Around the beginning of October 2009, when all schools had closed for Dasara holidays and people across India were celebrating the festive season, Karnataka experienced one of its greatest tragedies. Retreating South-West monsoons brought heavy rain, resulting in the worst floods in over a 100 years [1]. More than half a million people were displaced, and scores lost their lives in the ensuing tragedy [2].

One of the many salient features of the world’s largest kitchen includes the system to clean raw rice. This rice-cleaning machine was imported from Spain in the year 2005. The arrangement, with a capacity of cleaning up to 5 tons of rice in an hour, can be divided into three sections. The first section segregates metal adulterants such as nails, iron fillings etc; the second, a larger structure, segregates dust, moth, chaff, husk and broken rice grains while the third separates stones from the rice.

The scorching summer has taken its toll in North India and school vacation is a welcome relief for many students. But for a large number of children, summer vacation means hard work at the local construction site to earn a little extra income.

This year, such underprivileged children have been given a ray of hope.

The State Government of Uttar Pradesh, happy with The Akshaya Patra Foundation’s service, has requested we continue the mid-day meal program during school vacations.