Middle Path to Nibbana

SWAMI DHYAN VISMAY





Earlier, days and nights were a mystery; the roar of the wind, cloud and the rains were a mystery; birth-death, fire, trees, flowers and fruit were a mystery . This led to uncertainties, pleasure and misery in our lives. It triggered our intelligence and we became truth-seekers.The individual's existence is a combination of the unconscious or Dhamma, and conscious-self or ego, a mix of observer and doer. Normally , the observer keeps a watch over the doer. As we grow, the conscious-self looks for the entities that generate pleasurable sensations and strives at enhancing this. The expansion of knowledge is centred around this `looking for' and `striving for' habits that have become complex activities.
Developments in the form of various institutions, their laws and interrelationships contribute to ego. The persistent endeavour of truth-finders has been to crack many mysteries. But one mystery still remains: God. Symbolically speaking, God is but a manifestation of fear of human ego for not being able to uncover the causes of mysteries around.
“Dhammam Sharnam Gach chhami,“ said the Buddha, pointing towards the conscious-self as the sole contributor of our life's achievements or otherwise. Meditation helps the observer-self remain separate from the doer-self, always aware of the supreme joyous state of mind-body . In this permanent state of alertness, you are never in extreme pain or extreme pleasure. The Middle Path is about balance that makes Dhamma flow peacefully .

Tor, a software that masks location, identity of internet users

A small library in New Hampshire sits at the forefront of global efforts to promote privacy and fight government surveillance -to the consternation of law enforcement.The Kilton Public Library in Lebanon, a city of 13,000, last year became the nation's first library to use Tor, software that masks the location and identity of internet users, in a pilot project initiated by the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Library Freedom Project. Users the world over can and do have their searches randomly routed through the library . Computers that have Tor loaded on them bounce internet searches through a random pathway , or series of relays, of other computers equipped with Tor. This network of virtual tunnels masks the location and IP address of the person doing the search.
In a feature that makes Kilton unique among US libraries, it also has a computer with a Tor exit relay , which delivers the internet query to the destination site and becomes identified as the lastknown source of the query .
Alison Macrina, founder and director of the Library Freedom Project, said her or ganisation chose Kilton for its pilot project because it had embraced other privacy-enhancing software the project recommended and because she knew the library had the know-how take it to the complicated exit-relay stage.
Tor can protect shoppers, victims of domestic violence, whistleblowers, dissidents, undercover agents and criminals alike. A recent routine internet search using Tor on one of Kilton's computers was routed through Ukraine, Germany and the Netherlands.
“Libraries are bastions of freedom,“ said Shari Steele, executive director of the Tor Project, a nonprofit started in 2004 to promote the use of Tor worldwide. “They are a great natural ally .“
“Local police asked the Kilton library last July to stop using Tor. Its use was suspended until the library board voted unanimously at a standing-room-only meeting in September to maintain the Tor relay . Kilton's really committed as a library to the values of intellectual privacy ,“ Macrina said.
“In New Hampshire, there's a lot of activism fighting surveillance. It's the `Live Free or Die' place, and they really mean it.''

Source: Times of India, 29-06-2016

1 in 3 women in the workforce marry before they turn 18

More than 32% females in the workforce tie the knot before they turn 18, while the figure for males is 6%

Nearly one in three married women in India’s workforce is below 18, the legal age for marriage, data from Census 2011 reveals.

While 6% of males in India’s workforce who get married are below 18 years of age, more than 32% of India’s married females tie the knot before turning 18.

Worryingly, almost 15% of the females get married before reaching the age of 16.

The new data signals that despite a sustained campaign by the government, India still has a long way to go in preventing child marriages and empower its young female population.

To be sure, India has made substantial progress and these numbers are an improvement from the 2001 Census numbers.

As per Census 2001, nearly one in two married females and one in 10 married males in India’s workforce were married before 18.

Within the Indian workforce, the story is similar for main workers and marginal workers.

