International Jahajee Journal (IJJ), Nov 25th, 2007
Voice of the International Jahajee Diaspora
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Home of the International Jahajee Diaspora
Editor: Deosaran Bisnath,
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Malaysian Indians Beaten, Tear-gassed, Jailed: 20,000 protest State discrimination
VIDEO HERE:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m96FCTKHNA8&feature=user
Witnesses Claim Dozens Were Also Beaten by Police and Malay gangs as at Least 10,000 Indians Rally Against Economic Marginalization.
Protesters run as Malaysian riot police fire tear gas during a street protest by ethnic Indians in Kuala Lumpur November 25, 2007.
Malaysian police fired tear gas and water cannon Sunday to disperse thousands of ethnic Indians who tried to stage a rally that had been banned amid government accusations that its organizers were stirring racial hatred, activists said. Witnesses claimed dozens of demonstrators were beaten and arrested. Gangs of Malays – mainly Islamic – attacked Hindus Batu and several areas in Kaula Lumpur.
At least 10,000 people gathered before dawn near Kuala Lumpur’s famous Petronas Twin Towers, in a rare attempt by Malaysia’s ethnic Indian minority to highlight complaints that they are economically marginalized by the ethnic Malay Muslim-dominated government. SEE VIDEO HERE:
http://www.malaysiakini.tv/?vid=1494
Thousands of others massed in Batu Caves, a limestone cave Hindu temple on the city’s outskirts, hoping to join the others in a march to the British High Commission to protest how ethnic Indians have remained largely poor since British colonial rule. Authorities fired tear gas and chemical-laced water at the crowds in both areas, said P. Uthayakumar, a senior representative of the Hindu Rights Action Force, a nongovernment group that organized the rally.
“Police went into Batu Caves and beat many innocent people,” Uthayakumar said, adding that more than 100 people have been detained. Police officers outside the Petronas towers confirmed that tear gas and water cannon were used. Thousands of people regrouped later near the towers in a standoff with hundreds of police.
SEE VIDEO HERE:
http://www.malaysiakini.tv/?vid=1495
Shoes and slippers were scattered in the area and flower pots were broken after people fled the scene earlier. An Associated Press reporter saw about a dozen people taken away in a police truck.
“Malaysian Government Uses Sedition Act To Cover-up Racist Practices! ”
Three ethnic Indian activists were arrested and charged in court with sedition Friday, but Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi denied that it was because they were the key organizers of the rally.
http://the-malaysian.blogspot.com/2007/11/government-uses-sedition-act-to-cover.html
The Hindu Rights Action Force, an influential nongovernment group, wants thousands of people to demonstrate outside the British High Commission in Kuala Lumpur on Sunday to highlight how Malaysia’s ethnic Indian minority has remained largely poor under both British colonial rule and the present government dominated by Malay Muslims.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfpYZ4IGenY&feature=related
Malaysian authorities charged three ethnic Indian activists with sedition Friday in an apparent attempt to stop a rally in support of a lawsuit that holds the British responsible for the Indians’ economic woes.
The US$4 trillion (€2.7 trillion) lawsuit, filed in London in August, demands that Britain compensate Malaysia’s ethnic Indians — who comprise some 8 percent of the country’s 27 million people — for bringing their ancestors to then Malaya as “indentured laborers” and exploiting them under colonial rule. A Malaysian human rights group, Suaram, called the arrests an “attempt by the police to intimidate and to prevent (activists) from exercising their right to freedom of peaceful assembly and the right to freedom of expression.” Continued at:
http://deosaranbisnath.wordpress.com/
“Today was a proud day to be an Indian in Malaysia! We have awakened from a long sleep! Wanna know why?….The message that was passed to the Malaysian government and the Malaysian Indian Congress, the so-called representatives of Malaysian Indians is that we are no longer going to tolerate and allow ourselves to be bullied. If we are not given our rights, we are going to fight for it. We are not going to keep quiet and allow .. Continued at:
http://thedaneshproject.com/posts/hindraf-proud-day-for-malaysian-indians/
Commonwealth Meeting, UGANDA, Nov 2007
We love homosexuals as we love thieves….
“As Church leaders, we want to speak out very clearly what we believe in from the perspectives of culture and religion. We love homosexuals as we love thieves and any person who is not honourable. But promoting the gays’ agenda is evil and it is counter to God’s design to humanity, to productivity and it is unnatural….We hate the evil practice. Imagine section 96 of a report from the People’s Forum pleads to the Commonwealth to include issues of gays in the people’s rights….the inclusion of gays in the same category with people with disabilities and refugees is evil and breaks up the society.”
