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By:

Quaid Najmi

4 January 2025 at 3:26:24 pm

Maulana’s 'gullak' initiative touches 60K students

Read & Lead Foundation President Maulana Abdul Qayyum Mirza with daughter Mariyam Mirza. Mumbai/Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar: In the new age controlled by smart-gadgets and social media, an academic from Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar has sparked a small, head-turning and successful - ‘savings and reading’ revolution among middle-school children. Launched in 2006, by Maulana Abdul Qayyum Mirza, the humble initiative turns 20 this year and witnessed over 60,000 free savings boxes (gullaks)...

Maulana’s 'gullak' initiative touches 60K students

Read & Lead Foundation President Maulana Abdul Qayyum Mirza with daughter Mariyam Mirza. Mumbai/Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar: In the new age controlled by smart-gadgets and social media, an academic from Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar has sparked a small, head-turning and successful - ‘savings and reading’ revolution among middle-school children. Launched in 2006, by Maulana Abdul Qayyum Mirza, the humble initiative turns 20 this year and witnessed over 60,000 free savings boxes (gullaks) distributed to Class V-VIII students in 52 government and private schools. “The aim was to inculcate a love for ‘saving and reading’ among young children. We started by presenting small plastic ‘gullaks’ (savings boxes) at the Iqra Boys & Girls High School, and later to many other schools,” Mirza said with a tinge of satisfaction. Scoffed by sceptics, it soon caught the eyes of the schools and parents who loved the idea that kept the kids off mischief, but gave them the joy of quietly slipping Re. 1 or even Rs. 5 save from their daily pocket money into the ‘gullak’. “That tiny ‘gullak’ costing barely Rs 3-Rs 5, becomes almost like their personal tiny bank which they guard fiercely and nobody dares touch it. At the right time they spend the accumulated savings to buy books of their choice – with no questions asked. Isn’t it better than wasting it on toys or sweets or amusement,” chuckled Mirza. A childhood bookworm himself, Mirza, now 50, remembers how he dipped into his school’s ‘Book Box’ to avail books of his choice and read them along with the regular syllabus. “Reading became my passion, not shared by many then or even now… Sadly, in the current era, reading and saving are dying habits. I am trying to revive them for the good of the people and country,” Maulana Mirza told The Perfect Voice. After graduation, Mirza was jobless for sometime, and decided to make his passion as a profession – he took books in a barter deal from the renowned Nagpur philanthropist, Padma Bhushan Maulana Abdul Karim Parekh, lugged them on a bicycle to hawk outside mosques and dargahs. He not only sold the entire stock worth Rs 3000 quickly, but asked astonished Parekh for more – and that set the ball rolling in a big way, ultimately emboldening him to launch the NGO, ‘Read & Lead Foundation’ (2018). “However, despite severe resources and manpower crunch, we try to cater to the maximum number of students, even outside the district,” smiled Mirza. The RLF is also supported by his daughter Mariyam Mirza’s Covid-19 pandemic scheme, ‘Mohalla Library Movement’ that catapulted to global fame, and yesterday (Oct. 20), the BBC telecast a program featuring her. The father-daughter duo urged children to shun mobiles, video-games, television or social media and make ‘books as their best friends’, which would always help in life, as they aim to gift 1-lakh students with ‘gullaks’ in the next couple of years. At varied intervals Mirza organizes small school book fairs where the excited kids troop in, their pockets bulging with their own savings, and they proudly purchase books of their choice in Marathi, English, Hindi or Urdu to satiate their intellectual hunger. Fortunately, the teachers and parents support the kids’ ‘responsible spending’, for they no longer waste hours before screens but attentively flip pages of their favourite books, as Mirza and others solicit support for the cause from UNICEF, UNESCO, and global NGOs/Foundations. RLF’s real-life savers: Readers UNICEF’s Jharkhand District Coordinator and ex-TISS alumnus Abul Hasan Ali is full of gratitude for the ‘gullak’ habit he inculcated years ago, while Naregaon Municipal High School students Lakhan Devdas (Class 6) and Sania Youssef (Class 8) say they happily saved most of their pocket or festival money to splurge on their favourite books...! Zilla Parishad Girls Primary School (Aurangpura) teacher Jyoti Pawar said the RLF has proved to be a “simple, heartwarming yet effective way” to habituate kids to both reading and savings at a tender age, while a parent Krishna Shinde said it has “changed the whole attitude of children”. “We encourage books of general interest only, including inspiring stories of youth icons like Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai (28) and environmentalist Greta Thunberg (23) which fascinates our students, and other popular children’s literature,” smiled Mirza. The Maulana’s RLF, which has opened three dozen libraries in 7 years, acknowledges that every coin dropped into the small savings boxes begins a new chapter – and turns into an investment in knowledge that keeps growing.

