Rajesh Sharma teaches Savita Kumari, 12, words by rote at the makeshift school he founded under a metro bridge in Shakarpur, New Delhi.
Rajesh Sharma teaches Savita Kumari, 12, words by rote at the makeshift school he founded under a metro bridge in Shakarpur, New Delhi.
Rajesh Sharma teaches Savita Kumari, 12, words by rote at the makeshift school he founded under a metro bridge in Shakarpur, New Delhi.
Rajesh Sharma teaches Savita Kumari, 12, words by rote at the makeshift school he founded under a metro bridge in Shakarpur, New Delhi.

Makeshift school under railway bridge helps students beat the odds


  • English
  • Arabic

NEW DELHI // Rajesh Sharma's school has no desks or chairs. The "roof" is a metro railway bridge 10 metres overhead. The blackboards are black rectangles painted on the wall of the adjacent station. Despite its makeshift nature, the school offers hope to poor children in the neighbourhood.

Mr Sharma, 41, who runs a grocery across the street from the Yamuna Vihar metro station, started the school three years ago to offer free education to the children of the local labourers and farmers.

Being poor and mostly illiterate, the families of these children usually either see no need for them to be educated, or worry about the costs involved, particularly when sending them to school means they cannot help to support the family.

Veeresh Kumar, 9, has been attending the classes for a year since his family moved to Delhi from Uttar Pradesh in search of work. His father is a farm labourer in the nearby fields that line the banks of the Yamuna river.

"I want to become an engineer someday because I like numbers and I like how English sounds when I speak the words," Veeresh said.

He attends a government school, which is unusual among his peers whose families squat along the river. But the quality of teaching in government schools is uneven and absenteeism by teachers plagues the system. So Veeresh must endure a schedule that would be exhausting even for most adults.

His day begins at 9am with classes at Mr Sharma's school. At 11, he walks home for a quick lunch of rice, a piece of bread and a watery potato gravy. He then changes into his uniform of light-blue shirt and dark-blue trousers, washes his face and sets off for the government school a kilometre-and-a-half away. He returns home at 5pm and does his homework.

Veeresh's family is supportive of him going to school, despite not quite understanding his excitement about it.

"We can't read or write so we have no idea how he is doing in school. He will show us his work sometimes and say, 'Look! I got all the answers right', but I cannot understand a thing," said Chameli, Veeresh's grandmother, who shares a two-room hut made of mud, straw and plastic sheeting with two sons, their wives and three grandchildren.

Mr Sharma understands the yearning to learn but not being able to fulfil the desire. He dropped out of college in his third year because of his family's financial difficulties. The idea to open a school came to him on a morning walk along the river when he saw some children weeding and picking flowers.

"I asked them which school they go to and they looked at me at with no answer," Mr Sharma said.

"It had not occurred to me before that not every child has access to a school."

So Mr Sharma and his friend, Laxmi Chandra, a retired teacher, teach classes under the metro bridge for two hours every weekday morning. The students, who now number more than 70, sit on foam mats and recite after their teachers as trains rumble overhead and traffic rolls past a few metres away. While the younger children learn the English alphabet, those between 10 and 16 study mathematics, from multiplication tables to geometry, taught by Mr Chandra.

"These are not children who can afford private tuition to help them with their homework from school," Mr Chandra said. "We teach them in a way no one cares to."

Mr Sharma initially bore the entire cost of providing the children with textbooks, pencils and exercise books.

Over time, people who heard about the school began dropping off supplies, sometimes anonymously.

"One man came with 60 school bags once," he said. "He would not tell me his name or what he did. He said none of that mattered as long as the children got a decent education."

Mr Sharma started the school with the aim of providing children from poor families with a basic education.

However, after the government enforced the 2009 Right to Education Act last year, which guarantees free schooling for children between the ages of 6 and 14, Mr Sharma decided to focus on preparing the children for admission to school and helping them to cope with the curriculum.

But the children of farmers and labourers are reluctant to enrol, influenced mainly by the prejudice of their parents, most of whom are illiterate.

All it takes to enrol in government schools, which also provide free lunches, is for a parent to accompany the child to register them. Most parents of the children that Mr Sharma teaches are reluctant to do even that.

Being squatters, they have no residency papers and are loath to interact with the authorities, even in schools, for fear that it might draw attention to their illegally constructed homes.

Mr Sharma has to battle constantly to get parents to send their children to his classes for just a couple of hours each day.

"They say, 'My son is too old now to catch up with the rest of his age group and study. Let us put him to work'," he said.

"The excuses for the daughters are even worse. Most of the time they cannot even bring themselves to believe that she deserves an education. Other times they are just waiting to marry her off."

At 13, Kunti Kumari is one of the oldest girls studying the alphabet at Mr Sharma's school. She joined five months ago but stopped after a month. After a week, Mr Sharma went to see her parents. Kunti began to cry when she saw her teacher.

