The Anti-Counterfeiting Interchange Compact (ACTA), is a multinational accord for the duration of the purpose of establishing universal standards against authority property rights enforcement. The settlement aims to establish an worldwide acceptable framework recompense targeting bogus goods, generic medicines and copyright infringement on the Internet, and would produce a new governing consistency best existing forums, such as the World Buy Plan, the Everyone Highbrow Estate Design, or the Shared Nations.
The agreement was signed in October 2011 by Australia, Canada, Japan, Morocco, Altered Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, and the Shared States. In 2012, Mexico, the European Union and 22 countries which are associate states of the European Combining signed as well. No signatory has ratified (formally approved) the agreement, which would discover into force after ratification next to six countries. After coming into force, the treaty would alone credit in those countries that ratified it.
Supporters take described the compatibility as a retort to “the inflate in global custom of counterfeit goods and pirated copyright protected works”. Trades Unions representing workers in the music, pic and TV industries and big intellectual property-based organizations such as the Bearing Exact likeness Organization of America and Pharmaceutical Delve into and Manufacturers of America were running in the deal”s development.
Opponents aver the convention adversely affects important rights including freedom of expression and privacy. ACTA has also been criticised at near Doctors Without Borders seeking endangering access to medicines in developing countries. The clandestine world of negotiations has excluded polished people groups, developing countries and the sweeping communal from the concord”s parley deal with and it has been described as rule laundering by critics including the Electronic Limits Foundation and the Sport Consumers Association.
The signature of the EU and many of its fellow states resulted in the compliance in protest of the European Parliament”s appointed chief investigator, rapporteur Kader Arif, as grammatically as widespread protests across Europe. In 2012 the newly-appointed rapporteur, British MEP David Martin, recommended against the compact, stating: “The intended benefits of this supranational deal are advanced outweighed nearby the embryonic threats to lay liberties”. On 4 July 2012, the European Parliament rejected ACTA in plenary hearing, with 478 voting against the treaty, 39 in regard and 165 MEPs abstaining.
Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement
July 20th, 2012 by klaudio480 No comments »Make a Wish – Second Anniversary
July 4th, 2011 by Sirisha No comments »TrueIndia started off ‘Make a wish’ in August 2009 with a plan of celebrating birthdays of the children at Divya Disha homes at the end of every month with a nice cake, few gifts and lots of love. Divya Disha is voluntary organization that had been working towards child protection since 1987.
Activities are conducted at Divya Disha during the visits of TrueIndia volunteers every month to encourage and develop the creativity, motor and interpersonal skills among the kids. ‘Make a wish’- our effort to light up little faces- later also served as a platform for unveiling talents of the children in Divya Disha homes.
We want to take this opportunity to “Thank you” all the donors, volunteers for their support, generosity and compassion who have joined in this project journey.
Our volunteers conducted the balloon painting competition and drawing competition for the category of below class V.
Here are the few pics from the drawing competition
Here are the few pics from balloon painting competition
Joining with the kids while painting creatively is complete bliss !Great to see these kids drawing/painting turned into amazing artworks.
Here are the few pics
https://picasaweb.google.com/trueindiadotorg/MakeAWishJuly11#
The event ended with Cake Cutting and Prize distribution.
Thanks to Anjan Reddy ,Prasad, Shilpa,Praveen Nangunoori,Rahul, Lavanya, Kalpana , Munna Pavan and other volunteers for making it a successful event.
TrueIndia Volunteer
IF YOU WERE TO CHOOSE BETWEEN FOOD OR EDUCATION !!!
May 17th, 2011 by aartirao 7 comments »A Simple question : If you were to choose one between food or education what would you choose?
If I was to ask this question to a rich,happy,healthy school going kid.For him/her this question is a JOKE. For him the answer would be all Grins and an answer of choosing food. Because he knows just by choosing an ans doesn’t change his fate. He is well versed with flowing money which satisfies his needs of both healthy food and good education.
But what would be the answer from a starving kid who hasn’t eaten for 2 days and lives in misery. Shocking, but for him survival is the whole point. He doesn’t care if he has education but all he cares about is his living, his survival.
