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Saturday, September 10, 2016

Nothing is Impossible


Our brains and our minds are products of the same time frame as the universe. Hence, we cannot think anything beyond what exists in the Universe.Thus, our wildest dreams and imaginations have roots and templates somewhere in the Universe and point to the existence of ideas and designs beyond our surroundings. We can access this knowledge base through enhanced mental faculties via sanyam and yoga.All our discoveries, inventions or creations are, therefore, nothing else but rediscovering existing knowledge. We get this knowledge from `Knowledge Space' that may contain fundamental knowledge produced in the past and is continuously fed by the ever-increasing knowledge from various civilisations. This is similar to cyber space.
A prepared and focused human mind can access knowledge from Knowledge Space and I feel that great discoveries of humankind have come from such access. It is also possible that as the earth moves around the sun and the solar system revolves around the centre of the Milky Way galaxy , periodically , we come across Knowledge Space, which helps humankind to evolve.
Similarly , a younger civilisation than ours may come across Knowledge Space developed by us and, in this manner, evolution continues ad infinitum. Since it is often said that we are rediscovering the Truth, it possibly means that Truth has always existed -and Truth is beyond space and time. In fact, Truth is part of Universal design. Could that be God?

Thursday, September 08, 2016

What isn’t sedition

SC stymies the clever dodge of misrepresenting public protest and criticism as crime against the state.

In a wonderfully minimalist case of dental surgery, the Supreme Court has defanged governments and administrations which have been wielding Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code to throttle speech and cow down vocal critics. It has done this simply by refusing to lay down the law — reminding everyone that it was laid down a generation ago, in 1962. It has clarified that mere criticism of the government does not constitute sedition and that, in fact, it should not even attract a defamation charge. This observation should act as a restraining order on governments — particularly the Central government — which have been using the colonial curb of the sedition law as a blunt instrument to bludgeon critics with. The principle invoked was articulated in the landmark case of Kedar Nath Singh vs State of Bihar, in which the apex court had upheld the constitutional validity of Section 124A, but had disabused the government of the politically convenient notion that the draconian law could be applied to words, deeds or actions “intended to or… likely to incite public disorder” or violence. The court had insisted on the centrality of intention, since likelihood is a subjective notion which could invite unconstitutional behaviour from the authorities. Which is precisely what has been seen in recent months — unseemly campaigns to restrain those perceived to be political embarrassments like Hardik Patel and Kanhaiya Kumar, apart from sundry writers, performers, cartoonists.
Now, in a public interest litigation filed by Common Cause, the Supreme Court has recalled the necessity to establish intention. The NGO had argued that ignorance of the law is causing the police to arbitrarily arrest critics of government, and had pleaded for guidelines requiring the clearance of a senior police official before Section 124A could be imposed. The court has declined to intervene in sedition cases past and future, and only required officers of the law to follow the principle of the ruling set down in 1962. Following a basic tenet of criminal jurisprudence, it has elaborated that the merit of a sedition charge must be appraised from case to case.
The law of sedition was designed by a colonial power to prevent fractious citizens from overthrowing it by force. In the way it is used, it is anachronistic in a democracy where governments rule at the pleasure of the people, who are entitled to democratic protest and public criticism to force governments to acknowledge their concerns and opinions. To wilfully misrepresent protest as sedition is an egregious error on the part of government. It has been happening far too often and reflects an ugly paradox — democratically elected governments find democratic protest intolerable.
Source: Indian Express, 7-09-2016

The equality of entry

The Haji Ali Dargah case verdict was arrived at by hewing closely to the Constitution, to law, and to the task of defending individual rights. It is admirable for resisting the temptation of interpretive adventurism

When B.R. Ambedkar was asked why he was so passionate about the issue of temple entry for Dalits, he replied: “The issue is not entry, but equality.” It did not matter to Ambedkar that he, himself, was indifferent towards religion, or that temple entry was hardly the solution to Dalit oppression. What did matter to him, however, was that one of the most powerful tools by which an unequal society expressed and reinforced its hierarchies — through the denial of equal access to religious and sacred spaces — had to be smashed.
More than 80 years later, August 26, 2016, the Bombay High Court agreed with Ambedkar when it held that the exclusion of women from the inner sanctum of the Haji Ali Dargah by the Dargah Trust violated not only their fundamental right to religious freedom but also their right to equality and non-discrimination under the Indian Constitution. And in holding that women were entitled to police protection, if needed, to exercise their right to equal access, the court placed the state firmly on the spot for effectively guaranteeing and enforcing the constitutional rights of individuals, even against their own communities.
Gautam Bhatia
An issue framed in legal terms

