“Real glory springs from the silent conquest of us.”
Anonymous
“वास्तविक महानता की उत्पत्ति स्वयं पर खामोश विजय से होती है।”
अज्ञात
Tuesday, January 31, 2023
Quote of the Day January 31, 2023
Noble’s Helen: New Swallowtail Butterfly from Arunachal Pradesh
The butterfly population has been increasing in the state of Arunachal Pradesh in recent times. The state is called the nature trove and is known for its biodiversity. Recently, a new swallowtail butterfly was spotted in the state. It is called the Noble Helen. The species does not occur in India. Its origin is in China, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam, and Cambodia. The butterfly has been disappearing in these countries and was recently spotted in India.
Butterflies
The butterflies occur in all parts of the world except Antarctica. There are 18,500 butterfly species in the world.
- Of these 775 are Nearctic. The Nearctic includes tropical, subtropical, arctic, and temperate regions of North America.
- 7,700 are neo-tropical. Neotropical regions include eight biological terrains. They are south America, the Caribbean islands, Central America, Yucatan Peninsula, southern North America, southern Florida, and central Florida.
- 1,575 are Palearctic. Palearctic includes Eurasia, North Africa, and Arabian Peninsula
- 3650 are Afro-tropical. This includes Madagascar, Iran, the western Indian Ocean, and Pakistan
- 4800 are in Australian regions
Butterflies in India
In India, butterflies occur in Eastern Himalayas, Western Ghats, and in hills in the India – Myanmar border. These friends of humanity are becoming extinct mainly because of the loss of habitat.
India’s First Model G – 20 Summit
The Indian Institute of Democratic Leadership is a non–profit organization. It is also called the RMP institute as it was founded in memory of Shri Rambhau Mhalgi, an Indian politician and former Member of Parliament. He is famous for running the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad. ABVP is the student wing of RSS. The IIDL recently conducted the Model G – 20 Summit. The institute is known for conducting training and research. It conducts training for leadership. The United Nations Economics and Social Council recently granted Special Consultative Status for IIDL.
About the G – 20 Model Summit
This is the first of its kind. The Indian Sherpa of G – 20 Mr. Amitabh Kant inaugurated the summit. It was conducted at the Mumbai campus of IIDL. The G – 20 summit is highly important for India and other members as the group constitutes 85% of the world GDP. India is hosting the summit in 2023. While developing countries are hesitating to hold international summits, India has come forward amidst the economic crisis, climate change issues, COVID issues, food crisis, energy crisis, and other global turmoil.
Why the model summit?
The IIDL conducts model summits targeting the youth in the country. Such model summits are conducted prior to any international summits. This is done to give exposure to the youths and spread awareness about the importance of such summits among them. Also, such events aid to develop leadership qualities in them at a young age.
UGC issues notice for upgradation of candidates from JRF to SRF
The
The UGC notification adds that the minutes of the constitution of the committee and recommendations of the committee for upgradation may be sent to the UGC. Thereafter, the fellow will be upgraded and designated as SRF. The committee's recommendation may be submitted to UGC designated agency in the prescribed proforma.
The approval from UGC for upgradation is not mandatory, Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) are, therefore, requested to ensure the inclusion of external experts in the committee constituted for the upgradation from
Source: educationtimes.com, 30/01/23
Shared unbelonging: The burden of being Muslim is global
Being a Muslim anywhere in Asia is no passport to a bed of roses. Not even in the continent’s Muslim-majority lands. Thus, in mostly Shia Iran, twenty-three-year-old Mohsen Shekari was hanged in Tehran in December for allegedly injuring a member of the official militia while protesting the death in September of a young woman, Mahsa Amini, who had objected to the regime’s stern dress code for women. Amini and Shekari are only two among the many Iranians who’ve paid a heavy price for little more than expressing their opinion.
In Iran’s Sunni-majority neighbour Afghanistan, a recently imposed ban on university education for women drove a young university lecturer identified as Ismail Mashal to rip his certificates into pieces before a TV audience. “If my mother and sister cannot study,” declared the lecturer, “then I do not accept this education.” How Taliban-ruled Afghanistan can rejoin the world community and begin to lighten its citizens’ burdens is hard to picture at this point.
In fact, it is hard today to identify many Asian nations where the average Muslim feels proud and secure. While Bangladesh, which holds the fourth-largest Muslim population in the world, has seen impressive progress in literacy, health, and per capita income, there are solid questions about that country’s democracy.
