The total aid package approved for rehabilitation and reconstruction in the tsunami hit areas as announced yesterday. According to the Finance Minister, P Chidambaram, this is the first installment of the relief package. We hope it gets to the ones who need it the most, and in time.

A quick update and a bunch of photos. We drove about 1300 odd kilometres in 3 days, travelling from Bangalore-Chennai-Chidambaram-Cuddalore. And then beyond Cuddalore to a few villages in and around the area. We crossed over to a really beautiful island village called MGR Thittu, literally swept away by the tsunami. The people have all relocated to the shore and are in relief camps. The women still fear the water, but the menfolk want to go back and resume their fishing activities as we found out talking to them. After spending the whole of Saturday in Cuddalore, we started back for Chennai late evening. Kiruba’s car couldn’t take it anymore and broke down around midnight. His car had to be abandoned since there was no way we would find a mechanic at that time of the night. Kiruba and all his fellow passengers had to halt a bus on the way (somewhere near Pondicherry) to get back to Chennai. It was an eventful trip. Some photographs taken with a digicam. (Warning: Photos are from flickr.com …

Reached Chennai in the afternoon after a longish but pleasant drive. Met up Kiruba, Nanda, Suman, Chitra. After some discussion, we headed out to the AID India office and met Anu who is coordinating with volunteers. She gave us some useful info about the villages to head to and also supplies we can take with us. From there we headed to enquire about fishing nets. And then bought some sports supplies that Anu suggested that we can take for kids in the affected villages. We’re heading out now for Chidambaram, about 3 hours away, a central point from where we will head for about 3-4 villages, early morning. Volunteer work is still going on full swing, so if you’re thinking of doing something, a good point to start with would be to contact AID India in Chennai. They will be able to guide you on possible activities. They also need help with building temporary housing in the coming days. Will be back tomorrow night or on Sunday.

A few of us (Arun, Suman, his wife Chitra, Vasu) will be in Chennai over the long weekend (Jan 14-16). We will be working with Kiruba and Nanda who have been involved in such activities from Chennai. One of the activities will be to go into the nearby villages to identify families for sponsorship for folks who want to help from the US. The other is to distribute fishing nets, baby food, children school supplies in the nearby villages, which Kiruba has already been doing for the last few days. If you can pitch in terms of contributions, please contact me asap via email: anitabora5 at rediffmail dot com. Anything will be useful. UPDATE: Thanks for the response to my call for contributions, folks. Friends/acquaintances, Biswajit D, Shael S, Spidey, Vaish, her friend Mohan and Venkat. Someone who happened to come across this blog post – Gautam K – thanks for your generous contribution. My pals from Mumbai, Prabal, Dhiraj, Lynn and Anumita, and her friend Chandrika. Much appreciated 🙂 Just read this report, forwarded …

Narain, director of 360 Degree Interactive has launched this effort from to help kids get back to school. The cost of each kit is Rs.225 and you can do your bit, by visiting this link.

Dilip D’Souza has been travelling through the tsunami affected areas in TN and is reporting via his blog. His SMS despatches can be found at ChiensSansFrontiers. Amit Varma is another reporter from Mumbai who is currently in TN and blogs at India Uncut. You can also read more news at Waves of Hope: A non profit free media news site run by volunteer reporters, writers and citizens from all over Sri Lanka. “News here is fresh from the trenches and free from the shackles of political bias.” Snapshots are available here. George Iype reports in rediff.com that there is a clamour to adopt orphans, especially from the US, but the law won’t make the process easy. This is an email I received from a friend. A non-profit volunteer organization called The Family. has sent out this appeal. We are sending this urgent appeal with a request for you to join hands with us in helping as many of these families as possible to recover from this devastating day. It is only as we work hand …