Pune School Watch – DNA Interview Madhurie Singh – Date 11th October 2009

Madhurie Singh pens details about the leading schools in the city and passes on whatever information any parent would like to know.

by Kavita Kane

Madhurie Singh teaches you to learn more about schools. She does so through an equally interesting medium – blogging.

“The blog, MadhurieSingh.com, is like a reality blog, updates on a daily basis where I pen details about the leading schools in the city and supply whatever information any parent would like to know.” says Singh. There are 1000 hits a day.

A nasty incident at a swish, upmarket kindergarten school gave her enough reasons to rethink and start a crusade of sorts on the school admissions and procedures which drive most parents up the wall with rising anxiety.

“After my personal bad experience with one of the most prestigious schools in the city, I decided to start collecting details about each and every school, their rules, admissions, pros and cons. Admission time is a nightmare for all parents and most of it arises from ignorance about the schools which would best suit their child,” argues Singh. ” It is ignorance and great expectations from schools that make most parents unhappy and confused about which school to pick and choose for their ward.”

Her first objective was that the blog should not be a website of just facts and clinical data. ” It is not a brochure where you get some ready information about when admissions start and what the fees would be – it is than that,: explains Singh.

“I gave it a certain personal accountability by detailing facts with some illustrations, incidents and by relating issues. It is a personal assurance or warning about each school. The general information about the said school is supplied. Besides, if the parent wants to know more, I reveal more. I reveal details through private communication. For instance, one prominent city school is particular about the mother being highly educated but not a working professional. Most parents are unaware of such idiosyncrasies of individual schools and I hope to enlighten them, smiles the ex-software engineer, who blogs full-time with her research of city schools.

Beside basic information, data and statistics of each school, there are small articles on varied subjects related to school-going kids, parents and teachers. ” Topics which often children are either shy or wary to talk about with their parents or teachers are often dealt with _ say, sex education, which movies for different age groups, what religion means to a child, interesting conversations between child-parent / child-teacher, the materialistic culture of big birthdays and expensive return gifts and similar issues. The idea is to get to know the child better and make him/her a better person.

Having covered 10 leading schools till now, Singh plans to expand the campus horizons – all for the benefit of anxious parents. ” I have covered only English medium schools – mostly Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE), Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and International Baccalaureate (IB) schools as I am mostly catering to out-of-town and expatriate parents, says Singh.

“Since they have just settled in a new city, they are totally clueless about the schools and education centers here. Often, the reason they have settled in Pune is because of their child’s education. I think parents have the right to know all about the school they wish their child to be in,” reasons Singh.

“But for that they need to do their homework and a thourough check. I am only assisting them in this endeavor.

Self-defence the best practice – The Maharashtra Herald, Saturday, March 2008
By Aaditi Jathar [email protected]

KALYANINAGAR: Do you know that you can use your legs, arms, elbows, fingers and head for around 20 moves for self-defence? Madhurie Singh, has made a list of such techniques and conducts free one-hour training programme for women of various age groups.

This training, she says, is meant for a person who does not have a background of various martial arts, but is willing to learn simple self-defence tactics. “The idea is to use these techniques to hurt the attacker and escape from the situation, despite being unharmed. These are not meant to fight back the attacker,” she says.

Some of these moves include butt kicking, correct way of eye poking, hitting hard on Adam’s apple, using knee or feet to kick on the shin bone.

“If these moves are practiced once a week, they turn into reflex actions, during attacks,” Singh said.

For the first time, she conducted the training in Delhi in October 2007. However, it was only after the Wipro BPO employee, Jyotikumari Choudhary’s murder in Pune that Madhurie took it seriously and designed the one hour session.

Madhurie is not happy with the response to the training. “Today, I goto women and tell them I need just one hour to tell them what can be done for self-defence. I would consider it my success when the situation is reversed.”