Atanu Dey On India's Development

Congratulations. We’ve Raised the Funds

February 25, 2011 by Atanu Dey | 3 Comments

I am totally thrilled to report that our campaign to raise around US$2,200 for Chandrasekaran Balakrishnan’s visit to the US to present his paper at a conference is successful. Congratulations are in order all around.

Let’s do the numbers.

Number of people who pledged support: 22

Amounts raised:
US$ 1,425
Rs 23,300
Euros: 25

I have written to all thanking for the support. I have received some of the money through PayPal. Others are either sending checks in the mail or doing a bank transfer.

I have learned a few lessons. I always knew that people are generous. Now I know that given a specific need, people are eager to help. The kindness of strangers is a blessing we all enjoy.

I also learned that collecting money is hard work. I have spent around 10 hours corresponding, writing posts, doing sums, etc. I am a lazy bum and the next time around I will get someone else to do the hard work. {insert smiley here.}

I was tempted to just take one reader’s generous offer — to send me the entire amount. The reader requested anonymity and I appreciate that. But I will give you a small hint: a frequent commenter. I declined that kind offer because I believe that we all deserve a chance to do our little bit. We all get to feel good about having made it possible.

One contributor wrote to me that things have come to a sorry pass when scholars have to scrape around for support while crooks are raking in billions of dollars in scams all around. That’s disheartening of course but this small venture of ours suggests that all is not lost.

We can still prevail. Satyam eva jayate.

  • Humiliti

    Would you stop partying yourself on the back for a second?

    Somebody wrote the paper.

    Somebody donated.

    And here you are taking credit for “hardwork”!

    “oh, I can’t accept your donation even though it might Jeopardize the authors chances of making the trip – reason: “I ” think others deserve a chance too. 

    Get off your high horse!

    No wonder most bloggers are said to be megalomaniacs with huge self images.

  • http://idlinginc.blogspot.com/ Idler

    Humiliti:

    (1) Somebody wrote the paper.
    (2) Somebody donated.

    (1) Water is everywhere (river, ocean, air, glacier, etc)
    (2) Water comes out a tap at your place

    (1) Coal is found in many places
    (2) Electricity is delivered to homes

    We can go on with many examples (left as an exercise to you!), but I hope you realize at some point that there is a gap between (1) and (2). Work needs to be done get from (1) to (2). That you can’t understand such a trivial concept, obvious to any creature with an intelligence above a garden lizard shows the damage “education” does to your brain. Please ask for a refund on your education. You gotta give me 50% of the amount you get! :)

    If you provide me with numbers on how much you paid for your “educaeshun”, I can give you an estimate on how much you can ask for refund!

    Best Regards,
    Idler.

  • http://simplyani.wordpress.com Aniket

    We talk of bigger things, even on this blog, which is necessary. But we sometimes forget that it is smaller things as this one that serve as building blocks for the bigger ones.

    To everyone who was a part of this, many congrats.