Friday, August 27, 2010
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Aman Ki Asha
About two-thirds of those polled in India and almost three-fourths of those in Pakistan said they desire a peaceful relationship between the two countries. Only a tiny minority, 17% in India and 8% in Pakistan, are opposed to the idea of consigning hostility to the dustbin of history.
The neighbourhood we live in may be the deadliest in the world, but it also is one in which the yearning for peace is enormous. Indeed, the very fact that the horrors of hostility have been brought home so forcefully to all those who live in this neighbourhood may explain why two nations that have had such an embittered relationship voice such a strong cry for some sanity. In an extensive poll conducted jointly for The Times of India and the Jang group of Pakistan, it was that an overwhelming majority want a peaceful relationship. Most hearteningly — and unexpectedly — there is also a high degree of optimism about the possibility of an end to hostilities and there is a widespread recognition that bringing about that happy denouement is not a task that can be left to the two governments alone.
Aman ki Asha polled people in six Indian cities as well as respondents in eight Pakistani cities and 36 villages to feel the pulse of a sub-continent besieged by violence and fear. About two-thirds of those polled in India (66%) and almost three-fourths of those in Pakistan (72%) said they desire a peaceful relationship between the two countries. It’s not as if the rest were opposed to the idea of harmony. A sizeable chunk in both countries — 17% in India and 20% in Pakistan — neither agreed nor disagreed with the statement that
“I want peaceful and friendly relations to prevail between India and Pakistan”. In other words, only a tiny minority, 17% in India and 8% in Pakistan, were opposed to the idea of consigning hostility to the dust bin of history. For countries that have fought three wars and one mini-war and have accused each other of abetting terror, those figures are a whole lot better than what you might expect.
In India, the urge for peace was more or less uniform across gender, age and socio-economic categories, but in Pakistan male respondents were surprisingly more strongly in favour of the idea than their female counterparts (77% to 66%).
The survey tapped respondents in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad in India. In Pakistan, the cities covered were Karachi, Hyderabad and Sukkur in Sindh, Islamabad/Rawalpindi, Lahore, Multan and Faisalabad in Punjab and Quetta in Baluchistan.
Desiring peace is one thing, but is there a genuine feeling that it is possible? Once again, we were pleasantly surprised by the findings of the poll. A clear majority in both cases — 59% in India and an even higher 64% in Pakistan — said they were either “very hopeful” or “quite hopeful” that they would see our current state of antagonism becoming a thing of the past within their own lifetimes. In India, the women were more optimistic than the men on this count, though not by a huge margin. Also, respondents from the SEC B socio-economic category were somewhat more hopeful than those from the more elite SEC A category and the relatively young (ages 18 to 19) were just a touch more hopeful than the older lot aged 30 to 45 years.
Can people-to-people initiatives — which is what Aman ki Asha is really all about — be effective in bringing about the peaceful relationship that is so fervently desired? The vote in this case was decisive. In India, 78% said they were an “effective” or “very effective” instrument of peace. If that sounds massive, the verdict was even more unequivocal in Pakistan, where 85% chose one of these two responses. In fact, an impressive 43% in Pakistan said it would be “very effective”. We couldn't have asked for a more resounding endorsement of our earnest belief that civil society initiatives can and must make a difference.
Indeed, we wouldn’t have imagined the response would have been so clear.
What explains the scale of this endorsement? A large part of the explanation would seem to lie in the answers to another of the questions asked in the survey. We asked the respondents to rank the current state of the relationship between the two countries on a scale of 1 to 9, where 1 indicates “hostile” and 9 indicates “friendly”. We also asked them to do this rating separately for relations between the two states and between the two peoples. On both sides of the troubled border the responses were revealing.
While the average rating given by Indian respondents to state-to-state relations was 3.65 (indicating “cold”), the same respondents rated people-to-people relations at 4.15 indicating something closer to “neutral”. On the Pakistani side, state-to-state relations were rated on average at 3.79, while people-to-people relations were rated at 4.61 on average. In other words, while Pakistanis had a more positive view of the relationship than Indians, both sides agreed that the rapport between people was better than that between the two governments. It is not difficult to see why they believe civil society initiatives are the way forward from here.
