CARE FOR ELDERS - Law not friendly to elderly

Abhinav Garg & Manash Pratim Gohain

New Delhi: TNN





Abused By Own Family, Lack Of Awareness Keeps Them Away From Justice

The murder of a 94-year-old and his 64-yearold daughter-in-law in Patel Nagar on the eve of World Elder Abuse Awareness Day has reinforced the opinion that India is no country for the elderly . Even though there are laws that protect them, these are so badly publicized and implemented that a large section of those suffering cruelty at the hands of friends or strangers don't get any reprieve.Take for instance the case of late Lotika Sarkar. The noted academician's property was grabbed by an IPS officer. But she was plain lucky , as the media and a whole lot of well-wishers came forward to help her. Ultimately ,a tribunal under Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Citizens Act, 2007 cancelled the `gift deed' that formed the legal cover for dispossessing Sarkar of her south Delhi house. That was in 2009.
But even today , say lawyers, awareness about the law and its provisions remain abysmally low. And because of this, senior citizens continue to suffer mental and physical abuse from their children or kin.
Earlier this year, one Sudeshna (80) approached the south district tribunal, seeking relief against her daughter-in-law who forcibly grabbed her three-storey house. In her complaint, she narrated how her signatures were forged and the house transferred in the younger woman's name.
Advocate Ashutosh Lohia, who helped Sudeshna prepare the brief, said, “First of all, there has been a crumbling of social structure due to advancement of technology. Earlier, society provided protection to elders as it boycotted those who maltreat their parents. Now, husband and wife work and want to become social butterflies, but can't spend time with the elderly . The Maintenance Act was enacted precisely to prevent this.“
While Sudeshna at least managed to fight it out legally , an informal study by Agewell Foundation found that majority of such cases go unreported as the victims fear retribution, isolation and neglect from their kin if they go out to complain. “One of the most common reasons is the old person's fear of losing family members or support. Heshe fears that reporting the crime will result in tension and stress in old age, as the abuser may discontinue relations once accused, charged, or convicted,“ said Himanshu Rath of Agewell Foundation.
World Health Organization's report on `Missing Voices' stated six key categories of elder abuse: structural and societal abuse, neglect and abandonment, disrespect and ageist attitudes, psycho logical, emotional and verbal abuse, physical abuse and legal and financial abuse.
An India-specific part of the report also stated: “He (a case study) has lost his freedom of choice around meals, bedtimes, housekeeping, etc.If he makes suggestions, he is told to mind his own business. Although he has asked his son and his family to leave, they have refused. In fact, he has even suggested that he would like to remarry for the sake of a companion so they must leave the apartment for his exclusive use. They do not move out of his apartment but continue to neglect him. The problem of adult children living with their parents in their accommodation is worse for lower income families, because lodgings are smaller.“
Lohia also said that quite often it is the outsider who takes advantage of breakdown of communication between a senior citizen and his adult children. “Parents are easier to manipulate in old age. A third person brainwashes them and gets them to sign papers, evicting both the children and parents and grabbing the property ,“ he added.
Delhi high court lawyer Ajay Verma said, “There is no awareness among elders That is also because rules law is not highly promoted Only literate people may be aware but what about the illit erate? They suffer badly . The government must advertise widely , hold special camps and come up with an online case filing system.“
Though lawyers have been kept out of the mainte nance tribunals, many argue it has its disadvantages be cause the process remains technical. Once a complain is filed, notices are issued statements recorded and evi dence gathered--all these re quire legal assistance.

Why we need a time-use survey

The moment we mention the market, there is an implied price, and the poor person’s per unit labour input is valued less than the rich person’s.

Why are some people poor and some relatively rich? This is an age-old question with multiple answers, in that there are different ways of looking at the problem. The income of a household is one indicator of relative prosperity. Since we don’t have satisfactory data on income, we go by a surrogate indicator, per capita consumption expenditure. How is income obtained? By selling a good or service in the market — for the most part, labour. The moment we mention the market, there is an implied price, and the poor person’s per unit labour input is valued less than the rich person’s. Often, we say the poor don’t possess the requisite skills. That’s inaccurate. Every individual possesses some skill. What we really mean is that poor people don’t possess the skills valued by the market, or possess skills with low market value. Hence the emphasis on skill development. However, in addition to developing skills, it is sometimes possible to develop markets for skills already possessed by the poor.