When one can’t meet the basic point of living and doesn’t have sufficient food,the part of education and its importance looks vague to him.I have met parents living in misery and when I asked them would you send your kid to school or to work. Their answer was “I would choose school only if school could fill their stomach”.
In India everyday several brains still strangle between the strands of poverty and lack of awareness and bind themselves in misery.
Can we change this? Or at least give it a try. Can we join a hand together for them . Well, they don’t need much .They just don’t need our money.What they need is a little support,encouragement and awareness.
We can try that right now.Right from our home, our neighbourhood.
Many of us have maids and we see so many lower middle class people living in our surroundings.We can truly help them.Its not just money.Its the little care and support they need from us.A little time of ours that can change lives.We can educate them with so much.
For a start :
How many of them do u really think know that there is something called an RTE act?
“The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act or Right to Education Act (RTE), which was passed by the Indian parliament on 4 August 2009 and it describes the modalities of the provision of free and compulsory education for children between 6 and 14 in India under Article 21A of theIndian Constitution”
We can make them aware of this.25% of the school seats are reserved for children for poor families. We can help them utilize this opportunity.
I am sure a kid always dreams to become a well civilized person in life and not a labourer.A little awareness,a tiny help of support and a small help can change a kid’s life and we can never even imagine what wonders can it make.
I am glad that organizations like TrueIndia are making an effort in this direction and I am glad that you are a part of the good work.
The Story of Sumanth brings out more hope in this direction. His dream of being an Automobile Engineer was not shattered by the tragedies in his life instead True India helped him to cherish his dream. He is the boy who scored 517/600 in his 10th standard and might had to stop his education due to his father’s death and to support his family. But true india team had faith in him and supported him in his time of plight to reach his goal. The faith brought colours when he reached greater heights by scoring A grade in intermediate exams and proudly awaiting the engineering exam results. I see hope and happiness in his dream. And I am sure there are many students out there who are still awaiting for your support, a little of your time and a little of your care and faith in them. There are many talented Sumanth’s out there.
A lit candle of education truly brightens a life forever. Would you ever mind litting one!!!
Aarti Chittala
May 17,2011
Altruism – The Joy of Giving
June 13th, 2010 by Sirisha 10 comments »providing for relatives comes more naturally than reaching out to strangers. Nevertheless, it may be worth being kind to people outside the family as the favour might be reciprocated in future. But when it comes to anonymous benevolence, directed to causes that, unlike people, can give nothing in return, what could motivate a donor? The answer, according to neuroscience, is that it feels good.
Researchers at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke in Bethesda, Maryland, wanted to find the neural basis for unselfish acts. They decided to peek into the brains of 19 volunteers who were choosing whether to give money to charity, or keep it for themselves. To do so, they used a standard technique called functional magnetic resonance imaging, which can map the activity of the various parts of the brain. The results were reported in this week’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The subjects of the study were each given $128 and told that they could donate anonymously to any of a range of potentially controversial charities. These embraced a wide range of causes, including support for abortion, euthanasia and sex equality, and opposition to the death penalty, nuclear power and war. The experiment was set up so that the volunteers could choose to accept or reject choices such as: to give away money that cost them nothing; to give money that was subtracted from their pots; to oppose donation but not be penalised for it; or to oppose donation and have money taken from them. The instances where money was to be taken away were defined as costly. Such occasions set up a conflict between each volunteer’s motivation to reward themselves by keeping the money and the desire to donate to or oppose a cause they felt strongly about.
Faced with such dilemmas in the minds of their subjects, the researchers were able to examine what went on inside each person’s head as they made decisions based on moral beliefs. They found that the part of the brain that was active when a person donated happened to be the brain’s reward centre the mesolimbic pathway, to give it its proper name responsible for doling out the dopamine-mediated euphoria associated with sex, money, food and drugs. Thus the warm glow that accompanies charitable giving has a physiological basis.
But it seems there is more to altruism. Donating also engaged the part of the brain that plays a role in the bonding behaviour between mother and child, and in romantic love. This involves oxytocin, a hormone that increases trust and co-operation. When subjects opposed a cause, the part of the brain right next to it was active. This area is thought to be responsible for decisions involving punishment. And a third part of the brain, an area called the anterior prefrontal cortex which lies just behind the forehead, evolved relatively recently and is thought to be unique to humans was involved in the complex, costly decisions when self-interest and moral beliefs were in conflict. Giving may make all sorts of animals feel good, but grappling with this particular sort of dilemma would appear to rely on a uniquely human part of the brain.
