11-year-old girl from Jamshedpur sells 12 mangoes for Rs 1,20,000, buys smartphone for online classes

Jamshedpur, June 30: The COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc on the livelihoods of people across the country. The lockdown has caused a paradigm shift in classes and schooling, and most operations have shifted online, deepening the digital divide in India.

A resident of Jamshedpur, Jharkhand, the 11-year-old Tulsi Kumari was not able to pursue her studies online due to financial constraints and resorted to selling mangoes to gather funds.

As fortune had it, a businessman from Mumbai heard of her plight and bringing some speedy respite, bought only a dozen mangoes at the generous price of Rs 1,20,000.

After learning about her fight against all the odds, Mumbai businessman named Ameya Hete bought 12 mangoes at Rs 10,000 each seeing her determination to study. This helped Tulsi buy a smartphone for her studies, says her mother.

Hete found out about Tulsi's struggle of attending online classes. He immediately gave her Rs 1.2 lakh, and bought one dozen mangoes from her, paying Rs 10,000 for each mango. He has given Kumari a mobile phone worth Rs 13,000 and Internet recharge throughout the year thus ensuring that there would be no interruption in the education of the girl child.

Thannks to Hete, Kumari now owns a flashy phone, well-earned, that she can attend classes on.