Europe seeing more deaths than births, says study

Washington:





: More people in Europe are dying than being born, according to a study that found, in contrast, that births are exceeding deaths by significant margins in the US.The researchers found that 17 European nations have more people dying than are be ng born (natural decrease), ncluding three of Europe's more populous nations: Russia, Germany and Italy . In contrast, in the US and in the state of Texas, births exceed deaths by a substantial margin.
“In 2013 in Texas, for example, there were over 387,000 births compared to ust over 179,000 deaths,“ said Dudley Poston, professor of sociology at Texas A&M University . “The only two states in the US with more deaths than births are the coal mining state of West Virginia and the forest product state of Maine,“ said Poston.
The research focused on the prevalence and dynamics of natural decrease in the counties and county-equiva ents of Europe and the US in the first decade of the 21st century (2000-2009).
Findings show that 58% of the 1,391 counties of Europe had more deaths than births compared to just 28% of the 3,141 counties of the US.
In Texas, just 24% of the state's 254 counties had more deaths than births. And between 2010 and 2014, 27% of the 254 counties had more deaths than births.
The researchers, including Kenneth Johnson from the University of New Hampshire, and Layton Field, from Mount St Mary's University , found that in Europe, deaths exceeded births in most of the counties of Germany , Hungary , Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic, as well as in Sweden and the Baltic States.
Further south, natural decrease is found occurring in the majority of the counties of Greece, Portugal and Italy. Though natural decrease was common in much of Europe, findings show that is far from universal.
“Natural decrease is much more common in Europe than in the US because its population is older, fertility rates are lower and there are fewer women of child-bearing age,“ Poston added. PTI

Source: Times of India, 19-01-2015

Economic and Political Weekly: Table of Contents

Vol. 51, Issue No. 3, 16 Jan, 2016

Editorials

Unprecedented Decline

Urban 'Invisible'

Saving Our Children

50 Years of EPW

50 Years of EPW: Sikkim: Cold War in the Himalayas

Commentary

The Paris Agreement

T Jayaraman, Tejal Kanitkar

Bihar Elections 2015 and the Left

Chandanathil P Geevan, Aditya Nigam

Beyond the Politics of Platitudes

Ankit Kawade

No Child’s Play

Kishore Jha

Questions on the Technologies of Fascism

Santhosh S

Child Marriage Law and Freedom of Choice in Bangladesh

M Niaz Asadullah, Zaki Wahhaj

India's Rare Earths Industry

S Chandrashekar, Lalitha Sundaresan

Book Reviews

Economics of Sustainable Development

K S Kavi Kumar

Afghan Political and Social History

Hikmatullah Fayez

Perspectives

The Last Polymath

Ramachandra Guha

Special Articles

Evolution of Institutions for Climate Policy in India

Navroz K Dubash, Neha B Joseph

Imagining Colonial Assam

Sarah Hilaly

Domestic Violence and Effectiveness of Law Enforcement Agencies

Anubha Shekhar Sinha, Milind Padalkar, Sreevas Sahastranaman

Role of Private Sector in Medical Education and Human Resource Development for Health in India

Pradeep Kumar Choudhury

Notes

Wages and Non-wage Benefits in Organised Manufacturing

Srijita Chakraborty

Discussion

NSSO 71st Round Data on Health and Beyond

T Sundararaman, V R Muraleedharan, Indranil Mukhopadhyay

Current Statistics

Current Statistics

Postscript

Meat of the Matter

M A Kalam

Colours of Love and Hate

Raziuddin Aquil

English, Clearly

Arvind Krishnaswamy

Last Lines

Appointments/programmes/announcements 

Appointments/Programmes/Announcements

Letter

Hunger in Tea Gardens

Jaydev Jana

Strategies to End Tuberculosis

Sachi Satapathy

Web Exclusives

Reading into “25,000 Crore Loss”

Ankur Sarin, Aditi Thakur

Prosecution as Persecution

Murali Karnam

Maharashtra Govt wants School Teachers on WhatsApp

The education department of Maharashtra has decided to use WhatsApp to ensure faster reach of new policies and information on teaching techniques to teachers in remote areas of the state. The department has asked all government-run schools in Maharashtra to create groups exclusively of teachers for this purpose. The primary education department has issued a circular and asked teachers in each taluka of the state to form a WhatsApp group of 100 members each. The details of these WhatsApp groups will have to be provided to the education officer and the group education officer of respective districts.

Briefing about the initiative, Mahavir Mane, Director, Primary Education, said, “The aim is to ensure that we are able to reach out swiftly to teachers residing in the most remote corners with new policies that the government is formulating. Rather than waiting for days for government circulars to reach schools, we can provide such information directly to teachers through WhatsApp.”

However, Mane informed that joining such groups was not mandatory. “We are not expecting every teacher in the state to join. Those who do not have phones can’t do so. However, the idea is that even if one school teacher from a particular place joins, he can then pass on the information to other members of his school,” he added.