Ugandan Clergy at People’s Space and the Commonwealth People’s Forum, Hotel Africana in Kampala, Uganda. NOTE: Homosexuaity is illegal in Uganda.
Police beating a protestor at the opening of the Commonwealth meetings in Uganda.
Commonwealth stand on Fiji remains
COMMONWEALTH governments should recommend that Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) remain seized with the situation in Fiji and engage with all political parties to ensure early elections and the restoration of the independence of the judiciary and fundamental freedoms. The Commonwealth suspended Fiji’s membership after the events of 5 December last year.
Pakistan was suspended from the Commonwealth, increasing pressure on President Pervez Musharraf after he rebuffed its demands to lift emergency rule and quit as army chief. The state of emergency “represents a serious violation of the Commonwealth’s fundamental political values,” the body’s Secretary-General Don McKinnon said at a news conference in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, today.
Indian Diplomat Kamalesh Sharma New Commonwealth Secretary-General
The 53-nation Commonwealth of mainly former British colonies on Saturday appointed an Indian diplomat, Kamalesh Sharma, as its next secretary-general. The term of office of the current secretary-general, Don McKinnon of New Zealand, ends on March 31, 2008. McKinnon, has held the job for two terms, or eight years.
Caribbean Leaders Urge Britain To Review Deportee Policy
Two Caribbean leaders are speaking out on the issue of criminal deportees to the Caribbean and urging for a review of the British deportation policy. Guyana’s President, Bharrat Jagdeo emphasized the need for Britain to review its policy in relation to criminal deportees to Caribbean territories as the 2007 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting got underway in Uganda yesterday.
“So, you are sending out the criminals and taking all the trained people, so let us discuss…that is the point we are making, that it can’t be a situation where you just dump people on us and then you take all our qualified and trained people,” Dominican Prime Minister Rooseveldt Skerrit
“When the sophisticated criminals came back and started infusing our society with the advanced techniques in crime, our police forces (the Caribbean region) were not capable of responding, so now we have to restructure our police force,” Guyana’s President, Bharrat Jagdeo
Commonwealth’s Uncommon Poverty: Uganda has spent a whopping $120 million on the preparation of the Commonwealth meeting now taking place in Kampala. This has been a fortune for a few, but the hungry have remained even hungrier. A quarter of that amount would have gone a long way in largely solving the problems brought about by floods in eastern Uganda. The rich members of the Commonwealth should relax their rules on trade so that what one writer cynically described as “the absurdity of Sovereign mice and Sovereign elephants coming together as equals” is not a reflection of a modern Commonwealth. The wealth in the commonwealth should be made common.
Ours is a Commonwealth Poor People’s Forum, Kampala-Uganda 2007 that we have organized through a solidarity walk through the poor people’s communities, to highlight the plight of the people living under poor social conditions. We believe that these are the issues that should be high on the agenda of any meetings of the Commonwealth in the future if we are to realize this CHOGM’s theme of realizing people’s potential for social transformation.
Ssebaana Kizito, President of The Democratic Party, an opposition political party in Uganda
Bringing home the sheaves, Rajasthan, October 2007
http://jahajeedesi.blogspot.com/
“Here’s what I don’t understand: Rudolph Giuliani had three wives and he’s not the Mormon candidate?” –David Letterman
28 years after Idi Amin, Indians are back in business
| A speeding convoy of cars took Prime Minister Manmohan Singh from Entebbe airport to Sparrow Cottage at Munyonyo Speke Resort in Kampala last night. |
| The resort has 53 such cottages, one for each Commonwealth head of state. |
| It stands out like an oasis in poverty-stricken Uganda and is owned by Sudhir Ruparelia, an Indian. |
| Some of the best hotels and resorts in Kampala as well as in forest sanctuaries in the Ugandan interiors belong to Indians like Ruparelia. Local businessmen say almost 70 per cent top hotels in Kampala are owned by Indians. |
| Thirty five years after Idi Amin decided to rid Uganda of “Shahs and Patels” and gave all 55,000 Indians living in the country just three months to leave, Indians are back in control of business in Uganda. Unofficial estimates suggest they now account for 40-50 per cent of the Ugandan economy (the same as in 1972)and rank among the biggest employers and highest contributors to the government’s tax kitty. |
| Unlike in the past, when they had a dominating presence only in farm-related businesses like sugar, this time, Indians have a thumping presence in every sector of the Ugandan economy: Manufacturing, hospitality, trading, finance, agri-businesses and real estate…. MORE AT:
http://www.business-standard.com/common/storypage.php?autono=305310&leftnm=3&subLeft=0&chkFlg= |
Barriers to love
Whatever is in your heart that is not clean, not true, will ultimately begin to act like a wall, obstructing the natural flow of love. People who say that there is no love in their life, are being blocked by this wall. Actually there is love, but they just cant accept it. Ego is the clearest example of this. Ego limits the flow of love by placing conditions on the love you give and receive. Ego uses love to satisfy its own needs and desires. It produces a love which is deceptive, one which brings only temporary satisfaction. Ego does not allow you to experience true love or share it. If fact, ego is capable of destroying your ability to feel love altogether.
