youth session !

Three Indian children to attend J8 summit in Rome

New Delhi, July 4 (ANI): The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has picked three children to represent India at the J8 summit, a confluence of young people from countries participating in the G8 summit.
Sanjukta Pangi, a 16-year-old girl from Orissa, Samuel Venkatesen, 17-year-old boy from Tamil Nadu and Narendra Kumar, 15-year-old boy from Rae Bareli have been selected for the youth summit called Junior8 (J8) to be held in Rome from July 5-12.
‘I’m very excited and feel wonderful that I’m going to Rome. I always dreamt of such an opportunity. This gives me a chance to look into the problems I have gone through,’ said, Pangi, who is a tribal girl from Orissa.
‘What I have achieved today is all because of the help of UNICEF and my school teacher. There are many children like me who need attention,’ said Venkatesen.
These young Indian representatives will get a chance to share their experiences with other young people from 14 country teams. They will also get a chance to exchange their views amongst themselves and with the ‘extended summit’ leaders on issues like climate change, global meltdown and poverty reduction.

‘It’s a really fantastic opportunity to have the voices of the Indian young people heard. And not only among their peers but also by the world leaders who will be at the J8 summit as well,’ said Angela Walker, UNICEF India’s spokesperson.
The J8, now in its fifth year, brings together 56 young people, aged 14 to 17, from each of the G8 countries and four from the extra-G8 countries from July 4-10 to discuss contemporary issues.
The G8 comprises the developed countries, – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, UK and the US, while the extended summit includes leaders of developing economies, – Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Mexico and South Africa.

One representative each from the 14 country delegations at the J8 summit will have an opportunity to engage their respective leaders on the concerns identified by the entire group. (ANI)
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By:http://www.sindhtoday.net/

Over 80 percent Pakistanis see Taliban a threat : Poll

The survey, which was conducted between May 17 and 28 and randomly interviewed some 1,000 people across Pakistan, showed that about 70 percent of respondents support the government in its decision to launch the military offensive in the Swat valley.

Washington, July 2: Most Pakistanis believe that the Taliban fighters are a "critical threat" to their country and support the ongoing offensive in the Swat valley, according to a survey. An overwhelming 87 percent of Pakistanis think that the Taliban, who are fighting to overthrow the Afghan government, should not be allowed to have bases in Pakistan, showed the poll by the World Public Opinon (WPO), a US-based organisation working on public opinion on international issues.
The survey, which was conducted between May 17 and 28 and randomly interviewed some 1,000 people across Pakistan, showed that about 70 percent of respondents support the government in its decision to launch the military offensive in the Swat valley.
About 45 percent of respondents also said the government was right in trying to resolve the situation through dialogue with the militants. They believe that the Taliban breached the agreement by not putting down their weapons, forcing the government to deal with them militarily.
The army has been battling the militants since April 26 after the Taliban reneged on a controversial peace deal with the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) government and instead moved south from their Swat headquarters and occupied Buner, which is just 100 km from Islamabad.
The operations had begun in Lower Dir, the home district of Taliban-backed radical cleric Sufi Mohammad, who had brokered the peace deal and who is the father-in-law of Swat Taliban commander Maulana Fazlullah. They later spread to Buner and Swat - and to South Waziristan earlier this month.
The military operations have displaced 3.8 million civilians from the three districts of NWFP.
"A sea change has occurred in Pakistani public opinion. The tactics and undemocratic bent of militant groups--in tribal areas as well as Swat--have brought widespread revulsion and turned Pakistanis against them," said Clay Ramsay, the organisation's research director.
However, he adds: "It's crucial to understand that the US is resented just as much as before, despite the US having a new president."
This striking new public willingness to see the government directly oppose Taliban groups and Al Qaeda owes little or nothing to an "Obama effect", the WPO poll said.
About 62 percent of respondents said US President Barack Obama's policies on Pakistan would be the same like his predecessor George W. Bush.
Similarly, 69 percent expressed unfavourably for the current US government, while more than 80 percent said they believe US is trying to weaken and divide the Muslim world.

Content from:http://www.indianewsupdates.com/

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Now… Gay sex is legal !!

Giving its landmark judgement, the high court said that section 377 should be amended and any sex between consenting adults should be legalised.

New Delhi, July 2: The Delhi High Court Thursday decriminalised gay sex by striking down section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), quoting Jawaharlal Nehru to emphasise that the Constitution guaranteed homosexuals rights equal to what other citizens enjoy.
A bench of Chief Justice Ajit Prakash Shah and Justice S. Muralidhar said that if not amended, section 377 of the IPC would violate Article 21 of the Indian Constitution, which states that every citizen has equal opportunity of life and is equal before law.
"Equality and inconclusiveness are the tenets of the Constitution," the court quoted India's first prime minister Nehru as having said.
Section 377, a law from the British Raj era, says homosexuality and "unnatural sex" is a criminal act.
Giving its landmark judgement, the high court said that section 377 should be amended and any sex between consenting adults should be legalised.
In plain terms, what this judgement means is that police will no longer be able to intrude upon or arrest adult homosexuals having consensual sex.
Advocate Tripti of the Naz foundation, which had filed the petition, said: "It is very clear now that sex between consenting adults would no longer be an offence."
Anjali Gopalan of the Naz Foundation added: "We had asked that section 377 be read down. This, however, does not hold good for minors below the age of 18. Also, the fact the adults have to be consenting is important."
In 2004, the high court had dismissed the same petition, saying that it was an academic challenge to the constitutionality of a legislative provision which could not be entertained.

