Sukanya Samridhi Account

      Many of you may be aware of Central Government's "Sukanya Samridhi Account" - a savings scheme that was launched on 22nd January 2015. Couple of days back, it has been launched in Tamilnadu and Pondicherry, and many are struggling to get the right information/clarification concerning this scheme. In this connection, there was a "Live" program on "Thanthi TV" - a Satellite Tamil channel on 28th March at 15:00 hours IST, in which the Chennai region's Postmaster General Mr. Mervin Alexander was answering various questions/doubts. I thought that writing an article based on the information/clarification I have gathered, would be useful to many. I was/am very cautious in NOT misleading on any information/clarification given here; but, still... if there is any, by chance, it may be because of the fact that I did not understand it well. Please let me know if there is any so. 

Conditions/ Criteria:

• Sukanya Samridhi Account (SSA) savings scheme is essentially for a girl child, and only one account can be opened in the credit of a particular girl child. If there are more than one account found on a particular child, it may lead to legal actions. However, I do not have enough details on the legal actions.
• Only 2 girl children are eligible per family to get benefited from this scheme. However, if the 2nd pregnancy has delivered twin or multiple girl-children, they are eligible to get benefitted along with the 1st girl child, if applicable. But, if the twin/multiple girl children are born in the 1st pregnancy, the girl(s) born in the next or consequence pregnancies becomes ineligible.
• The SSA can be opened with a minimum of 1000 INR per account/per year; and the maximum limit is 1,50,000 INR per account/per year. The year related with SSA is the "Financial Year", which means from April-March. As today is 29th March, the current financial year will end in 2 days, and if one wants, any amount (even the maximum) can be deposited for the 1st year within these 2 days.
• Maximum deposition period is 14 years and then the amount can be kept in the account for 7 years to get complete maturity of the scheme. This means the total life-span of SSA scheme is 21 years. But, the account can be closed at any time if necessary but the maturity/returns will differ accordingly. 
• There is no condition on how much should be paid for a year, and also there is no fixed amount to be followed for all the 14 years. It can be vary from year to year; and the only condition is that it cannot exceed a maximum amount of 1,50,000 INR per account per year. Deposits can be made either in lump-sum or in 12 installments
• The amount can be paid for the maximum of 14 years from the date of opening SSA or until the girl is got married, whichever comes first. After the completion of 14 years deposition or getting married, no more deposition will be possible.
• In the case of the girl getting married, only further deposit will not be possible; but, the deposit can be kept alive for the remaining years to get the complete maturity depending on the deposited amount. 
• If for any reason, one or more years are passed without any deposit after opening the SSA, the account can be brought to alive by paying 50 INR per year. Personally, I am against this penalty that is very feeble; it may make the people a bit more careless. Anyway, it is my personal opinion.

Eligibility:

• A girl child with the age from just-born to less than 10 completed years (on the day of opening SSA) are eligible under SSA scheme. However, as a launching-year promotion, one more year is allowed as far as the upper age limit is concerned. According to this, a girl child who is not exceeding 11 completed years of age on/before 2nd December 2015 can be eligible for this scheme. It seems, at least for now, that this relaxation will not be applicable from next year.

Benefits/Maturity:

• All the amount deposited to this scheme are exempted from tax payments. Further information can be obtained from Department of Tax.
• If 14 years are completed with a maximum deposit of 1,50,000 INR per year, plus 7 years of keeping the account alive; the total maturity is understood to be 79,00,000 INR. That is after completing 21 years from the date of opening SSA.
• Any deposit below the maximum per year will have the total maturity in proportional to the amount paid.
• Before the actual completion of 21 years, 50 % of the amount can be availed for either higher education of the marriage of the girl. However, it was not explained if this 50 % is exactly half of the total-maturity amount.

Opening and maintaining SSA?:

• Either Parents/Natural guardians/Legal guardians of the girl child are only eligible to open SSA on the credit of a particular girl child. A passport-size photograph and any document like AADHAR card holding the address proof of "Parents/Natural guardians/Legal guardians" are needed to open SSA. It seems some post-office branches are asking for the photograph of the child, which is not mandatory.
• Once the account is opened, any one can make deposit to it.
• Once the girl having SSA completed 10 years, she can go to post-office and deposit the amount by signing herself. 
• After 18 years, it will become mandatory that the girl handles and maintains the SSA by herself. Also on completing 18 years, the photo and address proof the girl should be submitted, which is mandatory. 