Containing more Muslims at this point than any other country, Indonesia headed the G20 assemblage until the end of last year, when the baton was handed to India. Holding national elections regularly from 1999, and possessing significant, though depleting, reserves of oil, Indonesia is ranked 52 in the Democracy Index maintained by an organisation linked to the British journal of historic standing, The Economist. While recognising that an index of this kind must have imperfections, we may nonetheless note that this Democracy Index places Malaysia 39th in the world. India is ranked at 46, Singapore at 66, Sri Lanka at 67, Bangladesh at 75, Bhutan at 81, Nepal at 101, Pakistan at 104, and China at 148. (Norway is placed first.)
Two Buddhist countries that lie very close to India, Myanmar and Sri Lanka, have, in recent years, witnessed the promotion of anti-Muslim drives, while Myanmar has, in addition, seen merciless attacks on dissenters of every kind. As for our own land, the deepening anxieties of India’s Muslims are known to many of their non-Muslim compatriots, who, of course, form the great majority. Most Muslims in India remain prudently silent about their worries, but on occasion a frank remark escapes their lips.
“Find jobs abroad and, if possible, take citizenships there.” This is what the Rashtriya Janata Dal’s Abdul Bari Siddiqui, a former Bihar minister, is reported to have told his son studying in the United States of America as also his daughter studying in London. In a widely seen video, Siddiqui adds that his son and daughter “would not be able to cope in today’s India”. Siddiqui’s unmistakable allusion was to the hostility that many of India’s Muslims appear to confront at this time.
Some found his words unpalatable and provocative. Nikhil Anand, a Bharatiya Janata Party spokesman in Bihar, commented: “Siddiqui’s remarks are anti-India. If he is feeling so stifled, he should… move to Pakistan. Nobody will stop him.” Several TV channels aired the Siddiqui video and the BJP’s response.
Was Siddiqui’s remark really that outrageous? Haven’t millions of Hindu fathers and mothers in India also said to a son or daughter, ‘Find a job abroad and, if possible, take citizenship there?’ Doesn’t the government of India proudly advertise its efforts to enlarge the quotas that rich countries set for visas for young Indians for study and also for long-term employment?
Moreover, why would Siddiqui or any Indian Muslim wish to go to Pakistan? The economy there seems to be sinking. Politicians are at war with one another and, at this point, the Pakistan army doesn’t seem to know whether or when to assume direct control, something it has periodically done. Top military leaders have been accused of amassing vast fortunes. The province of Balochistan is home to insurgency and repression. Inside Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa or KPK (the former ‘Frontier Province’), the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan has strengthened extremist groups. And Pakistan’s Christian and Hindu minorities, the latter concentrated in Sindh Province, seem as insecure as ever.
It is, in fact, an open secret that countries like the US, the United Kingdom, Germany, a few other European nations, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand offer greater personal security and liberty to Muslims than most Muslimmajority lands. It wasn’t very long ago that India too could claim itself as a place where Muslims felt safe, but the picture has changed quite dramatically.
At this time, when China’s drive to become the next superpower has run into serious hurdles, India still has the opportunity to return in the world’s mind as democracy’s hope. However, that challenge does not attract our energy and passion today. We want, above all, to persuade ourselves, with scant evidence, that ‘the world is finally recognising India’s greatness’. Acknowledging the anxieties of our Muslim brothers and sisters is the last thing on the minds of our land’s most influential men and women.
This means that the responsibility cast on the shoulders of India’s Muslims is immense. With much of the Muslim world in ugly disarray, with their Hindu compatriots focused elsewhere and indifferent when they are not antagonistic, what can India’s Muslims do? Going abroad is an option for only a handful of them.
In a dream scenario, India’s Muslims would fight their way back to real equality with their Hindu compatriots, and they would do so with fraternity, courage, and wisdom. By doing this, they would also offer hope to India’s neighbours and to the entire Muslim world.
However, we live not in a dateless dream world but in the India that exists at the start of 2023. Moreover, even in a dream, it would be unfair to ask an apprehensive minority to lead a journey towards trust and partnership.
Yet one thing is certain. It is the inalienable right of any and every Indian to fight for dignity, equality, and liberty, and, simultaneously, offer fraternity to his or her compatriots. A Muslim Indian’s right to do this is not less than that of a Hindu. Not one nanogram less.