The Bombay High Court’s judgment, authored by Justice Revati Mohite Dere, is not the last that we’ve heard of this matter. The Dargah Trust will certainly appeal (the High Court stayed the operation of its judgment for six weeks to allow it to do just that), and the battle will move to the Supreme Court. There, it will join the other contentious issue of religious access, which is already before the apex court: the right of women to enter the Sabarimala shrine in Kerala. But whatever happens in the Supreme Court, Justice Dere’s judgment is a landmark ruling. This is not only because of its unambiguously progressive outcome, coming down firmly on the side of equal access for women but also because of its dexterous handling of the fraught and tense stand-off between the claims of individual rights and gender equality on the one hand and tradition and religious values on the other.
Indeed, the issue was framed before the Bombay High Court in precisely these terms. The Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan, the women’s organisation that initiated the public interest litigation against the Dargah Trust, invoked the protection of Articles 14 and 15 (rights to equality and non-discrimination), and 25(1) (right to religious freedom) of the Constitution. The trust responded by invoking Article 25(1) itself, arguing that Islam mandated the exclusion of women from the inner sanctum. It also (though faintly) invoked Article 26(b), that granted religious denominations the right to manage their own affairs in matters of religion.
Court intervention in religion

This clash — and the use of the courts to resolve it — is not new. The Supreme Court has previously ruled on the legality of religious excommunication, the exclusion of Dalits from temples, and the hereditary caste-based succession of temple priests. To mediate the competing claims of individuals, communities and the state, very early on in its history, the Supreme Court invented something that it called the “essential religious practices test”. Under this test, ostensibly religious practices could gain constitutional sanction only if — in the view of the Court — they were “essential” or “integral” to the religion in question. In the beginning, the court emphasised that essential religious practices would have to be determined by taking an internal point of view, and looking to the tenets and the doctrines of the religion itself. In later years, however, the court began to take an increasingly interventionist stance, using the essential religious practices test to make wide-ranging — often untethered — claims about religions, and even trying to mould religions into more rationalistic and homogenous monoliths, while marginalising dissident traditions. The high watermark of this approach came in 2004, when the court held that the public performance of the Tandava dance was no essential part of the religion of the Ananda Marga sect, even though it had been specifically set down as such in their holy book.
A question of civil rights

Faced with more than five decades of consistent Supreme Court jurisprudence, the Bombay High Court had no feasible choice other than deploying the (unsatisfactory) essential religious practices test to determine the validity of the Dargah Trust’s arguments. The manner in which it did so, however, was careful and circumspect. The court refrained from making grand, rhetorical claims about Islam and gender equality (even though it was invited to do so) and, instead, limited itself to considering the material placed before it by the Dargah Trust. On a perusal of these passages from the Koran and the Hadith, the court found that none of this material supported the trust’s claim that Islam mandated the exclusion of women from the inner sanctum of shrines. The trust’s claims were thrown further into doubt because right until 2012, women’s entry had, in fact, been allowed. The trust was unable to show what had changed so suddenly in 2012, even though it did attempt to argue that it had been interpreting the requirements of the Sharia wrongly for all these years.
Likewise, the court’s rejection of the trust’s Article 26 claims was sober and measured. Surveying the history of the Dargah Trust, it found that it had been set up in pre-Independence days by a government-imposed scheme. That scheme did not even authorise the trust to adjudicate religious claims. Furthermore, the trust was a public charitable trust. Consequently, the Dargah was akin to a public space, and access to it could not be denied on discriminatory grounds. Interestingly, the court’s reasoning mirrored the earliest temple-entry movements in colonial India. While agitating for the rights of Dalits to enter Hindu temples, Ambedkar repeatedly argued that temples were public spaces, akin to roads, schools, or water tanks. In a society where religion and the public sphere have always been so intertwined, Ambedkar’s fundamental insight was that religious exclusion had a public character, and that it was not just an issue of sacral traditions but one of civil rights and material and symbolic equality. In a society that has long treated women as second-class citizens, and emphasised and concretised that inequality through control over religious spaces, Ambedkar’s arguments find clear resonance in the judgment of the Bombay High Court.
Putting onus on the state

