How to Marry and be Happy!

 Tribute to Veteran social  worker , a lifetime donor !! Donated his body too   !!!    

Late Shri  Krishan Malhotra ji Founder, Chairman & Managing Trustee and  Chief Functionary of   Krishan Malhotra Charities who left for heavenly abode on July 7, 2017  at the age of 85.

 Malhotraji  was an ordinary man with extraordinary fit body .mind and soul pure motives .In 1997, he  consciously took  retirement from his well established dairy business ” Malhotra Dairy” at Dewas and In Indore, and  put together all his life time savings in “  Krishan Malhotra Charities “ a Trust to   serve the society , especially in the area of Health , Education  and Environment  . This trust was formed on November 1, 1997 and Regd. no 602/dated June 12, 1998 in Indore. From its inception in 1998 until 2010, the Trust  has contributed  to social causes by donating funds for various projects. These include building the Casualty Unit  at M.Y. Hospital, contribution towards Meghdoot Park, Bhamori Mukti Dham, Sanjeewani Sewa Sangam , Health clinics run by Sahayata, Viklang Sangh and Scholarships to to needy students pursuing their higher education in Indore and Rukmaniben Deep Chand Gardi Medical College and Sewa Dham Ashram in Ujjain . Jimmy McGilligan Centre for Sustainable Development  http://jimmymcgilligancentre.org/ was also his initiative and  started under the aegis of this Trust.Malhotraji  was also a  remarkable humble  human being—simple   kind and generous he was loved by so many people from all walks of life . All of us , the Trustees  Mr. Rakesh K.Dixit (Shipping Engineer) Secretary , Mr Ravi Gupta , Mr. Narendra Jain (Charted Accountant) Financial Advisor   Dr. (Mrs) Janak Palta McGilligan,( Social worker ,Vice Chairperson) have worked with him feel a huge personal and social loss and pray for the progress of his soul will always remember him and continue to do our best !!

 

A call to Investors in Investors Meet :Indore

A call to Investors to invest in “Solar Cooking and Sustainable Technologies” for Achieving Sustainable Development Goals: Janak Palta McGilligan
I want to draw the attention of all the participants of investor‘s meet in Indore that Madhya Pradesh has no manufacturing unit of solar cookers for domestic/community/commercial use and still dependent on Germany for manufacturing reflector materials that can give a big boost to manufacture “Solar Cooking and Sustainable Technologies“ for Sustainable Development goals. Different units such as Scheffler concentrators with different heat take ups: direct cooking, steam, oil heating, industrial oven etc. at receiver‘s end; community dish cookers ; solar dryers; biomass gasifiers/instrumentation and data recording systems. It can promote local manufacturing, simple construction, recycled and locally available materials. Solar energy devices can also be supported with renewable backup like bio-gas, biomass, briquettes etc.

-Indore can play lead role in its world famous “making Namkeens” and promoting production of organic food, including taking care of soil and farm health by encouraging skill-development in making of natural phenyl, natural colours, cosmetics, medicinal plants, solar cooking, solar baking, solar drying of vegetables, fruits jam, juice, peanut butter making, herbs, medicinal plants and various products out of desi cow urine and cow dung. I am saying this based on my personal experience of more than three decades of being a part of manufacturing 5 solar community kitchens in Indore and neighbouring area hostels and training more than 6000 tribal young girls and women in 500 Indian remote villages, where 500 Solar Cookers (SK 14) are operational and individual women entrepreneurs are running solar tea stall, and source of livelihood for self-help groups as well as being aware of successful working of Scheffler dishes in many parts of India. I have trained various strata of life from Indore and many other states of India, coming all the way to learn to make herbal/natural colours for Holi celebrations using leafy vegetables like spinach, beetroot, fruits and orange peels, forest products like Poi berries, Tessu flowers, paste as well as liquid foam, to promote organic farming, solar food processing, training, research and development of all related technologies that should add value to farmer’s products of India by reducing the carbon footprints in food processing.

-Furthermore, the implementation of solar food processing will contribute to sustainable development and food security. Different solar food technologies/systems like solar ovens, distillers, dryers, concentrators herbs, cosmetics/cleaning items, natural colours for food, fashion and festivals specially to be marketed in India as well as for Europe. As there are many other recipes that can be designed in India those are not available in Europe.

