Decisions of the people, by the people, for the people

People’s objections, from Chhattisgarh to Odisha, against large development projects have brought out the real power of the Forest Rights Act of 2006.

Democracy is alive and kicking in India. No, I am not referring to the Assembly elections. It is unfortunate that the term democracy has been reduced to the drama of periodic elections and the subsequent reliance of the electorate on politicians and bureaucrats. When these powerful few do not perform, or, worse, indulge in cynical manipulation of power, we grumble and curse and await the next elections for redressal. This is not democracy.

A direct form of democracy
A series of events reported in the last couple of months provides a very different meaning to democracy, one that harks back to its Greek origin (‘demos’ and ‘kratia’, or power of the people). Unlike the representative form that most countries have adopted, these events point more to a direct form in which people on the ground have the primary power of decision-making.

On March 16, five Adivasi villages in Raigarh, Chhattisgarh, unanimously vetoed the plans of South Eastern Coalfields Limited (SECL), a subsidiary of India’s public sector coal mining giant Coal India Limited (CIL), to mine their forests. These villages were Pelma, Jarridih, Sakta, Urba and Maduadumar.

On March 23, the Kamanda gram sabha of Kalta G.P in Koida Tehsil of Sundargarh district in Odisha unanimously decided not to give its land for the Rungta Mines proposed by the Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation of Odisha Limited (IDCO).

On May 4, the National Green Tribunal directed that before clearance can be given the Kashang hydroelectric project (to be built by the State-owned body Himachal Pradesh Power Corporation Ltd. or HPPCL), the proposal be placed for approval before the Lippa village gram sabha in Kinnaur district of Himachal Pradesh. The 1,200 residents of Lippa have been waging a seven-year struggle against the project.

And then on May 6, the Supreme Court rejected a petition by the Odisha Mining Corporation seeking the reconvening of gram sabhas in the Niyamgiri hills to consider a mining proposal that the sabhas had rejected in 2013. The court observed that the conclusion of the gram sabhas at that time was to reject the mining, and the petitioner would have to approach an appropriate forum if it wanted to challenge this.

What is the implication of these decisions taken at various levels?

The spirit of the 73rd and 74th Amendments to the Constitution was to move towards more direct deémocracy in villages and cities. However, though over two decades old, these have hardly been implemented. Notable exceptions are where communities have taken power into their own hands — some instances of tribal self-rule in central India; the partial measures of State governments like Nagaland with its ‘communitisation’ law, providing greater powers over departmental budgets to village councils; and Kerala with its experiment in peoples’ planning. Generally, the eminent domain status of the government has been used to override local objections. Development decisions are top-down, and communities or citizens have no significant financial and legal powers.

Among the first instances when the power of a community to provide or withhold consent for a development project was recognised was in the case of the Vedanta corporation proposal to mine in the Niyamgiri hills. In its order of April 2013, the Supreme Court directed the government to hold gram sabha meetings to ascertain the opinion of the Dongria Kondh Adivasis living there. All 12 gram sabhas rejected the project, forcing the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) to withdraw permission for mining. Loath to give up a lucrative deal, the State government launched a fresh bid to overturn this by approaching the Supreme Court again in early 2016 (through its Odisha Mining Corporation). It had, meanwhile, done everything possible to scare the Adivasis into submission through regular harassment (including imprisonment and killing of tribal members) by armed police forces. The Adivasis have stood firm in the face of this repression, and the Supreme Court’s recent decision is a vindication of their campaign.

Community’s consent

Some of these decisions have also belatedly brought out the real implications of the Forest Rights Act of 2006, so far poorly implemented in most parts of India. The Act provides for recognition of the rights of communities to govern, use, and conserve forests they have traditionally managed and used, reversing 200 years of colonial and postcolonial history in which the state had taken over control of forests. Logically such a right should mean that any activity in a community-governed forest should be subject to consent by the community, in recognition of which the MoEF issued a circular in 2009, requiring such consent for diversion of forests for development projects. In one way or the other, most of the above assertions or decisions are linked to such powers under the Forest Rights Act, coupled with constitutional guarantees and other laws such as the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996 or PESA.

The principle of ‘free and prior informed consent’ (FPIC), enshrined in international agreements for some years, was reiterated most strongly in the recent UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. India has not yet brought this into its legislative framework, other than in partial forms such as the circular under the Forest Rights Act and the long-forgotten PESA. The events of March to May provide an occasion for peoples’ movements to press for FPIC to be incorporated as a central tenet of all development and welfare planning. Widespread mobilisation on this is necessary because the Central government is otherwise on an overdrive to dilute hard-fought rights of freedom of speech and dissent, access to information, and decentralised decision-making.

