Mn Petition: Fill & Download for Free

This question led me to interesting reading about Laura Ingalls Wilder, which means I just had a fun hour. I adore this topic.Yes, the Ingalls women did suffer with type two diabetes, starting with Ma, Caroline Quiner Ingalls, then all of the Ingalls daughters, Mary Ingalls (never married, blind by age 14), Laura Ingalls Wilder, Carrie Ingalls Swanzey and Grace Ingalls Dow, and also Laura’s only daughter, Rose Wilder Lane.Since type two diabetes is controlled though diet and exercise, and I’m not sure all the Ingalls girls knew they suffered with diabetes, they likely didn’t treat their condition properly. Not type 1. No one would survive that back then: that was a death sentence. But type 2? Laura was plump, but she had worked hard her whole life, so that likely worked in her favor.The interesting bits that came to light are the size of Laura’s babies. Rose weighed 9 pounds at birth, and Laura’s baby boy weighed 10 pounds. Laura Wilder was small — 4 foot 11 inches on a good day — and she was very petite in size (weight) also, which seems to indicate she suffered from gestational diabetes. That’s why her babies were so heavy.Another interesting fact is that three generations of Ingalls women had boys who died as babies. Ma Ingalls, Caroline, lost Charles Frederick Ingalls at nine months. Not much was said about his death, other than he died suddenly near Zumbro Falls, MN.Then Laura and Almanzo Wilder’s baby boy, who had been unnamed for some reason, suffered a seizure and died one day shy of turning four weeks old. Did Baby Wilder have brain seizures in utero due to the diabetes? It seems entirely possible.Next up is Rose Wilder Lane, who gave birth to a stillborn baby boy, born early, in a hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah. Rose also suffered from type two diabetes. Did this cause her baby boy to die? And why did three generations of baby boys die in this family? Only the girl babies survived.Did they have PCOS, which is really insulin resistance, resulting in infertility and higher miscarriage rates? If these women had PCOS and did not stop consuming sugar, they may have doomed their children. I keep going back to the boys dying. It has to be more than bad luck. But what?On to the type two diabetes. Since both types run in my family, I know people can live into old age while having type two diabetes, but type one? Type one diabetics must have insulin or they die.There is no way the Ingalls women had type one. They all suffered with type two. That is a fact. I don’t quite see why diabetes would affect carrying a baby boy, so I’m going to research that. But we do know Grace was fat from her twenties onward, and she didn’t live a long life. Grace Dow died at 64 years of age.I’m amazed Laura Ingalls Wilder lived to the wonderful old age of 90.

Forcing its belief?That entire “article”, if you could call it that, is a piss poor excuse for a journalistic piece. The Hindu and its allied liberal brigades have been after Akshaya Patra Foundation (APF) for some time now solely because it is run by ISKCON which is a Hindu organization. Now I have zero affinity towards the latter, by APF in itself is one of those handfuls of NGOs that are actually having a positive impact on the society.They serve a friggin 1.7 million schoolkids in India every day. And yet, have they ever tried to convert those kids to the Krishna mission? Or coerce their parents into joining? NO!The Hindu article quotes 4 kids out of those 1.7 million and makes a sweeping statement that “Karnataka’s schoolchildren unhappy with the mid-day meal”. 4 out of 1.7 million is a trend now.And you know what the kids’ objections were? “too bland”, “not tasty”, “too pheeka”. Since when have kids become the rightful judges of what is good for them? I used to hate tomatoes and spinach and karela when I was a kid. For a kid, anything sugar is good. Anything with a lot of tang. Is that fucking healthy? Do the people who wrote this allow their kids to pick their own meal?The foundation has made it clear that they do not serve food with onion and garlic because it is against their beliefs. When the organization was targeted by local activists and the Karnataka Food Commission, it duly complied and sent samples for quality and nutritional checks to the National Institute of Nutrition (NIN).Last December, when the food commission learnt of APF’s refusal to follow the ingredient list, it asked the government to send a notice to APF. “We pulled them up for disregarding the MOU,” a government official said on condition of anonymity. “We asked them, when every other NGO is following the menu, why can’t you. They then submitted documents that said the ingredients they used in the preparation of the food do not compromise on the nutritional requirements of the meal and that there are adequate substitutes for both