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Wednesday, June 01, 2016

Existence & Individuality
ACHARYA MAHAPRAJNA


An individual has two aspects: his individuality and the essential existence. Existence means to be aware of being alive. Individuality means to be something. When we mark name and form, we observe individuality . When we observe the degree of awareness, we see the existence that operates behind the individuality .As an individual, Mahavira is the originator of an order, the spokesman of the dharma of order and the initiator of a system. Essentially , he is neither a preceptor nor a follower, neither a spokesman of a dharma nor a listener, neither a dualist nor a non-dualist.
Dual and non-dual, interpretation and acceptance, theological law-giving and submission to it are all branches of individuality . Through his life, Mahavira moves from individuality to existence.
On the plane of individuality , Mahavira's logic is different.He says, `Kill no creature'. He would say , “As you shun pain, so do other creatures.“ In their common aversion to pain, the killer and the killed have the same identity . Observing this common characteristic would quench all urge to violence.
Mahavira was a votary of existence but he was aware of the expectations of an individual.To advance an individual towards pure existence, his individuality was also to be made instrumental. Mahavira said, “Monks! Before discussing religion with an individual, keep in mind who he is and whose votary he is.“ Triumph and defeat bear significance for an individualist. A votary of existence is indifferent to both.
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India Ranks Fourth in Global Slavery Survey
Rakhi Mazumdar
Kolkata:


Findings suggest 18m in the country live under conditions of modern day slavery
India has been ranked fourth in a global survey that lists 167 countries where modern slavery is prevalent.The findings of the survey released on Monday indicate some 1.4% of the population -roughly around 18 million people -in the country is living under conditions of modern day slavery. The segments implicated include domestic work, construction, sex industries, agriculture, fishing, manufacturing, manual labour and forced begging.
North Korea, Uzbekistan, Cambodia, India and Qatar are the top five on the list that ranks the countries in terms of slavery as a proportion of population. However, India's absolute slavery figures remain highest with an estimated 18.35 million enslaved people, followed by China (3.39m), Pakistan (2.13m), Bangladesh (1.53m) and Uzbekistan (1.23m).
Conducted across 15 states that account for 80% of the total population and covering nearly 14,000 respondents, the India State Survey 2016 was conducted by Gallup and the Walk Free Foundation which has been conducting such annual global surveys since 2013. “The prevalence of slavery severely affects the country's attractiveness as an investment destination. As an international investor, I run to places and look at macroeconomic indicators before making investment decisions. A government committed against slavery would definitely figure high up on my investment list,“ Andrew Forrest, chairman of Australian iron ore producer Fortescue Metals Group and a prime mover behind the Walk Free Foundation, told ET in an exclusive chat from London. Forrest has spent the better part of his time in the past four years to end slavery and was exposed to the problem through his daughter who went to do voluntary service in Nepal.
The findings are likely to make a lot of people in India uneasy, if not embarrassed. Forrest, however, said they did not face any major resistance during the survey and in dustrialists like Ratan Tata supported it. Also, on December 3, 2015, major religious leaders of India proclaimed the existence of modern slavery and their combined will to defeat it. “It was the Indian government who in 2013 encouraged our attempt to introduce country-by-country independent measurement through the Global Slavery Index as the first but most critical step to managing it out of existence,“ Forrest said.
“We maintained a dialogue with a number of govern ment departments during the course of the survey and briefed them on the findings. We are standing on ed ge of extinction of slavery. India is crucial to the who le effort towards removing slave ry,“ he added.
A key part of the initiative would include Indian corporates and business houses, he said, adding, “To begin with, each one of them would have to decide to look closely at their own supply chains to search for and eliminate instances of bonded or forced labour.“ It is part of corporate governance and is a sound business practice since one could be crucified in the international market for including a business that even accidentally uses bonded la bour, he added.
A big eye opener was the fact that a lot of Indian workers face exploitation outside India, like construction workers from South India who work in the Middle East. Fiona David, executive director (global research) at Walk Free Foundation, said quantification of slavery in a large and complex country like India prompted them to undertake a state level survey in 2016. The organisation is engaging with legal experts in India to take its findings on to the next level and help bring meaningful policy changes to end slavery which acts as negative economic multiplier, David said.
In India, the informal nature of its labour economy impacts on vulnerability and accounts for a large chunk of the incidence of modern slavery with common drivers like poverty, deep structural inequalities like gender, caste and is distinct state by state. For instance, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Odisha were affected by Naxalite violence where boys and girls between 6 and 12 years were recruited in specific children's units. UP is a source, transit and destination state for modern slavery.
UP's 619-km stretch of open borders with Nepal, proximity to Bangladesh and New Delhi, and home to tourist destinations of Varanasi and Agra, facilitate the flow of vulnerable people and impede the ability of law enforcement to detect human traffickers.


Source: Economic Times, 1-06-2016
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Monday, May 30, 2016

Economic and Political Weekly: Table of Contents


Vol. 51, Issue No. 22, 28 May, 2016

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National Education Policy recommends Creation of All India Education Service


The key recommendation of the committee on National Education Policy, which submitted its report to the HRD ministry recently, is the creation of an All India Education Service. Other changes in the policy may range from pedagogy to structural changes.
It was in the 1980s that an all-India education service was first proposed by the then Education Secretary Anil Bordia. Later, Kapil Sibal, that time HRD Minister, was in favour of the concept but failed to implement it. Thematic consultations were held by HRD ministry, University Grants Commission, All India Council for Technical Education, National Council for Teacher Education, National Council for Educational Research and Training and several centrally-funded universities and institutions, autonomous bodies and attached offices.
This time, the committee consisted of T S R Subramanian, former Cabinet Secretary as the Chairperson and Shailaja Chandra, former Chief Secretary, NCT of Delhi, Sevaram Sharma, former Home Secretary, NCT of Delhi, Sudhir Mankad, former Chief Secretary, Gujarat and J S Rajput, former Director, NCERT.