On each of these questions, there were significant variations in the responses from different Indian cities and there was at least one clear pattern to those variations. Delhi and the southern cities of Chennai, Hyderabad and to a lesser extent Bangalore were more inclined to take a positive view of both the current state of relations and the prospects of peace than the other cities.
In contrast, Mumbai was clearly the city with the most gloomy perspective on each of the questions asked.
A majority, 54%, for instance said they were not hopeful of peace being achieved in their lifetime. Given the horror of 26/11 that is hardly surprising. But the fact that even in Mumbai 50% said they wanted peace against the 42% who didn’t and 52% voted for people-to-people initiatives as the way to move towards that peace must be seen as a vindication of Aman ki Asha.
The neighbourhood we live in may be the deadliest in the world, but it also is one in which the yearning for peace is enormous. Indeed, the very fact that the horrors of hostility have been brought home so forcefully to all those who live in this neighbourhood may explain why two nations that have had such an embittered relationship voice such a strong cry for some sanity. In an extensive poll conducted jointly for The Times of India and the Jang group of Pakistan, it was that an overwhelming majority want a peaceful relationship. Most hearteningly — and unexpectedly — there is also a high degree of optimism about the possibility of an end to hostilities and there is a widespread recognition that bringing about that happy denouement is not a task that can be left to the two governments alone.
Aman ki Asha polled people in six Indian cities as well as respondents in eight Pakistani cities and 36 villages to feel the pulse of a sub-continent besieged by violence and fear. About two-thirds of those polled in India (66%) and almost three-fourths of those in Pakistan (72%) said they desire a peaceful relationship between the two countries. It’s not as if the rest were opposed to the idea of harmony. A sizeable chunk in both countries — 17% in India and 20% in Pakistan — neither agreed nor disagreed with the statement that
“I want peaceful and friendly relations to prevail between India and Pakistan”. In other words, only a tiny minority, 17% in India and 8% in Pakistan, were opposed to the idea of consigning hostility to the dust bin of history. For countries that have fought three wars and one mini-war and have accused each other of abetting terror, those figures are a whole lot better than what you might expect.
In India, the urge for peace was more or less uniform across gender, age and socio-economic categories, but in Pakistan male respondents were surprisingly more strongly in favour of the idea than their female counterparts (77% to 66%).
The survey tapped respondents in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad in India. In Pakistan, the cities covered were Karachi, Hyderabad and Sukkur in Sindh, Islamabad/Rawalpindi, Lahore, Multan and Faisalabad in Punjab and Quetta in Baluchistan.
Can people-to-people initiatives — which is what Aman ki Asha is really all about — be effective in bringing about the peaceful relationship that is so fervently desired? The vote in this case was decisive. In India, 78% said they were an “effective” or “very effective” instrument of peace. If that sounds massive, the verdict was even more unequivocal in Pakistan, where 85% chose one of these two responses. In fact, an impressive 43% in Pakistan said it would be “very effective”. We couldn't have asked for a more resounding endorsement of our earnest belief that civil society initiatives can and must make a difference.
Indeed, we wouldn’t have imagined the response would have been so clear.
What explains the scale of this endorsement? A large part of the explanation would seem to lie in the answers to another of the questions asked in the survey. We asked the respondents to rank the current state of the relationship between the two countries on a scale of 1 to 9, where 1 indicates “hostile” and 9 indicates “friendly”. We also asked them to do this rating separately for relations between the two states and between the two peoples. On both sides of the troubled border the responses were revealing.
While the average rating given by Indian respondents to state-to-state relations was 3.65 (indicating “cold”), the same respondents rated people-to-people relations at 4.15 indicating something closer to “neutral”. On the Pakistani side, state-to-state relations were rated on average at 3.79, while people-to-people relations were rated at 4.61 on average. In other words, while Pakistanis had a more positive view of the relationship than Indians, both sides agreed that the rapport between people was better than that between the two governments. It is not difficult to see why they believe civil society initiatives are the way forward from here.
On each of these questions, there were significant variations in the responses from different Indian cities and there was at least one clear pattern to those variations. Delhi and the southern cities of Chennai, Hyderabad and to a lesser extent Bangalore were more inclined to take a positive view of both the current state of relations and the prospects of peace than the other cities.
In contrast, Mumbai was clearly the city with the most gloomy perspective on each of the questions asked.
