The Press Institute Of India

No more orphans

By: Aparna Pallavi

Nagpur, Maharashtra

What do you expect to see when you visit a children's shelter? Neat, well-mannered, simply dressed children greeting you politely, answering questions with smiles and standing in queue on cue? Prayer in the morning, meals on time, bedtime at nine?

Well, at the night shelter for children working in trains and railway stations, what you get is a bunch of cool dudes - never mind that they appear several sizes too small. Sobriety is not quite in vogue here and the dress code appears to be snazzy, figure hugging jeans, T-shirts in loud colours, stylish jackets, and chunky accessories - belts, sun-glasses, chain-link bracelets, rings with skulls on them.

Spinning changes all over

By: Rama Srinivasan

New Delhi

When S Iyappan decided to work for mentally challenged children his motivating factor was the loss of his elder brother, who was afflicted with the Down's syndrome. Today, he is not just a care-provider for abandoned mentally challenged children but has now taken it up as an issue. It didn't come naturally to him. Three years after he started Sri Arunodayam in 2003, he was asked by a friend to apply for workshop in Delhi.

Mother of 13, and still going strong

By: Zubair Ahmed

Port Blair, Andaman & Nicobar Islands

Lona, an unmarried graduate teacher, is a mother of 13 children. They were all adopted after she lost 27 members of her family in the 2004 tsunami that devastated the island of Katchal in the Nancowrie Group of Islands in Central Nicobars. She lived there with her elder brother Daniel Amose, also a teacher. Daniel, his wife and two of their five children were lost to the tsunami. The eldest of the remaining three, Joyful, is just 21 years old.