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“Let us fight it
out face to face, we have fought three times, let there be a fourth
war”---L.K.
Advani (Deputy Prime Minister of India)
“I have always
found men who didn’t know how to kiss. I have always found time to
teach them.”--Mae
West
“You can’t go
around being what everyone
expects you to be, living your life through other people’s rules
and still be happy and have inner peace.”---Vivekananda
“The heart has its
reasons of which reason knows nothing”.---Blaise
Pascal
“If you believe
that feeling bad or worrying long enough will change a past or
future event, then you are residing on another planet with a
different reality system.”---Thomas Edison
“A kiss is a lovely
trick devised by nature to stop
speech when words become superficial.”---Sigmund Freud
“Every problem you
have, you experience in your mind. The solution to the problem lies
in the same place.”---Gautam
Buddha
“There is no such
thing as a well-adjusted slave.”
----Martin Luther King
“No man is ever
worth your tears…and the one who is won’t make you cry!” ---Unknown
"Falling in love is
awfully simple, but falling out of love is simply awfu"l. ---Anonymous
"Education is what
survives when what has been learnt is forgotten"----Bf Skinner
"I love you not only
for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you".---Roy Croft
"If you are all
wrapped up in yourself, you are over-dressed."---Kate Halverson
"If you want him to
fall head over heels give him something to trip over!" ---Mae West
"Every fool knows you
can’t touch the stars, but it doesn’t stop a wise man from
trying."---Harry Anderson
"Love is not a matter
of counting the years but making the years count."---Michelle Amand
"Man will occasionally
stumble over the truth, but most times he will pick himself up and
carry on." ---Winston Churchill
"To get the full value
of joy, you must have someone to divide it with".
---Unknown
"Love is the child of
illusion and the parent of disillusion".
---Maguel
de Unamuno
"There are no problems
– only opportunities to be creative".
---Dorye Roettger
"Love is the most
important thing in the world, but baseball is pretty good too.
"---Woody Allen
"Love makes time pass;
time makes love pass" ----French Proverb
"Success is not the
key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what
you are doing, you will be successful."---Albert Schweitzer
"I am always doing
that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do
it".
---Pablo Picasso
"It’s so easy to
fall in love but hard to find someone who will catch you."---Anonymous
"I've had enough kisses to last me
a lifetime and its starting to get on my nerves ."
---Nicole Kidman on being at the
receiving end of endless kisses from
people during her visit to UK.
"I am Muslim. I am an American".----Boxing Champ Muhammed Ali
"Voilence begets violence. I don't
know about you but I want to live a long and happy life and I want
my kids to live a long and happy life".---- Pop diva Madonna in her plea
for peace to the US.
"As I see the smoke and dust, I am
glad that the Statue of Liberty is still standing".
---- A world war II veteran voicing
the sentiments of many Americans in the aftermath of the terrorist
attack.
"There's an old poster out West that
says, as I recall, 'Wanted : Dead or Alive'.----US President George W Bush
"I am a very sensitive painter. I
can't work with the media watching".---- Artist Wasim Kapoor
on having
second thoughts about the painting Moon Moon Sen.
"If my sons choose cricket as their
career, I will be proud. It will be a sense of achievement".----
Naseeruddin Shah.
"Indian Engineers are among the best
in the world".----Henning Holck-Larsen.
"Stop complaining
about dumping of cheap Chinese goods and focus on improving your
own products."----Narayana Murthy (Infosys Technologies) to fellow industrialists.
"Leave India
in God's hands ------in modern parlance to anarchy" ----Mahatma Gandhi
to British
"I
don’t think the human race will survive the next thousand years
unless we spread out to space. There are too many accidents that can
befall life on a single planet."----Stephen Hawking
"Tibet
as a nation is dying because of Chinese policies."---Dalai Lama
"As
I watched the September 11 tragedy in the US, I thought of what
Mahatma Gandhi would say if he were with us. He showed us the proper
way during the freedom struggle. He would have shown us the way
now."----Dalai Lama
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Fact
and Fiction
In
Babylon, around 2000 BC, for a month after the wedding, the
bride’s father was supposed to constantly supply the groom with
mead – a honey beer. Since their was a lunar calendar, this time
was called the ‘honey month’ or what we know today as the
“honeymoon”.
In
1788, at a parade in New York City, ale was proclaimed as “the
proper drink for Americans”.
