Pankhudi Newsletter - Foundation Day Special

We are introducing to you someone who’s very close to all of the Pankhudians! You will then ask, where was she so far? Well….she was there in our minds in our actions ever since Pankhudi came into existence!!  So, let’s welcome her! Presenting you the very own of ours “Pankhudi Pari”!


As the name so is her fame!!

She is a Fairy… she knows magic…magic for smiles!! J She wears gown as red as pomegranate and had wings which are as bright as Sun rays!  Her heart is filled with love for everyone and children are her best friends. She gets sad if any kid is sad and she does all possible things to make everyone happy.

And yes…. because she is a Pari She’s been hiding so far yet blessing every children!!! 

She is knowledgeable, she tell stories of wisdom, she teaches children, she tells nice poems/rhymes, teaches songs and she dances too!!

She has come from the land where every child is healthy & given education and so, she wants that to spread it here too! She belongs to all… She knows the key of every lock and she helps kids!!

Pankhudi Foundation is very happy to have finalized on her appearance working on it for last 3 years. Pankhudi intends to make variety of use of ‘Pankhudi Pari’ mascot – in all children content, Teaching methods, stories, animation films & videos ..the list has no end.

Loads of appreciation to all members of Design Cell, Pankhudi Foundation: Ms. Rashmi Borole, Mr Madhukar, Mr. Amrit Vatsa, Mr. Yatin Sethi, Ms. Kavita, Mr. Preetam Emani,

Special Thanks to Mr. Shahzad Wakeel, Ms. Aditi Kulkarni and Mr. Surya Adavi for continuously improving it over the years.

“Gyan Kosh”, which means storehouse of knowledge, is a platform for co-creating, collating and co-sharing of all the knowledge related to education with a focus on the teaching and learning content. We at ~Pankhudi Foundation recognise that while a large number of institutions are engaged in developing the education related content across and outside the country, there does not exist one single platform where one can find this vast amount of knowledge.

With this in mind, ~Pankhudi envisages fostering ties with a number of organisations that are already involved in creating the education related content material.  In this way, it aims to bring together people for the development of Gyan Kosh for co-sharing of the material as well as the practices.

The knowledge bank on the Gyan Kosh will consist of the both “what to teach/learn” and “how to teach/learn”. There will be an equal focus on the methods of evaluation of learning outcomes, as the right evaluation leads to the right progress. All this will prove valuable if the users (i.e. teachers and students) not only make use of the available knowledge on Gyan Kosh, but also provide their feedback to make continuous improvement. In this way, Gyan Kosh will continuously evolve. An important feature of Gyankosh is the Teachers forum, where teachers can interact with each other to discuss their problems and share their best practises on a regular basis.

Gyan Kosh has been developed on Drupal, an open source Content Management System. With its focus on education of children, ~Pankhudi is looking at first developing the repository of knowledge related to School Education that will include content on life skills.

In a nutshell, it is a collaborative effort towards opening the world of knowledge to the whole world. For becoming a part of this effort, please write to content@pankhudifoundation.org

Pankhudi Foundation’s Social Sector Intelligence (SSI) is an initiative to address the interpretation of information and data which exist in social sector entities (within organizations, social networks, geographies) in the form of various projects and their outcomes, human/time/other-resource utilization.  The presentment and righteous interpretation of information, inherent within such systems, could lead to optimal decision-making and enhance the effectiveness of projects/tasks while improving the overall performance and insight.

For any analysis to be done, appropriately clean data sources should be in place with all possible degree of segmentations. Since, Time dimension has a crucial importance for almost analysis and decisioning; all data should be captured along with the time-stamps (time of data capture).

In a nutshell, prerequisites for SSI analytics within organizations are:

1. Adequate sources of reliable data capturing and security/authorization of data
2. Mechanism of Storage and Integration of data from various data sources

As a small demonstration of analysis and data-representations that could be carried out within social-sector organizations, Pankhudi’s PR & Resource Office, brings to you certain examples of commonly possible interpretations of data*(see reference):

New volunteer Joining Trend (in 2009):


New volunteers joining trend in 2009 has been quite interesting. Significant rise has been observed in abroad volunteers while metro cities continue almost equally to total new volunteers in Pankhudi Foundation.

Channels of Approach (new volunteers):


Word of mouth (Peer and friends) remains the most contributing means of awareness about Pankhudi. Web media contributes to almost 30% of new volunteers and has a significant potential to be explored.

