Quote of the Day

February 26, 2020

“Where can we go to find God if we cannot see Him in our own hearts and in every living being?”

‐ Swami Vivekananda

“हम ईश्वर को कहां पा सकते हैं अगर हम उसे अपने आप में और अन्य जीवों में नहीं देखते?”

‐ स्वामी विवेकानंद

Rohingya refugees in India sketch their stories in a comic book

Put together by World Comics India, a collective that promotes comics as a communication and empowerment tool for the marginalised, the book is an outcome of a workshop conducted by the organisation with around 50-60 Rohingya refugees in Kalindi Kunj and Nuh, Mewat.

We see Zuhara Bibi and her family struggling to find a place in a bus, truck and train during their long journey from Myanmar to Jammu to Delhi. There is also Tasmida recounting being discriminated against in her school in Myanmar. Shamema is disgruntled with the dirty shared toilets in the refugee settlement where she stays with her family.

These are few of the snapshots of the life of Rohingya refugees in India, written and sketched by them as part of a comic book called Rendered Stateless Not Voiceless. Put together by World Comics India, a collective that promotes comics as a communication and empowerment tool for the marginalised, the book is an outcome of a workshop conducted by the organisation with around 50-60 Rohingya refugees in Kalindi Kunj and Nuh, Mewat. “The idea of documenting their stories is to reach out to people and authorities through first-person accounts… The book will help highlight the human face behind the refugee crisis,” says Sharad Sharma, cartoonist and founder of World Comics India. Having worked with immigrants previously, he had been following the news on the Rohingya refugees after they arrived in India in large numbers in 2012, but it was only last year that he decided to document their stories through art.

“A comic book can help us reach out to those who are literate and also others who may not be able to read,” says Ali Johar, who was only 10 when he had to flee his home in Myanmar to find refuge in Bangladesh in 2005. Seven years later, his family moved to Delhi. “It has been a constant struggle,” he says. Until recently, Johar stayed with his family in a shanty in Kalindi Kunj with several other refugees who have settled there. While he has now moved to Zakir Nagar, he visits his friends often. Managing education scholarships for select students from the community, he is also here to propagate how he feels that good education perhaps is the only means for a better tomorrow. “In Myanmar, my father was a businessman with political connections, but in India, we are refugees and have no rights; we can’t buy property, get a government job. But no one can deny us education,” says Johar. The graduate in political science is promoting the same message through his comic strip, Born Ali-en.

A resident of Delhi’s Kalindi Kunj camp, Sanjida Begum, 27, agrees with Sharma that art can help them tell their stories. In her story, Hum Khud Chale Jayenge, she sketches the concerns of her community on being deported back. “We are grateful that we have been allowed to stay for this long. We do have difficulties, but Myanmar is not safe for us. When it is peaceful, we will return on our own,” says the mother of two.

Mother-daughter duo Taslima and Mizan have also shared their concerns and aspirations through the book. Taslima notes that they should only be sent home after they are guaranteed safety and assured citizenship rights that existed till 1982. Mizan, a student of class VI at Gyandeep Vidya Mandir, is grateful to the UNHRC for helping her get admission in Delhi. “Back in Myanmar, we had a nice place to stay. Here we stay in such inhospitable conditions. We don’t know when will we get our rights,” says Mizan.

Source: Indian Express, 20/02/2020

The woman computer

With the death of Katherine Johnson, the era of the women with slide rules, who sent America into space, draws to a close.

Before computers were machines, they were women. At Nasa units like the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, with paper, pencil and slide rule, they calculated the thrust-to-weight ratios that kept Dr Strangelove’s strategic bombers in the air, and plotted the trajectories that put landers on the moon. Their work helped the US to win the Cold War and the space race, but few got the recognition they deserved.

But the mathematician and physicist, Katherine Johnson, who has died aged 101, was honoured with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She was a black woman, a prodigy who taught in school because, at the time, university campuses were racist. In 1953, she joined a team composed exclusively of black women at Nasa’s Langley facility.

Male-dominated at the time, computer technology inadvertently handed the advantage to women. In Alan Turing’s wartime project to crack the German Enigma code, women became pioneers by accident because male researchers considered working with masses of wires and switches as manual labour, fit for women. In US aerospace, 20 years later, men considered mental calculations to be more reliable than machines. So women were free to play with early IBMs, and numbered among the first programmers. Later, Margaret Hamilton of MIT wrote the code that landed Apollo 11 on the moon, on a stack of paper almost as tall as herself. And after doing the calculations that put Alan Shepard in space and John Glenn in orbit, Johnson had worked out the navigational charts which put Neil Armstrong down in Tranquillity Base. With her death, perhaps only one of the women computers of the Fifties remains — Susan G Finley, Nasa’s oldest serving woman. Involved with the Jupiter and Pluto missions, she has no retirement plans.