Beyond FPIC, deeper democratic reforms would help ordinary people get political, economic, and legal powers through grass-roots collectives that enable them to take decisions affecting their lives. Such direct or radical democracy needs to be the fulcrum on which more representative institutions at larger scales would operate, downwardly accountable through various mechanisms. Accompanying it would be alternative pathways of human well-being including forms of economic activity that are ecologically sustainable, directly in the control of people rather than the state or corporations, more locally self-reliant and less dependent on fragile global webs of exchange. Many initiatives in India are already proving the viability of such pathways. Such a democracy will look very different from the partial, rather lame, form we have today.

(Ashish Kothari is with Kalpavriksh, Pune.)

Keywords: Forest Rights Act of 2006, Development projects, India, Chhattisgarh, Odisha

Source: The Hindu, 18-05-2016

Gender pay gap high at 27% in India

TIMES NEWS NETWORK Mumbai:





For a nation which celebrated equal pay day recently , the numbers speak otherwise. The gender pay gap in India stands at 27%, according to the latest Monster's Salary Index (MSI). According to the report, women earned a median gross hourly salary of Rs 207.9 against Rs 288.7 for men.The highest gender pay gap was recorded in the manufactu was recorded in the manufacturing sector at 34.9%, where there are strict regulations with respect to women working in factories. On the other hand, the lowest gender pay gap was recorded in the BFSI and transport, logistics and communication sectors at 17.7%. These sectors see greater participation of women in the workforce.
At a gender pay gap of 27%, India does not fare well compared to other countries. While Monster did not reveal comparative global numbers, other reports have ranked India high among countries (Japan, Ko rea) with a gender pay gap above 25%. In most countries, including the US, Canada, Australia, United Kingdom, France Germany and Mexico, the gender pay gap is below 20%. In New Zealand and Spain, it's below 10%. According to reports citing World Bank statistics, on an average, for every $100 earned by a man, a woman was paid around $76.
Reasons attributed by Monster for the gender pay gap in India include a possible preferential treatment towards male employees for promotions to supervisory positions and career breaks taken by women due to parenthood and other socio-cultural factors.
Sanjay Modi, MD (India Middle EastSoutheast Asia Hong Kong), Monster, said, “Worldwide, the lack of pay parity has taken a centre stage with strong views being shared by sportspersons, political and business leaders alike. Men often receive higher salary offers than women vying for the same title in the same organization. Needless to say, the situation is far from desired in India, especially when the country is gearing towards inclusive development.“
Modi said while some cri tics may claim that this gender pay gap is simply due to the choices women make, occupation, family, or education level, “that could not be further from the truth“. “ There is a strong need to create equal opportunities for all, particularly women, who are key contributors in the Indian job market,“ said Modi.

Source: Times of India, 18-05-2016

Transmigration: Here We Go Again!

B Shankar





Sanatana Dharma subscribes to the principle of transmigration or reincarnation. In the Bhagwad Gita Krishna says, “All the worlds from the realm of Brahma down to the earth, are subject to rebirth, But O Arjuna, one who has attained to Me is never reborn“ (8:16).Again in 2:13 Krishna says, “An embodied soul continuously passes, in this body , from boyhood to youth to old age. The soul similarly passes into another body at death; a sober person is not deluded by such a change.“
Creation and dissolution helps the jiva to regain full divine nature overcoming domination of the material nature in the state of ignorance.
The creative period, when all the worlds are in manifestation, is called Kalpa and is followed by dissolution of the manifested world into the elemental condition and this period is called Pralaya. Kalpa and Pralaya are said to be of equal duration, alternating in a cyclic process.
All jivas are involved in this cyclic process, undergoing birth and death continuously according to their karma, enjoying and suffering. This entanglement in the cycle of births and death is samsara. Delinking of jiva from this cyclic process of time is the ultimate aim of evolution. The attainment of delinking is called moksha. Attaining the Lord is the way to moksha.
In the seventh chapter Krishna says, “I have two power of manifestation, Prakrtis, lower and higher. Lower prakrt is material nature, consisting o earth, water, fire, air, sky, mind, intellect and ego. Higher prakrt is my manifestation as jivas or centres of consciousness.“ The former is my unconscious nature and the latter, conscious nature.Consisting of subtle and gross bodies, the human body evolves out of this material Nature. The subtle body persists through all embodiments until the jiva gains liberation, attaining to his natural state as Purusha.
In chapter 15 Krishna says, “A fraction of myself, immortal in nature, having become the embodied spirit in the world of the living, attracts to himself the mind and five senses born of Prakrti“ ­ that he has chosen to be part of all jivas by subjecting himself to the vagaries of mind and senses and thus blundering through, life after life! This also answers the perennial question as to why a human being commits sin when there is a resident God in the body .
Prakrti is infinite with countless dimensions in which different world systems, lokas, coexist without mutual intrusion and the jiva finds embodiment in these different lokas according to his karma. It seems the jiva evolves through countless births before realising his innate divinity! We can reasonably assume that there has to be a Supreme Intellect guiding and directing the soul in its post-mortal journey , deciding what experiences or vasanas to discard and what to acquire in the next birth. A portion of chitta or mindstuff is the only thing to accompany the soul on its journey , carrying impressions gathered in past lives.
To end transmigration of soul, depending on one's aptitude and disposition, one can choose any path like pure devotion or detached and dedicated work or knowledge or even a combination of all, leading up to receiving Divine grace, as only Grace can lead one to the Goal.
First ,sit up and resolve that you will not do any more causative karma which would add to the karma bank and with this your inner character gets embellished, giving space and time for the balance karma to play out and finally move on to the path to salvation.

