INDIA

[Punjab] No false dignity

[Punjab] Lottery tickets now available in post offices 

[New Zealand] New $16m fund for significant community projects

Main

<< Back to Home >>

[Raghunath, Deccan Herald 16 Oct 07]

For a daring spirit of enterprise, a Punjabi stands apart.

You can find him by evening outside the busy Jayanagar Shopping Complex – the peripatetic** lotterywala. He moves about the place on a bicycle and employs all the tricks of the trade to entice wary buyers. He has an uncanny knack for rousing all the latent cupidity and greed even in the most parsimonious for who does not yearn to become a “crorepati” without having to work for it? [** traveling, roaming …]

Believe it or not, the lotterywala is a retired Indian Army officer. Kishen Lal had seen many a battle in his life, but the biggest battle of them all was when he was invalidated out of the Army on medical grounds. As a retired major, he found his pension inadequate and had to find a supplementary source of income to support himself and his family. So he took up the agency for lotteries of various states.

The more staid among his former colleagues were scandalised and rather wanted him to try for a middle-level management slot in a public sector outfit, perhaps as a security officer, but Kishen Lal remained placid. For him there was such a thing as the dignity of labour and moreover, there was nothing “infra dig”in selling lottery tickets if it enabled him to earn his living by the honest sweat of his brow.

Kishen Lal is a true blooded Punjabi whose family came down south after it was displaced during the partition; Punjabis have a justifiable reputation for being hardy and self-reliant with a strong sense of dignity of labour.

Comparisons are odious and often presumptuous, but the fact remains that for a daring spirit of enterprise, a Punjabi stands apart and for the adventurous spirit of making a living, a Keralite stands supreme. We can find “chai” shop even in remote Badrinath run by Keralites.

Recently, I ran into a long-lost friend who told me of his futile quest for a white-collar government job. “Why don’t you start a road-side stall selling sugarcane juice?” and he looked at me as though I had pole-axed him and walked away in dignified silence.

Yes, there is indeed a false sense of dignity, and pride.
 

Main

<< Back to Home >>

[tribuneindia.com Ludhiana 15 Oct 07]

Lottery tickets are now available in local post offices. For the first time in Punjab; post offices would sell tickets for the Mahalakshmi Bumper.

This means easy availability of tickets to those who are keen on trying their luck, it would be an additional source of revenue for the department. The department has entered into an agreement with the Director Punjab State Lotteries for the purpose.

The process begins with the Mahalakshmi Bumper; post offices would also sell tickets for three other bumper draws by the state lotteries department if the exercise turns out to be successful.

 

Main

<< Back to Home >>

[scoop.co.nz 15 Oct 07]

New $16m fund for significant community projects.

A major new fund will assist community projects of regional and national significance through to completion.

Internal Affairs Minister Rick Barker today unveiled the Lottery Significant Projects Fund, which is planned to provide $16 million annually over the next three years to complete major projects of importance to the wider community, region or nation.

"Since NZ Lotteries began in 1987 more than $2 billion has been distributed to our communities through the Lottery Grants Board,” said Mr Barker. “This latest fund will compliment other funding options by allowing for completion of larger projects with a national or regional significance," Mr Barker said.

"The Lottery Significant Projects Fund will provide grants large enough to enable completion of projects with a capital expenditure of at least $1 million. As well as meeting the ‘significance’ criteria, projects will also have to demonstrate that they are community based, have considerable support from the community and have exhausted all other avenues of funding.

"This financial year, a record $171.6 million of lottery profits (including a one-off allocation of $24.7 million) will be distributed by the Lottery Grants Board. Lottery profits enable new funds such as the Lottery Significant Projects Fund.

Thousands of organisations and projects benefit each year from lottery grants," Mr Barker said.

Administered by the Department of Internal Affairs, Lottery Grants Board funding is generated by NZ Lotteries’ profits, which are transferred to the Lottery Grants Board and flow on to directly benefit the community.

Further details about the Fund, which will be open for applications from February next year, will be released towards the end of next month.

For more information on lottery grants see www.dia.govt.nz

 

Main

<< Back to Home >>