Content from:http://www.indianewsupdates.com/

NPYC to continue AAKS programmes

The Indian Youth Congress has launched Aam Aadmi ka Sipahi, Soldier of common people (AKKS) a nationwide movement to confront the problems of the common man.
The Aam Aadmi or the Common Man has been at the centre of the Congress Party’s and UPA’s policies and programs. Indeed, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), the Right to Information Act (RTI), Sarva Siksha Abhiyaan, Bharat Nirman Yojana, Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana, National Rural Health Misson etc were all initiated not only to renew the historical bonds that exist between the common people and the Congress party but also to empower the common people to take his rightful place as an active participant in the Nation-building process.
Kuputo Shohe, President, NPYC and Dokiu Kecham, State Level Co-ordinator, AAKS states in a press release, “It is being observed that the implementation of NREGA in Nagaland has a long way to go to fulfill its intended purpose. In compliance with the direction of Indian Youth Congress, the NPYC will continue to carry out the activities of AAKS with special reference to NREGA, NRHM, SSA, RTI, Bharat Nerman, Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana etc. and carry forward the message of the people friendly policies and programmes of Congress led UPA government to the door steps of the people living in the rural villages.”
“It is also true that despite these historic steps taken by the UPA, the benefits of these schemes more often than not, do not reach their intended beneficiaries, more so in non-Congress ruled states. At the historic Centennial Session of the AICC at Mumbai, Rajivji had famously lamented that of every rupee sent by the Government of India for the poor; only a fraction reaches to those it was intended for. Not much has changed since then,” the NPYC also said.
By working alongside the common people at the grassroots, the AAKS will ensure that this is no longer so. In this sense, the AAKS is as much a social movement as it is a political one. Needless to say, it is the youth who plays the most significant role in any social movement. It is only fitting then that the IYC has taken the leadership in the movement to empower the common people who had hitherto been left out of India’s march towards taking its rightful place in the 21st century at the forefront of Nations.
“We wish AAKS all the very best in their efforts to fight for the rights of the Common Man,” the release further stated.

By: http://www.morungexpress.com/

Another Indian Student Racially Assaulted In Australia | Inside story

Filed under: Issues
Author: micky

Racial attacks on Indians in Australia continued unabated with a 20-year-old Delhi youth becoming the 14th victim of a spate of assaults on the community in less than a month when he was punched and abused here, leaving him with a fractured finger and a bloody nose.Mr Sunny Bajaj, a Deakin University student, was attacked by two men in Melbourne’s eastern suburb on Friday night as he was about to get into his car. “They came up to me and asked me for money, I told them I had none and then they attacked me,” Mr Bajaj said. Mr Bajaj was verbally abused and then punched by the two men, in their 20s one white and the other apparently of African descent.
The student said the attackers slammed his car door and punched him in head and stomach and then racially abused him. “They called me a ——ing Indian c—- why would they do that? I said nothing to them,” Mr Bajaj said, adding he suffered a fractured finger, bruising to his back and a bloody nose.Mr Bajaj, who was supposed to sit for an accounts exam, had to miss out on it because of the broken finger. Meanwhile, Mr Sravan Kumar, the 25-year old student, whose comatose pictures had sent shock waves across the Indian diaspora, will be moved to a rehabilitation centre to help him recuperate from the brutal attack.Mr Kumar, the first victim of a series of alleged racist attacks will move to the rehab centre on Tuesday.

by: http://www.zorsebol.com

Rahul Gandhi and the New Politics of India

The Quiet Revolutionary: Rahul Gandhi
by Sudip Mazumdar
NEWSWEEKFrom the magazine issue dated Jun 8, 2009