Where to apply?:

• For now, SSA can be opened ONLY by applying at post offices including a branch office. However, at later stage the facilities will be made to open this account through banks and/or by online. More details will be available in later stages.
• The same is applied to topping the account; means, for now, it can be done ONLY at post offices. However, other facilities like online payments will be made available at later stages.

Contacts:

• Any further information/clarification can be obtained from these numbers: +91 44 28594745 and +91 94430 48028. Both are Chennai based numbers and I do not have any other contact at the moment.
• This http://www.indiapost.gov.in/SukanyaSamriddhi.aspx weblink may be useful in getting some more information. 

Male child:

• If one wonders, why NOT for male child? - there is already a scheme named "Public Provident Fund (PPF)" that is for male children or by other means uni-sex. The only difference is that SSA gives an interest of 9.1 % against 8.7 % in PPF. This 0.4 % of interest is because that they are girl children, which are precious for any country.

NOTE: If you felt this article was useful, please spend a moment in sharing this with others in your circle. Let all the girl children of our country be benefitted from this scheme.

Link to Tamil Version: http://vizhiyappan.blogspot.ae/2015/03/sukanya-samridhi-account.html

What is Human-Interaction?

      As mentioned in the Introduction to kick-starting this English Blog, the photo given above is the one that I have received in one of my Whatsapp groups. I could have debated this write-up there but I wanted to post it up as a write-up in my Tamil Blog and then share the link there. I think that it was a wise decision as it has realised my long term planning of writing a blog in English. Well, let us come to the topic. As mentioned in the photo above, there is no doubt that people nowadays are more into their smart-phones than talking (underline "talking") with whom they are with; in fact, we ourselves should have done it, at least once! I accept that it is happening; but, I do not accept that it is what the speculated Einstein's quote "I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The word will have a generation of idiots" actually reflects. 

        As this is my first post, I have sent the first draft to my friend for proof-correction. He has asked me verify if this was actually quoted by Einstein. What a surprise? When I googled it, I came to know that it is one of 7 famous "Fake" quotes. You can find more information on this in google. That is the reason I mentioned it as a "speculated" Einstein's quote in the above paragraph. Anyway, I still wanted to publish this write-up and exchange my thought-process with you all. In the first place, I could never accept the get-togethers or meetings with friends/known circles/any relationship as a "Human Interaction". If speaking/communicating with the persons around one is described as "Human Interation"; then what those in the above photo do using the technology (with others) should also be called as Human-interaction; isn't it? 

      Just because they are communicating through Whatsapp/Facebook using their smart-phones (technology), we cannot say that human-interaction is surpassed. Imagine one of the groups in the photo is working for the same company/organisation in the same department/section and at essentially same level. Now, please tell me "Will they interact and discuss their ideas to help each other growing?". Your answer would be a Big No, isn't it? Because, we never disclose our ideas with others who are working with us. We always discuss something else. I would not say that this is wrong as each one of us would/should think about our survival first. So, it can be nothing but a common discussion on entertainments/sports/politics or similar ones. If one can term this as "Human Interaction", why the ones in the photos are accused that they are not interacting with humans. 

        Probably, they may be even sharing their love with their close ones, which I would say is greater than any other common topics referred above. Hence, my disagreement with the photo is that "it is not Human Interaction at all". Then, this question may arise to you as it did to myself: "What is Human Interaction?" is what that question and that is obvious. To me, interaction is something that involves the exchange of knowledge/experience and contributes to the society/small community. And that should happen even with unknown people! The aim or definition of the interaction should be towards contributing to social or personal development. It is not about sitting in beach, eating/drinking in a bar, or other entertainments. There is really nothing to interact with the known circle; that is why I have used the word "talking" earlier and asked to underline it. 

     It is nothing but a communication or an entertainment. Imagine this example for a human interaction: I used to see many people working in our agricultural fields for various jobs. I used to interact with them and learn many information including very small ones; I used to interact with them and work along with them although it is only very few minutes. And they have had good interaction between themselves as well and exchanged their knowledge on developing agriculture yields, best products and so on. Then, the technology and its development came into picture starting with "Tractor"; imagine what? technology has eliminated slowly but steadily all those employees and the jobs! More interestingly, the "interaction" between the humans was totally destroyed. All those who worked/interacted together in an agricultural field have become single nucleus in various places.

