To Feel Thankful Is A Great Feeling

Sant Rajinder Singh





There is a story of God sending two angels to earth to listen to the prayers of humanity . One angel was asked to collect prayers asking God for something. The other angel was asked to collect prayers of thanksgiving and gratitude.Two angels
The two angels were given large baskets and they descended to earth to begin their task. The angel collecting prayers that were asking God for something became extremely busy .Many people prayed to God to help them earn more money , for improved health, for the latest digital device, exquisite jewellery , expensive clothing and new toys. In the meantime, the other angel travelled far and wide looking to fill the basket with prayers of thankfulness.Days passed, but no prayers of gratitude were heard. The angel collecting prayers of request had a loaded truck ­ but the angel collecting prayers of thankfulness had only a few.
When God was presented with their findings, God sighed. “This is nothing new,“ said God. “You now have a taste of what it is like being God. People are always praying for something, which is all right because at least they are thinking of me. But few remember to thank me.“
His inbox
When God checked the email, the mailbox was brimming over with endless complaints and prayers from billions of people requesting things all at the same time. But very few emails thanked God for the good they received.
This story illustrates the human condition. People request others to do something for them, but how many people take an equal amount of time to thank them? Similarly , we pray to God for the things we want. How many of us take the time to thank God? We focus more on what God has not given than what God has given us. If we were to fill out a thank you note to God for all the good we received, we would discover that we have received much. Let us count many things for which we owe our gratitude to God.
Conditional belief
We may feel that God only exists when everything goes our way , and believe that there is God present only if we get whatever we want.
We may have had a job for 25 years, but the one time we are laid off we say there is no God. We may have had a loving family for years but when one member passes away we blame God. We may have been healthy for many years, but the one major illness we have, we say, “What is happening to me? There is no God.“
Few say when something goes wrong, “It's okay God, I still love You, and I know You are there. What happened to me must have been something that was best for me, under Your will.“
Thank God
Let us thank God for each day that we are able to do our work, enjoy our family and friends, for our health and be grateful our ailments are not worse.Feel happy for all the gifts we receive, not only physical, intellectual and emotional but also for the spiritual gifts of God. We can also spend time connecting with the Divine within through prayer and meditation, and in performing selfless service to others. In this way , we can express our gratitude to God, not only in words but also through our deeds.

Yearning to `Win'

HASMUKH ADHIA





Normally, competition occurs among equals. Jealousy is felt towards those who are thought to be better off than or `superior' to us, and hatred or contempt is directed towards those we think are `inferior' to us. Ego is in respect of self. Ego is a feeling that “I am someone special“. What is wrong in competing; doesn't it lead to progress?
Swami Visharadanand of Prashanti Kutiram, Bengaluru, replied: competition brings about the attitude of `doing something only to win' rather than `excelling to bring out your best potential'. When `winning' and not `doing the best possible' is the attitude, it may also lead to use of unfair means as also compromise on the quality of work input.One must feel samatvam, or oneness, to overcome competition, jealousy and hatred. And one must understand the true nature of atma, that is, satchit-ananda, to overcome the ego. The same atma is the indweller of the body of all other persons, whose outward forms may be different.
If you understand the real nature of atma as the creator of this entire Universe, where is the need for you to feel superior or inferior to others and be egoistic? Also, where is the need to get approval of others in order to be happy? The Uddhav Gita gives the road map to reach this stage. First of all, you have to keep doing your given duty to the best of your capacity without ulterior motive, ego or `doer-ship'.
This is the path of Karma Yoga. This, then, will lead to purity of mind that is absolutely essential for enlightenment.