A revolution is underway in India. The man leading the charge is neither a fiery ideologue nor a gun-toting guerrilla. Instead, he is the scion of one of the world’s most famous political families. But Rahul Gandhi, 38, has set out to disrupt the very system that created his power. At first glance, he is simply trying to restore the 125-year-old Indian National Congress—a party once led by his great-grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru, his grandmother Indira Gandhi and his father, Rajiv Gandhi, and now run by his mother, Sonia Gandhi—to its once lofty position as India’s dominant political group.
But his tactics are game-changing: insisting on grassroots activism, building deep connections to rural India and trying to democratize the hierarchical Congress party itself. If he succeeds—a big “if”—India could soon undergo a kind of political big bang, ushering in a new model for developing countries: combining a well-functioning democracy with good government and economic growth. And if that works, Rahul will probably also ensure his own political future as the head of the nation.
Already Rahul, as he is known throughout the country, has been widely credited with Congress’s big win in last month’s elections. Not only was he, as Congress’ general-secretary, the party’s main campaigner—he spoke at 125 rallies across the country in six weeks, compared with 75 for his mother and 50 for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. He was also its master strategist.
His approach—fully endorsed by his mother, the party’s president—was risky, presenting Congress as a national party that stood for secularism, good governance and growth. Such tactics were in sharp contrast to the mainstream of Indian politics for the last 20 years, in which parties based on caste, ethnicity and religion had flourished. During those decades, Congress officials had made alliances with these regional groups in order to maintain their access to power, privileges, perks and money. But this strategy had also ensured the slow decline of Congress as a national force, ceding ground to parties based on identity politics.
Rahul was convinced that to regain Congress’s old strength, it must contest elections alone as much as possible—especially in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. These two states, which together send 120 members to the 543-seat lower house of the Indian Parliament, are crucial to any party’s chances in New Delhi, and Congress had virtually become nonexistent in those areas.
Before the election, the conventional wisdom had it that Rahul’s choice to go it alone would be a huge blunder. But it paid off—spectacularly. Congress more than doubled its tally in Uttar Pradesh, from nine seats (out of 80) to 21. And the party made serious inroads into several other constituencies. In Bihar, even if it only ended up with two seats, it managed to take away big chunks of votes from caste-based parties and reduced powerful regional satraps and minor coalition partners to insignificance. Elsewhere Congress swept the polls. The result? “This is Rahul Gandhi’s moment,” says Pratap Bhanu Mehta, President of the Center for Policy Research, a New Delhi think tank. “He rose above the narrow identity politics of his opponents and showed that Indians long for inclusiveness and tolerance. He has changed the rules of politics.”
Rahul also broke ground by pushing forward a slate of young candidates—a rare move in a country where age is venerated and 80-year-old politicians are a common sight. He bet that with 70 percent of the country under the age of 40 and half under 25, youth politics had reached a tipping point. And again he was vindicated. Most of his fresh faces won. Just as significantly, many of these newcomers had emerged through an open and democratic selection process in the party—and were thus seen as more connected to the grassroots than usual Congress hacks.
One such winner was Rahul’s close aide, Meenakshi Natarajan, a biochemistry graduate from a small town called Ratlam in Madhya Pradesh. Natarajan couldn’t have been more different from a typical Indian politician. Nobody in her family had ever served in politics. She traveled in crowded public transport, lived in a small rented apartment in Delhi and devoted her time to energizing students and young people to join the party. All this was unheard of in India, where candidates typically travel in 20-car convoys with hundreds of hangers-on.
“The world missed the significance of our baby steps in democratizing Congress’s youth organizations,” says Natarajan. But the voters didn’t. Rahul is “creating space for fresh ideas, competence and youthful energy,” says political analyst Rajiv Desai. “If he can pull it off, this will eventually make the old timers and power brokers irrelevant in the party.”
Since the election, calls have grown within Congress for Rahul to take a seat in cabinet or become prime minister himself; even Singh has said that he would try to persuade Gandhi to join the government. But Rahul has politely declined the offers so far, saying his focus remains the party. This has only enhanced his public image. According to Sam Pitroda, who was an aide to Rajiv Gandhi and is considered the father of India’s telecom revolution, and now heads the country’s National Knowledge Commission, “Rahul is not here for any short-term goals. He has a long-term vision. He is methodical, analytical, hardworking and humble.”
Rahul’s makeover couldn’t have come at a better time. Apart from regional players and corrupt special interests, the Congress Party had come to rely on vast amounts of black money to run its campaigns in recent years. Other parties were even worse, dominated by people who used fear and hatred to widen caste, religious and ethnic differences. Campaign slogans were often divisive and negative.
Politicians became notorious for siphoning government resources and filling their coffers with kickbacks and bribes. While India now has some of the richest citizens in the world, it also has huge areas wracked by destitution, and more than half of its 1.2 billion people still live on less than 20 cents a day. Over the past two decades the Congress Party, which has ruled India for 45 out of its 62 years of independence, had gradually lost ground to its major rival, the anti-Muslim Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, and smaller caste-based and sectarian parties. Forced to cobble together coalition governments, Congress had fallen hostage to pressure and blackmail from its junior partners.
Rahul observed this decline from a front-row seat. His was a life of both privilege and tragedy. He was barely 14 when his grandmother, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, was killed by her Sikh bodyguards in 1984. Suddenly, Rahul and his younger sister, Priyanka, found themselves enveloped in a security cocoon and lost whatever vestiges of normal teenage life they’d once enjoyed. Then, less than seven years later, the children also lost their father, Rajiv, who had catapulted into politics from his job as an airline pilot after Indira’s death. Rajiv was killed by a Tamil suicide bomber at an election rally in 1991 in southern India.
After being shuttled from one school to another for safety reasons, Rahul was eventually sent to the United States, starting university at Harvard and eventually graduating from Rollins College in Florida. He then received an M.Phil. in development studies from Cambridge University. It was an academic career marked less by dramatic achievement than a desire for privacy. After graduating, he spent the next three years with the Monitor Group in London, a consulting firm founded by the management guru Michael Porter, before returning to India in 2002. Colleagues at the firm had no idea who they were working with—Rahul was using an assumed name—which meant Gandhi got no special treatment. His reputation within the company was “very impressive,” in the words of one senior partner. And he’d go on to apply the training he got with Monitor in the careful, methodical way he would study the Indian electorate.