Mainstream, VOL LIV No 21 New Delhi May 14, 2016

Growing Intolerance in a Tolerant Society

Tuesday 17 May 2016

by Ram Puniyani

Towards the end of 2015 many writers and eminent citizens returned their national honours protesting against the growing atmosphere of intolerance. The list was long and this acted as a process where some introspection took place in society. Still the ruling dispensation and its associates in the Hindu Right-wing politics, the RSS combine, began criticising those who returned their awards, accusing them of being politically motivated. They were also criticised for doing so to influence the forthcoming State Assembly elections in Bihar.

Most of the awardees stood their ground as the perceptions about tolerance, freedom of expression had crossed the threshold and had undergone a qualitative change. This gets confirmed in a 2015 Report by the US Commission for International Religious Freedom. This USCIRF is a bipartisan US Federal Govern-ment Commission. This is the first of its kind in the world and is aimed at defending the universal right to freedom of religion or belief all across the globe. The Report is scathing and points to the state of religious freedom in India. As per the Report, freedom in India is on a negative trajectory, religious tolerance has deteriorated and ‘religious freedom’ violations have increased during 2015.

The Report points out: “In 2015, religious tolerance deteriorated and religious freedom violations increased in India...minority commu-nities, especially Christians, Muslims and Sikhs, experienced numerous incidents of intimidation, harassment and violence, largely at the hands of Hindu nationalist groups.” The Report outlines the violations and informs that the USCRIF will continue to monitor the situation and may have to recommend to the State Department that India should be kept under ‘the country with particular concern’. It is a significant Report which goes on to say that the US Government should keep this in mind while shaping the bilateral contacts with India and the future of ‘strategic dialogues’ should be determined according to that.

The Report suggests that the Indian Govern-ment publicly rebut officials and religious leaders who make derogatory statements about religious communities. This is the crux of the matter. Those understanding Indian politics know by now more clearly than before that the leaders making derogatory comments are either directly part of the ruling party, like Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, Giriraj Singh (both Ministers at the Centre), or leading Members of Parliament like Yogi Adityanath or Sakshi Maharaj. Then there are others who belong to the affiliate organisations like the VHP, Bajrang Dal, which again are part of the broader Sangh Parivar, or, more precisely, the RSS combine.

When these statements derogatory to religious minorities are made, some from the ruling party will come forward to say that this is not the official position of the party and stop at that. There is neither a reprimand neither demotion of the person concerned. Many have made these derogatory comments even before coming to power, like Giriraj Singh, but despite that they have been given the positions of power. At these times Narendra Modi, who is presented as a powerful Prime Minister, keeps silent for weeks and later comes out with some lame uncon-vincing statement, which does not take away from the impunity of those indulging in such hate speech.

