.... the brain is not a vessel to be filled,
It is something to be IGNITED

BURNING BRAIN NEWSLETTER - October 2005

BURNING BRAIN
Newsletter 10, Volume - II
October 2005

Ignoring 3/4^th populace

Did you read today's newspaper? What all news did it cover? What's the focus of today's editorial and features? If you do not recollect offhand, please reopen your newspaper and just do a birds-eye scan.

India is a country of over one billion people; out of this around 740 million live in rural areas. We are the largest democracy in the world (because of our population) and every five years just 40 percent of these people living in rural India are actually instrumental in formation of a new government.

But quite strangely, this near seventy five percent population does not even have five percent space/time (in any media, electronic or print across the country) devoted to their problems, aspirations, dreams, activities and events. Even in extreme natural calamities or tragedies they are the last ones to be reached.

Every day there are news about the accident on the highway, the increasing stray cattle's in the city, the page 3 parties, the statements and promises of politicians from the State's capital, the events, activities and scandals in the city and other such items which have no actual news worthiness. The extra pages on Sunday carry a few articles about the flavours of wines, the wonderful party in a posh 5 star hotel, interview with some famous NRI's, gossip columns on film stars, the new soap opera's, the idiot box chats, the astrological columns and so on. It appears that we, the people living in cities, have become narcissist to the extend that we now sincerely believe that India and the world consists only of us and assume that its we who are driving it?

Where is the real populace which is living an unpretending life and actually driving our nation? Nowhere to be seen.

Lets assess, what do our movies present now-a-days? Are we presenting the real world through our movies and media? Even if this is not the real world, is this the direction we are aspiring to go?

Our movies now show the film heroes as the super rich boy/girl who wears the most stylish clothes, drive the latest bikes and cars, visit exotic places, romance in college, smokes drink and party. This is true for 9 out of 10 movies made in the recent years. None of the movies are now made on rural background or with any other alternate approach. Why? All out television serials carry the same approach.

Even if we forget about the countryside for some time, do you recollect reading/watching about the real heroes, the scientists and their new inventions, the social engineers, the meaningful writers and innovators, etc? The real heroes do not even have one percent of space devoted to them compared to the reel heroes. We are living in fantasies and worshiping the false heroes and their images. The pictures pasted on the walls in any college hostel will tell the story. The attires, style and mannerism of today's youngsters will reveal the remaining part of the story.

Is this the true reflection of our society or are we being misguided by a super club of less than 5000 people into believing something which is not true, far away from the reality and 180 degree from the path our common sense tells us to tread? Are we being cheated every morning in the name of providing us the truth? Are we adopting someone else's standards without even having the time to think about it? Are we being driven on someone else's agenda and our thought process crippled and conditioned over the years for this?

Are some people providing us a wrong direction, just because it will help them to grow more affluent, powerful and acquire things they consider as important? I don't know the answer. Do you?

Yours
Hemant Goswami
Chairperson,
Burning Brain Society

Continued Project;

Burning Brain Society is conducting a research study to understand the role of movies in promotion of tobacco products. for this we are also evaluating the use of tobacco products in movies. We are in need of volunteers who can watch the recent movies and provide us with some basic but accurate information. You can volunteer in a project to understand the role of movies in promoting tobacco. You can provide us with information on any number of movies you or your group can comfortably watch.

All volunteers participating in the project are requested to fill the form with care and accuracy. Please do not forget to write a brief summary of about 200 word about the smoking situations and tobacco use in movie in the last part of the form. It is very important.

The research report shall mention the name and contribution of each and every volunteer who participated in the project and provided accurate information. All those volunteers working dedicatedly on the project for sufficient duration shall also be provided with appreciation certificates.

Click here for the form for providing the details about the movie you researched

http://burningbrain.org/researchmovies.htm

Make a Difference - Participate

You can help a great deal by filling the survey form to understand the influence of movies on the behavior. Your 5 minutes can make all the difference in understanding the tobacco problem in a better way and also contribute in the handling of tobacco issue and making policies in future. All the information you provide shall be kept confidential (until you opt to speak openly) and at no stage your identity shall be revealed. In fact you have the option of not filling the name and the details column but if you fill up that section you shall be eligible for one of the over 200 surprise gifts which we shall be distributing to the winning respondents. The data collection for this survey is closing in Oct. 2005.

This survey form is available at

http://www.burningbrain.org/survey.htm

Download the updated e-book:

The e-book "The Tobacco Menace has been updated to incorporate the deferment of the new rules. The Burning Brain e-book contains;

ACTIVITY REPORT:

Burning Brain Society's annual activity event concludes

 CHANDIGARH: Oct. 8, 2005: It was a fun filled atmosphere for the youngster at the annual Burning Brain Society’s activity day. The Chandigarh museum gave a festive look with the presence of over 1700 students from 51 different schools. A free tour of the museum and the movie on dinosaurs for the youngsters added to the fun.

For Most of the students it was their first visit to the museum. Surprise and astonishment could be seen on the faces of many youngsters watching the rich cultural heritage hitherto unknown to them.