A
beer is not just a beer. All told, there are 27 different styles of
beer, with a further breakdown of 49 substyles.
After
consuming a bucket or two of vibrant brew they called aul, or ale,
the Vikings would head fearlessly into battle, often without armour
or even shirts. In fact, “berserk” means “bare shirt” in
Norse, and eventually took on the meaning of their wild battles.
In
England, ale is ordered by pints and quarts..So in old England, when
customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them to mind their
own pints and quarts. The phrase “mind your P’s and Q’s is
believed to come from there.
According
to a diary entry from a passenger on the Mayflower, the pilgrims
made their landing at Plymouth Rock, rather than continue to their
destination because they had run out of beer.
IPA,
or India Pale Ale, was originally so called because it was exported
to India, for the British troops stationed here. The story goes that
one of the ships bound for India sank off the coast of England, and
the batch of ale they were carrying was salvaged, the drinkers felt
that such delicious stuff should be available at home as well as
overseas.
12
oz of a typical American pale lager has fewer calories than
2 per cent milk or apple juice.
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Vox
Populi
Violence
Against Women
By: P.M. Mathews (Email:santosh-sinha@vsnl.net)
Violence
against women is devastating families across the world. In some
cases leading to deaths among women. World Bank estimates that
domestic violence and rape account for the loss of 5% of the healthy
years of women aged between 15 and 44 years in developing countries.
W.H.O. has said Violence
against women causes more death and disability than various
illnesses put together.
It is
a global phenomenon, as epidemic
in Industrialised countries as in developing nations. Around
130 million women worldwide have gone under genital mutilation,
while approximately two million face the torturous procedure every
year in places like Rwanda and Bosnia. Violence is used
systematically as a wapon of war and humiliation. In Bangladesh, a
recent study showed that 72% of women suffered due to 5 factors that
triggered violence: Management of Household work, sexual
relationship,dowry demand, poverty and economic dependency of women.
This kind of violence afflicts almost half of the girls and women in
some countries, including dowry deaths in India, acid attacks on
women in Bangladesh and their murder in places like Pakistan and
Jordan to protect the family honour.
Sushma
Kapoor, a senior official of the New York- based Unifem, a United
Nation’s organ for funding development of women said “Gender
violence plagues every society, cutting across barriers of culture,
class, education, ethnicity, income and geography. Violence against
women is the most shameful violation of human rights”
There
is no great city in the world that does not live in the shadow of
organized crime against women. KIRAN, a domestic violence prevention
and crisis service for South Asian Women in North Carolina, U.S.A.
was repeatedly approached by South Asian women in North Carolina
facing situations of abuse at home. It has a helpline. Calls range
from the minor (‘ I need a baby sitter’)to the macabre (‘My
husband had repeatedly jabbed my arm with a pair of scissors, what
should I do ?’) Various kinds of abuse that KIRAN tackles include
verbal, emotional, sexual, financial, immigrational and finally
physical abuse. One women who was abused for 8 years- her husband
twisted and broke her leg and almost all her fingers went to SAKHI
only when he began to beat the kids.
The
reasons for marital discord are the same as those in the ‘home
country’, dowry, jewellery, cooking the raising of children,
cultural mindsets. Not only are these women isolated by language,
they are without relatives or friends, many are even terrified to
take a bus. In such a foreign cultural set up, women feel
disempowered. For the men, there is this huge pressure to do well
and prove themselves and they vent this pressure on their wives.The
noted feminist Germaine Greer once remarked on the similarity in the
treatment meted out to women and cows in India. Both are worshipped
and both are worked to death. For Indian women, it is not death, but
life which is an ordeal
by fire. Today marriage for many women
is a virtual death-trap.
A
recent study by the International Centre for RESearch on women found
that 45 per cent of the women interviewed had been abused by
husbands at some point in her life. Studies among poor rural women
in India have shown that the extent of violence could be as high as
76%. Another study from Delhi revealed that 56% of all suicides were
by women. “Martial discord” was the common reason. Centre for
Operations Research and Training (CORT) in New Delhi shows that more
than 2/3rd of women in rural Uttar Pradesh were subjected
to violence for refusing sex with their husbands and one-third were
subjected to forced sex. Such violence can have a fatal effect on
women, leading to suicides or killings” the study said.