~~Donating to charity rewards the brain~~~
Source:The Economist
TrueIndia Volunteer
People who Inspire us….. – Pete Peterson
June 1st, 2010 by Sirisha 5 comments »This is one of the inspiring story which I have ever read.. about Charity and kind acts.
I have got inspired by Phrase “I know the meaning of enough” from this story.
Pete Peterson, one of the founders of Blackstone Group, who tells us about the journey his mind went through after he became a billionaire after Blackstone went public.
Why I’m Giving Away $1 Billion ??
In 2007 the company I co-founded, the Blackstone Group, held a most successful public offering. I found myself, at 81, an instant billionaire. I wish I could have called my father, a Greek immigrant who had spent most of his life running a 24-hour diner in Kearney, Nebraska. The news might have pleased him as much as my being the first Greek cabinet officer, which he never hesitated to tell perfect strangers. In the 1930s, when I was growing up, there was all this talk about millionaires like John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie. Now I was a millionaire 1,000 times over.
But immediately I began wondering: what do I do with $1 billion? The idea of trying to make the money grow felt empty to me. For my father, who saved or gave away so much of his modest income, the ultimate pejorative was “big spender.” So buying a yacht was out of the question. I was also struggling over what to do with myself. I would be retiring from Blackstone, but my mind was still sharp and my energy was good.
As my work commitments diminished, the phones gradually stopped ringing. The e-mails slowed. My schedule had too many blank spots. I was liberated. I was free. But I was joyless. I found my new life to be a kind of metaphor for my declining years—one might say a slow dying. I missed the frequent interactions with people I respected and enjoyed. I missed being needed. So I started looking at the lives of other billionaires. Almost all the ones I most admired were major philanthropists: Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Mike Bloomberg, George Soros, Eli Broad—each with a passion to do good, each getting so much pleasure from giving their money away. I decided that’s what I wanted to do. But to which worthy cause would I direct my money?
For the first time in my memory, the majority of the American people join me in believing that, on our current course, our children will not do as well as we have. For years, I have been saying that the American government, and America itself, has to change its spending and borrowing policies: the tens of trillions of dollars in unfunded entitlements and promises, the dangerous dependence on foreign capital, our pitiful level of savings, the metastasizing health-care costs, our energy gluttony. These structural deficits are unsustainable. Herb Stein, who served alongside me in the Nixon White House as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, once drily observed, “If your horse dies, I suggest you dismount.” And yet, we keep trying to ride this horse.
Underlying these challenges is our broken political system. Our representatives, unlike our Founding Fathers, see politics as a career. As a result, they are focused not on the next generation, but on the next election. When the long-term problems are large and real, they anesthetize us, mislead us, divert us—anything to keep us from giving up something or having to pay for it. Too often, our political leaders are just enablers, co-conspirators in a disingenuous and greedy silence. Our children are unrepresented. The future is unrepresented. The moment is long overdue for us to become moral and worthy ancestors. So I decided to set up a different kind of foundation, one that would focus on America’s key fiscal-sustainability challenges. The fact is, for most of these challenges, there are workable solutions. Our problem is not a lack of such options. It is a lack of will to do something about them.
Ultimately, I decided to commit $1 billion to the Peter G. Peterson foundation—the vast majority of my net proceeds from Blackstone. Why so much? Kurt Vonnegut once told a story about seeing Joseph Heller at a wealthy hedge-fund manager’s party at a beach house in the Hamptons. Casting his eye around the luxurious setting, Vonnegut said, “Joe, doesn’t it bother you that this guy makes more in a day than you ever made from Catch-22?” “No, not really,” Heller said. “I have something that he doesn’t have: I know the meaning of enough.” I have far more than enough.
Source – http://www.newsweek.com/id/200075
Please do let us know who is your most favorite inspirational figure with regards to philanthropy and why?