As such it seems to be a coordinated game. Someone makes the provocative statement, and some others from the RSS stable come to defend/justify him/her and some others say it is not official while the PM maintains a deliberate silence. Interestingly, some statements need not sound derogatory to begin with. Hindutva’s patriarch RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat’s statement about shouting Bharat Mata ki Jai (Hail Mother India) is very revealing. First, he said that we should teach the younger generation to say this. Then he took a step back saying it should not be compulsory. In response to this Asaduddin Owaisi of the MIM gave an unwarranted statement that he will not say so even if a knife is put to his throat. To take the story further, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said it is a must for all those who want to stay in India. As a matter of fact this is a subtle intimidation of the religious minorities who don’t worship anybody but Allah; as per Bharat Mata ki Jai, it becomes like hailing Mother Goddess, which they say is not permitted by Islam.

The RSS fellow-traveller, Yoga guru and entrepreneur Ramdev, said that had the Consti-tution not been there, by now lakhs would have been beheaded. These are comments from the top rungs of the political establishment these days. The writers of the Report in their naivety may have given this suggestion, not knowing that currently the protection for such divi-siveness is coming from the top echelons.

This is not an enviable situation for demo-cracy in India. The quality of democracy is to be judged by the degree of safety and security of the religious minorities. True, even earlier also anti-minority violence was part of the Indian political landscape, but now with the BJP Government at the Centre the intolerance and divisiveness has undergone a sea-change. What the awardees were feeling has a lot of truth; the feeling of insecurity is accompanied by the gag on freedom of expression, which is going on together with the intolerance.

The Report has come out at a time Modi is packing his bags for a major trip to the US. But at best it will probably be another document for the libraries.

The author, a retired Professor at the IIT, Bombay, is currently associated with the Centre for the Study of Secularism and Society, Mumbai.

Imposing an inequality

To impose costs on one of the parties at the end of a protracted litigation is common. It acts as a deterrent against abuse of the process of law. But to seek pre-deposits with a view to prioritising a certain kind of case over another would have staggering implications.

In an extraordinary order that reverses the fundamental constitutional guarantee of equal access to justice, the Supreme Court, late last month, directed parties to an ongoing civil litigation to each pay a fixed sum of money to enable them to have their cases heard, and potentially disposed of, at an early date. This move, initiated by a Bench headed by Chief Justice of India T.S. Thakur, is altogether unprecedented. To impose costs on one of the parties at the end of a protracted litigation is common; it is meant, among other things, to act as a deterrent against litigants abusing the process and the system of the law. But to seek pre-deposits with a view to prioritising a certain kind of case over another, by granting early dates of hearing to those that are capable of paying huge sums of money, is simply staggering. It reinforces a scheme of classism that ought to have no place in any court of law, let alone the apex court of the land.

A capitalistic approach

Ostensibly, the imposition of a pre-deposit as a requisite for securing a form of fast-tracked justice is aimed at thwarting corporates from approaching the court for the settlement of mundane issues of little public consequence. “Litigation should become expensive for your big clients,” Justice Thakur told senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, who was representing Star India in a dispute concerning the ambit of broadcast and information rights for cricket matches. “The learned Attorney General had suggested it to us yesterday as one of the steps which can be adopted to reduce pendency and discourage litigation. This is a beginning. Only those big clients who can pay deposit shall file cases here.” But, as is clear from what subsequently transpired in the court, the idea of imposing pre-deposits, were it to fructify into anything resembling a set norm, would serve to deeply burden the ordinary litigant.

According to news reports, having suggested the imposition of a pre-deposit, it was after what can only be really described as a process of haggling over the costs that the court ultimately quantified the amount. It enjoined both the appellants, Star India and the Board of Control for Cricket in India, to pay Rs.50 lakh each, and, what’s more, rather curiously, it directed the three respondents in the case, Idea Cellular, Akuate Internet and OnMobile Global — who may have no particular interest in a quick hearing — to also collectively cough up the sum. In exchange for these amounts, which were to be defrayed within a period of four weeks, the court acceded to the appellants’ request to have the cases listed in July for final hearing, once it returned from its summer vacation, thus arriving at a quintessentially capitalistic conclusion.

The Constitution, wrote Justice S.N. Dwivedi in his separate judgment in the famous Kesavananda Bharati case, “is not intended to be the arena of legal quibbling for men with long purses”. But that is precisely the implication of the court’s latest move, which places a gargantuan burden on those common litigants for whom the price to be paid for an early hearing would simply be out of reach. Were this order to put in motion a convention of imposing deposits, it could quite conceivably lead to a situation where those parties with the deepest pockets alone would have their cases heard on priority.