Marginal workers are defined as those workers who work less than 183 days in the preceding year of the census.

Under the main workers category, more than 31% of the female workers who married did so before 18. This was more than 33% for marginal workers, as per Census 2011.

In comparison, according to Census 2001, almost 45% of the females in the main workers category and nearly 50% of the females in the marginal workers category were married before the legal minimum age for marriage.

Categorized on the lines of economic activity, the proportion of women getting married before 18 years of age was highest among cultivators and agricultural labourers in the main workers category and for marginal workers.

Among males, too, this proportion is highest for cultivators, followed by marginal workers and agricultural labourers.

Lack of political will to implement policies such as National Education Policy as well as the nature of development policies to counter poverty are responsible for women marrying early, said Indu Agnihotri, director at Centre for Women’s Development Studies (CWDS).

“In the name of being tolerant to cultures, the government has no motivation to implement the Child Marriage Restraint Act, 1929, properly, unless a complaint is filed. Moreover, arbitrary selection of age (six to 14 years) in the Right to Education Act has only shown lack of political will on the part of successive governments,” said Agnihotri.

“The extent of poverty and the nature of development policy have left the poor vulnerable. In this scenario, marriage offers a form of security for girls, and in this process, they become the victims of this paradigm of development which ignores poverty and looks at the problem from a cultural lens,” she added.

The data shows that the worst offender is Rajasthan with the highest proportion of married males and females below 18. While almost 45% of females got married under 18 years of age, 15% of the males also got married before 18.

“The numbers show that the pursuit of gender equality is a sham. We have managed to narrow down the gender gap when it comes to literacy; so more girls are going to schools. However, we have failed in ensuring they get married at the marriageable age, thus reflecting how socially conservative we are,” said Manisha Priyam, a New Delhi-based political analyst.

Source: mintepaper, 28-06-2016

Why the British said no to Europe

This was a vote by those angered and demoralised by the sheer arrogance of the apologists for the ‘remain’ campaign and the dismemberment of a socially just civil life in Britain.

The majority vote by Britons to leave the European Union was an act of raw democracy. Millions of ordinary people refused to be bullied, intimidated and dismissed with open contempt by their presumed betters in the major parties, the leaders of the business and banking oligarchy and the media.

This was, in great part, a vote by those angered and demoralised by the sheer arrogance of the apologists for the “remain” campaign and the dismemberment of a socially just civil life in Britain. The last bastion of the historic reforms of 1945, the National Health Service, has been so subverted by Tory and Labour-supported privateers it is fighting for its life.

Nothing but blackmail

A forewarning came when the Treasurer, George Osborne, the embodiment of both Britain’s ancien regime and the banking mafia in Europe, threatened to cut £30 billion from public services if people voted the wrong way; it was blackmail on a shocking scale.

John Pilger

Immigration was exploited in the campaign with consummate cynicism, not only by populist politicians from the lunar right, but by Labour politicians drawing on their own venerable tradition of promoting and nurturing racism, a symptom of corruption not at the bottom but at the top. The reason millions of refugees have fled the Middle East — first Iraq, now Syria — are the invasions and imperial mayhem of Britain, the United States, France, the European Union and NATO. Before that, there was the wilful destruction of Yugoslavia. Before that, there was the theft of Palestine and the imposition of Israel.

The pith helmets may have long gone, but the blood has never dried. A nineteenth century contempt for countries and peoples, depending on their degree of colonial usefulness, remains a centrepiece of modern “globalisation”, with its perverse socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor: its freedom for capital and denial of freedom to labour; its perfidious politicians and politicised civil servants. All this has now come home to Europe, enriching the likes of Tony Blair and impoverishing and disempowering millions. On 23 June, the British said no more.