Source: Indian Express, 26/02/2020

Tata to head MU’s advisory council

Industrialist Ratan Tata has been appointed as the chairman of the advisory council of Mumbai University. Maharashtra Governor and Chancellor of Universities in the state Bhagat Singh Koshyari nominated Tata for his vast experience in education, entrepreneurship and employment creation. “As the head of Tata Group, Tata has navigated the companies to greater heights in India and globally while retaining the Tata ethos and values. The university is privileged to have a person of his stature, vision and humility,” a press release said. The Maharashtra Public Universities Act 2016 provides for the appointment of any eminent industrialist to the council as the chancellor’s nominees. This is the first time the Act makes a provision for advisory council. Similar councils will be formed in all universities across the state. The council advises the vicechancellor on reports and action plans academics, research and development, administration and generation of financial resources and can devise a mechanism for overall monitoring of the university. Renowned scientist Dr Anil Kakodkar and Sujata Saunik, additional chief secretary, Maharashtra government, have been nominated as members.

Source: Mumbai Mirror, 26/02/2020

The Need to Find Clarity

I don’t know what God is, nobody knows — but mystics have an image that there is a supreme entity and that through prayer, through faith, through dedication, through devotion, you can move mountains. Look at what America, Russia, India and all the other countries are doing. They have tremendous faith in their country, in their nationalism, and they are building a vast technological world to destroy the others, who are doing exactly the same thing. To go to the moon, what enormous energy it needed, what technological capacity, faith; the Americans first on the moon with their flag! In the Christian world, faith has taken the place of doubt. Doubt is very cleansing, it purifies the mind. If you doubt your experiences, your opinions, you are free to observe clearly. In the eastern world, in Buddhism and Hinduism, doubt is one of the major factors, it is demanded that you doubt, question, you must not accept: be a light unto yourself, a light that cannot be given to you by anyone. Great strength does not come through prayer, it does not come through illusion, faith; it comes through clarity, through the mind that can see clearly; and that clarity does not come and go. When you see something clearly — for instance, that nationalism is the most destructive thing in the world — then you are finished with it. And the ending of that burden gives you vitality, energy, strength. Similarly, if you are totally free of all attachments, it gives you the strength of love, and that can do much more than all the other experiences and prayers

Source: Economic Times, 26/02/2020

Delhi world’s most polluted capital, 21 Indian cities in top 30, says report

 New Delhi topped the list of most polluted capital cities in the world in 2019, according to a new report, which also revealed that 21 of the world’s 30 most polluted cities were in India. Ghaziabad, meanwhile, had the dubious distinction of being the most polluted city in the world. According to the World Air Quality Report 2019, compiled by IQAir AirVisual, Ghaziabad was followed by Hotan in China, and then Gujranwala and Faisalabad in Pakistan. Delhi took the fifth place. The 21 Indian cities named in the list in the order of their ranking were Ghaziabad, Delhi, Noida, Gurgaon, Greater Noida, Bandhwari, Lucknow, Bulandshahr, Muzaffarnagar, Baghpat, Jind, Faridabad, Coraut, Bhiwadi, Patna, Palwal, Muzaffarpur, Hisar, Kutail, Jodhpur and Moradabad. As per the country-wise data, India ranked fifth in the world’s most polluted countries with Bangladesh taking the top spot, followed by Pakistan, Mongolia and Afghanistan. The report, however, also mentions that Indian cities have shown improvement compared with last year. “Whilst cities in India, on average, exceed the World Health Organisation target for annual PM2.5 exposure by 500%, national air pollution decreased by 20% from 2018 to 2019 with 98% of the cities experiencing improvement,” the report stated. Frank Hammes, IQAir CEO said, “While coronavirus is dominating international headlines, a silent killer is contributing to nearly seven million more deaths per year that is air pollution. The gap in air quality data in large parts of the world poses a serious problem, as what is not measured cannot be managed.” Avinash Chanchal, senior campaigner at Greenpeace India, said the steps being taken to control pollution were not sufficient. “In Delhi, be it bypass roads, shutting down of Badarpur power plant, shifting industries to PNG and BS-VI mandate have had result in reduction of pollution levels on an annual average basis, but the latest World Air Quality Report is an indication that the steps taken are not sufficient,” he said.

Source: Times of India, 26/02/2020

Quote of the Day

February 25, 2020

“You have to grow from the inside out. None can teach you, none can make you spiritual. There is no other teacher but your own soul.”

‐ Swami Vivekananda

“आपको अपने भीतर से ही विकास करना होता है। कोई आपको सीखा नहीं सकता, कोई आपको आध्यात्मिक नहीं बना सकता। आपको सिखाने वाला और कोई नहीं, सिर्फ आपकी आत्मा ही है।”

‐ स्वामी विवेकानंद