The three-day SMILE Film Festival came to an eventful end on April 26 with an aim of taking some new steps for the development of the youth in the near future. The audience and former members of the SMILE organisation formed a Smile Movie Club at the end of the festival. The Smile Movie Club will be screening various documentary films by conducting youth related events in Northeast to generate social awareness. Students Mobilization Initiative for Learning through Exposure (SMILE) is a youth programme under the aegis of the Indo Global Social Service Society (IGSSS). The film festival was...

From the day I joined Cotton College I always encountered with a new young face who finally takes up the “begging profession”. This “profession” seems to be quite a common activity among those below the poverty-line here in Guwahati. Earlier, I used to find only old women or men begging. But nowadays young children are being pushed forward for begging because they can earn much more than the elders. Few months back I was walking down from my college towards the Panbazar area when a young girl, not more than five years old, followed me until I reached a bookshop. I was so overwhelmed by my...

It’s been almost two and a half years since I came for my graduation studies to Cotton College, which is one of the most prestigious institutions of Assam. The very first day of my college I noticed one thing — that the students in my college were not very keen at taking care of their age-old college property. The desks were scribbled over and broken, and nobody was bothered to even replace them. Things have been going the same the same way for ages and till date nobody has taken any initiative to do something about it. One thing which truly surprised me was when I saw a small shanty area...