The market thus has a skills ladder, measured according to the per unit price of those skills. If one leaves out issues like inherited wealth, the poor are poor because they are low down on the skills ladder and the rich are rich because they are higher up. Therefore, the path towards prosperity is to make available education, skills, healthcare and other things that enable one to move up that ladder. These enable an individual to obtain a better price per unit of labour rendered and become more “productive”. Now think of the rich versus the poor with or without the urban/ rural lens. If you live in urban India, more often than not, electricity is available at the flick of a switch, and cooking gas and water at the turn of a knob or tap. That’s not true of an urban slum, where one has to queue up for water. It is certainly not true of rural India, where one has to trudge in search of water and firewood.

Water, electricity, transport, education, health, financial transactions — the average rural resident spends much more time on these pursuits than the average urban resident. The poor urban resident spends much more time on these pursuits than the rich urban resident. Stated differently, since some services have been outsourced, so to speak, the relatively rich person has more time to spend on more “productive” pursuits. Conversely, the relatively poor person spends a lot of time on “unproductive” pursuits that are unnecessarily in-sourced. Isn’t it surprising that there is little research in India on what poor people spend their time on? If you are poor, you will spend more of your income on food. If you are rich, you will have more discretionary income. There is plenty of stuff on distribution of consumption expenditure, nothing on distribution of time. Part of the reason is lack of data, since the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) asks questions on consumption expenditure, not on time expended. But surely it would be

- See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/why-we-need-a-time-use-survey/#sthash.4d9m2FBr.dpuf

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY COURSE IN SOCIAL SCIENCES FOR PH.D. RESEARCH SCHOLARS

Date: 3rd to 12th August, 2015
Sponsored by: The Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR), New Delhi.

Last Date for Application: 1st July, 2015.

Organizers: The Centre for Studies in Society and Development, School of Social Sciences, Central University of Gujarat, Gandhinagar and ICSSR, New Delhi.

About: The Centre for Studies in Society and Development, School of Social Sciences, Central University of Gujarat is organizing a Ten Day Research Methodology Course in Social Sciences (in English) for Ph.D. research scholars (30 in all) belonging to SC category. Applications are also invited from ST/OBC/Minority categories and women research scholars. However, their application will be considered only if required SC research scholars are not available. Research scholars from Gujarat and neighbouring states will be preferred. [read full..] 

ELIGIBILITY OF THE PARTICIPANTS: Registered/enrolled Ph.D. Research scholars of any Indian University/Institute/College in any branch of Social Sciences are eligible to apply in the prescribed application form. M.Phil students and faculty members are not eligible for this Course. Candidate will be selected on the basis of (1) the strength of their research proposal (250 words in English) (2) stage of research (pre-data collection / fieldwork phase) and (3) first time applicants for Research Methodology/similar workshops.

HOW TO APPLY: Interested candidates can apply to Course Director at cssdworkshop@gmail.com in the prescribed application form in soft or hard copy on or before 1st July, 2015. Application form can be downloaded from the University website http://www.cug.ac.in.

The duly filled in application form must be accompanied with the following enclosures:
1. Brief CV of the applicant and scanned copy of the supporting documents.
2. A brief note about his/her research proposal of 250 words in English. This should include plan of research and proposed research tools.
3. Caste/Community Certificate for SC/ST/OBC/Minority.

REGISTRATION FEE: No registration fee for the selected participants.
Application Form

Nationalism over verse

When poems become anthems.

Written by Khaled Ahmed | Published on:June 12, 2015 12:06 am - 

In the last week of April, Abdul Majid Sheikh’s book, Lahore: 101 Tales of a Fabled City (2015), was released. It again brought to the forefront that Pakistan’s anthem was first written by a Hindu poet of Lahore, Jagannath Azad. Three other national anthems — of India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh — were composed as poems by another great Hindu, Rabindranath Tagore.

Sheikh says, “The Lahore poet Azad was commissioned by Quaid-e-Azam to write Pakistan’s national anthem three days before the creation of Pakistan in 1947.” He claims that Muhammad Ali Jinnah actually approved the song by Azad and the text was publicised, but can quote only the two top lines: “Ae sarzameene paak/ Zarray hain tere aaj sitaron se tabnaak/ Roshan hai kehkashaan se kaheen aaj teri khaak/ Ae sarzameene paak (O, sacred land of Pakistan, the stars themselves illuminate each particle of yours/ rainbows illumine your very dust).” Azad thought the task was urgent and finished the poem in three days.

When the politicians surrounding Jinnah objected to the anthem’s authorship, Jinnah is supposed to have snubbed them. But after his death, the National Anthem Committee (NAC) apparently ignored his choice and commissioned it afresh. It finally chose the present anthem in 1954. Unlike Tagore, who wrote his work and then composed the music to it, Pakistan got another greatly talented man, Ahmed Ghulamali Chagla, to write the tune for it first. He was a member of the NAC. So was poet Hafeez Jullundhri, whose verse was finally chosen from 723 submissions. Needless to say, Jullundhri was greatly admired by the Muslims of India for writing a history of Islam in verse. Chagla had died in 1953, before the committee selected the verse to his music.