TrueIndia Volunteer
Issues Children Facing in India
May 16th, 2010 by Sirisha 12 comments »Millions of children in today’s world undergo the worst forms of child labor which includes Child Slavery, Child prostitution, Child Trafficking, Child Soldiers. In this modern era of material and technological advancement, children in almost every country are being callously exploited.
Child labor:
With an estimated 12.6 million children engaged in hazardous occupations (2001 Census India), our Country has the largest number of child labourers under the age of 14 in the world. Although poverty is often cited as the cause underlying child labour, other factors such as discrimination, social exclusion, as well as the lack of quality education, existing parents’ attitudes and perceptions about child labour and the role and value of education need also to be considered. In states like Bihar, Mizoram, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, 60 per cent or more girls are dropped out before completing their five years of primary education.
Why should we care?
Many children in hazardous and dangerous jobs are in danger of injury, even death.
In coming two decades, some millions of people will join the India’s workforce. How many will have had to work at an early age, destroying their health or hampering their education?
Child Trafficking:
The nature and scope of trafficking range from industrial and domestic labour, to forced early marriages and commercial sexual exploitation. Existing studies show that over 40 per cent of women sex workers enter into prostitution before the age of 18 years. Moreover, for children who have been trafficked and rescued, opportunities for rehabilitation remains scarce and reintegration process arduous.
The worst sufferer among working children are those who are employed for household work and commonly referred as child domestic workers (CDWs). For a long time the official agencies responsible for protection of children denied their existence.
Our constitution prohibits human trafficking and successive governments have formulated laws intended to tackle it, with the primary legislative tool being the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act 1956. However these laws are either weak or inadequately enforced.
Children’s vulnerability and exposure to violations of their rights remains widespread and multiple in nature. But the real cause of worry is UNIFEM’s report which says s that 40 % of India’s police officers are unaware of child trafficking problem.
But due to constant campaign by the NGOs supported by international agencies (such as Misereor, Bread for the World, Christian Aid, Oxfam, CIDA, Novib, Caritas, CRS, DANIDA etc.) , now the Government has banned employment of children’s below 14 years as domestic help from 10 th October 2006.It is reported that in Metropolitan cities like Mumbai, Kolkatta, Delhi and Chennai majority of domestic help are children particularly girls below 14 years.
Infant Mortality:
Infant mortality is as high as 63 deaths per 1,000 live births. Most infant deaths occur in the first month of life; up to 47 per cent in the first week itself. While the Infant Mortality Rate showed a rapid decline during the 1980s, the decrease has slowed during the past decade. Maternal deaths are similarly high.
The reasons for this high mortality are that few women have access to skilled birth attendants and fewer still to quality emergency obstetric care. In addition, only 15 per cent of mothers receive complete antenatal care and only 58 per cent receive iron or folate tablets or syrup.
HIV /AIDS
Its is estimated 220,000 children infected by HIV/AIDS and 55,000 to 60,000 children are born every year to mothers who are HIV positive. Without treatment, these newborns stand an estimated 30% chance of becoming infected during the mother’s pregnancy, labor or through breastfeeding after six months. There is effective treatment available, but this is not reaching all women and children who need it.
The mobilization and greater involvement of NGOs in programmes for the development of children and women has increased the potential to accelerate the development process in achieving the national goals for children.
Other issues:
- Polio remains a serious threat, notwithstanding a massive campaign to eradicate it. Children continue to die of vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles.
- Malnutrition affects nearly half of all children under age five.
- Anemia affects the vast majority of pregnant women and teenage girls, stunts children’s growth and is a leading cause of maternal death and babies with low birth weight.
- Estimates of the number of people in India living with HIV/AIDS range from 2.2 million to 7.6 million.
- Diarrhea, often caused by unsafe drinking water or poor sanitation, is the second leading cause of death among children. Access to clean drinking water has improved in recent years, but 122 million households lack toilets.
- Society females are often discriminated against their health, education, prosperity and freedom are all impacted. The problem is worse in conservative Rajasthan than almost anywhere else in India.
- School enrollment is increasing, but retention and completion rates remain low in part because of the poor quality of the education system, which emphasizes memorization over problem-solving.
- Women face many forms of gender discrimination. A national preference for male children has led to an increasing gap in gender ratios of children under age six, a trend that may be attributed to female foeticide.