You Can Do Planning Based On Remnants

Maulana Wahiduddin Khan





German statesman Otto von Bismarck once observed that politics is the art of the possible.This aphorism can be usefully extended to include planning. Planning should be done on the basis of whatever is available to you. This means to plan on the basis of what remains. Such planning can be termed as `planning based on remnants'.In chalking out a course of action, people are generally obsessed with the concept of totality . They want to have things in totality and are reluctant to accept the fulfilment of their goals in any partial way . But thinking along these lines goes against the law of nature. The realistic formula in this regard is that if the total is not achievable, one should be content with achieving just a part.
There are nations in many parts of the world which were eager to achieve things in totality , but failed in their ambition ­ even after a struggle lasting a hundred years. The following Hindi maxim applies to their case: “Aadhi chhod ke sajji dhave, aadhi rahe na sajji pave“ ­ “One who runs after the whole, leaving behind the part, loses both the part and the whole“. This is why, although these nations launched their initiatives with great enthusiasm, they ended up as failed states. They could neither achieve what they had set out to do, nor were they able to retain what they already possessed.
A contrary example is that of the respective achievements of Japan and Germany . After World War II, both nations lost areas of land they had possessed before the onset of the war. Germany lost to the Soviet Union the eastern part of its country , including part of Berlin. A similar case is that of Japan, which surrendered the Okinawa Islands, to the United States.
Both countries made plans for their future economic development by first setting aside what they had lost. The result was miraculous: Germany , led by its first post-war chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, emerged as the industrial leader of Europe. Similarly , Japan, under the wise leadership of Emperor Hirohito, rose to be the economic superpower of Asia.
This is the miracle of planning based on remnants or planning based on the remaining part of a whole, unlike planning which entails the pursuit of an erstwhile whole.The best formula in life is not to concern oneself with what has been lost, but, by wise planning, to avail of what is still extant. Sooner or later, you will emerge as a super achiever. This holds true for both nations and individuals.
Another good example is Singapore. Previously part of Malaysia, Singapore was ex pelled from the Federation of Malaysia in 1965 and became an independent state.Under the leadership of its former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore likewise adopted the policy of planning based on remnants. Although Malaysia is more than 400 times greater than Singapore in area, today , in development, the latter is far ahead of it.
All individuals and nations have certain ambitions which they seek to fulfil. Wise planning for the fulfilment of a goal requires adjustment between two things: personal ambition and available resources. The secret of truly successful planning is the correct weighing up of one's personal ambitions vis-à-vis available resources.No one can change the course taken by the external world. No one is master of nature. We have only one option: To find a way of making a realistic adjustment between our ambitions and the resources available in the real world.

80% of kids trafficked by relatives: Study

Somreet Bhattacharya

New Delhi:





Of the 254 cases registered under the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act in the past year in Delhi, a little under half involved youngsters lured to the workplace by friends below the age of 14. This revelation is one of the more shocking of the many in a study conducted by NGO Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA), the findings of which were released in Delhi on Monday .The National Capital Region was found to be pretty notorious with 2,222 of the 5,253 child labourers rescued across the country in the past year employed here. And while 254 cases were registered against businesses using children in hazardous operations, 42% of the cases sadly showed that it were minors themselves who had lured their under-aged friends.
Of the child labourers rescued in the NCR, 80% had been trafficked by either their relatives or by people known to them, and shockingly , almost 90% of them had been yoked by industries producing hazardous goods. BBA officials say that under a proposed amendment to the Child Labour Act, the government plans to reduce the number of jobs classified as hazardous from 83 to three, and so the number of children rescued under this category could show a decline.
The data between 2010 and 2014 showed that only 185 children could be freed on average every month against the target of 500 set for the state la bour department by the Delhi high court. Of those emancipated, 1,289 were less than 14 years old and employed in small-scale industries being run from residences in west and northeast Delhi.
Incredibly , around 21% of the children below the age of 14 were bonded labourers.Their movement had been restricted and they were paid a pittance as wages. The figures showed that 50% of the children were employed in industries producing zari, plastic goods, footwear and bags.
The study also showed that 21% of the children were employed by their parents or their relatives and had been brought to the city on the pretext of access to better education. The rest had either been kidnapped or brought here by placement agents. A vast majority of the rescued children, 82% of them, were employed as “household helps“. Officials say that a propo sed law to permit the employment of children for home-based work is likely to perpetua te the trafficking of children.And since most manufacturing units operating out of residential areas claim to be family enterprises, Kailash Sa tyarthi, Nobel laureate and founder of BBA, pointed out the findings “would have implica tions for any change in the law allowing children to work for their families, especially if they are below the age of 14.“
BBA found that children were mostly trafficked from rural areas in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Nepal by people belonging to the same community . “Despite the fact that this atrocity has existed for many years no, little intervention has been possible to take action against the said agents due to the lax laws,“ said the study .

Source: Times of India, 24-11-2015

Lives lost to terrorism at all-time high

Globally, from 2013 to 2014 the number of deaths due to terrorism rose by 80%, reaching the highest level ever recorded at 32,658, according to the third edition of the Global Terrorism Index

Two groups responsible for half the deaths

Boko Haram, which pledged its allegiance to the Islamic State as the group’s West Africa Province in March 2015, has become the world’s deadliest terrorist group, causing 6,644 deaths compared to IS’s 6,073.