The London class

The most effective propagandists of the “European ideal” have not been the far right, but an insufferably patrician class for whom metropolitan London is the United Kingdom. Its leading members see themselves as liberal, enlightened, cultivated tribunes of the 21st century zeitgeist, even “cool”. What they really are is a bourgeoisie with insatiable consumerist tastes and ancient instincts of their own superiority. In their house paper, the Guardian, they have gloated, day after day, at those who would even consider the EU profoundly undemocratic, a source of social injustice and a virulent extremism known as “neoliberalism”.

The aim of this extremism is to install a permanent, capitalist theocracy that ensures a two-thirds society, with the majority divided and indebted, managed by a corporate class, and a permanent working poor. In Britain today, 63 per cent of poor children grow up in families where one member is working. For them, the trap has closed. More than 600,000 residents of Britain’s second city, Greater Manchester, are, reports a study, “experiencing the effects of extreme poverty” and 1.6 million are slipping into penury.

Little of this social catastrophe is acknowledged in the bourgeois controlled media, notably the Oxbridge dominated BBC. During the referendum campaign, almost no insightful analysis was allowed to intrude upon the clichéd hysteria about “leaving Europe”, as if Britain was about to be towed in hostile currents somewhere north of Iceland.

On the morning after the vote, a BBC radio reporter welcomed politicians to his studio as old chums. “Well,” he said to “Lord” Peter Mandelson, the disgraced architect of Blairism, “why do these people want it so badly?” The “these people” are the majority of Britons.

The wealthy war criminal Tony Blair remains a hero of the Mandelson “European” class, though few will say so these days. The Guardian once described Mr. Blair as “mystical” and has been true to his “project” of rapacious war. The day after the vote, the columnist Martin Kettle offered a Brechtian solution to the misuse of democracy by the masses. “Now surely we can agree referendums are bad for Britain”, said the headline over his full-page piece. The “we” was unexplained but understood — just as “these people” is understood. “The referendum has conferred less legitimacy on politics, not more,” wrote Mr. Kettle. “…the verdict on referendums should be a ruthless one. Never again.”

The kind of ruthlessness Mr. Kettle longs for is found in Greece, a country now airbrushed. There, they had a referendum and the result was ignored. Like the Labour Party in Britain, the leaders of the Syriza government in Athens are the products of an affluent, highly privileged, educated middle class, groomed in the fakery and political treachery of post-modernism. The Greek people courageously used the referendum to demand their government sought “better terms” with a venal status quo in Brussels that was crushing the life out of their country. They were betrayed, as the British would have been betrayed.

Perpetual forgetfulness

On Friday, the Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, was asked by the BBC if he would pay tribute to the departed Mr. Cameron, his comrade in the “remain” campaign. Mr. Corbyn fulsomely praised Mr. Cameron’s “dignity” and noted his backing for gay marriage and his apology to the Irish families of the dead of Bloody Sunday. He said nothing about Mr. Cameron’s divisiveness, his brutal austerity policies, his lies about “protecting” the Health Service. Neither did he remind people of the war mongering of the Cameron government: the dispatch of British special forces to Libya and British bomb aimers to Saudi Arabia and, above all, the beckoning of world war three.

In the week of the referendum vote, no British politician and, to my knowledge, no journalist referred to Vladimir Putin’s speech in St. Petersburg commemorating the seventy-fifth anniversary of Nazi Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June, 1941. The Soviet victory — at a cost of 27 million Soviet lives and the majority of all German forces — won the Second World War.

Mr. Putin likened the current frenzied build up of NATO troops and war material on Russia’s western borders to the Third Reich’s Operation Barbarossa. NATO’s exercises in Poland were the biggest since the Nazi invasion; Operation Anaconda had simulated an attack on Russia, presumably with nuclear weapons. On the eve of the referendum, the quisling secretary-general of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, warned Britons they would be endangering “peace and security” if they voted to leave the EU. The millions who ignored him and Mr. Cameron, Mr. Osborne, Mr. Corbyn, Mr. Obama and the man who runs the Bank of England may, just may, have struck a blow for real peace and democracy in Europe.