Source: Digital Learning, 30-05-2016
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(Organized by Australian Academy of Business and Social Sciences and The Journal of Developing Areas, Tennessee State University, USA) 

Theme: Exploring research directions in banking, business and social sciences
In Partnership with: Bangladesh Institute of Bank Management, Dhaka, Bangladesh; The Journal of Developing Areas, Tennessee State University, USA
Venue: Bangladesh Institute of Bank Management, Mirpur, Bangladesh 





CALL FOR PAPERS 



The ICBA 2016 invites active and potential bankers to participate in two professional workshops and/or any concurrent sessions on some emerging topics in commercial and public banking. It also invites academics, researchers, and decision and policy makers to submit conceptual, theoretical, empirical, and experimental research papers and abstracts in the fields of business and social sciences. Date: July 20-21, 2016 Venue: Venue: Bangladesh Institute of Bank Management, Mirpur 2, Dhaka 1216, Bangladesh Conference Website: https://www.aabss.org.au/conference/icba-2016-dhaka  







SPECIAL ATTRACTIONS 



The Journal of Developing Areas (being published by the College of Business, Tennessee State University, USA) The ICBA 2016 gives the participants an opportunity to publish their full-fledged conference papers in the Journal of Developing Areas (The JDA), which has a highly recognized multidisciplinary journal since 1996. Full-fledged submissions, which do not meet the JDA’s acceptance criteria, will be considered for publication in the Bank Parikrama, which is a scholarly peer-reviewed journal published by BIBM since 1996.







PROFESSIONAL WORKSHOPS 



There will be two high quality professional workshops in this conference. - Financial Institutions and Inclusive Economic Growth (Day 1) Presenter & conductor: To be announced soon Discussants: To be announced - Corporate Leadership: What and How to Deliver? (Day 2) Presenter: Professor Stephen Boyle, University of South Australia, Australia Discussant: Dr. Carmen Reaiche, University of Adelaide, Australia.







FURTHER INFORMATION, SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS, REGISTRATION & PAYMENT 



For further information, submission, registration and payment, please click on this link:https://www.aabss.org.au/conference/icba-2016-dhaka 







KEY DATES 



Abstract/Full Paper Submissions Close Sunday, June 19, 2016 (11:30pm AEST) Registration Payment Deadline Thursday, June 30, 2016 (11:30pm AEST) Camera-ready Paper Submission Deadline Thursday, June 30, 2016 (11:30pm AEST).

















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Evolution of English as She is Spoke

























































Regional variety in how the language is spoken gets increasing acceptance



Thanks to the pukka accents of the British Raj, many Indians imagine the cut-glass enunciation of Received Pronunciation to be the default tone in Britain, too, with Eliza Doolittle's charming Cockney cadence providing a counterpoint.That, of course, is not true, with even Queen Elizabeth II's regal diction having changed perceptibly during nine decades of speaking Her English. Indeed, her grandchildren's accents -noticeably less posh than their older relative's -reflect how spoken English is changing even in its homeland. So, the news that the Estuary Accent -spoken in London and the South East -is swamping regional variations and colloquialisms is not surprising at all. Given that linguistic dissimilitudes are what traditionally perpetuated class and regional hierarchies in Britain, a single overweening accent may be just what the hour demands.Britons are at least opting for a form of English spoken on its side of the Atlantic and not the other -or even from populous anglophone lands east of the Suez. In India, luckily , the various accents of English mostly denote nothing more divergent than region. But trans-Atlantic rhoticity has crept in and even the once-hallowed tones of All India Radio newsreaders have evolved into a more indigenous patois, signalling a new era of Angrezi here too.













Source: Economic Times, 30-05-2016
















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Live in the Moment







ECKHART TOLLE





















































The greater part of human pain is unnecessary . It is selfcreated as long as the unobserved mind runs your life. The pain that you create now is always some form of non-acceptance, some form of unconscious resistance to what is. On the level of thought, the resistance is some form of judgement. On the emotional level, it is some form of negativity . The intensity of the pain depends on the degree of resistance to the present moment, and this, in turn, depends on how strongly you are identified with your mind.The mind seeks to deny the Now and to escape from it. In other words, the more you are identified with your mind, the more you suffer. Or you may put it like this: the more you are able to honour and accept the Now, the more you are free of pain, of suffering. You will be free of the egoistic mind.Why does the mind habitually deny or resist the Now? Because it cannot function and remain in control without time, which is past and future, so it perceives the timeless Now as threatening. Time and mind are, in fact, inseparable.

Make the Now the primary focus of your life. Whereas before you dwelt in time and paid brief visits to the Now, have your dwelling place in the Now and pay brief visits to past and future when required to deal with the practical aspects of your life situation.

Accept first and then act. Whatever the present contains, accept it as if you had chosen it.Always work with it, not against it. Make it your friend, not enemy . This will miraculously transform your whole life.














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