Friday, July 08, 2016
From B’lore to Bengal, 8 Indian universities among top 100 in Asia
For the first time in the history of Independent India eight Indian institute of higher education has been successful in grabbing ranks below the top 100, where Bengaluru based Indian Institute of Science (IISc) has ranked 27th.
In the first 100 institutions, eight have featured from India and 16 in a total of 200.
It is the first time the list has been expanded to 200. In all, 22 countries are represented, an increase from 14 in 2015.
The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay (43rd), Kharagpur (51st), Delhi (60th), Madras (62nd), Roorkee (65th), and Guwahati (joint 80th) and Jadavpur University in joint 84th place are the other names that occupy various positions in the first 100.
National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University also from Singapore occupied the first and second position respectively for the first time.
However, the ranking authorities observed that the South Asian Institutions of higher education lag behind their East Asian Counterparts like Singapore, China and South Korea to attain an international standard primarily on the grounds of funding and the lack of government initiatives to treat the universities as a fulcrum to stimulate economic growth and frame policies.
source: Digital Learning,
Middle-aged smoke and drink the most: Survey
For both categories, the 45-59 age group reported the highest proportion while the 15-29 reported the lowest
West Bengal and Chhattisgarh had the highest proportions among people who reported to be smokers and alcohol drinkers respectively, data from the Sample Registration System (SRS) Baseline Survey 2014, released by the Registrar General of India show.
A fourth of West Bengal men smoke and a third of Chhattisgarh men drink — the highest among the 21 ‘bigger states’ for which data is available. On the other hand, Maharashtra has the lowest proportion of male smokers and drinkers, at 2 per cent and 2.7 per cent.
Numbers low for women
The survey also reported more smokers (11.4 per cent) than drinkers (10 per cent).
For both categories, the 45-59 reported the highest proportion while the 15-29 age group reported the lowest. In contrast, the numbers are significantly low for women — a mere 0.7 per cent of total women, for both smoking and drinking. At 3 per cent, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh have the highest proportion of female drinkers. 13 of the 21 states, however, have more drinkers than smokers, including Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Telangana — where the difference is the highest.
Caste-wise, reported drinking is more among men belonging to the Scheduled Tribes (18.2 per cent).
This can explain why Chhattisgarh tops the drinking list, as the State has a large adivasi population. Smoking is most prevalent among the Scheduled Castes (16.3 per cent).
Overall, 1.4 per cent people reported to have quit smoking and drinking. For every seven men who smoke and for every eight men who drink, there is one who has quit the respective habit, data shows.
Source: The Hindu, 17-06-2016
The ABC of radicalisation
There is data to show that relatively better-off people are likely to take to terrorism.
Young Nibras Islam couldn’t contain his excitement after shaking hands with Bollywood actress Shraddha Kapoor. Without wasting much time, he announced it on social media. The quiet teenager was an enthusiastic football player in Turkish Hope School in Dhaka, where many of the elite families of Bangladesh send their children. Islam went to Malaysia for higher studies, but returned home a few months later. Then he disappeared.
When Islam appeared in public next, he was leading a group of over half a dozen gun-toting youngsters into Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka’s Gulshan neighbourhood, which many of those terrorists used to visit occasionally until a few months ago.
According to investigators, Islam was directing the group as they went about murdering people, mostly by slashing throats of those who couldn’t recite verses from the Quran.
Except for probably a couple of madrasa students from Bogra, the rest of the attackers were all English-speaking elite from Dhaka who studied in some of the finest English medium schools, frequented the Gulshan café, listened to pop music and longed to meet celebrities.
Why the surprise?
The fact that the Dhaka attackers were mostly from privileged backgrounds is not surprising at all. There is enough data available in various academic studies to show that more educated, and relatively better off, people are more likely to take to terrorism than their poorer compatriots. That statistic is a stark warning to Indian law enforcement agencies that, of late, they might be searching mostly in the wrong places for potential terrorists — in poor Muslim ghettos and among the weakest of them.
Economist Alan Krueger of Princeton University who has done pioneering terrorism studies, argues in his book, What Makes a Terrorist: Economics and the Roots of Terrorism, that to understand who joins terrorist organisations “instead of asking who has a low salary and few opportunities, we should ask: who holds strong political views and is confident enough to try to impose an extremist vision by violent means?”
Prof Krueger points out that most terrorists are not so desperately poor that they have nothing to live for: “Instead, they are people who care so fervently about a cause that they are willing to die for it.”