During Rahul’s period abroad, the BJP, taking advantage of the rudderless Congress, had captured power with a coalition of a few other sectarian parties, and Congress had been reduced to a worn-out shell of its former self. Party leaders were dejected and desperately wanted another member of the storied Nehru-Gandhi line to rescue them. They ultimately managed to rope in Rahul’s reclusive, Italian-born mother, Sonia. And she soon managed to save her husband’s party from virtual extinction. Her tireless campaigning, political acumen and hands-on leadership revived Congress and helped return it to power in 2004.
Although Sonia tried to reform the party, she remained surrounded by elderly time servers and family retainers with no connections to the grassroots. Though the Congress Party had traditionally held the middle ground of Indian politics by appealing to all sections of society, factionalism and lack of ideas had drained its strength. Many advisers began pushing Sonia to let the articulate and savvy Priyanka become Congress’ new face. But she was married and focused on raising her children, and was not inclined to join active politics.
Meanwhile, away from the public gaze, Rahul—often seen as shy and reclusive—began closely studying the Indian system and the way its parties were run. He began visiting his mother’s parliamentary constituency in Amethi in Uttar Pradesh, India’s largest state and a place where Congress had become a nonentity. When the general elections were called in 2004, Rahul made his move: he ran for a seat from Amethi. He and his mother campaigned vigorously around the country and their efforts paid off: Rahul won his seat and nationally Congress managed to overthrow the BJP-led coalition. Declining the office of the prime minister, Sonia installed Singh—a former finance minister and an economist with sterling credentials—in the top job, signaling a break from the party’s corrupt power brokers.
Sonia’s critics saw her renunciation of power as nothing more than a clever move to keep the seat warm for her son by letting a loyal follower take the job till Rahul was ready for it. But Rahul had different plans. He stayed away from the media and devoted his time to studying ways to advance development—and Congress—focusing on his own constituency and the divisive, caste-based politics of Uttar Pradesh.
Over the past three years he has worked hard to acquaint himself with poor, rural India by making numerous visits to remote, neglected villages, where he would listen to locals’ complaints while sitting cross-legged on their dirt floors, sharing their meals and sometimes even sleeping in their homes. On occasion he would lead villagers to government officials to demand better services or organize sit-ins in dusty towns to highlight the plight of the poor. His “discovery of India” tour (a riff on Nehru’s book of the same name) was dismissed by the media and scorned by his opponents, one of whom referred to Rahul as an “aquarium fish.” Yet Rahul persisted, often making unnoticed trips to remote tribes, panicking his security detail. Calculated or not, such moves are extremely rare for a politician of Gandhi’s stature in India, where most leaders prefer to travel in air-conditioned comfort.
Rahul’s current views on the economy seem to owe to these tours. Broadly speaking, he is pro-market, owing in part to his time at Monitor, but he insists that growth should provide opportunities for the poor. “What is the difference between a rich man and a poor man?” he liked to ask at campaign rallies. “Opportunity!” Rahul argues that the human talent in India’s poorest states is as good as anywhere else and that it’s the government’s fault that these regions remain impoverished. He also believes in economic reform.
Rahul has said that the current global financial crisis is a “short-term disruption” and large countries like India and China can benefit in the long run if they position themselves properly. But he wants “inclusive growth,” and has supported job guarantees for the rural poor and loan waivers to farmers—measures derided by market reformers but that appear to have had strong political benefits for Congress and to have shielded India’s rural sector from the worst of the current crisis. Rahul is also known to support the growing U.S.-India alliance and is said to speak well of George W. Bush in private for pushing it through.
Those who know Rahul say he is levelheaded and unruffled, draws inspiration from Mahatma Gandhi (no relation) and, like his sister, Priyanka, takes an interest in Buddhism and has attended teachings by the Dalai Lama. He meticulously seeks out different points of view before coming to a decision. He is a teetotaler who once favored fast cars but whose only apparent vice now is a fondness for Indian sweets. The siblings are close (”There is no one closer to me than my sister [Priyanka],” he recently told a questioner). For a while, he was known to be dating an attractive Spanish architect, but he is now India’s most eligible bachelor and appears in no hurry to change that status.
In a sense, given the magnitude of the job he’s assigned himself, it’s no wonder that Rahul turned down a cabinet post. The work he has in mind involves enlisting 10 million young people into the party’s youth wing and holding democratic elections to produce new leaders from among them. He has already managed to sign up some 1.5 million youngsters in three opposition-ruled states—Punjab, Gujarat and Uttarakhand—to join the Youth Congress. All this has helped Rahul construct himself as an agent of radical change. “His strategy of positioning himself as an outsider seems a masterstroke,” says Mehta, the New Delhi analyst.
The irony, of course, is that in seeking to make the Congress Party more democratic, Rahul is working against the legacy of his own grandmother, who suspended internal party elections in the mid-1970s, allowing her to chose the party’s regional leaders herself—a process most experts believe helped turn Congress from a grassroots, vibrant party into a court full of fawning retainers.
Still, the seductions of power remain strong—indeed, this may be the biggest obstacle Gandhi will face. “Rahul has a unique role to play in defining India’s political destiny over the coming decades,” says Ramesh Ramanathan, a former Citibank senior manager who gave up a flourishing career in Europe in his mid-30s to start a Bangalore nonprofit that promotes government accountability and who now works as an adviser to the government on urban renewal.
“Thousands of ambitious people will gather around him like moths around a lamp to feed their own careers.” Rahul’s success will depend on how well he avoids the trap of hubris, so common among Congress leaders, and how well he handles the inevitable flatterers and hangers-on. “So far he has been careful not to let any [such clique] grow around him,” says Mehta. “He seems to allow only those around him who have no ax to grind.”
There are other obstacles. Congress remains extremely resistant to any moves that would weaken its party grandees. Regional governments will not eagerly make room for newcomers at the expense of favored castes and clients. The Indian bureaucracy has a long way to go before it begins actually serving the people rather than obstructing their path. Big business will also be happy to slow down certain reforms—in order to slow down competition—or guide them in ways that let it game the market.
Still, the process Rahul Gandhi has unleashed has the potential to turn India into a shining example of how to manage a successful economy and a successful democracy in a large, heterogeneous country. It’s true that he faces enormous challenges. Yet he also enjoys enormous advantages—especially his family name and his rising popularity. This stature will only grow if Rahul manages to remain uncorrupted. Of course, it will be all too easy for him to succumb to the status quo, to do just well enough to achieve high office and then to stop fighting. But that would be a tragic waste of India’s greatest hope in a very long time.
URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/200051