Project
officer, Health, UNICEF, Dr. K.R, Antony said “more and more
mothers are dying in U.P. due to blood loss during child birth and
lack of timely blood transfusion.In 1999, of the total 55,96,449
births which took place
in the state, 39,556 babies were orphaned immediately after birth.
Amazingly, every hour more than four mothers succumb to pregnancy
related complications and of
these more than one die due to heavy blood loss:.
Around
87% deliveries in UP occurs in home situations and almost 51% were
assisted by untrained ‘dais’ and family members. Such practices
raised risks of blood
loss.
Hundreds
of women die of burns every year in our country. Going by the
1996-97 statistics, Maharashtra tops in cases of crime against
women. From January 1994 to December , 1996 as many as 16,000 women
had died of burns in the state. The biggest challenge to police
today is whether the burns are accidental or not? Not a single
activist group or consumer rights forum dragged the stove
manufacturer, to court, because everyone knows there is more to a
stove burst than meets the eye. Many received third degree burns
when the kerosene stoves they were using to cook lunch or dinner
mysteriously burst. Police register the cases under the category of
unnatural death and close the files. Though there is a legal
provision under IPC 498A (often used for dowry harassment cases) to
include mental cruelty, it hardly translates into quick justice.
Domestic violence is
extremely difficult to prove. The conviction rate under 498A is
abysmal. Thus wife beating, dowry
harassment and sexual harassment are widely prevalent in our
country.
The
domestic violence is far more widespread than we realise. The
victims often sustain very serious injuries. A disturbing proportion
of women receive life threatening injuries. Few women are willing to
admit that their injuries resulted from domestic violence. It is
very hard for a woman to talk of abuse. There is always
a strong element of shame. A women would say “he pushed
me” instead of saying he pushed me down the stairs. Most victims
of violence cannot muster the courage to go to a police station nor
register a complaint fearing harassment and public shame. One in
five women treated at the emergency ward of the JJ hospital is a
victim of domestic violence, revealed a study. 80% of the possible
and definite domestic violence cases were between 15 and 39 years of
age.
Socially
sanctioned oppression literally begins before birth for the Indian
women. In many parts of the country, the girl children is simply not
allowed to be born. Between 1981 and 1991 more than four million
girl children joined the ranks of India’s missing women. An
estimated 1.2 million of them were dispatched before they could even
see the light of the day, either through sex-selected abortions or
instant post-natal murder.In 1901 there were 970 women for every
1000 men. Today, there are only 927. According to a survey in Bombay
, of the 8000 abortions carried out after Pre-natal sex
determination 7,999 were of female fetuses. If she survives chances
are that she will exist on the peripheries
of social order,
condemned for ever to struggle against educational ,nutritional and
emotional deprivations. India which accounts for 15% of the
world’s population is responsible for almost 25% of the world’s
maternal deaths. According to Pre-natal Diagnostic Technique
(Regulation & Prevention of Misuse) Act, 1994, it is illegal to
use pre-natal diagnostic techniques like ultrasonography,
amniocentesis etc. to determine the sex of
an unborn child (foetus), from 1.1.1996.
Article
14 of the constitution confers
equal rights on women in all walks of life, but also
provides, under Article 15, for protective discrimination in their
favour. When women ask for their rights, men think it is a demand
and this hurts their egos.. They want to be boss. Hand in hand with
dowry related bride burnings, many cities are witnessing a spate of
crimes of passion.
It is
the right of every women to be safe at home,
at work in the
street. Any Govt. that cannot ensure this minimum expectation has no
right to rule.
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Books
A
Masterly Uptodate Work
on Terrorism
Encyclopaedia
of International Terrorism
(Set
in 3 Volumes)
Also
includes the latest “Biggest
ever act of international Terrorism in History” In New York and
Washington with coloured photos
By
Verinder Grover (Editor)
ISBN
81-7629-304-0…………………..1250
pages……………..2002…………..Rs. 3500 (Set)
The
twentieth century saw the rise of modern international terrorism.
Terrorism is a method whereby an organized group seeks to achieve
its avowed aims chiefly through the systematic use of violence.
Terroristic acts are directed against persons who are individual
agents or representatives of authority interfering with the
consummation of the objectives of such a group. Political terrorism
is a systematic threat and use of murder and destruction, to
terrorise governments, communities or groups in conceding to the
terrorists political aims. The terrorists desire that the government
as well as the people accept their views
and or orders by terror if not by reason.
