Understanding India’s obsession with meme culture and tackling sickle anaemia—our top social stories of the week

We often find ourselves spending hours on Instagram watching content that’s sometimes funny, sometimes awkward, sometimes illogical, and sometimes irksome yet addictive.

What makes such content addictive is hard to explain. The definition of this kind of content, popularly known as ‘cringe’ content, is subjective and differs from person to person.

Tanvi Gupta, an assistant professor in marketing and Co-Chair of the Consumer Culture Lab at IIM Udaipur says, “Cringe content in the space of internet subculture has been variously defined as cheap comedy or awkward posts that cause secondhand embarrassment. This might include bad singing, terrible dancing, and so on.”

Read more about why meme content is becoming popular and addictive here in this in-depth piece.

Investing in change

‘Invest The Change’, a social enterprise based out of Gurugram, helps people from underprivileged backgrounds gain financial literacy and access various government schemes.

Started by 17-year-old Kashvi Jindal, the Gurugram-based organisation extends comprehensive support, starting from raising awareness about government schemes to helping individuals in the application process as well as teaching them about financial literacy.

Invest the Change has a team of 15 volunteers who help Jindal from conducting the sessions to doing the follow-ups. So far, she has helped 3,000 blue-collar workers like bus drivers, and wage workers gain avail benefits of eligible government schemes.

Ordeal during the cyclone

Aiswarya Rao, a disability rights advocate, and the founder of Better Home Shelter, is a medical doctor from Chennai. She recounts her ordeal when the severe cyclonic storm Michaung hit Chennai recently. A 51-year-old woman with a post-polio locomotor disability, Rao has been a wheelchair user for the past six years.

She says, “People with disabilities are particularly vulnerable to natural disasters as they are the last to receive any help. My heart goes out to those of them who are still struggling to get back to normalcy.”

Tackling sickle cell anaemia in Jharkhand

There is a high prevalence of sickle cell anaemia among the tribal communities of Jharkhand. However, awareness about the hereditary disease remains inadequate. This, coupled with lack of access to healthcare, leads to low levels of treatment.

The District Health Society (DHS), which is responsible for the health and family welfare of Khunti district, is taking this challenge head-on through a multi-pronged approach.

Tribal communities face several challenges in treatment of sickle cell anaemia, including a lack of awareness about the disease, stigmatisation within the community and among healthcare providers, limited testing facilities, lack of standardised care and insufficient blood availability.

In other socially relevant news…

A saviour for the poor and destitutes

Muthu Lakshmi, popularly known as Amma, a 75-year-old woman from Kachapuram village in Mantralayam mandal of Kurnool district, has endeared herself to all by helping orphans, abandoned children, and the destitute.

According to a report in The New Indian Express, she set up Santhi Ashram in the village in 1982 to provide shelter to abandoned, orphaned, and separated children aged below 14 years. The ashram has welcomed more than 2,000 children into its fold and more than 1,000 children have benefited from the welfare activities of the village so far.