The court’s neo-liberal turn

The crystallisation of such a rule would neatly bookend the Supreme Court’s truly neo-liberal transformation, from a court that had majestically metamorphosed itself in the early 1980s into a court for Indians, in the words of the scholar Upendra Baxi, into a court that now stands to serve only for the benefit of a few Indians, or the “big clients”, as it were.

Article 14 of the Constitution guarantees to all persons a right to equality before the law and the equal protection of the laws. This notion of equality, expressed in its abstract, is undeniably a contested concept; it requires an exercise in interpretation to understand its full purport and meaning. But it is also just as patent that under any process of construal the idea of providing equal access to justice inheres both in Article 14 and in any reasonable notion of the rule of law. To achieve a perfect model of equal access would require every person to be possessed of an equal ability to defend his or her rights. This is therefore a concept that is easy to theoretically defend, but in practice, in a society that is intrinsically unequal, far harder to achieve. It was to this end, with a view to expanding the right to legal access, that the Supreme Court in the 1980s loosened its rules of standing, allowing claimants, whose rights were not directly affected by actions of the state, to approach the court on behalf of the larger public.

“The legal aid movement and public interest litigation seek to bring justice to these forgotten specimens of humanity who constitute the bulk of the citizens of India and who are really and truly the ‘People of India’ who gave to themselves this magnificent Constitution,” wrote Justice P.N. Bhagwati in People’s Union for Democratic Rights v. Union of India (1982). “It is true that there are large arrears pending in the courts, but that cannot be any reason for denying access to justice to the poor and weaker sections of the community. No state has a right to tell its citizens that because a large number of cases of the rich and the well-to-do are pending in our courts, we will not help the poor to come to the courts for seeking justice until the staggering load of cases of people who can afford is disposed of.”

This promise, which elevated the Supreme Court into a more egalitarian institution, was unfortunately too short-lived. In the ensuing decade, with the advent of liberalisation, the court’s underlying philosophy also experienced a sea change. The same power that the court had arrogated to uphold the needs of the poor was now used to further the state’s new economic policy, often on the face of the most basic civil and socio-economic rights of the greater populace. The nadir of this new avatar, as the collection of essays in The Shifting Scales of Justice: The Supreme Court in Neo-liberal India, edited by Mayur Suresh and Siddharth Narrain, points out, was reached on February 15, 2000 in Almitra Patel v. Union of India. Here, in a public interest litigation filed to regulate solid waste disposal in the city of Delhi, the Supreme Court wound up chastising the slum-dweller instead. “The promise of free land, at the taxpayers’ cost, in place of a jhuggi, is a proposal which attracts more land grabbers,” wrote Justice B.N. Kirpal. “Rewarding an encroacher on public land with free alternative site is like giving a reward to a pickpocket.”

While this decision in Almitra Patel no doubt occupies a position of extreme insensitivity, the more general trend of the Supreme Court acting virtually as a forum for governance — as a super executive — has continued unabated; if anything, its appropriated role has been augmented by today’s culture of 24/7 media coverage, where the court often comes across as a deliverer of justice that is most akin to a form of moral proselytisation, as opposed to a judicial reviewer of state action. Public interest litigation, therefore, presently serves a role distinctly opposed to the rationale behind its fashioning. In the process, the idea of securing greater access to justice, to those for whom the mere act of approaching a court is often an insurmountable barrier, has suffered a grave dent.

The case for equal access

Ensuring equal access to justice, as a practice note released by the United Nations Development Programme shows us, requires much more than improving an individual’s access to courts and the guarantee of proper legal representation; it compels a definition of access to justice that partakes a necessity for just and equitable legal and judicial outcomes. While achieving such an end might be a utopian endeavour, it serves little purpose to dilute the right to equal access by imposing newer and further obstacles to justice.

“When dealing with a question of court fee,” wrote Justice D.A. Desai in a 1978 judgment of the Supreme Court, “the perspective should be informed by the spirit of the Magna Carta and of equal access to justice which suggests that a heavy price tag on relief in Court should be regarded as unpalatable.” Today, the court appears to be treading a path where the ability to pay costs, in the form of pre-deposits, might virtually come to represent an indispensable condition for securing quick justice. This practice, if not immediately disavowed, to borrow an illuminating phrase used by the U.S. Supreme Court, would tantamount to “an imposition of an inequality”, thereby making illusory some of the Constitution’s most cherished promises entrenched in the Preamble, of justice, social, economic and political, and of equality of status and of opportunity.

(Suhrith Parthasarathy is an advocate practising at the Madras High Court.)

