What's In A Name? Money, Silly!!!

A few years ago, I met Anjali – a Mumbai girl who had a Diploma in pharmaceutical engineering. Anjali lent her certificate to a local chemist (who didn’t study beyond 7^th grade) who ran a drugstore and paid Anjali a monthly rent. At that time I thought it was the oddest way to make money.

I don’t believe that, not any more. Because, I have just learnt of a stranger way of earning a rental: lending your names, to be precise.

Incredible, did you say? Well then, visit Aizawl, capital town in Mizarom state in north east India. Ask the pastor of any local Presbyterian Church if he knows of name lending and he will tell you how the business is thriving.

The church, in fact, has just asked to the people of the state to cut this unholy business off!

Sikkim Erathquake: A Wake Up Call For North East

One of the world’s worst quake-prone belts, the North-east region of India, is finally waking up to the need of disaster preparedness, thanks to the recent Sikkim earthquake.

The north-east region of India – a cluster of 7 hills states bordering Myanmar, China, Bhutan and Bangladesh, falls in zone V, the sixth worst quake-prone belt in the world. In the wake of the Sikkim earthquake which rocked large parts of north, east and northeastern India, beside Nepal and Bangladesh, the states have started the urgent and long neglected exercise to review their disaster management mechanism. The earthquake, measuring 6.8 magnitude in the Richter scale, has claimed the lives of more than a hundred, beside injuring several hundreds.