Muslim youth: The road ahead

By Dr Malik Rashid Faisal,

What an average Indian Muslim youth thinks of the issues concerning the Muslim society at large? This is no small question, the answer of which builds a world where a whole lot of generation can not only survive but move towards a prosperous living. When I was a child, for me the world was nothing more than a game where everyone is playing a role of one’s own choice. There are, perhaps, still no clearly drawn out objectives of Muslim youth, although the earth has been steadily rotating to demonstrate the bitter lessons they could learn.
I used to go to a maktab on the bicycle gifted by my maternal uncle. Some boys of my village traveled to the school on foot. They used the tactic of pushing and pulling my moving cycle to irritate and annoy me. Like wise, Mulsims today are two steps forward and one step back. Unfortunately, today I do not find those boys in any prestigious position. I am told that some of them completed Intermediate with difficulties and some ended up in scraps business in Mumbai. They all are struggling to survive.
A Muslim youth is blamed for pursuing a conservative, fanatic and fundamentalist course of action. They are alleged to be terrorists. I can say without any doubt that their survival is at stake and they can not afford to be a terrorist. They have no energy to think beyond their survival. Had I not studied in Madrasa, I could never have known the actual situation a big population of Muslims is trapped into. A Madrasa student lives like a frog in a well. They do not know the contemporary issues of importance. They read books which do not have any relevance to sufferings of Muslims. The old and irrelevant issues of Islamic jurisprudence are still taught in Madrasas. I remember the day when Babri Masjid was demolished. This sad news was announced in a trembling and emotion laden voice by one of our Maulana after Namaz-e-Asr in the Masjid located in the fore walls of the Madrasa Jamiatul Falah and then a sudden silence enveloped amongst all the students and teachers.
The next day, in the weekly cultural programme of my class, I delivered an emotionally laden high pitched speech raising the slogan ‘Allahu Akbar’ as if I was going to wage a war against the demolishers. The teacher laughed. But it is a fact that the same teachers taught me the way I registered my protest against the demolition. On the other hand, I admit that Madrasas inculcate in students the basic understanding of religion. A Madrasa student at later stage of his growth knows how to deal with religious issues and practices.
But then only 4% of Muslims go to Madrasas. What about the rest of the Indian Muslim youth? Ironically, most of them live a battered life. They have no clear cut thinking about the interests of the society at large. One of many reasons is of course, illiteracy. Many of them are school drop outs. Some get trapped into family business and some join underpaid jobs. They get married and are forced to take care of the well being of the family.
Naturally, if a large section of the society is cut to size and made vulnerable, how would its people join the mainstream and think high for the betterment of society? Today we observe that Indian Muslim youths have no new organizations of their own that works for improving the deteriorating conditions of the Muslims. It may be because of the fear of failure.
The endeavor to start an organization for overall development of the community is something which should be taken seriously. In fact, many Muslim NGOs do exist but they are not performing well and therefore often alleged to be nothing but ill fated. Many of them are purposefully collecting funds for self interests. At this hour of crisis, the energetic Muslim youth could play an important role in promoting the organizations for the development of the community. Unfortunately, they are not showing interest in such an endeavor.
The pathetic attitude of Indian Muslim youths is maligning the whole community. For instance, about 15,000 Muslim students study in Aligarh Muslim University but it is very unfortunate to say that very few of them do something good for the society after completing their education. Most of the Muslim youth join underpaid jobs and live the whole life in conformity. Some of them become burden on their parents. They lack will power to do something great. This is, in my view, on account of inferiority complex and no proper guidance from the parents or the elders of the community.
That is no wonder then, economic, political and social conditions of Muslims are very bad. However, Muslim youths through establishing NGOs and coordinating with each other could do a great job for overall development of the community in all aspects. They need to understand the severity of the problems being faced by themselves and the community. NGOs can play an important role in raising the standard of community in all aspects. Therefore, to think positive and move forward is the only solution of many problems. Youths in any society play important roles and the Muslim community is no exception.
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Malik Rashid Faisal is the Senior Editor of The Sunday Indian (Urdu). He may be contacted at malikrfaisal@gmail.com
article from: http://www.twocircles.net/