John Pilger is a journalist and film-maker.

Keywords: Brexit, European Union, EU, United Kingdom

Source: The Hindu, 28-06-2016

India failing: 1.2 million children died of preventable diseases in 2015

Around 1.2 million children died of preventable causes in India in 2015 before celebrating their fifth birthday, a Unicef report has said in a grim reminder of abysmal state of child healthcare in the world’s fastest growing major economy.

Most of the deaths were caused by diseases easily preventable and treatable, says the report released Tuesday that counts India among the five countries accounting for half the 5.9 million under-five deaths reported across the world last year.

The other four countries are Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Pakistan, whose economies are smaller when compared with India’s.

“… some countries in the fast lane for global economic growth- including India and Nigeria – have been in the slower lane for child mortality reduction,” says the State of the World’s Children 2016 report. “The policy lesson: Economic growth can help but does not guarantee improved child survival, and a country’s income need not hinder progress.”

In India, premature and neonatal birth complications (39%) were the biggest killers followed by pneumonia (14.9%), diarrhoea (9.8%) and sepsis (7.9%) among others.

Though India’s under-five mortality rate -- deaths per 1,000 live births -- has improved to 48 from 126 deaths in 1990, it still has a lot of catching up to do, says United Nations children’s emergency fund.

India, which reported 25 million births in 2015, is the third worst offender in the southeast Asian region after Afghanistan and Pakistan. Its next door neighbours Nepal and Bangladesh have a better under-five mortality rate of 36 and 38, respectively.

China, whose economic growth has slowed in recent days, recorded only 11 under-five deaths per 1,000 live births.

Sanitation can go a long was in preventing these deaths, especially those caused by diarrhoea. The report says while 94% of the Indian population has access to clean drinking water, toilet facilities are available to only 40% of the people.

Proper nutrition, immunisation and safe water, too, can substantially bring down the deaths. The UN children’s agency has stressed on educating girls. If all mothers complete secondary education, South Asia will see 1.3 million fewer child deaths every year, it says.

Experts admit the integrated child development scheme, one of the world’s oldest nutrition programme launched by India in 1975, has failed to address the needs of children.

Poor infrastructure, lack of resources, overburdened staff, pilferage and lax enforcement had hit the programme. “There is a need to relook at ICDS and see how it can be effectively used to tackle nutrition issues in children,” said a government official who did not wish to be identified.

In 2013, a comptroller and auditor general report had criticised the women and child development ministry, which is piloting the programme, for diverting ICDS funds. State governments, the national auditor pointed out, had diverted Rs 57.82 crore from ICDS to other activities.

Though globally under-five mortality rate has halved since 1990 but the report calls for sharper focus on vulnerable sections. By 2030, 69 million children could die from “preventable causes” before the age of five if political leaders fail to address global inequality, Unicef warns.

Five countries alone will account for more than half the deaths: India (17%), Nigeria (15%), Pakistan (8%), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (7%) and Angola (5%)