Look at South Asia. While the region has had innumerable insurgencies, only few have produced suicide terrorism, the highest form of sacrifice for the aggrieved mind.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) of Sri Lanka produced almost 200 suicide bombers. Many recruits were beneficiaries of secular education. Among the suicide attackers were a few Christians, no Muslims, and the rest were Hindus. Religion was not a mobilising factor — an extreme sense of grievance against the Sri Lankan establishment was. In contrast, the Kashmir militancy did not witness suicide attacks until 1999, when a local boy drove a car packed with explosives into the 15 Corps headquarters. However, a vast majority of the suicide terrorists were from across the border.
There is a commonality between the two insurgencies. In both Sri Lanka and Kashmir it was a generation of educated youth who began armed movements in response to their perceived grievances.
The more educated are more susceptible to disappointment with the prevailing situation. And their outrage would be far higher too, compared to their contemporaries who are less educated.
This is a reality very visible within Indian insurgencies too, but our security and political establishment is not willing to accept that fact. Because the moment you accept that grievances of an educated and relatively better off person are the root cause of such a perverted response, then there is more pressure on you to initiate steps to address those grievances.
In the Kashmir Valley the new wave of local militants, primarily from four districts of South Kashmir — Pulwama, Anantnag, Kulgam and Shopian — are mostly from middle class families and have had a good education.
Not different is the story of the Islamic State sympathisers intercepted by the Indian agencies in the early phase of their operations. They were mostly educated and relatively affluent. Cuddalore-born, Singapore passport-holder Haja Fakkrudeen, who went to Syria, and his friend Gul Mohamed Maracachi Maraicar, who is in jail, fall into this subset.
Not very different is the story of Bengaluru resident Muhammed Abdul Ahad, a U.S.-educated computer professional who took his wife and children along to join the IS, but was intercepted at the Syrian border.
The stories of numerous others tracked by Indian agencies across the country as the IS fervour gripped West Asia a couple of years ago are similar.
Signs of trouble
However, of late there is a different narrative emerging, which is both disconcerting and portends trouble. This May in Delhi, and a few days ago in Hyderabad, the local police had to let off many of the so-called suspects they had arrested as IS sympathisers. Such irresponsible arrests by the security establishment will only add to the grievances that fuel modern-day terrorism.
If available data point towards the educated lot taking to terrorism much before their poor cousins, then India’s Central and State governments have a lot of steps to take, from reining in ministers given to making polarising statements as well as countering blatantly communal leaders across political parties. But addressing these real reasons to contain terrorism is to challenge the modern-day political playbook.
josy.joseph@thehindu.co.in
Keywords: Holey Artisan Bakery, Nibras Islam, Islamic terrorism, terrorism in Kashmir, LLTE Sri Lanka
Source: The Hindu, 8-07-2016
Assurance & Insurance
SRI NIMISHANANDA
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Hope eggs us on. How else could we face life's ups and downs?
Daily , we come face-to-face with joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, success and failure, acceptance and rejection, birth and death. Yet, we do try to be cheerful, hoping that something good is going to happen that will make life more meaningful, ushering in happiness and peace. Even though nothing is assured, we go on with life, taking this assurance for granted.We promise people that we will meet them on a particular date and generally give assurances.Sometimes we do tend to think, “What if something goes wrong?“ When this sudden negative thought occurs, based on assumptions and presumptions, we tend to find ways to insure ourselves against each and everything, including our very life. Ironically , we create a paradox. On the one hand, we confidently give assurances for tomorrow and for months ahead. On the other hand, we are strongly motivated to take an insurance cover for almost everything including life as if tomorrow is uncertain.
We pay high premiums and stay poor so that after we die, our heirs can benefit. Scriptures talk about how to use our body , mind and soul to achieve prosperity , peace, contentment, acceptance, wisdom and eternal bliss. Sages assure us that all of us have a divine, immortal soul. No `insurance' can give us such an `assurance'.This knowledge assures us and fills us with confidence and faith and acts as insurance against fear and disbelief.
Daily , we come face-to-face with joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, success and failure, acceptance and rejection, birth and death. Yet, we do try to be cheerful, hoping that something good is going to happen that will make life more meaningful, ushering in happiness and peace. Even though nothing is assured, we go on with life, taking this assurance for granted.We promise people that we will meet them on a particular date and generally give assurances.Sometimes we do tend to think, “What if something goes wrong?“ When this sudden negative thought occurs, based on assumptions and presumptions, we tend to find ways to insure ourselves against each and everything, including our very life. Ironically , we create a paradox. On the one hand, we confidently give assurances for tomorrow and for months ahead. On the other hand, we are strongly motivated to take an insurance cover for almost everything including life as if tomorrow is uncertain.
We pay high premiums and stay poor so that after we die, our heirs can benefit. Scriptures talk about how to use our body , mind and soul to achieve prosperity , peace, contentment, acceptance, wisdom and eternal bliss. Sages assure us that all of us have a divine, immortal soul. No `insurance' can give us such an `assurance'.This knowledge assures us and fills us with confidence and faith and acts as insurance against fear and disbelief.