What are the solutions?
- Economic development that raised family incomes and living standards
- widespread, affordable, required and relevant education
- Enforcement of anti-child labor laws (along with compulsory education laws)
- Changes in public attitudes toward children that elevated the importance of education
- Social services — that help children and families survive crises, such as disease, or loss of home and shelter
- Family control of fertility — so that families are not burdened by children
What can we do?
Some body said work where God Works. Win the winnable at the winnable time. It’s not working for God, Its working with God.
- We can bring awareness by preaching in small or big crusades.
- By making children to join the vocational training centers are a pragmatic, but powerful, tool to assist chidren in escaping the poverty trap.
- Supporting organizations that are raising awareness, and providing direct help to individual children.
“Truthfulness, cleanliness, compassion, self-control, magnanimity, contentment, straightforwardness, concentration, sense-control, responsibility, equality, tolerance, equanimity and loyalty. And certainly also knowledge, detachment, leadership, chivalry, influence, power, dutifulness, independence, dexterity, beauty, serenity and kindheartedness, as well as ingenuity, gentility, mannerliness, determination, knowledgeability, propriety, pleasantness, joyfulness, immovability, faithfulness, fame and dignity – all these and many others are the everlasting qualities of the Supreme Lord“-Srimad Bhagavad- Gita 1:16
Only “WE” can make a difference in their life, through compassion, prayer, and helping them through our giving.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aM1FsO04adg : State of India’s children in the world’s largest democracy
Sources:
- http://www.unicef.org/
- http://india.gov.in/
Best Wishes
TrueIndia Volunteer
A Reason To Celebrate
April 10th, 2010 by Rajesh Tenukuntla 8 comments »Let me start by saying “Happy Birthday TrueIndia” .
This is my first attempt at blogging and for sure it doesn’t need any bigger occassion than this, our own Trueindia’s B’day. I wish to myself, that I come back to share many succesful stories each year on this special day.
Birth of TI
On the very same day, exactly an year ago, a friend calls over another and then another and then a few more. They all share a common thought and decide to contribute small part of their earnings to a child welfare organisation and then possibly do it periodically (may be once in three months). All of those friends were curious to see if any one else in this small world is singing to the same tunes as them. So they start a community on one of the most popular social networking sites and guess what, over 200 people join the group in less than a week. That in itself was an inspiration for the friend’s group and provided them with the impetus to build a platfom which many of us needed to realize our dream to pay back to the society. The result is a friendly volunteer group and they called their baby “TrueIndia”, which is born with a pursuit to build an inspiring True India.
To get to where we are now, it has been an incredible journey for every one associated with TrueIndia. On the ocassion of TI’s anniversary, we are very proud to inform you all that TrueIndia is now a registerd NPO in India and very soon it will be registered in the United States. It was possible only because of the countless hours of hard work from its volunteers and if we start naming them, the list never ends and it keeps growing everyday.
What we do? what have we done so far?
TrueIndia understands that everyone has in them the zeal to contribute to the underpriviliged in the society and all they needed was a medium to contribute and that is what we all try to provide through TrueIndia. TrueIndia is a voluntary non-profit organization aimed at providing children with basic needs like food, education and shelter. As always it is a well known fact that a single person or an organisation cannot touch all the problems faced by the society. TrueIndia is well aware of this fact and has restricted its focus to child welfare although we did step in, during this course of one year, to support other efforts like helping a child fight a fatal disease and relief to flood victims.
TI's Flood Relief Effort
TrueIndia believes in co-operation and not competition and that is what made us join hands with other organisations like CSS, Spoorthi and Divya Disha who share similar interests and work towards the same goals as us here in TrueIndia. This partnership combined with the support (both monetary and voluntary) of its precious members has helped TrueIndia to reach out to more than 100 kids. All of our contributions have helped these kids in one way or the other through libraries, recreational facilities, education, food, etc.