-It will support organic farmers, existing food processors, entrepreneurs, manufacturers, sellers, buyers and users of Solar Technologies for food processing on the commercial basis.
It will also increase the possibilities to assist the entrepreneurs to get value for the solar food with the support of International network.
_________________
Janak Palta McGilligan :Co-founder of Jaivik Setu Indore, Member Board Of Trustees Navdanya .
She set up Jimmy McGilligan Centre For Sustainable Development in a village in April 2011, at her own residence, a centre for live demonstrations many solar technologies specially all 11 types of cookers and Solar Dryers and an organic farm that has been providing free of cost training in an integrated manner to farmers, microcredit groups, women, school students and from Science, Engineering, Management, Hotel Management, Medicine, Computers, Information Technology, Home Science, Agriculture, Communication with the objectives of saving the environment and energy. More than 40,000 persons have been trained and sensitized by the Centre. This Centre is also ushering the Solar Food Processing network at local regional and continues research and promotion of transfer of technologies.

Dr.(Mrs) Janak Palta McGilligan
Director
Jimmy McGilligan Centre For Sustainable Development
729 'Giridarshan'
Village Sanawadiya
Kampel Road
District Indore 452016 M.P India
janakjimmy@gmail.com 09893719609/09425032935
website

JanakJimmy's Giridarshan blog: “Jimmy! My Silent Hero in Social Service! My pione...

JanakJimmy's Giridarshan blog: “Jimmy! My Silent Hero in Social Service! My pione...:                        “Jimmy! My Silent Hero in Social Service! My pioneering   partner!”    I    dedicate   my first blog on my first wedd...

Happy Holi and Happy International Women Day ! March 8, 2012

In the memory of my beloved husband Mr. Jimmy McGilligan, a dedicated environmentalist who developed many solar devices and environmental friendly technologies for sustainable development at Barli Development Institute For Rural Women and for  many other places , today I have conducted training of making wet colours for Holi from Palash flowers on a solar cooker here in Village Sanawadiya where normally if one has lost a loved one, specially a husband , is expected to be mourning and no connection with Holi…I am sad and miss him every moment but he has left me with  lot of learning  ,a  Scheffler Solar Cooker, Giridarshan family, knowledge as well as  experience .He  continues to inspire me to share all this with people, no matter where I am !
 It is a special day in the History that Holi is on International Women Day!
 I want all the women to come out of shackles of unhealthy socio-cultural  practices that impede their development and rights as equal members of society.
As an envrironmentalist ,I  also appeal all the  people that  rather than  burning a huge amount of fuel wood and dungcakes  on Holi and further  add to environmental degradation , can celebrate Holi  with home-made sweets, love, prayers, traditional songs and dance and use natural colors.
 It is well known that traditionally ,the  tribals in Central India used to play Holi with wet colours  prepared from Palash flowers. The Flame of the Forest (Butea monosperma) also known as Tesu, or Dhaak ...,  boiled and soaked in water over night to produce  yellow coloured water, which also had medicinal properties.Commercialisation of culture and all the festivals has resulted into  increase in the use of synthetic  /chemical colours  that has increased many diseases ,actually the joyful event actually turns into a health problem like skin .
One of efforts is to revive the healthy socio-cultutal practices.
Happy Holi !Happy International Women Day!

Dr.(Mrs ) Janak Palta McGilligan

"Giridarshan"

Village & Post  Sanawadiya

Kampel Road, District Indore

M.P. India 452016

email -janakjimmy@gmail.com

Phone +91-9977713397/9425032935

“Jimmy! My Silent Hero in Social Service! My pioneering partner!”

                       “Jimmy! My Silent Hero in Social Service! My pioneering  partner!”  

I   dedicate  my first blog on my first wedding anniversary ( today Nov 27,2011) without the physical company of my beloved husband “Jimmy! My Silent Hero!  My pioneering partner!”   who lived and died working towards Sustainable Community Development Service in central India. (1986-2011)

             James (Jimmy) R. McGilligan grew up in Garvagh, Northern Ireland. Leaving his home, country and his business, he came to  India, volunteering in response to a call from the Bahá’í World Centre in 1986 to reclaim 72 acres of saline marshes of land at Rabbani School near Gwalior.His service started at the Bahá’í House of Worship (the ‘Lotus Temple’) in Delhi during its dedication ceremony. Having successfully completed his mission at Rabbani school, he was commended for his services by the Bahá’í World Centre.