Once the court had found that the Dargah Trust could not invoke constitutional protection for its exclusion of women from the inner sanctum, the logical conclusion followed: since exclusion clearly violated the women’s right to religious freedom, as well as their right to equality, it was unjustified. However, there was one more thing that the court had to do. Since the Constitution primarily guarantees fundamental rights to individuals against the state, it had to explain how the Mahila Andolan could succeed where the rights-infringing actor was a private, non-state body (the Dargah Trust).
Justice Dere answered this question by holding that the state was constitutionally bound to respect fundamental rights, not merely by refraining from infringing them, but also by actively intervening in order to protect them when they were threatened by others. Consequently, it was for the state to ensure — whether by providing adequate protection or otherwise — that women who wanted to exercise their fundamental right to equal access at the Haji Ali Dargah could do so.
In the exercise of their constitutional functions, there are times when it becomes necessary — and inevitable — for courts to consider and decide deeply divisive and polarising questions about gender relations, the family, religion, and society. In such situations, it is tempting for judges to think that they are in a position to solve age-old, intractable social problems, and to sally forth on adventurous tracks where both their competence and their legitimacy are called into question. This is a temptation that the Indian judiciary has not always been able to resist. The Bombay High Court verdict in the Haji Ali case, however, is an example of a judgment that adroitly negotiates these difficult issues by hewing closely to the Constitution, to law, and to the judicial task of defending individual rights. For that, the Bombay High Court must be praised, and its judgment upheld.
Gautam Bhatia is a Delhi-based lawyer.
Source: The Hindu, 8-09-2016

Govt thinking of a common entrance test for all central universities

The Union human resource development ministry is exploring the option of introducing a common entrance test for all central universities, a move that will end the unrealistic high cutoffs for admission, recorded often in Delhi University.
Several Delhi University colleges declare 100% marks as cutoff to study popular courses such as mathematics, economics, and history. Many students seeking admission miss out by a whisker despite having impressive marks — such as 95% in their Class 12 school exam.
The proposed admission procedure will put all students on an equal footing as everyone will be tested through a common examination. The Centre is likely to call a meeting of central university vice-chancellors on October 6 to discuss the common test.
“A number of issues have been brought to our notice, including the common entrance test. We will draw up the agenda of the meeting soon,” HRD minister Prakash Javadekar said on Wednesday.
Staff vacancy, which is around 35%, in the 40-odd central universities, and issues relating to students’ grievance redressal system are likely to be on the table.
Most central universities have individual entrance tests, while Delhi University follows a cutoff formula for admitting students to its undergraduate courses.
High cutoffs have triggered debates as some states are known to be lenient in giving marks, leaving students from other school boards in the lurch. Of 188 enrolments in Delhi University’s popular Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC) this admission season, 129 seats went to students from Tamil Nadu who came with top-grade mark-sheets. Eyebrows were raised as 33 of them were from a single school in the southern state.
Sources said around seven central universities — in Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Kerala, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu — admit some students on the basis on their performance in the Central Universities Common Entrance Test. “There are complaints about students having an advantage in getting admission through the cutoff system because of lenient marking from state boards … a common test will also do away with students’ travel expenses, as they need not visit different places seeking admission,” a senior HRD official said.
The planned entrance test has its drawbacks too. “This will burden students with another examination after class 12. Any entrance exam is competitive and will spawn private coaching centres all around,” said Dinesh Singh, former vice-chancellor of Delhi University. But, at the same time, students will be spared of the drudgery of applying in several universities individually for admission, and hopefully reduce the fierce competition for higher marks as cutoffs will no longer apply, he said.
Source: Hindustan Times, 8-09-2016
Govt clarifies copyright act applies to digital streaming services
New Delhi:
TIMES NEWS NETWORK