onion and garlic in their meals.”The State Government sent these documents and APF’s menu for a review by the National Institute of Nutrition (NIN) and the Central Food Technological Research Institute (CFTRI) — which brings us to the present day.In February 2019, NIN gave its formal nod to APF’s menu and said: “The nutritive values of menus with ingredients used in the mentioned amounts certainly meet and often exceed the prescribed energy (Kcal) and protein requirements prescribed by MHRD (Ministry of Human Resource Development) for the MDM.”Should have been the end of the discussion, right?Nope.They called upon some “experts” to sign a petition (which is how things are done now, I guess). And then called upon NIN to withdraw its report.Think about how fucking devastated and morally bankrupt one has to be. You go to the authorities and when they clear charges against your target you go back and get a bunch of your equally jobless friends and sign a piece of paper and ask the authority to withdraw its comments because they did not fit your fucking agenda.Experts ask NIN to withdraw report favouring Akshay Patra“The National Institute of Nutrition, to our utter shock and dismay, has made sweeping statements praising Akshaya Patra Foundation, without carrying out any systematic scientific study. No empirical data was collected on the quantity and quality of ingredients used or amount consumed and amount wasted by children to certify food supplied by APF as nutritionally adequate,” says the letter signed by 10 organisations and 94 individuals.“You know, I am the omniscient, omnipotent deity that you all so love. So, I can’t be wrong. Hence, the NIN is wrong because their conclusions did not match mine. QED!”If you think their is no ulterior agenda here, think again.APF hurts one group the most — the Christian missionaries. They can now no longer lure people to their side with a couple of bags of rice.See this “health expert”.Even sterilised gowns and instruments are 'hygienic and clean" - why doesnt everyone just eat those? https://t.co/cjaGIV5ePa— Dr. Sylvia Karpagam (@sakie339) June 3, 2019Started off with a tongue-in-cheek comment on the hygiene part.Actually the Church is one of the few institutions that REALLY DOES charity in India. They dont take tax payers money from the government & pretend its all charity so that their followers will donate in lakhs and crores. Hats off to the Church for its service to the poor in India https://t.co/eZ2l6JsZZU— Dr. Sylvia Karpagam (@sakie339) June 5, 2019Ended up praising the Church since they are “one of the few truly charitable institutes in the nation”.A similar incident had happened late last year when the Government of Odisha had requested APF to include eggs in their mid-day meals.The Foundation declined citing the same reasons — it did not fit in with their beliefs. But later they all came to a mutually beneficial arrangement. APF will bear the cost of the eggs but it would be the duty of the State government to procure and prepare and deliver them.Odisha finds a way to serve children eggs at mid-day meals catered by ISKCON-linked NGOBut in an order dated November 11, 2018, Odisha’s school and mass education department said that Akshaya Patra has agreed to include two eggs per week per student in their mid-day meal in all schools under its service area. The order specifies that the NGO will not supply boiled eggs to schools directly. Instead, school managements will ensure that eggs are procured and boiled and Akshaya Patra will bear the cost.District Education Officers have been directed to deduct the costs of the eggs from the cooking allotment paid to Akshaya Patra.Karnataka could have done the same.But they chose not to. And instead malign a foundation that is feeding millions of hungry kids every day. The government itself said that they don’t have the budget to include eggs in the menu.Umashankar, however, said the government has no budget in the scheme to provide eggs. “The money we get is barely enough to sustain the existing scheme. There’s no talk of eggs as of now. The State Government is providing hot milk as part of its scheme. That’ll have to do for now.”APF runs a fiscally very tight ship. Of every 100 rupees donated to them, 92 is spent on the program, and only 8 is management expense. That is 92% utilization.[1]Also, they are able to feed one kid for an entire year on just 2800 rupees a year, of which half is through donations and half through government grants.Compare this to an org like PETA that many celebrities endorse.[2]They get about $50–60 million in donations every year, but spend only a small fraction actually doing what they claim to be doing.This is their 2015 Financial Statement.Of the $45 milion in expenses, $16 mn (35.5%) was for professional services and consultants (the celebrities they rope in from time to time), another $10 mn (22.2%) was for salary and other staff costs.