social issues

To teach consumers about their rights
Consumers are only familiar with the traditional businesses that are trusted for generations. In the recent years, however, many scam businesses, advertisement with false claims have been looting the naive customers. Doubling one's money, issuing engineering and medical degrees for a fee, providing fake passports or promising to get a visa for USA or UK are some of them. People are losing all their savings to "investment schemes" that claim to return 200% interest! Internet service providers promise 90 hours but hardly work! People who are not familiar with computer-related products buy them from "agents" who promise to give them a crash course after installation. These agents charge a high price for new computer containing 166MHz or older processors. Computer education schools charge thousands of rupees to teach courses that were useful only in the 80s. Many of them use monochrome monitors and claim to have "latest technology". Moreover, all of their software is pirated. Since people do not know anything about these new technology but know that they can get their children good opportunities. So, they pay most of their savings to get these "diplomas" which teach nothing but Microsoft word and excel! Even in colleges, computer science is taught by diploma holders whose knowledge is only limited to Microsoft applications. These things happen mostly in the rural areas where people do not know how to complain. People's wages stay the same for decades, without nay adjustment to inflation or current living standards.

We want to help the local people start a consumer organization where they can take complaints from people. Also, we will help them start a newspaper that will report fraud and rate the local businesses, doctors, lawyers and other service providers. This should increase the consumer benefits tremendously. Also, the doctors who claim to cure diseases and investment experts who claim to double one's money will be caught red-handed.

To provide a home for the abandoned seniors
Indian parents finance their children's education (even post graduate and graduate) solely, since there is no other form of aid available from the government. If the school is nearby, the children live at home and use parents money for all of their expenses. It is not uncommon to see the children in flashy new clothes while the parents are still in tatters. Children spend plenty of money for their entertainment (movies, restaurants) and do not offer to work. Some children may help the parents in household chores or in parents' businesses but it is not expected of them. Why do these children get such special treatment? India does not have old people's homes. Traditionally children live with their parents in their parents homes and take over their businesses or farms and in return, take care of them. This has changed in the recent times because more and more people are finding jobs elsewhere. Parents sell their home or land to get the best education for their sons as possible, hoping the sons will be successful and take care of them in return. But this is not happening. The sons who leave home do not want to deal with their old parents. The sons who stay at home with their parents also do not want to take care of their parents. Most people believe that old people don't deserve to get medical treatment. They rather use that money for their son's education or to buy a car for themselves. Since the parents have spent all of their savings on their sons' education and daughters' dowries, they have no money left when they get old and sick. This makes the situation much worse. Their sons decide whether they deserve a doctor's visit. When my mother (69 years old) got her second heart attack, I flew to India from New York. I had just returned from a India visit two weeks earlier. People found that shocking. During our visit to my mother's doctor, I asked him if my mother should get a bypass surgery. He laughed and said I was wasting my money on a "dead horse". After hearing him say she lost all her confidence. She told me she knew she was going to die. It took so much effort from me to give her confidence enough to go through an angioplasty later. When I told a couple of wealthy family friends that I was taking her to an expensive hospital for an angioplasty, they told me to save that money for my children (I don't have any)! This example will tell you why the children do not have any social pressure to give care to their parents despite draining all of their savings. One such son said he never asked his parents to spend their savings on him and therefore he did not feel he should take care of them in return. Even if the children feed the parents, it is usually at the expense of their dignity. They are ridiculed, ignored by the children, daughter-in-laws and the grand children often left at home while the entire family goes out.

To sponsor courses in financial planning
People do not what is inflation or why one pays interest. They think that banks give them extra money as interest for keeping their money in the bank. Also, all of their savings is in the form of gold since banks often default, rupee value is highly volatile and real estate growth isn't much. Some "chit funds" claim to double the investor's money. These do not provide FDIC insurance against the deposits. In fact, most of such establishments simply collect the deposits and disappear overnight. In addition, the gold saved is given to the daughters or daughters-in-law during their weddings or sold to finance children's education. This leaves the elderly no savings of their own when they need. Teaching them the concept of retirement savings and how and when to plant it, would be a good start. In addition, we want to encourage children to work part-time and start saving for their education.

To provide family and marriage counseling
Due to the conservative, formal culture, family members in an Indian family do not communicate with other members. Younger people are too afraid to protest because that will be considered showing disrespect. Wives and husbands do not even talk much. The entire marriage works only because both of them concentrate on the children rather than their own relationships. Since Indian society is male-dominated, males have not much to complain but 70% of the women are unhappy in their marriages. Due to suppressed feelings and loneliness, these women get into depression. The men have affairs because their wives are too busy with their children. Children who get molested by their male relatives are traumatized but have no way of showing it. Domestic abuse is very common. Siblings have highest form of rivalry because they compete for their parents' assets. We want to provide counseling to such families.

To promote rational thinking and question superstitions
Many people lose great opportunities due to their superstitions . For example, a couple sold their lake-view home for a very low price because having water next to one's home is a bad omen. Even though when they bought it they did not think much about it, after they bought it every illness their child faced was blamed on the lake! Another father could not marry his daughter because her "stars" in her horoscope required to marry an only child! A couple killed their boy who was suffering from leukemia by treating him with Ayurvedic medicine. And elderly spent all of his savings on a pilgrimage and died of a simple urinary tract infection because he had no money to treat himself. People flock to "holy men" whose picture ooze ash (by hiding magnesium behind it) and donate large sums of money to get a blessing for their son to get an engineering degree (Their wish probably would have come true if they had spent that money on giving him extra coaching)