Child Labour: A Demon in the Indian Society

Anshul Tewari

Raju wakes up at 6 every morning. After preparing rice for his 5 sisters, who are 4 to 5 years each, Raju leaves for a nearby construction site to continue his work. Raju's mother, however, goes to a few houses to help clean the households, and his father is usually drunk, thus, does nothing. After 10 hours of continuos work, Raju returns home, with a soar stomach and rugged hands.
His mother prepares rice for them and each member of the family has not more than 5 tea spoons of rice, enough to help them survive the night.

Raju is only 8 years old and is a child labourer working in a residential area of Delhi. He misses his childhood, all he knows is that he has to earn enough to get his sisters married off.
India has been talking about child labour more often than not, at seminars, in the parliament, by NGO's and at many more places and by many more people. At a time when India is witnessing an abnormal high in the number of children associated with this problem, Youth Ki Awaaz brings forth a report which will help us understand better, the solutions for this problem. Why are we facing this problem? How did it emerge? What are the areas of concern and how can we solve them? We present to you an analysis of child labour in India focussing on its various aspects.
In India, officially there are around 16 million child labourers, but if we trust the unofficial sources, the number crosses 60 million. A country where 70% of the population lives in rural areas, around 50-60% children are being forced into child labour. Let's understand this evil and try to curb it.
Usually, when we think of child labour, the first thing that comes to our mind is a child working in a factory. But this is not it, child labour ranges from factories to mines, to construction areas to small tea stalls and every other work. Children, who are at the receiving end, end up with ruined lives, bleak and a misty future and physical as well as psychological disorders.
Child labourers are divided in a number of sectors. Namely, I. Cultivation, II. Agricultural Labour, III. Livestock, Forestry, Fishing, Plantation, IV. Mining and Quarrying, V. Manufacturing, Processing, Servicing and Repairs, VI. Construction, VII. Trade and Commerce, VIII. Transport, Storage and Communication, and IX. Other Services (Census of India 1981 cited in Nangia 1987, 72).
Labour by children is an outcome of many reasons other than the well known poverty, unemployment, lack of education. They are either in debt bondage or pledged for advances contracted by parents. Some of them are victims of illusory promises made by procurers about bright prospects after undergoing training in certain trades. People say that the points stated above are the reasons behind child labour. But we argue the other way. Our experience and the various studies conducted by researchers corroborate the fact that child labour is equally, if not solely responsible for causing and perpetuating unemployment, poverty, population growth and illiteracy.

Looking at the states which have the highest number of child labourers, Andhra Pradesh tops the list with over 18 million child labourers, followed by Bihar, Gujarat, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.

The industries in which children are employed are:

Matches, Fireworks and Explosives- Sivakasi
Glass and Bangles- Ferozabad
Beedi Making- Nizamabad, North Arcot District
Carpet Making- Bhadoi, Varanasi , Mirzapur , Jammu and Kashmir
Lock-making- Aligarh
Brassware- Moradabad
Export Oriented Garment Industry- Tiruppur
Gem Polishing Export Industry- Jaipur, Rajasthan
Slate Mines and Manufacturing Units- Markkapur
Leather Units- Agra , Kanpur , Durg, Rajasthan
Diamond Industry- Surat