It turned out that Kunti worked alongside her parents in the fields. After the euphoria of her first month of learning wore off, she struggled to keep up with the burden of working and studying.

Kunti woke at 3am each day to cut roses from the family's bushes for her father to take to market by 6am. She then helped her younger sister, Babli, 11, with household chores before setting off to class. By the time she returned home and completed her share of work in the fields, she was often too tired to do homework.

"The parents, they just don't understand," Mr Sharma said. It was only after he made Kunti recite the alphabet from "A is for apple" all the way to "S is for ship" that her father was convinced that the two hours of daily schooling were worth it.

Kunti and her sister both attend Mr Sharma's school now, taking their two young brothers along instead of having to stay at home to babysit them while their parents are at work.

They no longer have to work in the evenings either, so they can do their homework.

But their father will still not enrol them in a government school.

"They don't understand the system," Kunti said. "I wish I could outright say I want to go to school, but I know I must help my parents support our family."

SERIE A FIXTURES

Saturday (UAE kick-off times)

Atalanta v Juventus (6pm)

AC Milan v Napoli (9pm)

Torino v Inter Milan (11.45pm)

Sunday

Bologna v Parma (3.30pm)

Sassuolo v Lazio (6pm)

Roma v Brescia (6pm)

Verona v Fiorentina (6pm)

Sampdoria v Udinese (9pm)

Lecce v Cagliari (11.45pm)

Monday

SPAL v Genoa (11.45pm)

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New Zealand 144-4

Williamson 51, S Curran 2-28

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Billie Holliday: for the burn and also the way she told stories.  

Thelonius Monk: for his earnestness.

Duke Ellington: for his edge and spirituality.

Louis Armstrong: his legacy is undeniable. He is considered as one of the most revolutionary and influential musicians.

Terence Blanchard: very political - a lot of jazz musicians are making protest music right now.

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  • Priority access to new homes from participating developers
  • Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
  • Flexible payment plans from developers
  • Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
  • DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
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Fuel consumption: 10.6L/100km

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1,942 teams

116 pitches

76 nations

26 UAE teams

15 Lebanese teams

2 Kuwaiti teams

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Torque: 400Nm at 1,750-4,000rpm

Transmission: 8-speed auto

Fuel consumption: 9.1L/100km

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2. Prayer

3. Hajj

4. Shahada

5. Zakat 

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%3Cp%3ESixteen%20boys%20and%2015%20girls%20have%20gone%20on%20from%20Go-Pro%20Academy%20in%20Dubai%20to%20either%20professional%20contracts%20abroad%20or%20scholarships%20in%20the%20United%20States.%20Here%20are%20two%20of%20the%20most%20prominent.%0D%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EGeorgia%20Gibson%20(Newcastle%20United)%3C%2Fstrong%3E%0D%3Cbr%3EThe%20reason%20the%20academy%20in%20Dubai%20first%20set%20up%20a%20girls%E2%80%99%20programme%20was%20to%20help%20Gibson%20reach%20her%20potential.%20Now%20she%20plays%20professionally%20for%20Newcastle%20United%20in%20the%20UK.%0D%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EMackenzie%20Hunt%20(Everton)%3C%2Fstrong%3E%0D%3Cbr%3EAttended%20DESS%20in%20Dubai%2C%20before%20heading%20to%20the%20UK%20to%20join%20Everton%20full%20time%20as%20a%20teenager.%20He%20was%20on%20the%20bench%20for%20the%20first%20team%20as%20recently%20as%20their%20fixture%20against%20Brighton%20on%20February%2024.%0D%3C%2Fp%3E%0A

Babumoshai Bandookbaaz

Director: Kushan Nandy

Starring: Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Bidita Bag, Jatin Goswami

Three stars

Key facilities
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%3Cp%3EThe%20influx%20of%20talented%20young%20Afghan%20players%20to%20UAE%20cricket%20could%20have%20a%20big%20impact%20on%20the%20fortunes%20of%20both%20countries.%20Here%20are%20three%20Emirates-based%20players%20to%20watch%20out%20for.%0D%3Cbr%3E%20%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EHassan%20Khan%20Eisakhil%3C%2Fstrong%3E%0D%3Cbr%3EMohammed%20Nabi%20is%20still%20proving%20his%20worth%20at%20the%20top%20level%20but%20there%20is%20another%20reason%20he%20is%20raging%20against%20the%20idea%20of%20retirement.%20If%20the%20allrounder%20hangs%20on%20a%20little%20bit%20longer%2C%20he%20might%20be%20able%20to%20play%20in%20the%20same%20team%20as%20his%20son%2C%20Hassan%20Khan.%20The%20family%20live%20in%20Ajman%20and%20train%20in%20Sharjah.%0D%3Cbr%3E%20%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EMasood%20Gurbaz%3C%2Fstrong%3E%0D%3Cbr%3EThe%20opening%20batter%2C%20who%20trains%20at%20Sharjah%20Cricket%20Academy%2C%20is%20another%20player%20who%20is%20a%20part%20of%20a%20famous%20family.%20His%20brother%2C%20Rahmanullah%2C%20was%20an%20IPL%20winner%20with%20Kolkata%20Knight%20Riders%2C%20and%20opens%20the%20batting%20with%20distinction%20for%20Afghanistan.%0D%3Cbr%3E%20%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EOmid%20Rahman%3C%2Fstrong%3E%0D%3Cbr%3EThe%20fast%20bowler%20became%20a%20pioneer%20earlier%20this%20year%20when%20he%20became%20the%20first%20Afghan%20to%20represent%20the%20UAE.%20He%20showed%20great%20promise%20in%20doing%20so%2C%20too%2C%20playing%20a%20key%20role%20in%20the%20senior%20team%E2%80%99s%20qualification%20for%20the%20Asia%20Cup%20in%20Muscat%20recently.%0D%3Cbr%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
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Torque: 678Nm at 7,250rpm