       They have lost even a "communication" between them. Now, we have equipments to do almost everything on an agricultural field - right from seeding to cultivation! This is the best example I can give. To add more, technology development has eliminated the "student-teacher" interaction. It has eliminated the interaction  (physical meetings) between management and employees. Now, files are being transferred through gadgets - "files do not carry/show human emotions/interactions". Imagine the recent incident in Alabama State, USA; it is apparent that the cop did not know how to interact with an "unknown common" man. He is not trained for that; all those machine guns and atom-bombs have influenced him and others just a fear! Is it that cop's fault or not?. A county that calls itself as "world's superpower" invest so much on developing nuclear/biological bombs. 

      Do you want any more shameful example than such investment? People DO NOT EVEN want to interact with humans in a "Battle Field" and just want to destroy the humans with technological advancements. We just do not think about these shameful surpasses of human-interaction! But, we just take funny photos on common and innocent people and say they surpass human-interaction! If that is the case, please do not forget that it is the same technology (smart phone) that brought together so many friends/relatives who were lost in touch for so long! If one can term this as human-interaction, then we should realise that it is the same technology that gave you back the "interaction" with your friends/relatives. But, still I would not call it as "interaction" but would call just as a communication. I certainly believe that my understandings would make you agree with.

Let us first understand what is human-interaction!!!     

Note: Though it is a speculated Einstein's quote, as an iota of a physicist, I am very happy to get this opportunity to post a write-up based on this quote. Above all, I am very satisfied that this English blog of mine has kick-started with such a write-up.

Link to Tamil Version: http://vizhiyappan.blogspot.ae/2015/03/human-interaction.html

Introduction

        I am writing a blog in my mother tongue "Tamil" since 18th November 2011. Since then, I was planning to write in English and few of my closest ones encouraged me a lot. However, it was delayed for various reasons and finally it has come true today. Recently, a photo was shared in one of my Whatsapp groups, which triggered me to publish my write-up simultaneously in English. Fittingly, it is a good and apt topic to kick start this English blog. Too many of my friends do not know Tamil, and this would be a good way to follow and help me refine my thought process. The aforementioned topic is related to a social message that connects technology advancements leading to lack of human-interaction, which is claimed to be reflected in the great Einstein's famous quote. It was that correlation with the speculated Einstein's quote induced me to start a debate on that topic. I certainly believe that it has come good and your feedback is vital. Please do not hesitate to post strong critics, which will help me refining my thought process.

      The topic is titled as "What is human-interaction?". It is my habit to argue with my aquaintances and close ones; at times, I tend to argue with unknown as well. Often, I end up in facing the acquisition that I am a critic and adamant with my arguments. I always reply them saying that it is what called as a debate, and one has to stay focused/fixed with his/her arguments. It should not be taken as adamancy and one should never touch other debaters personally, and trigger their ego. Unfortunately, during many debates, you could notice that many debaters touch others personally. That is not a debate at all; debate should always be concerned and correlated with the arguments and not to hurt the persons who argue. I am very keen in not touching others personally; if there is a situation like that, I usually quit the debate but send a personal note to the corresponding debater. I always mention this whenever I get a chance in any of my posts in Tamil Blog. So, I am naturally happy that the first write-up here is based on a debate.

        I have reasonably good number of followers for my Tamil Blog. It is them who keeps me writing. Apart from publishing future articles simultaneously here in English, I will also translate the selected posts published on my Tamil blog. It is a plan that is pending since a long time now; hope it will also come true sooner. I hope I will have the same welcome for this English Blog as well. I seek all your support to keep me going; I would like to receive more criticisms than accolades, because, as aforementioned critics help improving my skills. I am one of those persons who continuously strive for perfection. I do not hesitate to implement any changes in my thought process or attitude based on inputs and suggestions from others. I convey my sincere thanks in advance to those who share their appreciations and criticisms and help me improve as a writer. All of my debate or my posts here, will be focused on just one thing - Search! I am a someone who always search something in anything. So, let us debate, discuss, search and learn something out of every possible thing. Let us travel together.. 

Thank you all!