When Miracles Happen Out Of The Blue
Marguerite Theophil
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A poster i recently read got me thinking. It said: “The grass is always greener where you water it.“ I thought of what some people speak of as miracles, and some call luck; both groups refer to something desired but kind-of-unexpected. In both instances, one feels a bit surprised. What is often ignored is the `background' to the actual lucky event or miracle.Of course miracles sometimes do hit us seemingly out of the blue that's why we call them miracles. If we believe or have some faith, then we tend to notice these small or big miracles. If we don't, or even are pessimistic, it is all too easy to overlook them when they do happen.But there is an element of what in modern books we read as: “Believe it and you will see it“, or “Just act as if“.
A Taoist master was approached by members of a village, during a time of great drought. They confessed trying many other approaches before reaching out to him, but with no success, so they now asked if he could help bring rain to their dry fields.
The master agreed, and asked for a small hut with a garden that he could tend. For three days, he tended the garden. Much to the surprise of the villagers, he performed no special rituals, chanted no particular prayers, or needed anything more from them. All he did was to plant seeds and carefully work on his garden.
On the fourth day , rain began to fall on the parched earth.
When asked how he had achieved such a miracle, the master simply smiled. It was left to the villagers to later recall and recount how, even in that dry spell, he had lovingly cared for the garden as if he expected the rainwater to come and complete his task.
Many people consider themselves to be either lucky or unlucky . But, these words, attributed to Roman philosopher Seneca are worth a second thought: “Luck is what happens when prepared ness meets opportunity .“
Good luck like good faith works much in the same way as bad luck or lack of faith.
During a terrible flood a pious man trapped on a rooftop prayed fervently and expressed strong conviction that God himself would rescue him. He refused offers of help, telling a neighbour, then a boatman and finally a helicopter rescue team that a bigger power God himself had promised to save him. In the end the waters rose above him and he drowned. Meeting God in the afterlife he expressed his deep disappointment that despite his unshakable faith, God seemed to have let him down, and God tenderly reminded him that He had sent not one but three of his representatives to rescue the poor, foolish man.
So-called lucky people generate their own good fortune or miracles mainly by being attentive to subtler signs and opportunities. They listen to their intuition as well as logically analyse things when making decisions. They create self-fulfilling prophesies through fostering positive expectations. They don't allow disappointment or slowness in getting results to make them give up and they generously become conduits of miracles that benefit others.
Choosing to live with wise faith in things not seen, not proven, and not guaranteed we replace the limited and predictable and tap into the unlimited power of the possible.
A Taoist master was approached by members of a village, during a time of great drought. They confessed trying many other approaches before reaching out to him, but with no success, so they now asked if he could help bring rain to their dry fields.
The master agreed, and asked for a small hut with a garden that he could tend. For three days, he tended the garden. Much to the surprise of the villagers, he performed no special rituals, chanted no particular prayers, or needed anything more from them. All he did was to plant seeds and carefully work on his garden.
On the fourth day , rain began to fall on the parched earth.
When asked how he had achieved such a miracle, the master simply smiled. It was left to the villagers to later recall and recount how, even in that dry spell, he had lovingly cared for the garden as if he expected the rainwater to come and complete his task.
Many people consider themselves to be either lucky or unlucky . But, these words, attributed to Roman philosopher Seneca are worth a second thought: “Luck is what happens when prepared ness meets opportunity .“
Good luck like good faith works much in the same way as bad luck or lack of faith.
During a terrible flood a pious man trapped on a rooftop prayed fervently and expressed strong conviction that God himself would rescue him. He refused offers of help, telling a neighbour, then a boatman and finally a helicopter rescue team that a bigger power God himself had promised to save him. In the end the waters rose above him and he drowned. Meeting God in the afterlife he expressed his deep disappointment that despite his unshakable faith, God seemed to have let him down, and God tenderly reminded him that He had sent not one but three of his representatives to rescue the poor, foolish man.
So-called lucky people generate their own good fortune or miracles mainly by being attentive to subtler signs and opportunities. They listen to their intuition as well as logically analyse things when making decisions. They create self-fulfilling prophesies through fostering positive expectations. They don't allow disappointment or slowness in getting results to make them give up and they generously become conduits of miracles that benefit others.
Choosing to live with wise faith in things not seen, not proven, and not guaranteed we replace the limited and predictable and tap into the unlimited power of the possible.
Tuesday, July 05, 2016
Karma Sanyasa: State Of Supreme Culmination
Shri Shri Anandamurti
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What is action or karma, and what is its cardinal spirit? The relative change of position of objects is termed karma. This can never be performed beyond the periphery of time, space and person.The relative change of place of objects presupposes the very existence of time, space and person. Karma sanyasi is cardinal spirit of action. The word sanyasa is derived from the terms sam or sat and nyasa. Sat refers to the unchangeable Entity . Sanyasa implies one's total identification with that unchangeable Entity .