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Ronaldo (14'), Bale (72')

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While the taste of beans and freshness of roast is paramount to the specialty coffee scene, so is sustainability and workers’ rights.

The bulk of genuine specialty coffee companies aim to improve on these elements in every stage of production via direct relationships with farmers. For instance, Mokha 1450 on Al Wasl Road strives to work predominantly with women-owned and -operated coffee organisations, including female farmers in the Sabree mountains of Yemen.

Because, as the boutique’s owner, Garfield Kerr, points out: “women represent over 90 per cent of the coffee value chain, but are woefully underrepresented in less than 10 per cent of ownership and management throughout the global coffee industry.”

One of the UAE’s largest suppliers of green (meaning not-yet-roasted) beans, Raw Coffee, is a founding member of the Partnership of Gender Equity, which aims to empower female coffee farmers and harvesters.

Also, globally, many companies have found the perfect way to recycle old coffee grounds: they create the perfect fertile soil in which to grow mushrooms. 

How to apply for a drone permit
  • Individuals must register on UAE Drone app or website using their UAE Pass
  • Add all their personal details, including name, nationality, passport number, Emiratis ID, email and phone number
  • Upload the training certificate from a centre accredited by the GCAA
  • Submit their request
What are the regulations?
  • Fly it within visual line of sight
  • Never over populated areas
  • Ensure maximum flying height of 400 feet (122 metres) above ground level is not crossed
  • Users must avoid flying over restricted areas listed on the UAE Drone app
  • Only fly the drone during the day, and never at night
  • Should have a live feed of the drone flight
  • Drones must weigh 5 kg or less

Ponti

Sharlene Teo, Pan Macmillan

Russia's Muslim Heartlands

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Engine: Dual-motor all-wheel-drive electric

Range: Up to 610km

Power: 905hp

Torque: 985Nm

Price: From Dh439,000

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Transmission: two-speed

Power: 671hp

Torque: 849Nm

Range: 456km

Price: from Dh437,900 

On sale: now

THE SPECS – Honda CR-V Touring AWD

Engine: 2.4-litre 4-cylinder

Power: 184hp at 6,400rpm

Torque: 244Nm at 3,900rpm

Transmission: Continuously Variable Transmission (CVT)

0-100kmh in 9.4 seconds

Top speed: 202kmh

Fuel consumption: 6.8L/100km

Price: From Dh122,900

Drivers’ championship standings after Singapore:

1. Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes - 263
2. Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari - 235
3. Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes - 212
4. Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull - 162
5. Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari - 138
6. Sergio Perez, Force India - 68

COMPANY%20PROFILE
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EName%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ESmartCrowd%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarted%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E2018%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFounder%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ESiddiq%20Farid%20and%20Musfique%20Ahmed%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EDubai%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ESector%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EFinTech%20%2F%20PropTech%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInitial%20investment%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E%24650%2C000%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ECurrent%20number%20of%20staff%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%2035%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestment%20stage%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ESeries%20A%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestors%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EVarious%20institutional%20investors%20and%20notable%20angel%20investors%20(500%20MENA%2C%20Shurooq%2C%20Mada%2C%20Seedstar%2C%20Tricap)%3C%2Fp%3E%0A

THE SPECS

Engine: 4.4-litre V8

Transmission: Automatic

Power: 530bhp 

Torque: 750Nm 

Price: Dh535,000

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Lampedusa: Gateway to Europe
Pietro Bartolo and Lidia Tilotta
Quercus

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Engine: Electric single motor (96kW), twin motor (106kW) and twin motor performance (106kW)

Power: 333hp, 449hp, 680hp

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On sale: Later in 2025 or early 2026, depending on region

Price: Exact regional pricing TBA

Global state-owned investor ranking by size

1.

United States

2.

China

3.

UAE

4.

Japan

5

Norway

6.

Canada

7.

Singapore

8.

Australia

9.

Saudi Arabia

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South Korea

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