For
a quite long time the international community failed to define
terrorism. On 9 December 1985 the U.N. General Assembly unanimously
adopted a resolution condemning all acts of terrorism as criminal.
However, the issue of particular acts that actually constitute
terrorism was left unresolved. Today terrorism is a world-wide
phenomenon.
Over
the last two decades there has been a significant increase in the
number of terrorist attacks. Despite the efforts of many governments
to combat terrorism, it appears to be on the increase and getting
more deadlier. Transnational terrorism is also on the increase.
Since the terrorist attacks in America on 11th September
2001, there is a collective movement of an international war against
terrorism that may
last several years. In days to come we may witness a long drawn
total fight to wipe out terrorism, the 21st century War
against Terrorism, resulting in a New Global Order.
This
outstanding work in three volumes studies in depth the various and
uptodate facets of international terrorism, including the recent
terrorist attacks in America and the fightback.
The
complete Set includes:
Vol.1:
Terrorism : History and Development – Osama Bin Laden, The Taliban;
Part 1: Terrorism : Definition and History; Part II: Democracy and
Terrorism; Part III: Counter Terrorism; Counter-Insurgency and
Counter-Terrorism; Part IV: Terrorism and International Relations;
Political Terrorism; Part V : Terrorism: Threat to stability –
Social, Economic and Political.
Vol.2.
Terrorism in World Countries – Biggest ever act of International
Terrorism in history in New York and Washington (with coloured
photos); Terrorist attacks on America and the Fightback; Part I:
International Terrorism: States’ Reactions; part II: Transnational
Terrorism; Part III: Terrorism and International Law; Part IV:
Terrorism and SAARC; part V: Terrorism and South Asia; VI: Islamic
Terrorism; Reality or Myth; Part VII: How to Combat Terrorism.
Vol.3.:
Documents and Studies on Terrorism – Amercian Cities Attacked:
Excerpts from Statements made by George Bush and A.B. Vajpayee; War
on Terror – George W. Bush’s address to Joint Session of US
Congress; part I : Select and Rare Documents and a List of Terrorist
Organisations; Part II: Exhaustive Bibliography of Reports, Acts,
Books and Articles.
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Spotlight
Genetic Heritage --- Humankind's fight for survival across continents.
Timeline
Time: 50,000-60,000 years ago
Location:Africa
Ice Age. Earth's temperature drops, locking the world's moisture into giant glaciers
at the poles and bringing intense drought to Saharan Africa. Herds of thirsty animals
wander northeast off the African continent in search of water, human hunters follow.
Time: 50,000 years ago
Location: Australia
Early travellers from Africa traverse the southern coastline of Central Asia until they
are just north of Australia. Due to the Ice Age drought, sea levels are low and Australia
is connected to New Guinea-but approximately 250 km of sea separate Australia from
the mainland. Yet our ancestors cross the water, possibly in open canoes. Isolated for
thousands of years, the Aborigines in Australia develop distinct genetic traits different
from the rest of the world.
Time: 45,000 years ago
Locations: the Middle East, India and China
Shortly after the first group of hunters venture to Australia, a second wave of Africans
travels northward. Moving up into the Middle East and multiplying rapidly, one group
quickly populates, India, erasing traces of the first settlers. Two groups then walk into
China. There, they are bordered by oceans and mountains,, and have no interaction
with other humans. Thus over the generations, they acquire an appearance distinctive
from their African ancestors, becoming paler over time in the colder climate of their
new home.
Time 40,000 years ago
Location: Central Asia
As the latest Ice Age wanes, survivors experience new levels of bounty including vast
stretches of grassland and renewed animal populations. Our ancestors follow the newly
formed swaths of greenery up into Central Asia. Their numbers grow rapidly, effectively
making Central Asia the 'nursery' of all humankind.
Time: 35,000 years ago
Location: Europe
The Central Asia 'nursery' spawns new groups of travellers. Ancient cave art in Europe
shows that one such group journeys west into Europe through an ice-covered land where
mammoths and bison roam. Once there, the erratic roller coaster of the Ice Age traps them.
In an environment much colder than they'd been used to, the European branch evolves to
become paler and shorter, losing the characteristics of their African forefathers.