IS and Boko Haram are now jointly responsible for 51% of all global fatalities from claimed terrorist attacks.

Numbers tell the story

4,37,000	People are victims of homicide each year, which is over 13 times more than the number of victims of terrorism.
70%	Of all deaths over the past 10 years were caused by lone wolf attackers who are the main perpetrators of terrorist activity in the West.
80%	Of lone wolf deaths were by political extremists, nationalists, racial and religious supremacists. Islamic fundamentalism was not the main driver of terrorism in Western countries.
$52.9 bn	Global economic cost of terrorism
11	Countries with over 500 terrorism deaths (120% rise)
300%	Rise in fatalities in Nigeria.
172%	Battlefield deaths IS was involved in.

Worst-affected countries (Global Rank and Fatalities)

Source: The Hindu, 24-11-2015 

Pressing for free speech

On November 16, a day marked as National Press Day, three newspapers made a statement in that cause by publishing blank spaces on their editorial pages. They were protesting against a notice served by the Assam Rifles to the editors of newspapers in Nagaland, warning them on coverage of the banned National Socialist Council of Nagalim (Khaplang). The editors were told they could be violating the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), 1967. This expression of defiance draws attention to the problems faced by the press in places described as conflict zones, trapped as mediapersons are between the state armed with the law to enforce varying degrees of censorship, and militant groups who use all methods of intimidation to have their versions published. In its defence, the Assam Rifles has drawn attention to a clause in the UAPA, under which the press can be made accountable in the interests of the sovereignty and integrity of the country. The editors, however, contest the Assam Rifles’ remit in asking them to refrain from carrying press releases of banned groups such as the NSCN (K). Such crucial technicalities apart, the diktat begs the larger question about both the freedom of expression and the independence of the press. What are — or, should be — the red lines in safeguarding free speech and fair reportage, critical to holding power to account?

The Press Council of India (PCI), often described as a toothless tiger, has taken suo motu note of the case and served notices to the paramilitary force and the State government. The PCI has the power to review any development likely to restrict the supply and dissemination of news of public interest and importance. The Nagaland government and the Assam Rifles’s reaction, and the PCI’s next move thereupon, will be instructive for the case at hand. Every effort should be made to check the authorities’ use of the law to curb reportage and opinion just because it challenges their line. It is far too common to use the pretext of safeguarding the sovereignty of India merely to hush legitimate critiques of governments and, equally, the security forces. There also needs to be a more broad-based appraisal of other ways and means by which freedom of the press is sought to be fettered, and what remedial measures there should be. For instance, government advertisements are often denied to ‘unfriendly’ publications. putting them at an unfair material disadvantage. The Press Council, for its part, appears to be shedding its image of an ageing tiger — from directing the Maharashtra government to withdraw its circular on the Sedition Act, to asking the Delhi government to do the same. On the “blank editorial” protest by Morung Express, Nagaland Page and Eastern Mirror, the Council must expand its investigation to the instruments of intimidation, passive and aggressive, that are utilised by state and non-state actors alike to both censor and get a favourable press.

Keywords: censorship, National Press Day, Press Council of India

Source: The Hindu, 24-11-2015

Store water in the sky

In 2014, Sonam Wangchuk, who believes that science is beneficial only when it can be applied to everyday problems, decided to improve a water harvesting design created by ªice manº Chawang Norphel so that more people could benefit from the innovation. Norphel, a rural development engineer, had built the first artificial glacier in 1987 in Phuckche village with the help of people who had been facing a severe water shortage for a long time. Wangchuk, one of the founders of the Students’ Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh, many say, is also the inspiration behind the character of Phunsuk Wangdu or Rancho in Three Idiots, a popular Bollywood film.

To build a prototype, Wangchuk, along with a group of students from his school, built a giant cone of ice in Phyang, about 10 km from Leh city, and called it the ice stupa, as it resembles traditional Buddhist monuments. This was built at an altitude of about 3,200 metres and lasted for about four months. “I once saw ice near my school at a height of 3,000 metres. That is when I first thought that a glacier can be made at a lower height as well,” he says. After the success of this cone, a pilot project was implemented in the winter of 2014 with the help of local communities. To do this, Wangchuk raised an online crowdfunding of nearly US $120,000. It was later supported by the head of the Phyang monastery.