Keywords: Supreme Court, 

Source: The Hindu, 17-05-2016

word's worth - 6 Inspiring Convocation Speeches

masoom gupte





Speaking to graduating students in Delhi, Raghuram Rajan joked that his words might be soon forgotten. ETPanache rounds up lectures that stayed with you long after they were delivered

It has been the season of convoca tion speeches. Last week Larry Ellison exhorted students not to put too high a premium on mon ey. Not long before that RBI governor Raghuram Rajan delivered the convocation address at the Shiv Nadar University in Delhi. He began the address by saying, “If you even remember a word I say a few years from now, I will have surpassed the average convocation speaker.“Rajan may think that most students don't remember their graduation address. But a few speakers have bucked the trend, the text of their convocation speeches proving inspirational even years later. Some of the most memorable ones include:
Steve Jobs at Stanford University (2005)
On the graduation sp e e ch p opu l a r ity charts, this one comes up tops. The Apple founder delivered this address just a year after being diagnosed with cancer. Gr appl i n g with the concept of mor t a l it y, mor t a l it y, Jobs spoke about infusing each moment with meaning and purpose. Live the dream, follow your heart.
“Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.“
Ratan Tata at Rajarambapu Institute of Technology (2013)
The former chairman of the Tata Group is a dream speaker for a graduating class of students. His day job for over two decades was to oversee the global expansion of the salt to software major. Post retirement, he has invested in several ecommerce startups.
“View this moment as moving from a protected environment to an environment where you have to learn and listen because your whole world is going to be learning and listening. is going to be learning and listening.Your success is going to be your humility.“
APJ Abdul Kalam at Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati (2012)
As the president of India, Kalam had his hands full with official duties and engagements. And yet, he managed to spend a significant amount of time with the young minds of India. As the keynote speaker at IIT Guwahati, he shared his ideas for India by the year 2020. He urged students to develop as many ways of increasing employment in the country as possible.
“You should write it (what the student would like to be remembered for) down on a page.That page may be a very important page in the book of history.“
Sheryl Sandberg at University of California Berkeley (2016)
Over the weekend, the COO of Facebook delivered a 30-minute-long com mencement address at her alma mater.Sandberg, who lost her husband over a year ago, chose to share with students her learnings in death. It was the first time that she spoke publicly about that experience and it was an emotional moment for her.
“I learned about the depths of sadness and the brutality of loss. But I also learned that when life sucks you under, you can kick against the bottom, break the surface and breathe again.“
JK Rowling at Harvard University (2003)
The graduating class of 2003 received its diplomas from the Harry Potter crea tor. Rowling's 20-minute speech ad dressed the twin themes of the ben efits of failure and the importance of imagination. She stressed on the fact that life isn't a checklist and following one's heart will probably have its consequences. But it will all be worth it in the end.
“We do not need magic to change the world; we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.“
Stephen Colbert at Northwestern University (2011)
The US late night talk show host and sati rist was his usual funny self during his commencement speech to the graduating class of his alma mater. Like many before him and those after him, he also wishes he could meet his younger self and dole out some advice. Including, not wearing white jeans, ever, even on a cruise.
“Life is an improvisation. You have no idea what's going to happen next and you are .mostly just making things up as you go along.“

Source: Economic Times, 17-05-2016

 Love That's Unqualified

SHRI NIMISHANANDA





Emotions help us feel divinity .The greatest emotion is love.Today , love is only pertaining to family , friends and acquaintances around us. It filters down according to the proximity of our relationships.The kind of love we are used to is about `expectations'. For example, if we show love to someone and that person doesn't reciprocate as expected by us, we start hating the same person whom we liked moments ago. So, even the emotion called love fails here. The very base of divinity is love, and we clearly fail to feel divinity .
All human beings were only an extension of the Creator.Wise men showered unconditional love not only on humans but also on all other living beings. That was how ahimsa was established. Love one and all.We then feel divinity , and we can establish it in our hearts and learn to pray universally .
Usually , even our prayers are self-centred. We present a list of desires to God and ask him to grant them. Sages ask us to rise above ourselves and pray for the people around us and for the welfare of the world.When we offer such selfless prayer regularly , it purifies us and helps to establish us in a state of nobility . When we are established in a state of nobility, we draw close to Divinity .
As we draw closer to Divinity , it wells up from the soul and overflows. We are enveloped in peace, bliss and contentment.We have finally tapped the divine core within. When each and every pore in our body is oozing with Divinity , it becomes a mantle to encircle the world and peace reigns supreme.