The annual Burning Brain painting competition saw winners from schools of the tri-city. Mr. Hemant Goswami, chairperson of the Burning Brain Society informed that the criteria of judgement included originality, technique of the work, relevance to the theme and depiction.

The format of the result was also changed and instead of the usual classification of first, second or third, the new format has the best paintings mentioned as outstanding and commendable. The works by the students were judged by Mr. Aditya Prakash and Mr. Bhim Malhotra. The following students won prizes in five different groups;

 Group A:
Outstanding:  Seerat Sidhu of Ryan International, Chetas Malhotra of Air Force School, Parul of Satluj Public School, Sidhant of of Harkrishan Public School
Commendable: Sana Naaz of Air Force School, Pooja Kumari of Air Force School, Harnoor Kaur of AKSIPS, Rohit of St. Thomas School, Raghav Modgil of Apal Jay School, Kiran Preet Kaur of AKSIPS 41

 Group B:
Outstanding: Vivashwan of Satluj Public School, Saurav of Sri Harkrishan School, Rajpal Kaur of Sri Harkrishan School, Prem of Vatika, Yashika Gupta of Mount Carmel, Rajwant Kaur of Harkrishan Public, Harpreet Kaur of Harkrishan Public School.
Commendable: Himanshu Beri of AKSIPS, Preeti Maji of St. Xaveer, Harjit of Harkrishan Public School

Group C:
Outstanding:  Suman Rani of Vatika, Shamanjeet Singh of New Public School, Sumit Kumar of Govt. High Scool, Sarangpur, Rajan Chaudhary of Bal Niketan, Lovepreet Kaur of Shri Harkrishan Public School
Commendable: Sukhdeep Kaur of Guru Ram Dass School, Shivani of Vatika, Tanika Kumar of Mount Carmel, Srishty Chaudhri of Bhavan Vidyalaya, Mainak Pal of Mount Carmel

 Group D:
Outstanding:  Ashish Chand of Food Craft Institute, Abhishek Bohat of Mount Carmel School, Deepak Dhiman of Vatika,
Commendable: Sharandeep Singh from FCI

 Group E:
Outstanding:  Ritu Beri of GCFA, Sec 10
Commendable: Sonia Sahni of Sri Dhanwantry College, Varinder Kumar of GGDSD College

The prize distribution shall be held in November 2005 and all the winners shall be intimated through their institution.

Media Partner:

CALL FOR SUPPORT:

Support Burning Brain

Friends,

You can support us in a number of ways. You can join the crusade, provide financial resources, contribute in cash or kind, donate resources, volunteer and be a contributing person.

You can send your payments/drafts/cheques and other contributions in favour of Burning Brain Society, payable at Chandigarh and addressed to:

Burning Brain Society
Glass Office 3, Business Arcade, Shivalikview, Sector 17-E, Chandigarh 160 017 INDIA

You can also make transfers to BBS bank account (with an intimation at the above mentioned address), our bank details are;

Bank:
State Bank of India, Main Branch, Sector 17, Chandigarh 160 017

Bank Account Number:
01100141658

If you are keen to know how the funds are being utilized, we shall be more than happy to share our account details with you. We believe in 100% transparency.

Regards
H.G.

Campaigns and initiatives:

September 17, 2005

"We care for you" cards released by BBS

Burning Brain Society (BBS) today released a set of greeting cards for tobacco users. The cards are called “We care for you” cards and are intended to be used by near and dear ones of tobacco users requesting them to quit tobacco. The cards have been released in three designs and use the pictures of prize winning posters made by youngsters. While one of the card show a Yamdoot lighting a cigarette stick for a person and holding an invitation to Yamlok in his hand, another card shows the reduced life span proportional to the length of the burnt cigarette.

These donor cards shall be available through the volunteers of the society or through ebay.in online shopping portal.

Mr. Hemant Goswami, chairperson of BBS while releasing the cards said that these cards are expected to be very helpful in asking people we care about to quit tobacco. Since at any time, over 70 percent of tobacco users want to quit so if these people are persistently asked to quit tobacco and provided with a support system, at least half of them are likely to quit. A pressure created by a person close to a tobacco user can produce encouraging results.

The negative role of the state governments and Chandigarh administration was also highlighted by the executive members of BBS. It was revealed that though the Chandigarh administration and the Punjab government had notified the anti smoking act but still they had not booked a single person under the act. The Haryana government is a step ahead in its disregard as it has not even notified the officials to act under the Cigarette and other tobacco products act 2003 informed Hemant. He further said that the civil society organizations can just create awareness and provide support to the government but they can not do the duty of the government. The law does not permit the administrative officials to choose between enforcing a law or not, they are duty bound to enforce all the provisions; the officials who are not following the letter of the law are committing an offence of deliberately omitting to perform their duty and this is a criminal offence under the IPC for which BBS shall shortly approach the lawful authorities, Mr. Goswami said.
 

These are donor cards. 3 packs of 10 cards each (30 cards) are available for Rs. 300/- (Plus courier charges of Rs. 50/-). Please send your request for the cards to the below mentioned address with a demand draft in the name of "Burning Brain Society" payable at Chandigarh.

If not a member JOIN NOW
Link at http://www.burningbrain.org/joinBBS.htm
 

[Home] [Previous Page]