To construct these glaciers, river water is brought down the mountain slope in pipes buried 1.8 m underground. The lower end of the pipe is bent to form a nozzle, which juts out of the ground. Water sprinkles out of this nozzle and, since the temperatures in these regions hover around -30°C, it freezes and settles on a wooden frame, taking the shape of a cone. The length of these pipes is 50-60 metres.

Norphel's flat snow tanks

• Structures were more like fields of ice or shallow pools that could store water

• Reservoirs had to be constructed only in areas facing north to get limited exposure to sunlight

• Needed a lot of labour to construct these structures

Wangchuk's stupas of ice

• The conical shape of glaciers, which resemble Buddhist stupas, means minimum surface area with maximum volume

• Reservoirs can be constructed anywhere, even at relatively lower altitudes

• Design does not require much labour, barring the one-time installation of pipes

“Science says that the water coming out of the lower end of the pipe attains the height from which it was drawn upstream. Therefore, we were able to make the water at the lower end of that pipe rise many stories high, simply by ensuring that the other end from where we are drawing water is higher upstream,” explains the engineer. The glaciers are then adorned with Buddhist prayer flags that helped in partial shading from the strong spring sun and as a wind- break against the warm spring winds. Thus, the structure is a synergy of science as well as tradition.

The stupa managed to reach a height of 20 metres, storing about two million litres of water. During summer, it melted to shed 3,000 to 5,000 litres of water every day. Water from this stupa was used by the villagers to plant 5,000 poplar and willow trees in 2015. These trees require about 10 litres of water a day, and their economic value stands at around Rs 8,000 per tree.

Parched land

For years, people of Ladakh, a land of scenic brown- and purple-hued mountains, have survived on glacier waters that flow down the streams. But with global warming and changing weather patterns, the residents have been forced to look for alternative sources of water for domestic as well as agricultural needs. The land, that once used to bear a bountiful harvest of wheat, barley and other crops, now remains parched.

For a region that receives average ann-ual rainfall as less as 50 mm, glaciers are a lifeline. According to the Jammu and Kashmir’s State Action Plan on Climate Change, studies conducted by the National Institute of Hydrology, Roorkee, reveal that the glaciers have been receding for last three decades in Ladakh, Zanskar and the Great Himalayan ranges in the state, with the majority of them showing a depletion of 17 to 25 per cent.

But depletion of glaciers is not the only problem. While the glaciers start melting in June, the region’s main crops—barley and green peas—need water during their sowing season, which begins in April. The situation is critical as no crop can be grown here during winter. Moreover, as the region has a very short summer period, if the crops are not sown in time, they cannot fully mature. So timely availability of water is critical.

Flow of wisdom

Ladakh got its first artificial glacier in 1987 when Chawang Norphel, with a crowdfunding of US $25,000, made structures that looked like fields of ice at an altitude of 5,273 metres. Norphel also sought the support of the local population, who worked as labourers. These artificial glaciers were flat structures constructed in the shade of a mountain at a very high altitude. They were constructed in the form of small stone embankments that impeded the flow of water to form shallow pools that can store water. The tanks helped to conserve water that would have otherwise melted and flown down the stream.

These artificial glaciers were cons-tructed at different altitudes, and they would start melting during spring and supply water to the residents throughout the sowing and irrigation season that lasts from April to July.

But the design of these structures had a limitation. They needed to be located in mountain shades so that the ice did not melt quickly. Moreover, the embankments requi-red maintenance to ensure that the water did not leak on melting.

This is where Wangchuk has taken the initiative forward. While Norphel’s design of constructing glaciers could be implemented only in areas facing north so that they get limited sunshine despite being in shade, Wangchuk’s version does not have this restriction, and can be installed even at lower altitudes. Moreover, Wangchuk’s design of building conical ice structures uses minimum surface area with maximum volume. This also prevents spring sun and wind from melting the ice. This gives Wangchuk’s design an edge over Norphel’s structures where water was collected in small flat pools, thus exposing more area to the sun, for a given volume of water.

Wangchuk says his design is not a labour-intensive one and can be maintained by just one person. “It is almost like 3-D printing of an ice cone. The difference is that we are using more science to prevent wastage. When we can store water in the sky, why go for dams,” says Wangchuk, who is planning a full-scale project with 30-50 glaciers in the same village this winter.

Source: Down to Earth