Direct Dil Se

As my son approaches his first birthday, my mind rewinds all the moments associated with him since I took him in my hands just 15 minutes after his birth. Since then there isn't a single day when I haven't seen him, which allowed me to observe his natural growth over the one year. I have divided the growth in 3 different phases: 1. Dependent Phase The first four months describe this phase. The child has just come into this world. He is getting used to the day-night schedule, lights and sounds, faces and expressions. He remains confined to whichever place you take him to, relying mostly on mother's milk for food, sleeping for almost 14 hours a day, this is the quietest phase of his childhood. They slowly develop their vision and hearing capabilities. Most of their instincts rely on the feeling of touch. They are yet to identify their parents, and therefore do not hesitate spending time with others. Best Part: Playing with his tiny and delica

Akshar Bharati is a social initiative started by few IT professionals which provides very good opportunity for the volunteers to get connected with little kids and spread knowledge by setting up libraries for them. Akshar Bharati provides one-bookshelf libraries that can be easily managed. Each library consists of 700+ books in English and local language (Marathi, Hindi, Kannada, Telugu) and costs INR 25,000/-. Book selection is done by volunteers with the help of school teachers and the bookset is designed with the basic aim of nurturing reading habits among the kids of age 5 to 15 years. This initiative was started from Pune, Maharashtra and has now setup 350+ libraries across India and has benefited 40000+ kids through 2,40,00 books. While working on Akshar Bharati, we realized that there is a section of urban society which does not have access to good reading material. This includes people around us like support staff, maids, security people, drivers and others. Also we