Time: Around 20,000 years ago
Location: Siberia
A second group of Central Asians wanders to Siberia and up past the Arctic Circle. Adapting
to the extreme cold, these men evolve to minimise the surface area of their skin so as not to
lose heat: they develop stout trunks, stubby fingers and short arms and legs.
Time: 13,000 years ago
Location: North America
As another Ice Age nears its end, one small clan of Arctic dwellers-a group that could only
have included two or three men, and perhaps 10 to 20 people in all travel over a land bridge that
forms across the Bering Strait to Alaska. As ice caps melt and sea levels rise again, this small
group is trapped on the American continent. The ice continues to melt for another 2,000 years,
until a passage finally opens for humans to walk south on the east side of the Rocky Mountains
into what is now Canada and the US. Once on the American continent, they find more bounty
than they've ever known. They multiply and explore extensively, populating all of North and South
America in just 800 years.
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Hot talk
SWAMI
VIVEKANANDA ON ARYAN INVASION THEORY
Historical
finding have raised controversies and have got rectified
also thanks to continuous research. The acceptance of the theory
that the numerals 1 to 9 and 0 (zero) are Indian, in origin has got
one example. The theory of the Aryan invasion of India, though
has become cliché to the
readers of Indian history, is much in
debate. Yet the truth seems to
be bypassed. The following
excerpts taken from the speech of Swami Vivekananda
“The
Future of India” will serve as a mediator.
There
is a theory that there was a race of mankind in Southern
India
called Dravidians, entirely differing from another race in
Northern
India called the Aryan, and that the Southern India
Brahmins are the only Aryans that came from the North, the
other men of Southern India belong to an entirely different
caste and race to those of Southern Brahmins. Now I beg
your pardon, Mr. Philologist, this is entirely unfounded. The
only proof of it is that there is a difference of language between
the North and the South. I do not see any other difference. We
are so many Northern men here, and I ask my European friends
to pick out the Northern and Southern men from this assembly.
Where is the difference? A little difference of language. But the
Brahmins are a race that came here speaking the Sanskrit language
! Well then, they took up the Dravidian language and forgot
their
Sanskrit. Why should not the other castes have done the same?
Why should not all the other castes have come one after the other
from Northern India, taken up the Dravidian language, and so
forgotten their own? That is an argument working both ways. Do
not believe in such silly things. There may have been a Dravidian
people who vanished from here, and the few who remained lived
in forests and other places. It is quite possible that the languages
may have been taken up, but all these are Aryans who came from
the
North. The whole of the India is Aryan, nothing else.
Then
there is the idea that the Shudra castes are surely the aborigines.
What are they? There are slaves. They say history repeats itself.
The
Americans, English, Dutch and the Portuguese got hold of the poor
Africans and made them work hard while they
lived, and their children
of mixed birth were born in slavery and kept in that condition for a
long
period. From that wonderful example, the mind jumps back several
thousand years and fancies that the same thing happened here, and
our archaeologist dreams of India being full of dark eyed
aborigines,
and the bright Aryan came from the Lord knows where. According to
some, they came from Central Tibet, others will have it that they
came
from Central Asia. There are patriotic Englishmen who think that the
Aryans
were all red-haired. Others, according to
their idea, think that they were
all black-haired. If the writer happens to be a black-haired man,
the Aryans
were all black-haired. Of late, there was an attempt made to prove
that the
Aryan lived on the Swiss lakes. I should not
be sorry if they had been all
drowned there, theory and all.
Some
say now that they lived at the North Pole. Lord bless the Aryans
and their habitations! As for the truth of these theories, there is
not one
world in our scriptures, not one, to prove that the Aryan ever came
from
anywhere outside of India, and in ancient India was included
Afghanistan.
There it ends. And the theory
that the Shudra castes were all non-Aryan
and they were a multitude, is
equally illogical and equally irrational. It could
not have been possible in those days that a few Aryans settled and
lived
there with a hundred thousand slaves at their command. These slaves
would
have eaten them up, made
“Chutney” of them in five minutes. The only
explanation is to be found in the Mahabharata, which says that in
the
beginning of the Satya Yuga
there was one caste, the Brahmins, and
then by difference of occupations they went on dividing themselves
into
different castes, and that is
the only true and rational explanation that
has been given. And in the
coming Satya Yuga all the other castes will
have to go back to the same
condition.
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INDIA
MERI JAAN 