CSS and Smiles
Thus far, TrueIndia has completed 9 phases of support projects. These are all aimed at achieving the fundamental goals of TrueIndia and are primarily focused on child welfare. Please visit the forum section of our Orkut community to learn more about each phase of TrueIndia. Once you login with your account,the URL below takes you directly to the home page.
http://www.orkut.com/Main#Community?cmm=60829266
Complete details are also furnished in this spreadsheet – https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Aumqyp2fBnLpdF9yU0pKU0paVWZVa1gxU2ViODZMS1E&hl=en
Another project that needs a special mention is the monthly event organised for the kids of DivyaDisha. This event really needs the tag “Special”. How special is our Birthday to us?? Isn’t it the most special day of the year for most of us. We all try to party hard, forget the fact that we are getting older and try to inflict the contagious happiness to all those who are in touch with us. We all celebrate because we are fortunate and blessed, but how about the abandoned kids who do not even know where their parents are and what their future is going to be. Thanks to the continuous effort, interest and dedication of some of our reliable volunteers in India, TrueIndia is able to celebrate birthdays of kids at DivyaDisha each month. If you want to be part of this or sponsor one such event, please contact any of the TrueIndia volunteers.
Make A Wish Event at DD - Our Wish Is To Educate Them All
Who are in TrueIndia and How can you be part of TrueIndia?
My answer to this question is fairly simple.
TrueIndia is an equal opportunity organisation. Every one of you are qualified to contribute and volunteer irrespective of you age, race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, disability or veteran status. We do not charge any membership fee J and we do pay back your service to the group through gifts like personal satisfaction and moments to treasure. Remember, its not the size and volume, but its your contribution that makes the difference. However small it is, it all adds up and helps make a difference to the life of a kid. After all, education is the greatest gift one can ever get.
If you do have any additional questions, please feel free to contact any of our volunteers -http://www.trueindia.org/contact.html
As always, we welcome your suggestions, recommendations and ideas for imporvement. You can follow us at –
Orkut – http://www.orkut.com/Main#Community?cmm=60829266
Facebook –http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=131993904450&ref=mf
Twitter –http://twitter.com/trueindia
Website – www.trueIndia.org
Blog – http://www.trueindia.org/blog/
Google Groups – http://groups.google.com/group/TRUEINDIA
Last but not the least, I thank everyone of you for believing in TrueIndia.
Best Wishes,
Rajesh,
A Proud Volunteer,
TrueIndia.
Share your experiences – Make a Wish March birthday celebrations @ DD
March 21st, 2010 by Sirisha 5 comments »Hello
TrueIndia celebrated birthdays of all the kids -March at DivyaDisha as part of Make a Wish program every month.
We request all the volunteers who have visited the event to share their experience here so that we would cherish them.
Here are the few pics our volunteers have shared with us from the event
http://picasaweb.google.com/trueindiadotorg/MakeAWishMarch2010#
Regards
Team TI
Charity?
March 7th, 2010 by soujanya 24 comments »The Dictionary meaning of the word “Charity” is ‘generous actions’. In this post I wouldn’t differ from that meaning but would hopefully add more to it.
At the utter of the word ‘charity’ some people might imagine- a bunch of ‘jobless’ people, pestering to donate money. But hey! That’s not what it is! Charity is a selfless crusade for any good cause. It could be working for endangering animals, vanishing forests, educating children or fighting against bio-harmful wastes or eradicating sex-slavery. Charity is donation of time, effort, money or knowledge to the needy.
Donation of time and effort for the deprived like weak, hungry street-children and spreading moral awareness among your close people about doing good things are some of the essential things which most of us overlook about charity.
Charity, as I said earlier, could be something that people can differ vastly about.
The rest of the post is about the different perspectives and genres of charity, starting with the wider and narrowing down further.
Ecological perspective:
Ecology is the interdisciplinary scientific study of the distributions, abundance and relations of organisms and their interactions with the environment.1 The ecological perspective of charity is protecting the eco systems ie; plant life, wild life, marine life and all other organisms, from dangers caused by man. There’s a famous phrase- “Man is a social animal”, it means humans coexist symbiotically with other living beings on earth. There are some special qualities in humans unlike other animals like social living, creative thinking, humanity, etc which make them different from other ‘animals’. With these qualities they managed to overpower the other species and take over the whole planet. Since the take over, the responsibility of caring for the eco systems falls in the hands of man. Thus caring for the other living beings on our planet is also charity.
Earth in our hands
How can we help?