Interestingly, both Jinnah and Chagla were from Gujarat and wrote their names in the Gujarati tradition: Ghulamali instead of Ghulam Ali and Mohamedali Jinnah, instead of the current Muhammad Ali Jinnah, as appearing in his school register. Both were Shia and would be under great risk today living in Pakistan. The Taliban would have added both to the list of the Hazaras they have massacred in Quetta. Jinnah’s resthouse, not far from Quetta in Balochistan, has been blown up by Baloch nationalists and was recently reconstructed. Today, Jinnah would have been in the crosshairs of both the Baloch insurgents and the Taliban.

Jullundhri’s anthem was a work of genius. But for one preposition (ka) that makes the lyric Urdu, the lines are all in Persian, to lend gravitas to the message (Persian has always been a discourse of persuasion for South Asian Muslims). But today, under the new brand of Islam inherited teleologically by the state, he would have attracted the mischief of the Taliban for using “khuda” for god, instead of “allah”. The Taliban has killed for lesser transgressions. Most Pakistanis and Bangladeshis have changed the traditional goodbye word, “khuda hafiz”, to “allah hafiz”. “Khuda” has been rejected as a pagan word. Today’s Pakistan would have rejected the anthem.

In Bangladesh, the national anthem is, in fact, Tagore’s poem, “Amar Sonar Bangla (our golden Bengal)”, which he wrote in 1905, not as a national anthem to a nation, but “as opposition to division of east and west Bengal by the British”. Today, an internally divided Bangladesh is poised for a controversy over a national anthem “imposed on the state” by the founder of the nation, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

Of course, accidental anthem-writer Tagore, wrote what became the Indian anthem in heavily Sanskritised Bengali. Tagore wrote his poem in 1911. “Jana Gana Mana” was officially adopted by the Constituent Assembly as the Indian national anthem in 1950. Another poem by him about Sri Lanka was actually translated into Sinhalese and set to music by Sri Lankan genius Ananda Samarakoon, a Tagore pupil, in 1940; it became the national anthem of Sri Lanka in 1951.

One word about the irony of it all: Tagore was the non-Western genius who prophetically opposed nationalism that was to destroy not only Europe but also greatly damage the nation-states of South Asia. National anthems are unfortunately used by all nations as war songs.
He foresaw nation-states suffering from the disease of nationalism invented by demagogues to keep the nation united through fear of a designated external enemy.

Tagore set the tune to both the national anthems of India and Bangladesh; the tune for the Sri Lankan national anthem was also suggested by him. He didn’t know the poems would become the anthems of three nation-states that would often brawl with one another. The fourth state ignored its “national poet” Allama Iqbal while choosing its national anthem, but in India, a poem of his, “Saare Jahan se Accha”, is an unofficial national song. Thus the two great poets must mourn as they look down and see how the nations that loved their works are treating one another.

- See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/nationalism-over-verse/#sthash.md6S6495.dpuf

Vedanta - Knowing Is Joyous

ISHAN CHAUDHURI





Somewhere down the line, proclaiming oneself as ignorant has become a hallmark of virtue. People are regularly heard to take pride in the fact that they don't know things.`Oh, I don't read books' or `I don't watch that kind of movies' has become a general refrain of `coolness'. In a reversal of roles, people who once exclaimed being informed in certain aspects of culture and life now prefer keeping mum, lest they be construed as ponderous showoffs or, worse, snobs.The trend of being proud of possessing a curious, hungry mind has suffered over time.Wearing one's ignorance on one's sleeve is, of course, a virtue made out of necessity for most people.
But the earli er embarrass ment of not knowing has been replaced by pride. It is also in reac tion to the genuine snob who can be such an incentive for people to want to be considered ignorant. Being an `intellectual', a veritable gaali in our age, has come to mean a boring personality who loves listening to his own voice, and who looks down upon others less informed than him. This was not the plan.
The intellect is marked by playfulness, the way a youngster collects stamps or keeps a scrapbook or `curates' her Facebook page. To take in knowledge and to bandy it about is not a dry crusty activity, but can be as joyous and fulfilling as, say, dancing, singing or eating out. To know is not an embarrassing thing. It is a thing worth flaunting, and spreading.