Karma sanyasa is possible only when each factor of time, space and person comes within the scope of actual relationship with the subjective bearing; that is, time factor with the eternal Entity , space with the all-pervading Entity and the personal factor with the Supreme shelter. That is why karma sanyasa is a state of supreme culmination.
It is the natural rule of the universe that those who possess immense knowledge are quite conscious of their intellectual limitations, whereas people with superficial knowledge think just the opposite. The genuine way of learning for seekers of knowledge is to consider always that they know nothing.
You can execute ordinary types of work with your own little intellect. But if you aspire to undertake any noble ventures, then you have to unite your own intellect with Cosmic Intellect, and work with the help of the Supreme knowledge of Parama Purusha.
As the evolutionary process pr As the evolutionary process proceeds usually from crude towards the subtle, to make your own intellect subtle, take ideation of the subtlest entity not to remain engrossed in crude objects. With constant ideation of the Supreme, the mind will gradually attain more and more subtlety and will ultimately be converted into the subtlest entity . After this, the sense of separation in the microcosm ceases to exist, and it becomes one with the Cosmic Mind.
When the unit intellect arrives at this highest point, it becomes one with Supreme Intellect.
When Supreme Conscious ness remains in His original stance, He is called Para Brahmn. But when that Para Brahmn is transmuted into different ideas or objects, then Supreme Consciousness is termed Apara Brahmn. Attachment towards Apara Brahmn is called aparabhakti, and intense love for Para Brahmn is called parabhakti.Karma sanyasa is only possible for those people whose goal of life is Para Brahmn. When the mind leaves all objects and es towards the Supreme Entity , that's races towards the Supreme Entity , that's bhakti. When spiritualists move towards the Supreme their minds are unknowingly and gradually transformed. A caterpillar does not know when it changes into a butterfly . Similarly, the mind of a spiritualist does not know how it changes; one day it simply realises that it is not longer a unit mind. When one's individual and personal feelings are completely removed from the mind, at that moment one begins to advance, and the Supreme State is attained.
The spiritualist should adopt exactly the same sort of loving attitude as Parama Purusha has for His children. You should also cultivate this kind of love towards society which is the offspring of Paramatma, and according to natural law, you will certainly attain this love, for it is totally natural. There is no other way to attain Paramatma than to render selfless service to the world.
Karma sanyasa is possible only when each factor of time, space and person comes within the scope of actual relationship with the subjective bearing; that is, time factor with the eternal Entity , space with the all-pervading Entity and the personal factor with the Supreme shelter. That is why karma sanyasa is a state of supreme culmination.
It is the natural rule of the universe that those who possess immense knowledge are quite conscious of their intellectual limitations, whereas people with superficial knowledge think just the opposite. The genuine way of learning for seekers of knowledge is to consider always that they know nothing.
You can execute ordinary types of work with your own little intellect. But if you aspire to undertake any noble ventures, then you have to unite your own intellect with Cosmic Intellect, and work with the help of the Supreme knowledge of Parama Purusha.
As the evolutionary process pr As the evolutionary process proceeds usually from crude towards the subtle, to make your own intellect subtle, take ideation of the subtlest entity not to remain engrossed in crude objects. With constant ideation of the Supreme, the mind will gradually attain more and more subtlety and will ultimately be converted into the subtlest entity . After this, the sense of separation in the microcosm ceases to exist, and it becomes one with the Cosmic Mind.
When the unit intellect arrives at this highest point, it becomes one with Supreme Intellect.
When Supreme Conscious ness remains in His original stance, He is called Para Brahmn. But when that Para Brahmn is transmuted into different ideas or objects, then Supreme Consciousness is termed Apara Brahmn. Attachment towards Apara Brahmn is called aparabhakti, and intense love for Para Brahmn is called parabhakti.Karma sanyasa is only possible for those people whose goal of life is Para Brahmn. When the mind leaves all objects and es towards the Supreme Entity , that's races towards the Supreme Entity , that's bhakti. When spiritualists move towards the Supreme their minds are unknowingly and gradually transformed. A caterpillar does not know when it changes into a butterfly . Similarly, the mind of a spiritualist does not know how it changes; one day it simply realises that it is not longer a unit mind. When one's individual and personal feelings are completely removed from the mind, at that moment one begins to advance, and the Supreme State is attained.
The spiritualist should adopt exactly the same sort of loving attitude as Parama Purusha has for His children. You should also cultivate this kind of love towards society which is the offspring of Paramatma, and according to natural law, you will certainly attain this love, for it is totally natural. There is no other way to attain Paramatma than to render selfless service to the world.
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