Source: Hindustan Times, 28-06-2016

Report: In India, 1.6m premature deaths|year tied to air pollution

Vishwa Mohan





Global Toll 6.5m; Could Go Up To 7.5m By 2040

An estimated 6.5 million pre mature deaths in the world are linked to air pollution every year with more than half of them being reported from China and India together. India alone contributes 1.59 million deaths to this dismal statistic.The global number will increase significantly, touching 7.5 million in 2040, unless the energy sector that emits majority of air pollutants takes greater action to curb emission, says the International Energy Agency (IEA) in its special report, released on Monday .
Referring to Delhi, the report says that the traditional use of biomass for cooking and two coal-fired power plants (Badarpur and Rajghat) are the main sources of PM2.5 emissions in Delhi.
Noting that the air pollution is the fourth largest human health risk after high blood pressure, poor diets and smoking, the IEA's World Energy Outlook (WEO) special report says the energy production and use mostly from unregulated, poorly regulated or inefficient fuel combustion are the most important man-made sources of key air pol lutant emission 85% of particulate matter and almost all of the sulfur oxides and nitrogen oxides. The report, highlighting links between energy , air pollution and health, says no country is immune as a staggering 80% of cities that monitor pollution levels fail to meet the air quality standards set by the WHO.
In a chapter on India -home to 11of the world's 20 most polluted cities, the report highlights the recent measures taken by the country to curb its emission, particularly in power sector. “But these achi evements are more often offset by strong growth in emissions from industry and transportation sector“, the report says.
Though it notes that the number of deaths due to household air pollution (use of biomass for cooking and kerosene for lighting) at present is more than the deaths due to outdoor air pollution, the trend will reverse in 2040 as more and more people would be able to access the relatively cleaner cooking gas and electricity by then.
The IEA, an autonomous orga nisation, works to ensure reliable, affordable and clean energy to its 29 member countries. It was set up in 1974 to help these rich nations coordinate a collective response to major disruptions in the supply of oil.
“Clean air is a basic human right that most of the world's population lacks“, said IEA executive director Fatih Birol, noting that the proven energy policies and technologies can deliver major cuts in air pollution around the world and bring health benefits, provide broader access to energy and improve sustainability .

Source: Times of India, 28-06-2016

Living A Life Free Of Problems

Acharya Mahapragya





Life can never be completely free of problems. Where only one person lives, there will be no problem, but when there is more than one person, problems become a given. The word for `two' in Sanskrit is `dwand'. It means both `two' and `conflict'. This is because no two people think alike, look alike or have similar tastes. So there are bound to be differences and judgments born thereof. This creates disharmony and tension. Then what is the solution to live a life of peace?
Bhagvan Mahavira has given a solution. He was a man with ananta chakshu or `many eyes'. That means he was able to perceive truth at many levels. Truth is multidimensional.Ananta chakshu is perhaps the most significant adjective to describe truth for truth also has so many perspectives.Through our eyes, we can see anything as either this or that. As right or wrong, as black or white, as acceptable or not acceptable. With the possibility of different perceptions, there is always scope for difference of opinion and conflict. That's why we need ananta chakshu.
It is difficult for us to understand the truth. A person living in this world sees primarily the gross world and when he has the practical perspective then truth may hide itself from view.The greatest truth is aacharan satya or truth of conduct.
Mahavira observed that there is great fear in the world.He once called all his disciples and asked what they were afraid of. They were bewildered. Their master was asking them such a question, so there must be a reason, they figured. They were silent for some time and then asked for the answer from the master himself. “Dukh bhaya appanam“ ­ we are all scared of sorrow, said Mahavira. Today there is a lot of sorrow and a lot of pain, too.
Bhagvan Mahavira laid the foundation for popularising the concept of ahimsa or non-violence. First, he laid down the principles of fearlessness and then of truth.Where there is parigraha or possession, there is fear. Where there is aparigraha, or no possessions, there is no fear.
Equally true is the fact that a householder cannot be without possessions. Mahavira found a solution. If you cannot give up posessions, observe restraint. This is the solution to today's problems that stem mostly from avarice and jealousy.
The essence to a fearless life, a peaceful life, is through restraint ... we need to have limits. The sky can be limitless but a human being cannot be ... The human being has to set limits to all activities, whether the activity pertains to eating, housing, clothing, possessing ornaments and even money. Observe limits to consumption and possession ...herein lies the magic that will bring the required balance in the consumerist culture of today. Limitless consumption is the reason for our problem ...consumption is consuming us.
We may consider our life at present.Diseases of the mind that are born within, from anger, delusion, ego and greed, are veiling the truth from our vision. All these passions are born with the desire to possess beyond our limits.Let us try to overcome our greed for possessions, then maybe more of our `eyes' will begin to open, as do petals of the lotus once the flower faces the radiance of sun rays. (Sourced by Sudhamahi Reghunathan.)