Jimmy and I met on 16 October 1988 and were married on Nov 27,1988 in Chandigarh.Just after 3 days of Honeymoon to Chail Palace, he started his constant and unconditional support and help at every stage of my  journey of service to The Barli Development Institute for Rural Women,Indore . We started our marriage in service together in a one-room apartment in the dormitory of the Institute,  working around the clock seven days a week with no expectations or demands for a ‘package’, ‘position, ‘facilities’ or ‘comforts’ – and with no complaints!  Jimmy drove me and the staff and many trainees for first 13 years  in a  NON AC Gypsy Jeep andlater a Bolero, to  more than   2 lac, (two hundred thousand kilometres) to the roughest, most difficult, remote and crime-prone areas; stayed in the tribal homes in Jhabua, Alirajpur, Dhar, Khargone,Bastar. We used to stay  for  many days at a time  without proper food or  mineral water; no toilets, and took thousands of photos and videos. Having returned back to the Institute with no rest or break, he would go to work on manually digging the land, make gardens and roads, maintaining and developing the Institute facilities and infrastructure, ensuring food production, and teaching computer studies and environmental training. He set up a sustainable farm for the production of vegetables, lintels,herbs, fruits etc. to make the Institute as self-sufficient as possible, using minimal fertilisers and natural methods of composting farms wastes, including vermi-composting. Jimmy also set up a sprinkler irrigation system using reused wash water and recharging water sources with harvested rainwater.

At night he was always  ‘glued’ to the computer, developing and manning the website and the audiovisual resources. His main source of energy used to be big mugs of tea without sugar. If I had to locate him in the campus,I had to follow a mug sitting in the office, the workshed  or the fields  or top of a wall ...I miss all this so much...

 He built the solar kitchen at the Institute, innovated many other environmentally friendly solar technologies, and transferred and promoted alternative sources of energy technologies to more than 500 villages and many countries around the globe. Along the way, he made  live demonstrations  to thousands of people visiting Barli and  presented papers in India and many parts of the World.This made him very popular and in  November 2008 he was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II for his ‘services to social causes and the use of alternative energy in rural communities in India’

Actually, he loved and enjoyed it all – especially when  thousands of tribal people and the Institute staff  popularly called him ‘jeejaji’ (brother-in-law/sister’s husband ). He used to be so proud of being Jeejaji tell people “ I married Janak and married half of India.” Jimmy  actualized  one of  the Baha’i principle of gender equality in our daily life that ‘the world of humanity has two wings; one is woman and the other man. Not until both wings are equally developed can the bird fly . . .’  In fact, our work at the Institute enriched my personal life, especially through being able to work together as a couple, sharing the same vision and beliefs and trying to learn how to apply them together.

Jimmy’s last project was building our  post-retirement home, “Giridarshan “(mountain view) at Sanawavdia village the outskirts of 20 kms  Indore. Even while building his own home, his commitment to the community around him became his priority and with the collaboration of Daly College and RSIS, he envisoned, planned, physically built all the poles and successfully   installed  2 Kilowatt wind and solar hybrid power plant at Giridarshan  that powers 18 streets  of a small hamlet of 32 tribal families of landless labourers  our neighbourhood.I am trying my best to maintain and run it.

We were looking forward  to  our retirement from Barli on 16^th April and move to our dream house and continue our service to Sanawadiya community, God had his different plan, no one can argue with Him.

 Jimmy had come to Indore to serve at Barli and  depart from Barli on April 23rd to rest in peace in the Baha’i  Gulistaan near Indore following a very tragic road accident on April 4,near Ujjain and succumbed  to these fatal injuries on 21^st April . I was completely shattered and devastated, but with the support of our families from both sides and lots of friends from all our the world, I moved to the village on June 10,2011 where Jimmy had been working with his body mind and soul to complete our  dream house . I live here  along with our adopted family Nanda, Rajender and their children Sunil and Raveena.

I salute you  Jimmy for your love, care and all the sacrifices and adjustments you made to help me, my people in India… and I feel you around me ,no matter where I am but I miss you ever moment! You continue to inspire me to keep me going ,I am trying my best to do my service to the community that we had planned together….Janak Palta McGillIgan

janakjimmy@gmail.com  099 77713397 or 09425032935