Source: Elets News Network (ENN) Posted on January 16, 2016 

Air pollution now a public global health emergency: WHO

New data on deadly levels of air pollution in cities across the globe are scheduled to be released soon by the World Health Organisation (WHO), whose top public health expert has already called it a global “public health emergency” that involves heavy costs on society.

Air pollution in cities such as Delhi and Beijing is killing millions of people and threatened to overwhelm public services in countries across the globe that will have major financial implications for governments, the Geneva-based organisation said.

New WHO figures scheduled for release in February are expected to show that air pollution has worsened since 2014 in hundreds of already blighted urban areas. The data is taken from 2,000 cities.

“We have a public health emergency in many countries from pollution. It’s dramatic, one of the biggest problems we are facing globally, with horrible future costs to society,” said Maria Neira, head of public health at the WHO, told The Observer.

She added: “Air pollution leads to chronic diseases, which require hospital space. Before, we knew that pollution was responsible for diseases like pneumonia and asthma. Now, we know that it leads to bloodstream, heart and cardiovascular diseases, too – even dementia”.

“We are storing up problems. These are chronic diseases that require hospital beds. The cost will be enormous.”

According to Nicholas Stern, the IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government at the London School of Economics, air pollution is an important factor in climate change: “Air pollution is of fundamental importance. We are only just learning about the scale of the toxicity of coal and diesel. We know that in China, 4,000 people a day die of air pollution. In India it is far worse. This is a deep, deep problem”.

Amid continuing concerns over pollution around the Heathrow airport in London, the David Cameron government recently announced plans to discourage heavy polluting vehicles such as old buses, coaches and lorries from entering Clean Air Zones in five cities by 2020.

Several British cities -- including London -- face pollution, prompting promises in election manifestos and rulings by the Supreme Court. Diesel is increasingly seen as a dirty fuel responsible for most of the pollution.

Source: Hindustan Times, 18-01-2016

Richest 1% own more than the rest of us: Oxfam

The richest one percent of the world’s population now own more than the rest of us combined, aid group Oxfam said Monday, on the eve of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos.

“Runaway inequality has created a world where 62 people own as much wealth as the poorest half of the world’s population -- a figure that has fallen from 388 just five years ago,” the anti-poverty agency said in its reported published ahead of the annual gathering of the world’s financial and political elites in Davos.

The report, entitled “An Economy for the 1%”, states that women are disproportionately affected by the global inequality.

“One of the other key trends behind rising inequality set out in Oxfam International’s report is the falling share of national income going to workers in almost all developed and most developing countries... The majority of low paid workers around the world are women.”

Although world leaders have increasingly talked about the need to tackle inequality “the gap between the richest and the rest has widened dramatically in the past 12 months,” Oxfam said.

Oxfam’s prediction, made ahead of last year’s Davos meeting, that the richest one percent would soon own more than the rest of us, “actually came true in 2015,” it added.

While the number of people living in extreme poverty halved between 1990 and 2010, the average annual income of the poorest 10 percent has risen by less than $3-a-year in the past quarter of a century, a increase in individuals’ income of less than one cent a year, the report said.

‘Few dozen super-rich people’

More than 40 heads of state and government will attend the Davos forum which begins late Tuesday and will end on January 23.

Those heading to the Swiss resort town for the high-level annual gathering also include 2,500 “leaders from business and society”, the WEF said in an earlier statement.

Describing the theme -- the Fourth Industrial Revolution -- WEF founder Klaus Shwab has said it “refers to the fusion of technologies across the physical, digital and biological worlds which is creating entirely new capabilities and dramatic impacts on political, social and economic systems.”

Oxfam International Executive Director Winnie Byanima, who will also attend Davos having co-chaired last year’s event, said: “It is simply unacceptable that the poorest half of the world’s population owns no more than a few dozen super-rich people who could fit onto one bus.”

World leaders’ concerns about the escalating inequality crisis have “so far not translated into concrete action -- the world has become a much more unequal place and the trend is accelerating,” she warned.

End tax-havens era

As a priority, Oxfam is calling for an end to the era of tax havens which has seen the increasing use of offshore centres to avoid paying taxes.

“This has denied governments valuable resources needed to tackle poverty and inequality,” the report said.

As much as 30 percent of all African financial wealth is estimated to be held offshore, it added, costing an estimated $14 billion in lost tax revenues every year.

Getting hold of the proper level of taxes will be “vital” if world leaders are to meet their goal, set last September, of eliminating extreme poverty by 2030.

Byanima challenged those attending the Davos meeting “to play their part in ending the era of tax havens, which is fuelling economic inequality and preventing hundreds of millions of people lifting themselves out of poverty”.

Of the 62 people said to hold as much wealth as the poorest 50 percent, Oxfam said that 53 are men and just nine are female, highlighting that women are ill-represented even at the highest levels.