In a decision that will help music streaming services, the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) has clarified that all forms of broadcasting -including digital music streaming -fall under section 31(D) of the Copyright Act of 2013.Section 31(D) of the Act offers statutory licensing (SL) to broadcasting services, allowing them the right to offer music to their consumers at rates determined by the Copyright Board. This provision was brought into the Act to protect broadcasters from abusive practices of some music companies, who demanded unreasonable and unjustifiable royalties before granting permissions. Though the wording of the clause was quite clear in the Act, music companies had tried to create an impression that the section didn't apply to digital music services. With this clarification, DIPP has clarified that section applies to all broadcasters including digital music services.
Commerce and industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman told TOI that the process for setting up the Copyright Board is on. She did not elaborate on the timeframe. Setting up of the board has been pending for a few years, but the minister has initiated the process. Government's clarification will bring major relief to services such as Gaana and Saavn, and will encourage them to renew commitment to their struggling businesses. Dhingana, another service, which was acquired by global giant Pandora, was shut down after being unable to fund music royalties. Guvera, an Australian music streaming service operating in India, is also struggling to pay its creditors. In addition, FM radio broadcasters have been unable to develop presence on digital because of the high costs demanded by labels.When asked to comment, an ex pert from a global consultancy firm stated: “Music companies should actually be giving their music at a very low cost initially to encourage multiple music services, which would help not only in curbing piracy but also in increasing their revenues from multiple sources However music companies have been thinking short term and increasing rates prohibitively making legal music services unviable and leading many of them to close down“.
In digital streaming, most music services are losing money significantly . Their royalty payments have grown by over 500% in the last four years, with built-in minimum guarantees to the labels. Digital broadcasters' revenues, however, have grown modestly as the business is taking time to develop. Labels also restricted how their music was used, initially offering web but not mobile rights, limiting how consumers could consume content, and restricting what partnerships digital music services could use.
Commenting on the clarification, Prashan Agarwal, COO of Gaana, said, “The clarification that internet companies are covered under SL is welcome. However, there was never any doubt in our minds that we were covered. This clarification will help the streaming industry grow and catch up with its peers internationally“.
Industry body IAMAI also issued a statement: “The clarification will also provide a relief to the spiralling annual licence fee paid to label companies that sometimes exceeded the revenue of many these startups....this clarification by DIPP now creates a level-playing field as the provisions of section 31D are not restricted to radio and television broadcasting organizations only , but cover internet broadcasting organizations also“.
Commenting on behalf of radio broadcasters, Prashant Panday , CEO Radio Mirchi said “Worldwide, radio broadcasters have moved towards streaming their on-air products as well as offering niche online products. Here in India, the huge minimum guarantees demanded by labels have made that impossible. What we forget is that the biggest losers in all this are the artists, the ones who deserve all the support and recognition possible“.

Source: Times of India, 8-09-2016
A Confluence Of Avatars And Prophets


There's a little bit of Krishna in my life ­ also a little bit of Christ, Allah and Buddha. Within me, there are many bits of various avatars, prophets, sages and saints. These little bits have touched my life ­ in this and my many previous births. And all these converge into one whole, springing from one Source or Supreme Being.God is the most neutral name for this Supreme Being, though the Supreme goes by various other names like Brahmn, Bhagwan, Father, Allah, Akal Purakh, or Yahweh. God, didn't claim to have any name. For when Moses asked God by what name should he refer to Him to Israelites, God simply said, “I am who I am.“ But in the Bhagwad Gita, Arjuna addresses the Supreme, Krishna, by 41 different names including Achyuta, Bhagwan, Govinda, Hari, Ishvara, Janardana, Kesava, Madhava, Purushottama and Yogeshvara as well as Vasudeva and Vishnu.
Well, from my birth name, i am identified as Christian or more specifically , Catholic. But i believe confining my identity to Christian, would be the most un-Catholic thing to do. Catholic means allembracing, including a wide variety of things. So, being Catholic, why should i do an un-Catholic thing, like claiming that my faith is the ultimate truth? Wouldn't it be more Catholic to believe that there are many truths and faiths abounding in this vast, diverse universe?
Each truth or faith may seem unique with an identity of its own. But if we look beneath the surface, it will become clear that the only uniqueness of faith is its oneness with all things good, beautiful and loving. Human beings may be from different regions, yet deep down they are all so similar. If we strip ourselves of our so-called unique identity and merge ourselves with the common identity , the Supreme Being, then we all would be one.
If there is one universal truth, because there is one God, then why did God appear on earth in various incarnations with different names, at different times and in different regions?
God perhaps followed the simple axiom that there's a time and place for everything.Avatars descended on earth, depending on the need of the people and the region. The names assumed by avatars were also region-based; more like Supreme Intelligence seeing the sign of the times.
Krishna says, “For protection of the good, for destruction of evil, and for the establishment of righteousness, I come into being from age to age.“ (Gita 4:8.) The Bible gives us many reasons why Jesus came to the world, the important ones being to destroy evil, free people of the fear of death, and save the world.
Prophet Muhammad, the final Prophet of Allah, taught people to worship the One God and to live a morally upright life. Prophet Zoroaster talked about one universal, transcendent, Supreme God. He advised people to have good thoughts, speak good words and do good deeds, following the path of truth.
Don't all avatars and prophets teach us to be good and shun evil?
And if we believe in rebirth ­ that our soul may have travelled various regions over time ­ doesn't it make sense to conclude that we have within us a confluence of God manifestations and their Prophets, all owing allegiance to one Supreme Power?
Post your comments at speakingtree.in

Wednesday, September 07, 2016

The Tata Social Internship 2016 hosts 19 international students in India


Mumbai: The Tata Social Internship programme provides a unique learning experience to students from some of the world’s best universities in the areas of community development and sustainability.
 
