News from the world of NGOs

This week, the volunteering exchange iVolunteer , felicitated young undergraduate students from across the country who participated in the 2007 iVolunteer India Fellow Program.

During their six-week vacation, 51 students lived and worked in some of the remotest areas in India and worked in partnership with 28 rural non-profit organisations.

The NGO says the programme, initiated in 2003, will benefit the students in their future professional careers as businesses become more aware of the potential of rural India.

Sikkim groups' SOS to PMO
The hunger strike in Gangtok by the activists of the NGOs Affected Citizens of Teesta (ACT), Concerned citizens of Sikkim and the Sangha of Dzongu crossed 42 days this week.

The government of Sikkim, however, seems unmoved. The strikers want the work on the proposed hydel projects in Sikkim and the Lepcha reserve of Dzonghu to be stopped.

Two of those on strike, Dawa Lepcha, the general secretary of ACT, and Tshering Gyatso Lepcha are in a critical condition. Now another NGO, the Delhi Forum, has extended support to the cause of the NGOs in Gangtok and has sent an appeal to to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Pratibha Patil.

Bashing the World Bank
An Independent People's tribunal on the World Bank Group (WBG) in India has been set up. The tribunal is a forum for those whose lives have felt the impact of activities funded by the WBG.

The tribunal will conduct an in-depth examination of the WBG's impact on a host of issues through a series of depositions before experts. The tribunal has secretariats in Delhi and Mumbai and has 40 grassroots organisations as its convenors.

The hearings will be held from September 21 to September 24 at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi. It will examine the claims of the WBG of serving the wider public interest in the context of what the organisers describe as human rights violations and environmental degradation linked with the projects supported by the World Bank.

Panelists include Arundhati Roy, VP Singh, Upendra Baxi, Susan George, Prabash Joshi and other names of prominence.

Truckers' Utsav
This was a festival for truck drivers and cleaners which had less to do with song and dance and more to do with the distribution of condoms and counselling on HIV/AIDS under the Transport Corporation of India Foundation's HIV/AIDS prevention programme titled Project Kavach.

The distribution was done at the roadside clinics set up by the Foundation, the social arm of Transport Corporation of India Ltd. The clinics are called Khushi clinics.

Inaugurating the festival, DP Agarwal, vice-chairman and managing director, Transport Corporation of India, said the initiative targets truckers as they are more vulnerable to AIDS due to the travel involved in their work.