always proved very controversial, with the Prime Minister himself stating on one occasion that for every rupee that the government spends for the poor, they get the benefits of only 10 paise, the rest being eaten up by the mind-boggling numbered layers of middlemen. Even various Non-Governmental Organizations suffer from these middlemen, probably to different extents. This has been a major reason for the success of the NREGS(National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme) where apart from implementing various developmental programmes at the rural level, the purchasing power of the poeple is being increased and the choice is being left to the beneficiaries to utilize their earnings. The benefits can already be felt with various companies setting up shop in the semi-urban and rural areas and taking this segment of the population seriously as one of their major customer segments. Now this is Inclusive Development. The drought that is occuring this year might setback the pace of all these processes, but how the rural customer can overcome this time can determine how fast a domestic market can be nurtured and developed in India.

IMPORTANT **This post has been written by me for the Weblog, "Tatsat - People, Planet and Profits" in my capacity as a contributor to that weblog. This is just a reproduction. If you liked this post, then please visit http://tatsat297.wordpress.com/ and go through the whole blog.**