A majority, 54%, for instance said they were not hopeful of peace being achieved in their lifetime. Given the horror of 26/11 that is hardly surprising. But the fact that even in Mumbai 50% said they wanted peace against the 42% who didn’t and 52% voted for people-to-people initiatives as the way to move towards that peace must be seen as a vindication of Aman ki Asha.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Congress is richest political party
Among the political parties, the Congress is the richest. It has an aggregate income of Rs.1,518 crore earned over a seven-year period between the assessment years 2002-2003 and 2009-2010. For the same period, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party reported incomes of Rs. 754 crore and Rs. 358 crore respectively.
However, the BSP grew rich the fastest. From only Rs. 6 crore in 2002-2003, its income went up to Rs.182 crore in 2009-2010. The Congress reported an income of Rs. 69.56 crore in 2002-2003. By 2009-2010, this went up to Rs. 497 crore.
The BSP's assets also grew substantially in the seven years, increasing from Rs.11 crore to Rs.286 crore. The Congress reported a total asset value of Rs. 53 crore in 2002-2003. This zoomed up to Rs. 612 crore when it filed its returns for the assessment year 2009-2010.
The Samajwadi Party's asset value stood at Rs. 14 crore in 2002-2003. Over the next seven years, this grew to Rs. 178 crore. The BJP's assets grew from Rs. 81.41 crore to Rs. 261 crore.
The maximum annualised growth average in total assets in this period was recorded by the BSP (59 per cent), followed by the Nationalist Congress Party (51 per cent) and the SP (44 per cent).
As on March 31, 2009, the maximum capital fund was reported by the Congress (Rs. 549 crore), followed the BSP (Rs. 286 crore) and the BJP (Rs. 246 crore).
These details were obtained by the National Election Watch (NEW), which filed Right to Information applications seeking copies of the income tax returns of the various parties.
The NEW obtained income tax returns data for the Congress the BJP, the BSP, the Communist Party of India (CPI), the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M), the NCP, the SP and the Rashtriya Janata Dal.
However, the BSP grew rich the fastest. From only Rs. 6 crore in 2002-2003, its income went up to Rs.182 crore in 2009-2010. The Congress reported an income of Rs. 69.56 crore in 2002-2003. By 2009-2010, this went up to Rs. 497 crore.
The BSP's assets also grew substantially in the seven years, increasing from Rs.11 crore to Rs.286 crore. The Congress reported a total asset value of Rs. 53 crore in 2002-2003. This zoomed up to Rs. 612 crore when it filed its returns for the assessment year 2009-2010.
The Samajwadi Party's asset value stood at Rs. 14 crore in 2002-2003. Over the next seven years, this grew to Rs. 178 crore. The BJP's assets grew from Rs. 81.41 crore to Rs. 261 crore.
The maximum annualised growth average in total assets in this period was recorded by the BSP (59 per cent), followed by the Nationalist Congress Party (51 per cent) and the SP (44 per cent).
As on March 31, 2009, the maximum capital fund was reported by the Congress (Rs. 549 crore), followed the BSP (Rs. 286 crore) and the BJP (Rs. 246 crore).
These details were obtained by the National Election Watch (NEW), which filed Right to Information applications seeking copies of the income tax returns of the various parties.
The NEW obtained income tax returns data for the Congress the BJP, the BSP, the Communist Party of India (CPI), the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M), the NCP, the SP and the Rashtriya Janata Dal.
Monday, August 16, 2010
KASHMIR'S STONE PELTING ISSUE
Mischievous act of politics displayed by secessionist leaders by erupting the anger amongst then young Kashmiris. Many of the stone-pelters are youths with college degrees, some with academic careers or once-thriving businesses.
Such is the anger in the Valley that these youths, most of them with no prior political affiliations, are now willing to throw caution to the winds and give up their career dreams for "azadi".
A final year commerce student, Atiq, a "stone-pelter" himself, calls it a "haq ki ladaai (a fight for rights)". At 21, Atiq should have been weighing career options. But he says there are can be no career without a future.
"I am not scared that I will die by a bullet. I would have died doing something good. I have lived my life in the shadow of bullets. I can die by one without any remorse," he says in chaste Urdu.
But why pelt stones? "Throwing stones is retaliation. The forces have attacked us, shooting bullets at our chest and above the waist. They beat us without provocation. Won't we aim stones at their heads? The forces are lying when they say that they shoot in self-defence," he adds.