India has the dubious distinction of being the nation with the largest number of child laborers in the world. The child labors endure miserable and difficult lives. They earn little and struggle to make enough to feed themselves and their families. They do not go to school; more than half of them are unable to learn the barest skills of literacy. The environmental degradation and lack of employment avenues in the rural areas also cause people to migrate to big cities. On arrival in overcrowded cities the disintegration of family units takes place through alcoholism, unemployment or disillusionment of better life etc. This in turn leads to emergence of street children and child workers who are forced by their circumstances to work from the early age. The girls are forced to work as sex -workers or beggars. A large number of girls end up working as domestic workers on low wages and unhealthy living conditions.
Some times children are abandoned by their parents or sold to factory owners. The last two decades have seen tremendous growth of export based industries and mass production factories utilizing low technologies. They try to maintain competitive positions through low wages and low labor standards. The child laborers exactly suit their requirements. They use all means to lure the parents into giving their children on pretext of providing education and good life.
People come here, read the articles, get the point, but rarely do they implement stuff in their daily lives. When asked for solutions, various NGO's told YKA the following:

-Stop eating at dhabas and restaurants which promote child labour.
-Condemn the business and industries which preach child labour
-Do not employ a child to work at your place or at your workplace.

These points are common and heard of. But Youth Ki Awaaz completely differs from these illogical points. Yes, we are being radical. These points are illogical, excpet for the last one.

And the reason behind them being illogical is simple. Consider this, if you stop going to a restaurant which preaches child labour, stop buying clothes of a brand which preaches child labour, condemn a corporate who preaches child labour or an industry which preaches child labour, you are just killing the child. He would have no money, thus, no food, thus, empty stomach (both the child and the family), and no place to live, thus, the child would die. Right?

So what is the solution? Let's understand this by the easiest way possible. What is the prime reason for child labour? Poverty. What is the prime reason for poverty? Unemployment. What is the prime reason for unemployment? Education.
This might sound cliche, but yes, EDUCATION is the solution. Some argue that there is a lack of opportunity, but we say, what good would opportunity be if there is no education. Right?
The need of the hour is to make education available to each and every child, especially in the rural areas.
Youth Ki Awaaz asked a few children who were working as labourers, aged around 15 to 16 years, about the reforms that they would want. The reason behind asking this age group was the fact that they have a better understanding in terms of work and the problems that they face. Their list was as follows, we have modified a bit to make it look more realistic and we have added a few points as well:

1. Enforce existing laws on child labour.
2. Every child should enjoy a free and compulsory education till they complete 18 years.
3. Develop alternative education options and training schemes for child labourers.
4. Enhance economic security and resilience of household of all child labourers.
5. Ensure participation of child labourers in decisions that affect them.
6. Right to Education Bill, 2008 should be passed in the Parliament at the earliest.
7. Allocate over 5% of GDP for education.

"There is no trust more sacred than the one the world holds with children. There is no duty more important than ensuring that their rights are respected, that their welfare is protected, that their lives are free from fear and want and that they can grow up in peace."-- Kofi Annan

No sex education for us. We’re Indian.