Rajmohan Gandhi
Source: The Telegraph, 31/01/23
Mind matters: Editorial on the mental healthcare problem
A National Mental Health Survey conducted four years before the pandemic had revealed that almost 80% of Indians with mental disorders had no access to care.
People with mental ailments have been subjected to discrimination throughout history. A clear example of this embedded prejudice is institutional apathy. Systemic measures implemented by the State can, in effect, reinforce social stigma against those battling mental illnesses. For instance, the asylums of 18th-century Britain served as penal centres owing to the then perception that those suffering from mental disorders are criminals. Even advancements in medical sciences, which led to the changes in terminology over the years — the colonial ‘lunatic asylum’ transitioned to ‘mental hospital’ and, eventually, to today’s ‘mental healthcare institution’ — have failed to root out the deeper biases against patients. A classic manifestation of this is the neglect of the mentally ill inside India’s psychiatric institutions. In fact, a 1982 report on the Central Institute of Psychiatry, Ranchi, had revealed shocking human rights violations committed against the inmates — patients were denied basic facilities, offered badly cooked meals, and were made to inhabit poorly ventilated and ill-lit cells and so on. Dishearteningly, not a lot seems to have changed. Recent findings by the National Human Rights Commission show that the old malaises remain intact. According to the NHRC, all 46 government mental healthcare institutions in the country present an ambience that is expressly inimical to the well-being and the dignity of inmates. This is just the tip of the iceberg. The ratio of mental healthcare professionals to citizens is very poor. The staff in care institutions often lack basic training, leading to ill-treatment of patients. The scope of societal rehabilitation is limited as a result of persistent stigma. As a result, even those who are medically fit to be released from care facilities end up leading incarcerated lives. A National Mental Health Survey conducted four years before the pandemic had revealed that almost 80% of Indians with mental disorders had no access to care. This is only to be expected in a country which, according to one survey, has 0.8 psychiatric hospital beds per 100,000 people.
All this is especially alarming in the light of the fact that India, experts believe, is expected to face an avalanche of mental ailments in the near future. Yet, the implementation of the provisions of the Mental Healthcare Act, 2017 has not been uniform across states. Budgetary allocation for mental health remains abysmal — of the meagre 0.8% spent on mental healthcare, only 3% is allocated for mental institutions. Will the upcoming budget rectify this glaring gap?
Source: The Telegraph, 30/01/23
Friday, January 27, 2023
Quote of the Day January 27, 2023
“The word impossible is not in the leaders’ dictionaries. No matter how big the challenges, strong faith, determination and resolve will overcome them.”
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid AI Maktoum
“नेतृत्व करने वालों के शब्दकोशों में असंभव शब्द नहीं होता। कितनी ही बड़ी चुनौतियां क्यों न हों, मजबूत विश्वास, इरादे और संकल्प से उन्हें निपटा जा सकता है।”
शेख मोहम्मद बिन रशीद अल मक्तौम
HEIs need to be proactive in sharing their resources for optimal utilisation
UGC has released guidelines that advocate the optimal utilisation of resources and infrastructure by all higher educational institutes (HEIs). This practice will extend various benefits to undergraduate (UG), postgraduate (PG) students and research scholars. Educators say that the guidelines are in coordination with the
In a letter to the vice-chancellors (VCs) of various universities, the UGC has said that HEIs may allow their resources, like libraries, laboratories, and equipment to be shared/used during free time by students and researchers of other HEIs.
Need of the hour
It is not possible for all colleges to be multidisciplinary, which is where the practice of sharing resources will act as a boon, says
With NEP advocating multiple changes in the education curriculum, sharing of faculty by HEIs should be the top priority, says Danish Moin, HoD (department of History), Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU). “As has been the practice thus far, instead of inviting faculty members from other universities for a few lectures in their respective areas of specialisation, the UGC guidelines pave the way for HEIs to invite them to offer more in-depth knowledge to students,” he says.
However, universities need to communicate better with each other to make the best use of this opportunity, adds Gandhi. “Proper coordination is needed between both the universities so that the entire system works smoothly, and students can avail the maximum benefits in the form of a variety of skill enhancement and value-added courses that are made available to them,” he says.
Already in place
Gandhi adds, “Colleges under the ambit of any university already follow the practice of sharing resources with each other. The UGC guidelines emphasise upon extending this practice to other universities as well. The path ahead requires colleges to become proactive and requesting to share the resources they need to have better infrastructure.”
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