Demographics Distributions:

1. Age:


Highest population (~70%) of Pankhudi’s volunteers come from the age group of 23-27 followed by 27-31 (19%). Appreciable rise in higher age group.

2. Occupation:


Higher population of Pankhudi’s volunteers are employed in different professions (see below).
~12% of volunteers are students (>18 years of age)

2.1 Occupation Splits:


This plots shows the occupation trend of self-volunteers. Majority of the volunteers are coming from IT sector background.. Students and people with analytics professions are next highest in volunteering.

Volunteering Hours Trend:

1. Hours Contribution (Month)


The plot in the left depicts the average hour-contribution of self-volunteers on a month’s timeline. Around 82% of self-volunteers contributes 1-4 hours in a month. Whereas 5-8 hours contributors are 10% of toatal and rest contributes to last 10%. 2-3% of volunteers spend more than 20+ volunteering hours in a month.

1.1 Hours contribution Vs. Months-Since-Joining (MSJ):


This interesting plot above shows the volunteering-hours trend of all volunteers who have matured to a certain MSJ (Months since joined). For example, MSJ=1 means all volunteers who have completed one month in volunteering into Pankhudi Projects. It shows that total number hours contributed in volunteering are highest for first 4 months and which gradually drops to least at MSJ=19. From here it starts picking up again. For a fixed control group of volunteers at any MSJ, the total number of hours available can roughly be predicted by:

y = 0.002x3 - 0.069x2 - 1.758x + 55.57      {x: MSJ }

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*On aggregate, Pankhudi volunteers with MSJ <10 contributes ~500 hours a month whereas MSJ>=10 puts in 340 hours in a month.  
*Data Reference: This interpretations presented here and the data used are internal to Pankhudi Foundation©
*Disclaimer: The representations and trends shown are for Pankhudi Foundation, this may or may not be hold consistent for other entities/organizations.

To all those who have invited me to write for ~Pankhudi, let me first extend my Heartiest Congratulations on the completion of four significant years since conception.

~Pankhudi that was more like an incomplete thought, an unspoken wish, an un-ventured journey, more of a desire and dream has slowly passed into reality. Started as an individual dream ~Pankhudi has drawn strength from the dreams of fellow dreamers and continued to grow as more and more dreamers joined in. It is this gang of dreamers that I wish to congratulate as ~Pankhudi becomes a reality.

While the completion of four eventful years’ marks the completion of many a dreams, the beginning of the fifth year will see these dreamers pipe up new dreams and explore the impossible. With dreamers being the way they are I am sure they have dreamt of much bigger things for ~Pankhudi and that as always these dreams area as always - full of energy, positivism, and creative vitality, raring to change the world around them. This I believe is the strength of ~Pankhudi. This ability to conjure dreams, this ability to believe that dreams can and will become reality is what initiates and subsequently drives action. A world without dreams would be a world without emotions, without passion and excitement; a world with no glitter, no jazz, and no rainbow; a dull and boring world that is caught in eternal gloom. The ability to dream to my mind is therefore of significant importance especially in an organization that is a harbinger of change.  With Pankhudi poised to make changes in the lives of underprivileged children it becomes imperative therefore that they dream, dream collectively and individually, dream freely, with complete abandon, with no restrain, BUT with the conviction that each dream CAN and WILL become reality. 

Nothing is ever more gratifying than to realize one’s dreams or to see it take shape as it becomes a reality. Thus, my only request to the torch bearers of ~Pankhudi as I wish them Good Luck for the future is to nurture their ability to dream, dream fresh and dream BIG for without the leap of imagination, and dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities.

Happy Dreaming!! Happy Realization!!

Sincere wishes that each of your dreams become a Reality,

Pankhudi Foundation has completed 4th year of service to the humanity in different geographies in India. I am sure it’s a very proud moment for all volunteers of this organization and I congratulate all of them for their untiring efforts to uplift the underprivileged children of our society through the means of Education and health.

Since Pankhudi is still in its formation stages, it requires an in-house capability buildup on legal knowledge for issues relevant to its target areas and of functional relevance as per the regulations of our country: Must-know areas for Pankhudi are: child laws, financial regulations, Income tax regulations (audits, 80G, FCRA certifications), trust & society regulations, employment laws (labour laws) to count a few.