The headline Davos guests include British Prime Minister David Cameron, US Vice President Joe Biden, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls and newly-elected Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

President Mauricio Marci of Argentina, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Alexis Tsipars, the Greek prime minister, are also due to attend.

Oxfam said it had calculated the wealth of the richest 62 people using Forbes’ billionaires list.

Source: Hindustan Times, 18-01-2015

Psychological Programming And Life After Death

Satsang: Swami Sukhabodhananda





At times, even when we are thinking positively, negative thoughts intrude and spoil the whole atmosphere. How can we prevent this?You have a computer and you switch it on. Windows 98 comes on. You don't want Windows 98. You get angry . You switch off the computer, and switch it on again. Still you see only Windows 98 on the screen. Switching the computer on and off repeatedly will not change the situation. You have to change the programming.
Similarly , the psychological programming inside you, your subconscious mind, should change before any real change can happen. Your subconscious mind comprises engrams, mental traces that have been created over life experiences, both positive and negative; they are psychological representations that act like computer programmes. So long as the programming remains the same, the computer will function only in the manner dictated by that programme.
What happens to our soul when we die?
Our physical body is called sthulashariram ­ gross body.Our limited self is called sukshmashariram ­ subtle body . There is a third entity called karanashariram ­ casual body . Now the sthulashariram is the abode of jivatma ­ the spirit of life. It is not the body, but it gets identified with the body . The soul, along with the mind, is the seat of consciousness. The body is only a vehicle, and after our physical death, the soul is set free from its mortal coil. Then it searches for another body that will be its vehicle for another life time. At the end of this search, depending upon its karma in life till then, it is assigned to a particular body . The soul begins life anew in that body . In reality, the soul has no death. For example, there is space in this room and it appears limited by the room. Is the space enclosed within the four walls of the room or is the room a small enclosure in the vast unlimited space in the universe? The room actually is a tiny speck in space. But we say there is space in the room.Think of the jivatma as space and of the body as the walls of the room that encloses part of the space. Now suppose the walls of the room crumble down. Will the space previously contained within the room suffer any damage or dissolution? No, the space returns to its state of continuity which had existed earlier with the space outside the walls. Once this knowledge dawns in our minds, we realise that physical death means the release of our immortal soul from the confines of our mortal body. This realisation is jnanodayam ­ the dawn of knowledge.
Tibetan Buddhists perform a ritual before a monk's death. All the monks of the monastery gather around the dying monk and chant mantras to request the soul which is about to leave the body not to be in a hurry to take another birth.When a soul is without a body , it is in great hurry to enter another body . In the hurry , it may enter an unworthy body . This is why some take to wrong wombs. If the soul has patience, it will have enough acumen to select the right womb.

Attacks on Christians rose by 20% last year: NGO

Manash Gohain

New Delhi:





`85 Major Incidents, One Crime A Day On Average Last Year'

Citing 85 major incidents of alleged persecution of Christians across 20 states last year, a report by a minority and human rights NGO says 2015 saw an unprecedented spike in “intolerance“ against the community .The report says on an average India saw one such incident of hate crime against Christians a day last year.While the report terms Madhya Pradesh as the worst state, followed by Telangana and Uttar Pradesh for such attacks, it calls Maharashtra the 'Hindutva capital'. Delhi too, the report says, is among the top 10 states that saw such incidents, with five Catholic churches vandalised and assaults on priests and community members.
The Catholic Secular Forum (CSF) in its report claims that at least seven pastors were killed and 8,000 Christians (including 6,000 women and children) targeted in 2015. The report cites incidents from across the country -from Arunachal Pradesh, where suspected Hindutva fundamentalists attempted to attack Christians and whip up mass hysteria by quoting the Census 2011 data, and Chhatisgarh, where there is an alleged ban on religious activities other than of Hinduism, to Himachal Pradesh where the CPWD wrote off the Shimla CNI Church as a government property , and Tamil Nadu, where Bibles were thrown on the road to incite community members and create tension.
“There is at least a 20% increase in the incidents in terms of the number of people victimised as against 2014. The real numbers are much higher as many don't want to report such incidents as the police force is communal. Then we have incidents from areas where RSS is very dominant and victims are threatened to not report the attacks. Being less in number, Christians can't fight back,“ alleges CSF general secretary Joseph Dias. Claiming a significant rise in Hindutva ideology in 2015, the report claims that RSS and its 38 ideological affiliates have consolidated in almost every sphere of activity, and are “preparing to strengthen their hold on the country's polity“. “With the BJP government in the Centre, there is huge increase in RSS shakhas. Even though there is no BJP government in Kerala, the state has the highest number of shakhas.West Bengal, which has long been under communist rule and is now governed by liberal forces, BJP has a strong hold over five districts where reconversions are picking up. There is saffronisation of secular institution and in every sphere secular activities have been saffronised -be it in the northeast, Tamil Nadu, Kerala or Goa,“ claims Dias.
For the full report, log on to http:www.timesofindia.com

Source: Times of India, 18-01-2016