Hang the killer, probe case afresh: Kin

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Kolhapur / Mumbai: A day after a Panvel Court verdict giving the life-sentence to an ex-cop for brutally killing his lover and a police-woman Ashwini Bidre-Gore, her kin has demanded the hangman’s noose for him, here on Tuesday.

 

Simultaneously, the Gore and Bidre family will seek to reopen the sensational case for a fresh probe into the case to establish the role of the errant police officials who allegedly carried out a shoddy investigation nine years ago when Ashwini was murdered, her body chopped into pieces, stuffed into bags and a sack, and then thrown into the Thane Creek near Vasai.

 

The victim’s husband Raju Gore and his daughter Siddhi, 16 as well members of the Gore and Bidre family are unanimous that the convict – Abhay Kurundkar should be given the capital punishment for the gory crime, without any future privileges like parole, furloughs, etc.

 

“We are satisfied by the justice done to Ashwini, but feel let down by the life sentence to Kurundkar for the heinous crime he and others committed. The entire town and district of Kolhapur also feel likewise. If the government does not allow an appeal, then we shall file an independent petition in the Bombay High Court,” a determined Raju Gore told ‘The Perfect Voice’.

 

He lauded the role of the (then) Deputy Superintendent of Police Sangeet Shinde-Alphonso for carrying out the meticulous probe involving tech-intel, witnesses and other evidence since “the body was never traced”, but claimed that now the officer has been ‘sidelined’.

 

The Special Public Prosecutor Pradip D. Gharat has already said that the prosecution would file an appeal for the death sentence to Kurundkar, plus enhanced punishment for his two accomplices Kundan Bhandari and Mahesh Falnikar (who got 7 years in jail each).

 

Simultaneously, the defense lawyer Vishal Bhanushali told ‘The Perfect Voice’ that they plan to challenge the verdict in the high court on various grounds, after studying the judgement delivered by Panvel Court Sessions Judge K. G. Paldewar.

 

“We adhered to the full legal procedures, highest standards of fairness and due process although there was formidable evidence against his client Kurundkar in the high-profile case,” said Bhanushali.

 

How a murder suspect was named for a national honour?

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The victim’s husband Raju Gore, a farmer, said that though the convict Kurundkar was already under a cloud for months before his arrest, “how did the state government and police department initiate the process to recommend him for the President’s Gallantry Medal for 2017”.

 

“The entire procedures, all the officials, both police and civilian must be investigated, what compulsions prompted them to push (the convict’s) name, the related circumstances, etc.,” demanded Gore, the 9-year-old matter.

 

Kurundkar, then a Senior Police Inspector with Thane Rural Police was nominated for the top award in Jan. 2017, but was later arrested and the honour revoked.

 

In the verdict, the Court also expressed its ire over the developments, which now the Gore-Bidre families want to be investigated and all the culprits booked under criminal charges.

 

Ashwini’s killing shattered the two families. Her mother Nirmala went into shock and died three years ago, her brother Anand settled abroad has returned to India to look after his father Jaikumar.

 

Gore’s daughter, 16, has appeared for her SSC exams and has set her eyes to first pursue a degree in medicine and later crack the UPSC.

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