By Amodini Sharma

India is a populous country, and I’m pretty sure the citizens of India have something to do with it. I don’t think the storks are delivering all those babies, or that they are gifts of the Gods a la Kunti. Thus the move to squash teaching of basic sex education in schools is quite surprising. A few months back, the Committee on Petitions, comprising Rajya Sabha members and headed by BJP’s Venkaiah Naidu, said “there should be no sex education in schools” since “our country’s social and cultural ethos are such that sex education has absolutely no place in it”. ”Let’s trot out that pony again — India’s glorious cultural ethos. Let’s hide behind it again. We won’t do it because it’s against our cultural ethos. Let’s all burrow our heads in the sand and ignore the problem, because it’s “against the Indian cultural ethos”.
Watch Indian TV nowadays, and if it isn’t Ekta Kapoor’s sindoor-anointed, scheming pativrata naris in backless cholis, it’s pretty young things in short-short skirts swinging to some very suggestive lyrics. Sexy is the new buzzword. Looking pretty is not good enough — you’ve got to look sexy. Most advertisements use women to sell their products. These are mostly pretty women, and they sell soaps, shampoos, refrigerators, hair dyes and even car tyres (Ceat tyres had an animated cartoony advertisement featuring a well-endowed woman in a low-cut blouse and shorts and you can’t see the face of the woman). A lot of these ads feature women in little clothing, mouthing suggestive dialogues.
Watch Bollywood films, and you will realise that most feature women in secondary roles, playing second-fiddle to the men and assumming subservient roles. There are also those, which pandering to the NRI, portray foreign-bred women who are all too happy to trade-in autonomous life to smilingly melt into the arms of our handsome, chauvinistic hero. Women as depicted in such media are shown as having little independence.
Many rural women marry young, conceive early and die in child-birth. Knowledge of contraceptives is limited. There are few people “progressive” enough to go to a doctor for such advice, leave alone uneducated women who have no agency of their own. Attitudes in the country still remain vastly chauvinistic — you’ll read about it in the newspapers (foeticide, infanticide and child marriage) and you’ll see it in the street molestation everyday. The youth remains uninformed about sexual choices and we shy away from educating them because it’s against the “cultural ethos” ?
“The committee ruled that children must be given the message that sex before marriage is “immoral, unethical and unhealthy” ”The young people of this country are being bombarded by suggestive messages on the one hand and being denied basic sex education on the other. Pativrata nari vs. oomph-laden, skirt-suited pretty woman — guess who wins the image war these days ? Mr Naidu and his Committee might think pre-marital sex is “immoral”, but it’s happening anyway. And if the folk having pre-marital sex don’t know about basic safety, it’s probably adding to the AIDS numbers, if not creating unwanted children.
The urban youth has access to the net and other media. If you don’t give them information straight up, they will find it, and it might be pretty warped depending upon the source. Apart from that, what about curiosity ? If a girl starts menstruating early, she might be a little curious as to what’s going on. Mr Venkaiah Naidu might be blind, but most young folk are not.
“Advocating “instinct control” and “dignity of restraint”, the committee called for a new curriculum to include material on lives and teaching of saints, spiritual leaders, freedom fighters and national heroes.”While I do think kids should have knowledge of saints, freedom fighters etc, I doubt that learning about Bhagat Singh will help the cause of abstinence any. The cultural invasion has already come. And it’s a little worrying to hear statements like the above from eminently sane people with good vision, and one assumes, satifisfactory hearing. Are they actually living in modern-day India ? Do they actually not see Govinda (now an MP) cavort on screen and thrust his pelvis or have they missed out on all those little gems of fine Indian film-making ? Do they think he is hinting at “instinct control”?
The Committee had better realise that the day for preaching the “dignity of restraint” has come and gone. In other words, that boat sailed. Long ago. And Mr Naidu wasn’t on it. And if at all applicable in this context, there is “dignity” only in not treating our youth as if they were pea-brained. As for restraint, Mr Naidu might apply it to avoid placing his foot in his mouth.
The committee said chapters on Naturopathy, Ayurveda, Unani and Yoga and moral values should be made integral parts of the syllabus to enable “total development of the child”. Chapters like “Physical and Mental Development in Adolescents” and “HIV/AIDS and other Sexually Transmitted Diseases” and related topics should be removed from the curriculum and incorporated in biology books only at the 10+2 stage.
When I was in school, some 20 years back, education on puberty and bodily changes was dealt with in the 9th standard. Much too late, I have always thought. I cannot imagine it being pushed out even further. At that time, a child is already 14-15 years of age, well into the age of puberty. And whether you like it or not, they are noticing these changes. It is high time for adults to acknowledge the elephant in the room.
There is a case to be made for considering the subject essential to proper growth and a balanced viewpoint. And for starting this education earlier. The more we consider this taboo and hide information, the more mystique is built around it. And the more alluring it gets.
It is all very well to talk about the high road and moral values, but it is another to assume that problems will dissappear once we try to inculcate our moral values in young folk, without first answering their pertinent questions. And as much as I am a fan of Yoga, I do think that the Committee is a tad out of touch with the youth’s mindset to think that it would do any good in this respect.
Ignoring sex education for young adults has done enough damage already. From a burgeoning AIDS crisis to exponential population growth, and young folk with repressed sexualities and stunted mentalities, it is bad enough already. It should not be allowed to get any worse.
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Amodini Sharma is a software programmer based in the US. She believes that society is still chauvinistic and immune to indignities against women, and that speaking up and writing about this is an important first step towards changing attitudes. Among other things, she is passionate about films and a keen reader. She blogs at Amodini’s Movie Reviews and the Review Room.

‘Hot Bipasha real reason for global warming’

MACAU - Bipasha Basu should be India’s environment minister because she was “the real reason for global warming all over the world.”
This was the choice of International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) Awards hosts Boman Irani and Riteish Deshmukh who unveiled their dream cabinet before a packed auditorium at the Chinese resort here as the annual event marked its 10th anniversary.
The comic duo announced their choice that they said should have been appointed by Bollywood after the recent elections, much to the delight of the 15,000 strong crowd here Saturday night.
Director Ashutosh Gowariker should be agriculture minister for what he had done for the rural community with his hit film “Lagaan”; Raakesh Roshan, the coal minister because his successful film “Koyla” had shown that he knows everything there is to know about the black product; and Katrina Kaif should be the youth affairs minister because every youth wanted to talk to her, the pair added.
Aamir Khan should be home minister because all he did for eleven months in every year was sit at home and then just release a single film in the last month.
Akshay Kumar, shown on screen with his face on a Rs1,000 note, should be the finance minister because with the money he makes he could finance almost the entire population.
“Slumdog Millionaire” star Freida Pinto would do well in the post of minister for
overseas and foreign affairs because she knew exactly how to start an affair abroad, Irani jested.
Always on the defensive, Salman Khan would make the ideal defence minister and Malika Sherawat could occupy the new position of minister for the upliftment of the downtrodden.
Others in the Irani/Deshmukh cabinet would be Sunny Deol as law and transport minister ; Yash and Aditya Chopra of ‘Punjab Power’ fame for their film “Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi” as joint power ministers; and Viveik Oberoi as telecommunications minister because he knew how to make calls quickly when necessary.