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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.

To avoid OBC backlash government forms new cabinet subcommittee

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Mumbai: In order to avoid an OBC backlash in wake of the state government’s decisions regarding Maratha quota, a new cabinet subcommittee for the Other Backward Class (OBC) was formed on Wednesday.


There has been a widespread resentment among the OBC communities over the state government’s proactive decisions in in order to end the Maratha quota stir under Manoj Jarange-Patil in Mumbai. OBC leader Lakshman Hake, who had been opposing the demands of Maratha leaders to grant them blanket OBC status, tore off the copy of the GR that was read out at the Maratha agitation cite in Mumbai on Tuesday and then promulgate. A few other OBC leaders also expressed displeasure over the state government’s decision, while senior OBC leader in the state cabinet Chhagan Bhujbal today skipped the cabinet meeting. When asked about it, Bhujbal said he is studying the state government’s decisions regarding the demands raised by the Pro-Maratha Reservation groups. On this backdrop, the state cabinet under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, decided to form an empowered sub-committee of the state cabinet to decide on issues related to the OBC Community.


The proposal to form such a committee is old and was even presented before the state cabinet at least thrice before today. However, the cabinet approved the proposal to form such a committee today, said a senior CMO official.


According to the GR issued regarding formation of the committee, revenue minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule is the Chairman of the committee which has three members from the BJP viz. Ganesh Naik, Pankaja Munde and Atul Save, two from Shiv Sena, Gulabrao Patil and Sanjay Rathod and two from NCP viz. Chhagan Bhujbal and Dattatreya Bharne. When asked about Bhujbal skipping the cabinet meeting, water supply minister Gulabrao Patil said, if at all there is any resentment Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis will speak to the minister and clear the air.


The eight-members sub-committee has been formed in order to dedicatedly work on issues related to the OBC communities in the state, the minister said.


Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde too made it clear that there is no need for any of the communities to misinterpret the state government’s decisions and that any doubts in this regard will be done away with.


Chief Minister Fadnavis, meanwhile, stated that he would soon meet the OBC leaders at Nagpur and do away with any of their reservations and doubts pertaining to the state government decisions.


OBC leader Manoj Sasane said that the state government’s decision regarding implementation of Hyderabad Gazetteer in Marathwada will be challenged in the court.

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