June and Sreelekha Mitra unveil the Shiksha project on Thursday, aimed at educating under-privileged children. Picture by Pabitra Das

The social service and private sectors have come together for a cause: the education of children. Three organisations launched a unique project on Thursday

Mull over these statistics for a moment. India has the largest number of uneducated children in the world, two-thirds of whom are girls. Fifty per cent of Indian children aged between six and 18 do not go to school. In nearly 60 per cent of schools, there are less than two teachers for Classes I to IV.

One in 40 primary schools is conducted in open spaces or tents. Dropout rates in Classes III to V are 50 per cent for boys and 58 per cent for girls. More than 50 per cent of girls fail to enroll in school, and those that do are likely to drop out by the age of 12.

With a mission to ?make a difference to this alarming situation?, Child Relief and You (CRY), Procter & Gamble (P&G) and Sony Entertainment Television joined hands to launch the project Shiksha, at Food Bazar, 22 Camac Street, on Thursday.

As part of the project, every pack of select P&G products bought between April and June will support one day?s education of one child. The money will be distributed to various education projects being conducted by CRY in different states.

?We plan to reach out to around 8,000 children in seven states in the country, through 10 projects,? said Mohua Chatterjee of the NGO, which works for child rights.

The projects are based in Barrackpore (West Bengal), Ongole and Chilkaluripet (Andhra Pradesh), Bellary (Karnataka), Salem (Tamil Nadu), Bolangir (Orissa), and Osmanabad, Wardha, Navi Mumbai and Borivali in Maharashtra.

Irrespective of the funds generated from sales, P&G has committed ?a minimum of Rs 1 crore? to Shiksha. Sony will use its popular programme Ye Meri Life Hai to promote the project. The serial is about a middle-class girl?s struggle to come up in life. Pooja, the protagonist, will educate viewers on the state of children?s education in India and encourage them to participate in the cause.

?I would request the organisers to ensure that the girl child particularly gets more attention,? urged actress June, present along with Sreelekha Mitra at the launch of Shiksha.

Other celebrities like television personalities Mandira Bedi and Harsha Bhogle, singer Sonu Nigam and actress Perizaad Zorabian offered support through taped messages. The list of Shiksha promoters includes actresses Kajol, Revathy, Khushboo and Keerthi Reddy, top cop Kiran Bedi and educationist Snehalata Deshmukh.

Shiksha is a part of P&G?s global cause credo ?Live, Learn & Thrive? to support children in need around the world.

A page from Avik De?s website on Salt Lake, www.amarsaltlake.com (above). The 17-year-old poses for the lens (top right)

Township tips a click away

Need to know where to eat out in Salt Lake? Or which hospital to go to in the township in case of an emergency? Soon, information like this and much more will be a few mouse clicks away, thanks to www.amarsaltlake. com.

The website, scheduled for launch on Poila Baisakh, will contain everything for the residents of Salt Lake and some for Calcuttans in general, too.

The surprise is that there isn?t a government agency or a private corporate body behind the site, but a student of Class XII and his family. Meet Avik De, a resident of Salt Lake who is a topper from Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan and a computer enthusiast.

?It was actually my mother?s idea,? admits Avik. ?She said we had been living in this place for a long time but there?s little information on the Internet about Salt Lake.?

Avik had learnt Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML ), required to code webpages, when he was in Class X, but gave up computer science the next year, since he found out he could learn much more from the Internet.

Avik soon got to work on the idea, and with a little help from his family, started work on the ambitious project.

The result is www.amarsaltlake.com. The uncluttered and simple-to-navigate website opens with an introduction to Salt Lake. Besides interesting information on the genesis of the planned township (did you know it was planned by a Yugoslavian architect?), there is also statistical information, like area, population, wards and even number of water tanks in the place.

The Daily Needs section has Weather (current, the day before and the next day), World Clock (the time in major cities around the world) and Foreign Exchange conversion (dollar and euro currently, with more to follow).

Click on Health and you have names and contact numbers of hospitals, nursing homes, doctors (this categorised under general, cardiologist, ENT and more) and even nurses. Eating Out caters to the foodies with restaurants, fast food outlets and home delivery contacts in Salt Lake. There?s more for the food lover in the form of free recipes - from boneless chicken in boiled potato to pabda machher jhaal and paneer in tomato puree.

The education section lists the addresses of schools, colleges, coaching centres and even music and dance schools. The treat for youngsters here is the chance to win Rs 500 by answering the maximum number of questions correctly for three months.

There?s lots more, like the Entertainment section ? with movies, theatres, bookstores ? and Shopping ? clothes, gadgets, stationery, jewellery, perishables?

Other interesting sections include Techknow, where computer problem-related queries can be sent, and Travel, where flight and train schedules are displayed to national and international destinations.

The costs are being borne by the Des. ?My brother, who is in the US, arranged for the web-hosting,? offers Avik, who has developed a few games himself for the kids who visit the site. Classifieds is being looked at as the only form of revenue. ?But there won?t be a problem as all the maintenance will be done by me,? asserts Avik.

Besides computers, the 17-year-old loves to spend time with music ? he started playing the keyboard in Class IV and picked up the guitar later ? and also plays football.

Future plans: ?I want to be a mechanical engineer,? he announces. ?And of course, continue with web designing and programming,? he smiles.