Ecology is a much wider perspective; a few of the things a common man could do for it are: keeping the surroundings clean, avoiding plastic, planting trees.
Now narrowing down our perspective to a nation or a society…
Economic and Politics perspective:
A market vendor covers her face from garbage smoke in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Thursday, March 17, 2005. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
There are some places in the world which are frequently hit by natural disasters like earthquakes, floods, hurricanes etc, while there are some nations which are highly developed and spend millions on sophisticated technology and space research. What I mean to say is that there is concentration of riches due to various reasons and the best example for this is India. India’s population is approximately 17.4% of the total world’s population2. Of which 42% of the population falls below the international poverty line, ie; they earn less than 1.25$ per day3. On contrast, some of the richest men in the world like Lakshmi Mittal, Anil Ambani, Mukesh Ambani and KP Singh are from India4. Thus India is the best example to portray the concentration of wealth in the world. The gap between the haves and have-nots is vast in India because of many reasons (like rampant corruption, social inequalities). Most population can’t get through one day without handling corruption. And since almost half of the population is below poverty line- they can’t afford good health and education; thus, paving the way to illiteracy and dreadful contagious diseases. The poor and illiterate people are used by the politicians for votes. Illiteracy is more dangerous than blindness, it makes man blindly foolish. If nearly half of the country’s population is blindly foolish, imagine what the state of our democratic country is.
Since we define democracy as “to the people, for the people, by the people”, we, the people must take at least the responsibility of being aware of the state of our State. I think it is high time we realize that because of our indifference and lack of responsibility towards social issues like illiteracy and corruption, almost half of us are still in abysmal poverty.
How can we help this?
I think every citizen should feel sincere responsibility towards the country. Today’s children are tomorrow’s citizens and since illiteracy strongly hinders the country’s development, there is a strong need for them to obtain education. Thus facilitating education to poor children is one of the ways of dealing with our current issues.
Children in India- Education
On more of a personal note…
Philosophical perspective:
“Love thy neighbor as thyself” (Leviticus 19:18)
“Manava seve madhava seva” (Service to man is service to God)
“The compassionate people will be shown mercy by the Merciful Lord, Allah.” (Aal ‘Imraan 3:110)
-are some good phrases from the holy books of Christianity, Hinduism and Islam, respectively. Every religion on earth preaches that service with love brings peace.
I am not a religious person, so I really don’t know if I am serving God when I’m volunteering for TrueIndia. But I deem the feeling that a selfless deed bestows on me as greater than divinity. It initiates a radiance of peace from within. From this I find the resolve to work on charity and everything else with coherence and confidence. Not that otherwise there isn’t any of the good stuff in mind, but doing something good for others always gives satisfaction and joy, and that is what one looks for in life at the end of the day.
Though I might have mentioned half a dozen genres of charity here, I believe “charity” is loving boundlessly. And I think motto of one’s life should be “Love and Let love”.
Love and Peace go hand in hand
References:
1. Begon, M.; Townsend, C. R., Harper, J. L. (2006). Ecology: From individuals to ecosystems. (4th ed.). Blackwell. ISBN 1405111178.
2. As of Census July 2009
3. According to a 2005 World Bank estimate, 42% of India’s falls below the international poverty line of $1.25 a day
4.http://www.forbes.com/lists/2008/10/billionaires08_The-Worlds-Billionaires_Rank.html
5. Earth in our hands- http://www.supereco.com/glossary/eco-friendly/
6. HAITI- http://www.cbc.ca/news/
7. Children in India- Education http://www.unicef.org/india/
8. Peace and Love go hand in hand http://www.peacelove.com.au/logo-1.jpg
Share your experiences – Make a Wish February birthday celebrations @ DD
March 1st, 2010 by Sirisha 3 comments »Hello,
People visiting this space might know already but for those who haven’t already known, TrueIndia celebrates birthdays of all the kids at DivyaDisha as part of Make a Wish program every month. I request all those volunteers who visited the event to post their experience here so that we all know your experiences and cherish them.
Here are the pics our friends have shared with us from the event @ http://picasaweb.google.com/trueindiadotorg/FebMakeAWish2010#
Thanks & Regards,
TrueIndia Team