Pankhudi foundation is doing immense service to the society through various sustained projects/activities that it has undertaken over these years.  Since Education is Pankhudi’s primary work area currently, I would like to tell you all some insightful regulation on compulsory education law (courtesy: The Administrator, Vol: XLI, July-September 1996, pp.17-29)

Compulsory Education Law
The issue of compulsory education has always been talked about. At the theoretical level, very few find fault with the concept that all children should receive education, at least up to the primary stage or with the fact that children should not work. In fact, the State has committed itself not only to universalization of primary education but also to the abolition of child labour through various pronouncements, no least of all the directive principles of State Policy, enshrined in the Constitution of India. This has been further strengthened by the fact that the Convention on the Rights of the Child based on the UN General Assembly resolution provides for a variety of rights to the child including the right to compulsory and free primary education. Ins spite of all this, the general attitude of the policy planners has been that the country cannot afford the distraction of a compulsory education norm. A number of reasons are given for this, but two major objections are worth noting. The first questions the role of the State in deterring the manner in which the children are to be educated. The second stresses the non-implementability or such legislation which would remain only on paper.

As far as the first objection is concerned, in a society where the State has always been playing a very large role in shaping the social behavior o the citizens through legislative means, it would be difficult to question the desirability of the state's intervention through legislation in this matter alone. When we talk about the Indian society today, we talk of a society which has seen legislation on issues ranging from a minimum age of marriage to protection of civil rights and abolition of untouchability. For the State to legislate on an issue concerning a child's right to development, therefore, would not be something out of the ordinary.

The second objection, however, merits a more detailed examination. It has been observed that in this country a large number of laws governing social issues have been passed which have never really been implemented. Although the legislation set out to achieve laudable social goals, the State has not been able to put them into effect. Any number of examples ranging from the SITA to BLSA are cited to illustrate this. A legislation to provide compulsory education, therefore, is most likely to meet  a similar fate. Further, it is argued, as previous experience with legislation governing compulsory education has shown, there is a greater likelihood of the act turning into an instrument of harassment of parents.

These arguments view the issue from one perspective only, viz. that of the State apparatus. A State apparatus whose understanding of the problem is flawed by its own limitations and to whom compulsory legislation not only implies a large enforcement machinery helplessly pursuing reluctant parents to ensure attendance in schools but also creation of, at heavy cost, infrastructural facilities which at today's levels of demands cannot be utilized. The facto of the matter, however is that, notwithstanding the claims of the government that more than 97% of the children have been provided access to schools, the established infrastructure cannot cater to the full requirement of even the demand that exists. This is because development of infrastructure has been a function of budgetary allocation rather than of demand. Once the logic of the harsh reality of child labour is accepted, low allocation to the primary education sector especially in the rural areas can always be rationalized as being a response to the low projected demand for schools.  Similarly, it is only when once accepts the absence of demand for education, legislation are an instrument for forcing unwilling parents to send their children to school. Thus, any assessment which assumes the reality of child labour, harsh or otherwise is bound to lead not only to low per capita investment in the sector but also to the view that compulsory education laws are unimplementable.

Legislation of this nature has for long played the role of compelling the State to take action. The Bonded Labour System Abolition Act, 1976 (BLSA), for instance, has proved to be an extremely powerful weapon for institutions such as non-government organization to deal with the problem of child bonded labour, in situation where the State has not been prepared to take action. Thus, even though existence of a legislation does not automatically imply that is objectives would be achieved, it creates an enabling provision whereby the State can be compelled to take action. At the very least such legislation are assertions of the desire of the state to promote an ideal and a progressive value system. More important, these legislation provide others working in the field with a legitimacy which otherwise would not exist. The importance of this aspect would be fully appreciated when on considers the number of occasions the state has been compelled to act through the use of the BLSA to release bonded children. Thus, while administrators and academicians may lament on their non-implementability the fact remains that legislations of this nature have the power to compel the State to act. A legislation to provide for compulsory education, therefore, would be of immense significance in situations where the State does respond to the requirements of the people. It has already been seen that the government response to the problem of illiteracy and child labor has been quite equivocal. On the other hand, experience in the field has shown that there exists an enormous unrecognized demand for formal education and that parents are willing to make sacrifices to utilize educational opportunities. As long as the existing infrastructure can meet the demand, there is no crisis but the fact is that more often than not the infrastructure is inadequate. Under the present circumstance, there is a absolutely no way by which the State can be compelled to provide these facilities. A situation thus exists where the same parents and children who have been written off as victims of the 'harsh reality' of socio-economic circumstances, are demanding educational facilities and the Sate is either unable or unwilling to respond. A legislation binding the State to provide compulsory education therefore is absolutely essential.

