UNL journalism and advertising students discovering India
July 26, 2011 1 Comment
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Photos by Sarah Miller
College students learn to overcome language barriers between Indian school children living in a small village. Through the power of dance, University of Nebraska-Lincoln students find a way to connect with the people living there.
July 25, 2011 3 Comments
The temple to Shiva looms over the nearby Rani Sarawasti Vidya Mandir School. More than 500 years ago, warriors built the temple to please Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction. They hoped it would give them strength in battle. | Photo by Elias Youngquist
Story by Elias Youngquist
In the small village of Rampur-Mathura, Uttar Pradesh, sits a force of destruction a mere 20 feet from a school.
The source of danger is neither of chemical or mechanical origin. Instead, it’s religious. Plastered with prayers from Vedas and adorned with statues of the goddesses, the temple is a major part of the village’s history and is one of only two temples like it in India.
“This temple is over 500 years old,” said Vinod Awasti the Pandit or Hindu priest.
What separates the temples from others in India is the placement of the gods in the inner shrine. The god of destruction, Shiva is typically placed on the bottom of shrines, but in Rampur-Mathur, the symbol of Shiva sits above the turtle representative of Lord Vishnu, the preserver god.
Hundreds of years ago Rampur-Mathura was home to many people of the Kshatriya or warrior caste. Before battle they would come and pray to Shiva for the destruction of their enemies.
Even today many members of the village have the surname ‘Singh’ which means they are of the Kshatriya caste. Today, the temple’s purpose is much less aggressive.
Villagers come with small statues, flowers and trinkets to place before other gods such as Lakshmi, the goddess of prosperity and wealth; Ganesha, the god of all existing beings; or even Vishnu, now worshiped for destroying temporary things of this world.
July 25, 2011 1 Comment
Video by Camila Orti
School children in a small village outside of Lucknow show some Husker spirit.
July 24, 2011 Leave a comment
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Photos by Bethany Trueblood | Story by Francesca Torquati
Pruti Singh, a 19-year-old teacher at Rani Saraswati Shishu Mandir in Rampur-Mathura, pointed out some similarities between herself and her American guests: same scarf, same nose piercing.
But they also have different skin, and live on different continents and in different cultures.
“We are common,” Singh said with a smile.
For these American guests, Singh helped lead a team of five teachers and 10 students to create a traditional Indian welcome. To welcome these guests Singh helped to apply Tika, a traditional red marking, to the forehead of the visitors before they entered a path to the school and were showered with rose petals and garlands.
Manoj Singh, the principal of Rani Saraswati Shishu Mandir school, and Vinod Awasti, a Pandit, or Hindu priest, lead the welcoming crowd in a selection of Vedas, relic mantras from Hindi holy books as the guests arrived.
“As (the guests) are foreigners, (they) are of great significance,” Manoj said of the welcome.
Vinod Awasti surveyed all of Rampur Mathura’s guests with a stoic expression and explained why it was important to prepare such a welcome for the American visitors.
“It is our religion to respect our guests, because in our religion, guests are considered as gods.”
Editor’s note: This site’s reporters were the foreigners referenced to in this article. We would like to thank the people of Rampur-Mathura for their generous hospitality.
July 24, 2011 1 Comment
Kismat Ali (left) and Lallan Idrieshia (right) are mobile phone merchants in the village of Rampur-Mathura. The co-owners use the network to advertise and have increased business by 50 customers since the exposure. | Photo by Jennifer Gotrik
Story by Elisabeth Loeck
People in remote Rampur-Mathura villages are using mobile phones to learn news about their community. Now local businesses are starting to use the network for advertising.
In the 20-kilometer radius that the news service reaches, Sunil Saxena, the program’s founder, said that most people do not have access to television and cannot read newspapers. Mobile phones are the first device they can use to actually communicate information in a language they can understand. The trick will be figuring out how to make the service pay for itself. Advertising may be an answer.
Two reporters file audio stories from the community, which are distributed to 250 subscribers via their mobile phones. It costs 20,000 rupees a month to transmit the stories, but subscribers pay just 10 rupees a month for the service. Beginning in March 2010, the network began running advertisements from local businesses, and in July, it began to charge 20 rupees a month for the exposure.
Saxena believes that his experiment with advertising proves that businesses can be persuaded to use mobile phones as an advertising medium. If he can attract enough subscribers, he says, he may in turn attract enough advertisers to support the network and sustain the project.
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