Agrees Riyaz, a management teacher at a city university who has participated in 80 to 90 protest marches by now. "I have studied in Saudi Arabia and central Asia. When I came back to Srinagar some years back, I was 17 years old and I realized that I had been living in an illusion. The reality was that we were constantly checked at gunpoint and were always under suspicion.There was no freedom here. It was a huge shock," he says in fluent English.
He explains how stone pelting came as a spontaneous reaction. "We have been subjected to unprovoked violence. The forces do it on purpose to spread fear and oppression. We can't fight the might of the government militarily, so we are employing every means possible to get our voice heard including stone pelting, speaking to the international media and writing articles that give our point of view," he says.
Kashmiris deserve "truth and justice", he says, adding the movement was a retaliation to India's unfulfilled promise. He has watched friends get picked up from their homes in the middle of the night, seen his family being searched at checkposts and decided he had had enough.
Hamid, a postgraduate, says that the disenchantment and anger has spread to entire families and is no longer restricted to certain groups. "My mother who never allowed me to step out in protest, yesterday said enough is enough and asked us to go out and protest," he says.
Atiq too says his parents know he pelts stones but do not discourage him from going out during curfew hours.
Despite weeks of shortages of food and medicines, rotesters landing up in hospitals with injuries, the resentment seems to have only grown. "It has never been like this. Between August 2009 to May 2010 there were only a few strikes called by the separatists and we were able to work even if we couldn't keep our offices open. But for the last three months, there has been a complete shutdown," says Hamid.
Well after looking at the above remarks given by the young Kashmiris we can well guess the situation which the young Omar might be facing there.. With almost no support from the People Democratic Party Supremo, Mehbooba Mufti and the JK Panthers Party led by Bhim Singh. In the Monday, Jul 12 meet, the leaders reportedly held deliberations on the current situation in the Kashmir Valley.
Earlier PDP supremo, Mehbooba Mufti snubbed an appeal from the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh to attend the meeting stating that nothing would come of it.
The JK Panthers Party led by Bhim Singh also labbelled the all-party meet as a 'purposeless exercise'. I must say it meaningless talking about inefficacy of the current CM Omar Abdulah in handling the issue because here the young hearts need to recognize that there psychology are being manipulated by secessionist. If they think that there are other leaders who could handle the situation well then they are in the world of oblivion. The new leader will also face the same difficulty as well...
Saturday, August 14, 2010
The Power Of Indian Youth
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Friendship...
Transparency, integrity and love make a healthy friendship
A lot of energy goes into making a friend. Some people make friends more easily than others. Even then, the process of building an acquaintance into a friendship of value is a lot of work. Many would quickly settle for an arms-length arrangement that can never measure up to a healthy friendship. More is needed to transform a casual acquaintance into a healthy friendship.
Marriage is one of those relationships of value. Reality is that some, if not many, marriages are between two friends who don't make it to become best of friends. So, a healthy friendship can defy marriage partners.
It is important to take a good look at what makes a good, healthy friendship.
A friend, a close friend and the best friend
A friend is someone who knows something about you and likes you; a close friend is one who knows a great deal about you and still loves you; and your best friend is one who knows everything there is to know about you and still loves you.
Two things that I believe make a healthy friendship are proximity and love. Proximity denotes the degree to which friends open up to one another. A healthy friendship is one that benefits from mutual interaction, which is steady intercourse.
A relationship, any relationship for that matter can be compared to a flower in the garden. It needs to be watered and constantly tended, and pruning is part of the process of maintaining a healthy relationship. Two key words to consider here are integrity and transparency.
The integrity of a relationship is built on trust and faith in each other. A healthy relationship needs trust. Transparency relates to the extent to which a relationship remains open to criticism and cleaning up by the other party. When a relationship has these it is like an open system that can be sustained over time and through challenges which inevitably assails any relationship.
Love is measured by the degree of acceptance of one another by the parties involved in the relationship. The opposite of love would be indifference. A friendship can not survive where there is indifference. A healthy relationship is supported by the attitude that registers deviations from the norms for that relationship and takes steps to correct them where necessary.
