Minutes of the Saturday, August 05, 2006 chapter meeting.
(Minutes by Ravi)

Present:

Amrish, Dileep, Sridhar, Ravi, Jalpa.

1.....

Discussions on Right to Education (RTE) continued. Sridhar provided 
updates on the activity Asha wide. Two ARC issues came up for discussion. 
Asha board of directors would like to issue a press release on RTE in the 
context of collapse of efforts in making RTE an act. The board of 
directors would like to know if Asha for Education (Asha wide) can be 
associated with such a press release or effort. The press release would 
likely to be critical of the failure of or insufficienct efforts. There 
will be an ARC poll coming up shortly on this. The second issue was that 
of associating Asha for Education with the on-line petition on RTE 
(http://www.petitiononline.com/rteindia/). There will be an ARC poll 
coming up shortly on this, too. At the meeting there was a broad 
agreement that it may be a good idea to lend chapter support to these 
Asha wide efforts. However, chapter decided to set up a local poll on 
Yahoo on this to help to see what other active volunteers think about 
this.

It was also felt that we need to step up awareness campaign on RTE among 
Indian community in US. It was decided to participate in the upcoming 
events during independence celebrations and local events distributing 
flyers on RTE.

Right to Information (RTI) act also came up for a brief discussion. It 
was felt that this act is an important one and a useful and effective 
tool to further the cause of education in India as a large amount of 
money is spent by the government (state/central) on primary education. 
RTI is already an act, and can compliment our efforts. Any effort to make 
the government spending in the primary education more effective would 
yield enormous positive results in the quality of education. So, the 
meeting took note that it is prudent on our part to participate in the 
activities that support RTI especially when there are efforts to dilute 
the RTI act.


2.....

Discussions on new proposals: Dileep presented proposals from Development 
through Education-DEED (DEEP), Hunsur, Karnataka. There were three 
activities totaling to approximately $5000. Meeting asked questions and 
some clarifications for which Dileep would get back to the chapter with 
answers.

There are 4 more proposals. Three are from SVYM, and Kumar would lead the 
discussions. The other proposal is from an RBC (Residential Bridge 
Center) for child labor in Mahaboobnagar district of Andhra Pradesh, and 
Ravi would lead discussions on.

3......

Dileep provided status on WAH. It was noted that the funds raised so far 
are low. It was decided to send out emails to all our friends and chapter 
yahoo mailing list.

4......

Chapter also took note of low attendance, and felt that it is important 
for active volunteers take every opportunity to participate in the 
chapter meetings so that various activities at the chapter can be taken 
to their logical conclusion. It was also emphasized that we make good on 
our words for the vigor of this volunteer organization.

Ravi.