Few years back Uday Path, a bylane connected to the Zoo Road was one of the worst lanes in Guwahati. The road was potholed and would turn a muddy stretch during the rainy seasons. There was no proper drainage system and therefore the water could not flow out freely into the main drain along the main road. Moreover, there was always a waterlogging problem in the area. This continued for almost ten long years. Even after repeated complaints and letters to the PWD department nothing truly happened. Finally, the tenants and the flat owners of the Tenement Apartment decided to repair the road all...

That day I had gone to Mirza (some 6km from Borjhar airport) with my parents to see the ongoing construction of my father’s engineering college. While taking a stroll around the campus area I happened to meet Tupai Kalita, the supervisor at the site. As I was still chitchatting with him a young woman with a barely-one-month-old baby came to him to collect her daily wages. Kalita took the baby in his arms and said, “She is Geeta (name changed) and her mother had bought her in just five hundred rupees when she was just 2 days old.” I was taken by shock when Bhashwati (name changed), the woman...

As responsible citizens of India, a group of people who were constantly worried about the underprivileged sections of our society founded the Student’s Mobilisation Initiative for Learning through Exposure (SMILE) in New Delhi in 1986. The main objective was to sensitise young people on various social issues. SMILE began its operations in the Northeast in 1995. Since then SMILE has been playing a leading role towards serving the youth specially street children, handicapped children, downtrodden girls, and orphans. With this vision in mind, the founders of SMILE set out to accomplish a mission...