Love covers a host of characteristics required as the nutrients of the flowers of friendship. These include faithfulness, sincerity, care, and protection. A friendship that has these in good measure is a healthy relationship. One that is deficient in one or more is not a healthy relationship. One friend must respect the ideals and values of the other even if he doesn't believe them. Friends always give complement when something good goes your way but a true friend is the one who dares to criticize you when you do something wrong that is against the values.
Ultimately, the test of a friendship rests on unconditional care and support through thin and and thick, through cloudy days and rainy days, through joys and pain.
A lot of energy goes into making a friend. Some people make friends more easily than others. Even then, the process of building an acquaintance into a friendship of value is a lot of work. Many would quickly settle for an arms-length arrangement that can never measure up to a healthy friendship. More is needed to transform a casual acquaintance into a healthy friendship.
It is important to take a good look at what makes a good, healthy friendship.
A friend, a close friend and the best friend
A friend is someone who knows something about you and likes you; a close friend is one who knows a great deal about you and still loves you; and your best friend is one who knows everything there is to know about you and still loves you.
Two things that I believe make a healthy friendship are proximity and love. Proximity denotes the degree to which friends open up to one another. A healthy friendship is one that benefits from mutual interaction, which is steady intercourse.
A relationship, any relationship for that matter can be compared to a flower in the garden. It needs to be watered and constantly tended, and pruning is part of the process of maintaining a healthy relationship. Two key words to consider here are integrity and transparency.
The integrity of a relationship is built on trust and faith in each other. A healthy relationship needs trust. Transparency relates to the extent to which a relationship remains open to criticism and cleaning up by the other party. When a relationship has these it is like an open system that can be sustained over time and through challenges which inevitably assails any relationship.
Love is measured by the degree of acceptance of one another by the parties involved in the relationship. The opposite of love would be indifference. A friendship can not survive where there is indifference. A healthy relationship is supported by the attitude that registers deviations from the norms for that relationship and takes steps to correct them where necessary.
Ultimately, the test of a friendship rests on unconditional care and support through thin and and thick, through cloudy days and rainy days, through joys and pain.
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Conscious and unconscious
The conscious mind deals with everything that is within the realm of our awareness, whereas the unconscious mind deals with all those thoughts that the individual is unaware of but which influence his behaviour.
Our body is a highly complex organism. There are numerous functions going on at all times in our bodies like seeing, hearing, digestion, respiration and different kinds of movements. Almost all these functions are governed by the unconscious mind. Little effort is required on the part of our consciousness for the smooth functioning of these bodily requirements.
The conscious mind has unlimited capacity for thinking and analysing facts. But if everything is placed in charge of the unconscious mind, according to the divine plan of creation, what is the role of the conscious mind? It is to seek out the truth. The Creator has made the conscious mind free to involve itself solely in the great quest for truth. To search for truth is our greatest task.
What is truth? Truth is, in other words, the reality of life. We must try to know the secret of life, its purpose and goal, to know what is right and wrong, what are the minus and plus points, what is negative and positive thinking, what is good for the individual and for society.
The answers to these questions are not written on any mountainside. It is up to us to discover the truth. Knowledge of truth is so important that the Creator has consigned our bodily affairs to the unconscious mind.
People frequently live in a state of frustration. And great men are no exception. They live frustrated lives and they die frustrated. Tension and stress are ubiquitous.
The reason lies in people’s failure to find the truth. Everyone is a seeker by birth, but everyone lives his life without knowing what the real purpose of life is. Due to this aimlessness, people are living in a state of confusion. They speak and write, but without clarity. They live lives fraught with contradictions. They yearn to find something but without knowing what that something is.
A tension-free mind is one that can function positively despite contradiction. People work, but without job satisfaction. People run after money, but without experiencing inner satisfaction. People have adopted the formula: Enjoy life! But they don’t know what life is and what its real enjoyment is. It is a paradoxical situation and everyone is living in this state of self-contradiction.
It is a self-created problem. When the Creator has given you a mind and made you free to use your mind, you should make use of this opportunity. You have to activate your thinking capacity. You have to discover the reality. You have to read what is hidden in nature in an unwritten form. That is the only way to extricate yourself from this psychological chaos.
The consciousness of truth is interwoven in your nature; it is very easy, therefore, to discover the truth. The only condition is to shun distraction, to follow the well-known principle: simple living, high thinking. If you want to save yourself from going astray, activate your thinking faculty. Think and you will surely reach the gates of truth.
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