With these words, I wish all of you a pleasant and satisfying association with Pankhudi and all success in your goals as you enter 5th year of your service to society.

Why does the Indian state waver from making education a fundamental right?

The dismal state of affairs in the field of education in India has forced many concerned citizens to contribute towards resolving this crisis. Of late, a number of initiatives have proliferated in the field of education. ~Pankhudi is one such initiative that is determined to work with the underprivileged children. I extend my hearty congratulations on its successful completion of 4 year and wish them all the very best for their future endeavours to serve the cause.

The importance of working at the grassroots level, with the young minds, can never be overemphasized.

Yet, it is necessary to take a break, move one step out of the grove and take a look at the larger picture. We cannot afford to miss the woods for the trees. There are a number of issues at hand. It would not be possible to address all of them for lack of space. There is one urgent concern though to which I would like to draw the attention of the readers.

For more than fifty years after independence, education was not a fundamental right in India. The constitution was amended in 2002 to include right to education among the fundamental rights. The corresponding Bill (Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Bill) took seven more years to even appear on the table for a discussion. Sustained opposition to the Bill by the Planning Commission and other players in the pretext of financial constraints smacks of the elitist bias in bringing in the inexplicable delay. There were reports that the private schools’ lobby had pushed the bill to the backburner.  The bill had a provision of reserving fifty percent seats in all schools for the children from poor and marginalized families. This did not go well with the private schools. However, The Bill was finally introduced in the Rajya Sabha of Parliament in Nov’08 and yet to be introduced in the Lok Sabha.

The bill is important also for other provisions. It makes free and compulsory education for all children between age of 6 and 14, a responsibility of the state. There is a provision for school in every neighbourhood and makes a monitoring committee from the community mandatory. It also addresses the issue of child labour. It states- ‘no person shall employ or engage a child in a manner that renders her a working child.’

In India the key notion in child labour policy has been that of amelioration and not abolition. The key notion in education was based on providing incentives and not compulsion. The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act of 1986, the first act concerning child labour of Independent India, did not prohibit child labour. It only regulated the involvement of children in labour. Significantly, this Act of 1986 hardly differed from the colonial law of 1938 concerning the child labour.i

Many scholars have argued that a ban on child labour is essential for the realization of the goal of universal primary education.  However, the Indian elite have favoured neither a complete ban on child labour nor a compulsory and free primary education.  Education, they feel, does not train the children of poor to work.  It is also argued that children’s work is essential for the survival of the poor. However, Myron Weiner, a renowned scholar in the field of education policy, argues that these explanations do not hold against the historical and comparative evidence. Governments of all developed and many developing countries removed children from the labour force and required that they attend school. In many of these countries education became compulsory much before industrial revolution and when incidence of poverty was still very high.

To put in his words ‘the Indian position rests on deeply held beliefs that there is a division between people who work with their minds and rule, and people who work with their hands and are ruled.’ The present policy of/on education reinforces rather than break down this division.ii He also mentions that these views are not readily discernible in the official statements of the government. But a close scrutiny of the official documents and interactions with concerned authorities makes these views visible.  The lack of political will to make primary education free and compulsory can be explained in the context of this social reality which is unique to India.
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i Burra, Neeta. 2006. Born to work: child labour in India. In Born unfree: child labour, education and the state in India. OUP.
ii Weiner, Myron. 1991. The child and the state in India: child labour and education policy in comparative perspective. Delhi: OUP. pp. 5-6.

We at Lions Club have known ~Pankhudi as an NGO since last 2-3 years.  The goal of ~Pankhudi is a very noble one.  They are helping slum children to make them better citizens of tomorrow.

Lions Club have been conducting classes for slum children in Balwadi Center near Suman Nagar. Besides, we also have been treating patients at Medical Centre near Suman Nagar, Mumbai.

Three years back ~Pankhudi approached us to use our premises as they wanted to spread awareness amongst slum children and we allowed them to use our premises.

Through our interactions in last three years, I have personally known Shahzad, Aditi and Smriti. They are doing a very good work for upliftment of slum children. 

On behalf of Lions Club of Chembur (West), I wish the entire ~Pankhudi family good luck in their noble cause and wish them on successfully completing 4 years if their service to humanity.

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All contents belong to Pankhudi Foundation.
Permission for any kind of usage of any part of this Newletter should be duly obtained from pr@pankhudifoundation.org