the speaking tree - Let's Talk About Yoga And Meditation

Discourse: J Krishnamurti





Let's talk about yoga and meditation. Everybody seems to be terribly interested in yoga.They want to keep young and beautiful. Shall we begin with that? (Laughter). I thought you would be interested in it. (Laughter). Yoga has now become a business affair like everything else. There are teachers of yoga all over the world, and they are coining money , as usual. And yoga at one time ­ I've been told by those who know about this a great deal ­ it was only taught to the very , very, very few.Yoga doesn't mean merely to keep your body healthy , normal, active, and intelligent. It also meant ­ the meaning of that word in Sanskrit means `join together' ­ joining the higher and the lower. I don't know who joins it, but that's the tradition. And also there are various forms of yoga. But the highest form is called Raja Yoga, which is the king of yogas. There that system, or that way of living was concerned not merely with the physical well-being, but also much more psychologically . There was no discipline, no system, nothing to be repeated day after day. But to have a brain that is in order that is all the time active but not chattering, but active, that activity ­ the speaker is interpreting all this. Probably they wouldn't tell you all this.The speaker has talked to various scholars and pundits and real yoga teachers. There are very few of them now.
So to have a very deeply , orderly , moral, ethical life, not just merely perform various postures but to lead a very moral, ethical, disciplined life, that was the real meaning of the highest form of yoga.Thereby you kept the body healthy .Body was not first, was not of primary importance. What was of primary importance was to have a brain, a mind, a well-being, that is clear, active ­ not in the sense of movement, but in itself active, alive, full of vitality. But now it has become rather shallow, profitable and mediocre. We were taught ... the speaker was taught ­ oh, many years ago ­ something that could not be taught to anoth er. Let's leave it at that, shall we? Is that enough talk about yoga?
Could you go into it more?
Krishnamurti: Or you want me to tell you what I was taught? (Laughter) I'm sorry , I can't tell you.(Laughter) It's not to be taught to the casual. It is some thing that you do, perhaps ev ery day as the speaker does for an hour, to have perfect control ur body. So that you are watchful. of your body . So that you are watchful.
I won't use the word `control,' but to watch your body , not make any movement, any gesture, which is not observed. There is no unnecessary movement of the body . But it's not controlled. That's where the difference is.May we drop that subject and go on to something else? I know you are reluctant, because you think, perhaps you may consider yoga to be something to be practised day after day , to develop your muscles, have a muscular body .It's not that at all. It is something you live all day long. Something you watch, observe, and be clear about ... When you see those hills behind there and the blue sky and the line of those mountains against the sky ... for a second, the greatness of the mountain drives away all our pettiness, all our worries and problems and all the travails of life ­ for that second. Then you become silent and look. Right?
(`Meeting Life' ­ Third Public Talk in Ojai, May 1985. Courtesy: KFI)
Log on to speakingtree.in and post your comments there. Ask you vendor for the Sunday special yoga issue of The Speaking Tree dated June 21.

Reform Our Prisons





Tihar, in the heart of the national capital, exposes the rot in Indian jails

The National Human Rights Commission has begun to scruti nise Delhi's Tihar Jail following a series of reports in this newspaper, exposing lawlessness within the prison. Separately, the Supreme Court is hearing a writ petition on the appalling state of our prisons. The interest shown by these institutions provides an opportunity to decisively reform India's prison system, an area which has long faced neglect. The state of prisons is a measure of how civilised we are as a society and our record, unfortunately, leaves a lot to be desired. Indeed, we have even gone backwards.Tihar Jail, in the heart of the national capital, is a case in point.Once upon a time Tihar was a byword for prison reform, initiated by Kiran Bedi when she was inspector general of prisons. It included vipassana or meditation sessions, educational facilities, vocational activities, organisation of sports and games. But Tihar is a nightmare today , with rampant torture and sexual abuse of inmates by other inmates. Gangs run wild in the prison and crimes such as murders are plotted, both of those within and outside prison.
There is, therefore, an urgent need to look into and remedy the condition of our prisons. Even convicted prisoners have rights and cannot be entirely stripped of them. But what makes the tragedy even more heart-rending is that the majority of inmates in Indian prisons are not hardened and convicted criminals but undertrials. About 67% of India's prisoners are undertrials, compared with 20% in the US. The consequence in India is overcrowded, unhygienic prisons and a preponderance of young people charged with petty offences at the mercy of hardened criminals.
Thanks to its slowness and laxity , India's judicial system is the principal culprit here. Prison reforms, therefore, need to be a part of larger reforms which speed up and improve our criminal justice system. Current court orders and implementation of existing laws too can help in lowering the incidence of undertrials. Bail is the first line of defence here ­ courts have ruled that bail is to be seen as a rule and not an exception. Above all, India's prison system needs to ensure that it punishes criminals appropriately while giving them a chance to reform and learn new skills, rather than produce more criminals who are then let loose into society .