$7.5 mn (16.7%) was for media and promotional activities (the useless campaigns they run, the shock-value protests they carry out). $3 mn for media (6.7%). All of this amounts to 81%.The overall expense that pertains to actually rescuing and caring for the animals or to further the cause of animal rights is very low (a part of operating expenses and donations to charities - about $4mn in total) which comes to about 6–8%.The Foundation has recently partnered with the Michel and Susan Dell Foundation[3] to provide safe drinking water and regular health checkups to school kids. The recently served their 3 billionth meal.[4] That is three meals for every Indian alive right now. It took them twelve years to serve their first billion, four for the next, and three for the latest. At this rate, they might serve another three billion meals before 2025. And more power to them!Independent studies by AC Nielsen and Harvard have concluded that the foundation has had an amazing positive impact on the Indian society.[5] [6]When AC Nielsen performed an impact assessment, they found increased enrollment, better health, and improved performance among students who received school lunches, especially among the female students. For example, the report showed a 13.8 percent and 34.2 percent improvement in enrollment for boys and girls, respectively, in participating Bangalore schools.I am actually glad that these dimwits, self-proclaimed saviors of the masses have started this campaign to malign the foundation. Of course, their fragile egos are chinking away. What will they do one day when there remains no hungry kid to feed, no naked poor soul to photograph, no penurious Indian to lure to their side with the promise of food and salvation.But their actions have brought spotlight on the foundation.Do you know that the foundation could do with more donations? And that those donations are tax-exempt under 80G?Yep. You can support 3 kids per year by donating 3300.Let’s make this happen folks!Footnotes[1] How your Donated Money to Akshaya Patra is Spent?[2] Deepak Mehta (दीपक मेहता)'s answer to What do you think of PETA's tweet to stop the use of anti-animal words?[3] Water ATMs: A 15-school pilot could pave the way for sustainable solutions[4] PM Modi Serves 3 Billionth Akshaya Patra Meal to Children in Vrindavan[5] AC Nielson Case Study[6] Affordable School Lunches: Breakthrough Innovation, Measurable Impact

New Year’s Eve 2018—Air France flight AF0192 from Paris, France (CDG) to Bangalore, India (BLR)I was halfway through my 22 hour journey from Minneapolis, MN to Bangalore. The second leg of my voyage was a painful 9 hour flight from Paris to my final destination. As I took my seat in the 49th row of the fully booked flight, what unfolded in front of my eyes was nothing short of a spectacle.The demography inside the plane was now chiefly Indian. Nothing extraordinary since the destination of this flight was India. As I eased down in my aisle seat and got comfortable, swarms of people slowly crept in lugging their oversized suitcases and backpacks. What ensued later can only be described as chaotic. Entropy inside cabin shot to the stars as passengers struggled with all their might to make room in the overhead bins for their prized possessions. I witnessed people carelessly moving other passengers’ bags to make room for their own. Backpacks go under the seat and not in the overhead bins, you say? Not on this flight!I cringed with embarrassment as the petite flight attendant tried to placate every customer who believed their bags were unfairly discriminated against. Indignant travelers failed to that realize that by physically assisting them to move their bags, the lady was going the extra mile beyond the call of duty. In no other flight had I sensed so much entitlement among the passengers. No, it’s not your right to have your bags placed in the most convenient space in the cabin. And no, you cannot let the flight attendants attend to your luggage.It sickened me to watch the helpless flight attendants trying to squeeze in more bags in the already overflowing bins. They politely turned down my offer to help them move heavier bags. The rest of the flight was spent in quiet contemplation of the events that unfolded in front of me. Never had I ever seen such arrogance, such indignation, such apathy, and such sense of entitlement among a group of travelers. I later heard from many friends that this behavior is common in every inbound/outbound flight to/from India. I am truly sorry for the cabin crew operating on these routes.Before disembarking, I thanked every flight attendant profusely for their service and acknowledged how tough their job is. The world would be a better place if our New Year’s resolutions included being empathetic towards people we encounter in our everyday walks of life.