We wanted to to share some of the news that everyone is talking about here (the good and the bad.) Right now in India there has been unseasonal rains. The rains and hailstorms have destroyed framer’s lives and crops such as wheat , jowar and sugarcane. Fruits like oranges, pomegranates mango and grapes have been affected. The farmers had hoped that a good crop this year would help them to clear their debt but their hopes have been shattered. The government has approved over thousands of crores for relief to the farmers. The children of the farmers have helped their fathers for hours on the fields. After so much hard work, seeing the farms washed out is not easy. But the kids are telling their parents not to lose hope.
We have also recently had elections in India. There are three main political parties. 1) Bharatiya Janta Party, Aam Aadmi Party, and Congress. The three leaders of these parties who are contesting for the post of the Prime Minister are Narendra Modi, Arvind Kejriwal and Rahul Gandhi respectively. All the leaders are promising a lot to the people. Its going to be very difficult for the people to decide who to vote for. Rahul Gandhi is promoting women’s empowerment. However, the promises the candidates are making are never ending. They are creating so many jobs but still one out of three graduates are unemployed. Thats why so many people are going abroad in search of employment. Caste based politics is still a major problem in India and part of the election and film stars are roped in for the election campaigns.
The Supreme court has created a “none of the above button” while casting your vote. Some did not want to vote for anyone after reading about the amount of corruption in the country, but with this option of “none of the above”, it seems as though more people want to vote.
Whats going on on your end?
——Faahim, Reshma, Umesh, Sumita,
Dear Faahim, Reshma, Umesh, and Sumita,
I’m sorry to hear the weather has hurt farming! I hope things get better for you all, I’ll be hoping for good things! I really admire the fact you all never give up hope, it takes strong people to have so much faith.
I think it’s really interesting that your government has a “none of the above” button for voting, we don’t have that here, but I think it’s a good idea because a lot of Americans just don’t vote because they don’t like any of the people running. In the US, we have two parties: Democrats and Republicans, and they run for President, which is the same idea as Prime Minister.
Things are okay here! It’s starting to get hotter, which I really like because it has been really cold here for quite some time. A lot of the news in our country is related to our military involvement in other places, like Pakistan, Syria, Afghanistan, and Europe. Our country has also been focusing on raising it’s economy lately, and trying to get more Americans more jobs.
A lot of fun things in entertainment go on here though, like the wedding of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West. They are two of the biggest celebrities here right now; Kim is an entrepreneur and star of a TV show, and Kanye is a rapper. Do you know about them? Who are some big celebrities in India?
Hope to here from you soon!
~Lauren
Dear Reshma, Faahim, Umesh, and Sumita,
My heart almost broke when i read about the rains. I am very sorry for all the trouble you’ve been through. I hope that over the past few months you were able to keep hopeful, and things turned around for you all. Never lose your hope, and never give up. We’ve been doing ok. We tried selling pav bhaji at our school to raise money for you all the eat, but it didnt go very well. We will try harder and keep telling more people about you guys.Have you eaten anything tasty lately? Im eating a bagel right now. Its a baked bread roll with a whole in the middle thats toasted and cut down the middle. You can put cream cheese on it but i think its better with butter. Butter is a lot like ghi. Its getting hotter, and tomorrow is our last day of school, but throughout the summer i will be thinking of you and thinking of Noopur Didi. Thank you all so much for staying so strong and never stop dreaming.
Gabriel…
Wow – it’s so interesting to hear what is happening half-way around the world! Hopefully this past year things have gotten better for the farmers. Where I grew up in the US (the state of Ohio), there are a lot of farms. They grow mostly corn, soybeans and wheat, but they also use farms for cows, pigs, and chickens. Sometimes we would have droughts from lack of rain. The weather is so important when you own a farm.
Right now we have a very bad cold spell. The temperature hovers around 10 degrees Fahrenheit, which I believe is about -12 degrees Celsius- YIKES! I can’t wait for it to be summer time and warm again.
We look forward to more of your posts!