It's not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or when the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worth cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at the worst if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat. Theodore Roosevelt

Why worry

It’s been quite long that I have been associated with YATN, and the frequent questions I face are- “Why do you do whatever you do? And how do you know you are benefiting them?” I have some answers for the second question, but here, I’d really like to talk about the first one! That’s because I found new answers while discussing with friends.

When people asked me earlier, I used to tell them that I don’t know why ‘they’ should get involved with such issues, but the reason I get involved is subjective and personal. I don’t feel I am doing any kind of service for the society. I do it because the people living there are my friends. I know them personally and quite well. I know their problems and can relate to it. I meet them more frequently than I meet my parents! And so, whatever I do, I do for my friends. Won’t you do just anything if you find your friends in need? I agree our relationship might not really be balanced. But so what? We can still be friends. And no doubt, I have learnt a lot from them over the years.

It so happened that we were pondering upon this very point – Is this kind of work anyone’s responsibility. And here are some new viewpoints. Let me start with a story.

Once in a village, there was a severe drought. There were no crops and the even the cattle had started dying of hunger. So the villagers contacted the old wise man and asked him for a solution. He pondered and said, “This very night, everyone shall leave their houses with a glass of milk and pour it in the well. Indra Dev will be happy to accept your offerings and mighty rains shall follow.” Young and clever Ramu thought, “So what if I pour a glass of water instead? Who will know among thousands of men?” And so he offered a simple glass of water. The next morning while everyone waited for the grace of Indra Dev, the old wise man reappeared. Everyone was baffled how he could be wrong. After some discussions, they decided to go to the well, just to find that it was full of water. No one had offered milk.

This story that amma (I call my mom ‘amma’) told me is one of the cornerstones of my life. And what amma wanted to teach me is simple. Whenever there is a problem around you, know that it is not someone’s responsibility- it is everyone’s responsibility.

I agree we all have priorities and there are so many issues like corruption (which is the hot topic nowadays) that are there. A single man cannot get involved with everything. That way, he would end up doing nothing. I totally take it. All I ask you is to contribute in your own small way. And that small way shall come only when you don’t slate yourself off from these responsibilities. If we want a better society, we need to be sensitive and vigilant. And it starts with your neighbourhood. There are as many laboureres in IISER Mohali as many there are students. And after all, these workers are the ones who put together our buildings and give us various services.

I feel that we unconsciously tend to alienate ‘these’ people. For instance, have you ever asked the name of the sweeper you see every day? Leave that, do you ever even smile to acknowledge their presence?

People also ask me “I want to join YATN. How can I join YATN?” and I invariably answer “There’s no way!” I’m sure my response baffles them, but I am glad to do so. I am confidently able to go ahead with these activities, radical at times; because I know my friends are there to save my back. And if they see what I see and if they feel as I feel, they will take a step forward and walk beside us.

Mail to the Director can be drafted now

As told to Irfana and Danish on 31 May'2011
We went to the colonies on employer basis and asked 3-4 workers including ladies. There are 3 construction companies related with building construction operating in our campus.
Asked about	Kalsi Brothers	Kohli Brothers	Gautam
Number of people(roughly)	100-120	150	100-150
Identity cards provided by the company	No
First Aid	on time
Drinking Water	satisfactory, good
Urinals	About to make urinals	No proper urinals
Working Hours	8
Workig Days	As per workers' will
Over time wages	rate = normal working rate
Safety Measures	Taken care on time by authorized people, taken to hospital if required
Children's care/creches	Children are prevented from the sites by authorized people, no creche	Children are not prevented from getting into the sites, no creche
Any people working with visual or hearing imapairment	Probably one man has hearing problem	No
Worker below 18 years of age	No
Areas	Guest House	Academic Block and Lecture Hall complex	Faculty House
Awareness about Punjab Building and Construction Workers Welfare Board or any other related office	No, but they get their wages on time and are satisfied with the company		Aware about some labour office but they get their wages on time and are satisfied with the company

Highlighted points can be compared with the following laws:

13. IDENTITY CARDS. -

(1) The Board shall give to every beneficiary an identity card with his photograph duly affixed thereon and with enough space for entering the details of the building or other construction work done by him.

(2) Every employer shall enter in the identity card the details of the building or other construction work done by the beneficiary and authenticate the same and return it to the beneficiary.

(3) A beneficiary who has been issued an identity card under this Act shall produce the same whenever demanded by any officer of Government or the Board, any inspector or any other authority for inspection.

16. CONTRIBUTION OF BUILDING WORKERS. -

(1) A building worker who has been registered as a beneficiary under this Act shall, until he attains the age of sixty years, contribute to the Fund at such rate per mensem, as may be specified by the State Government, by notification in the Official Gazette and different rates of contribution may be specified for different classes of building workers :

Provided that the Board may, if specified that a beneficiary is unable to pay his contribution due to any financial hardship, waive the payment of contribution for a period not exceeding three months at a time.

(2) A beneficiary may authorise his employer to deduct his contribution from his monthly wages and to remit the same, within fifteen days from such deduction, to the Board.

"In respect of this, the workers reported that the company does not take any money from them."

29. WAGES FOR OVERTIME WORK. -

(1) Where any building worker is required to work on any day in excess of the number of hours constituting a normal working day, he shall be entitled to wages at the rate of twice his ordinary rate of wages.