The 2016 edition of the Tata Social Internship culminated with a contingent of 19 international students – three from the University of California, Berkeley, USA; one from the University of California, Davis, USA; nine from the London School of Economics & Political Science, UK; and six from the University of Cambridge, UK – completing their two-month experiential internship in the on-going sustainability projects of the Tata companies in India.
 
The batch of 2016, worked hands-on on the community initiatives of the Tata companies and entities like Tata Chemicals, Tata Power, Tata Communications, Taj, Tata Business Excellence Group, Tata Medical Center and the Tata Trusts for a period of two months. The areas of their projects ranged from the impact assessment of sustainability programmes at Tata companies to studies about health economics of infection management at hospitals, women literacy initiatives, tackling malnutrition, agriculture and non-agriculture-based livelihoods for rural hinterlands and improving education through technology, assessing student performance parameters, promoting traditional handicrafts, and skill development.
 
The programme structure of Tata Social Internship 2016 provided the interns with grass-root level exposure to India and at the same time brought international perspectives and practices to these projects at Tata companies, promoting international understanding.
 
The visiting interns, selected by their educational institutions along with Tata representatives, came from diverse academic backgrounds such as developmental studies, social anthropology, public policy, neurobiology, economics, gender studies, philosophy and engineering. The first phase of the internship programme kicked off on May 30, 2016 with the University of California, Berkeley students. The second phase for the interns from the University of California, Davis, Cambridge and the London School of Economics commenced on July 4, 2016.
 
Mr. Elias Mead, a BSc Philosophy student from the London School of Economics, who interned with The Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces in Mumbai, worked towards developing a project plan for Taj’s CSR programme for promoting traditional arts, crafts and handicrafts of India. Elaborating on his experience, Elias said “I feel fortunate to have the opportunity to intern with the Tata Social Internship because I got to work on issues in a new country, particularly one that is developing so fast and is becoming a leading superpower. I feel like I have grown more as a person and professionally in the past 8 weeks than I have in the two years that I was at a good university. Being exposed to a whole new culture where things are increasingly international and in a different economy where things are changing. It was so valuable to be able to experience and be a part of that change.”
 
Ms. Aleksandra Szypowska who is completing her BA Classics at the University of Cambridge interned at Tata Chemicals in Mithapur, where her project was based on understanding women’s collectives and its impact on their interactions in public and private spaces. “My time in India at the Tata Social Internship was a memorable time, full of amazing meetings with wonderful, inspiring people. I wish it could have lasted longer, for I feel like I have only scratched the surface. The journey has just begun - and I am sure I'll return to India to continue it. My experience with Tata Chemicals Society for Rural Development in Mithapur has challenged many of my world views and expanded my horizons. I learned a lot about empowerment - that it expands into amazing directions I never knew before. I want to take what I've learned here and share it with the women in Europe, because, funnily enough, it seems we have more to learn from Indian women than I ever thought.”  said Aleksandra.
 
As part of the programme, an interactive seminar took place in Mumbai on 2 September 2016, with the students from LSE, Cambridge and UC Davis, and students from the Centre for the Development of Corporate Citizenship at SP Jain Institute of Management & Research, to share experiences in the area of community development and sustainability.
 
Prof. Ruth Kattumuri, Co-Director, India Observatory & Asia Research Centre of the London School of Economics said, ”The Tata Social Internship has become prominently engrained into the summer internship calendar of students at LSE and Cambridge in the UK, and students from various Universities in the United States of America. Tata group has now become a household name globally. The interest in India, more so among young people from around the world, is growing exponentially. Tata Social Internship provides an excellent opportunity for international students to spend two months working on a myriad of Tata projects and getting to know India better. The students contribute their insights to the projects from their diverse learnings and backgrounds. Most of the students in turn imbibe the love-of-India-bug and go on to pursue careers that are in some way associated with India”
 
Mr. Atul Agrawal, Senior Vice President-Corporate Affairs, Tata Services, said, “Tata Social Internship serves the dual purpose of allowing us to provide international students with grass-root level exposure to India and developing our social sustainability outreach through knowledge sharing. With a diverse range of community projects on which the students have engaged, this platform reiterates the Tata group’s ethos of giving back to society while also helping to build international understanding.
 
The students during their internship also participated in an online essay competition on their experience in India (essays can be accessed at http://www.tatasocial-in.com/tata-ises-experience ). A distinctive corporate sustainability internship programme, Tata Social Internship was launched in 2008.

Source: Indiaeducationdiary, 9-06-2016