(2) For the purpose of this section, "ordinary rate of wages" means the basic wages plus such allowances as the worker is for the time being entitled to but does not include any bonus.

18. CONSTITUTION OF STATE WELFARE BOARDS. -

(1) Every State Government shall, with effect from such date as it may, by notification, appoint, constitute a Board to be known as the ... (name of the State) Building and other Construction Workers' Welfare Board to exercise the powers conferred on, and perform the functions assigned to it, under this Act.

(2) The Board shall be a body corporate by the name aforesaid, having perpetual succession and a common seal and shall by the said name sue and be sued.

(3) The Board shall consist of a Chairperson, a person to be nominated by the Central Government and such number of other members, not exceeding fifteen, as may be appointed to it by the State Government :

Provided that the Board shall include an equal number of members representing the State Government, the employers and the building workers and that at least one member of the Board shall be a woman.

(4) The terms and conditions of appointment and the salaries and other allowances payable to the chairperson and the other members of the Board, and the manner of filling of casual vacancies of the members if the Board, shall be such as may be prescribed.

22. FUNCTIONS OF THE BOARDS. - -

(1) The Board may-

(a) provide immediate assistance to a beneficiary in case of accident;

(b) make payment of pension to the beneficiaries who have completed the age of sixty years;

(c) sanction loans and advances to a beneficiary for construction of a house not exceeding such amount and on such terms and conditions as may be prescribed;

(d) pay such amount in connection with premia for Group Insurance Scheme of the beneficiaries as it may be deem fit;

(e) give such financial assistance for the education of children of the beneficiaries as may be prescribed;

(f) meet such medical expenses for treatment of major ailments of a beneficiary or, such dependent, as may be prescribed;

(g) make payment of maternity benefit to the female beneficiaries; and

(h) make provision and improvement of such other welfare measures and facilities as may be prescribed.

(2) The Board may grant loan or subsidy to a local authority or an employer in aid of any scheme approved by the State Government for the purpose connected with the welfare of building workers in any establishment.

(3) The Board may pay annually grants-in-aid to a local authority or to an employer who provides to the satisfaction of the Board welfare measures and facilities of the standard specified by the Board for the benefit of the building workers and the members of the family, so, however, that the amount payable as grants-in-aid to any local authority or employer shall not exceed-

(a) the amount spent in providing welfare measures and facilities as determined by the State Government or any person specified by it in this behalf, or

(b) such amount as may be prescribed, whichever is less :

Provided that no grants-in-aid shall be payable in respect of any such welfare measures and facilities where the amount spent thereon determined as aforesaid is less than the amount prescribed in this behalf.

Laws for labourers

Hi everyone......

following is the link to the

Building and Other Construction Workers' (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1996

http://www.vakilno1.com/bareacts/building&otherCon.act/buildingotherConact.htm

......let's go through it and discuss what we can do about it in our campus.

And if anyone have contacts with law students or can find out similar NGOs which can give pace to our tasks then it would be very helpful.

The next episode: Evening School

My last post was dated April 13th. I'm writing after so many days because of two reasons- first, the semester end was approaching and I had a lot of lag to cover up, and second- because someone told me that this had started looking like "my blog" rather than "YATN blog". So I thought it would be nice to give writing a break. Though I had been requesting my colleagues to write something, but probably they are not particularly fond of writing- so here I am again!

The next big thing that we were to do was to start a large scale active involvement of the IISER community. For this, we started an "Evening School". Though the ideas had started to crystallize in the winter break itself, the final execution of the activity could not be until February. All the new members together with the old ones sat down and drafted a scheme for the school- we had finished that in 3 days, by 15th February.

The main idea behind the school was to prepare the older kids for Sikhya and to interact with and teach the littler ones. We had documented nearly 80 kids in the last few days and now, the task was to divide them into classes. The school timings were decided to be from 6pm to 7:30pm. But before that, we had to decide how the activity was to be organized. We divided ourselves into four groups- 1) Organizing, 2) Teaching, 3)RAW and 4)Fun Activities. RAW is Research and Analysis Wing (and it is obviously not inspired by the RAW that operates in India. We call it so because the name is fancy!). We initially made ten teaching groups (two more were added subsequently) and divided the labour kids according to their age and knowledge. Each group was assigned to two students in the Teaching group. The classes for each group were to be held on alternate days. The RAW was responsible for framing the course structure in collaboration with the teachers. The organizers were supposed to make resources available for the evening school. Besides, there were "Shuttlers" who would go to different areas to fetch the kids, keep a record of who was coming, and then assure that the kids went back home safely. The Shuttlers were mainly the organizers, along with some teachers. The fun activity people were given the job to hold some hands-on and fun activities for the kids on the weekends. And thus, we started the first evening school in IISER Mohali.

postcards

There are still millions who only dream of school.YATN is helping some of
them.You all are familiar with YATN and its objectives. Join your hand
with us ,with the innocent children so that their dreams remain no longer
dreams.
We are trying to raise funds by selling postcards which uses iiser mohali
...labor kids drawings & paintings.Today was the 1st day of cards selling but
we saw not much response.Come forward and help us!

last date of selling cards:23 apr.,saturday
venue :canteen area

note: you can buy cards and pay as per your pleasure(minimum price per
cars-20 INR)try to buy as much as you can.

...Abhishek
YATN member