| PRIYA MANI | |||||
Tamil Actress, Priya Mani, who was born and brought up in Bangalore, is the granddaughter of famous Carnatic musician and a well known All India Radio artist from Thiruvananthapuram, Kamala Kailasnathan. Though Priya was introduced to films by Bharatiraja, she shot to fame with her second film, Balu Mahendra’s Athu Oru Kana Kaalam where Dhanush was her hero. And the years just keeps on getting better for the young actress. She recently won the Best Actress Award for her role in one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed films of 2007, Ameer’s Paruthiveeran at the 9th OSIAN Cinefan film festival for Asia and the Arab world. Paruthiveeran was judged the best film at the festival too. Her second Tamil film, Malaikottai, a typical commercial potboiler had a good run at the box office too. If she was a rural belle in Paruthiveeran, she was a glamorous doll in Malaikottai. |
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Hanuman Returns!  |
The world’s first superhero is back.After winning over children’s hearts in 2005, Hanuman returns to the theatres on December 28. A sequel to the previous film, Hanuman Returns will appear in a new form to save the world from annihilation.
 |
Made at a cost of Rs 17 crore, the story is set in today’s times. Hanuman will be born as Maruti, in a poor family. The film will have villains like One Eyed Man, Rahu-Ketu, Aghori and Guru Shukracharya. Hanuman’s friends are Narad Muni, Lord Brahma and Lord Vishnu.
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Economic`disaster unfolds in Trinidad’s sugar belt
Neither crime, high prices, the health system, education, water shortages, nor the loss of the election is the main issue facing the Indian community in Trinidad today. Indo
-Caribbean Times editor Ram Jagessar, just back from a trip covering the November 5 general elections, feels that the crisis issue facing Indos is the unfolding economic disaster coming down on the heads of as much as 60,000 sugar workers and cane farmers and their families following government’s decision to close down the entire sugar
industry. The ruling government has simply cut down the sugar industry and walked
away from these thousands of families… CONTINUED here:
http://www.esnips.com/web/Indo-CaribbeanTimes
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Radio Fiji Two
Radio Mirchi
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To predict the behavior of ordinary people in advance, you only have to assume that they will always try to escape a disagreeable situation with the smallest possible expenditure of intelligence.
– Friedrich Nietzsche
Navtarang Sargam
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A suitcase full of memories for many
Telling Lives shares the stories of people who moved to the borough from South East Asia in the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s.
It includes objects with special meaning on loan from members of the Indian Community Centre and Tameside Pakistani Elders’ Association. Social history curator Rachel Cornes said: “The result is a wonderfully eclectic display which captures people’s experiences of moving to this country. “Several people have lent their passports from when they first arrived in the UK, including passports from people forced to leave Uganda during the oppressive regime of the 1970s.”
Donated items include a handmade schoolbag used by a woman when she was a pupil in Uganda and a stuffed snake and mongoose with special memories donated by a man who bought them on his way out of Karachi airport in the 1960s. “He had trouble convincing customs to allow him to take them through!” Rachel added.
Recordings of interviews from the Lottery-funded Here to Stay project by Tameside Local Studies and Archives are also available. On the recordings, people from the Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Indian communities in Tameside recount their memories of arriving in Britain and the experience of getting to know their new country.
Telling Lives is at the Setantii Museum at Ashton Town Hall until January. Admission is free. Ring 342 2812 for more information.
RADIO JAAGRATI
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Professor Prabhakar presents
BACK IN TIMES INDIAN DANCE CONCERT
Dances and costumes
Film – Folk – Tribal
Classical & Semi-Classical
Rudranath Capildeo Learning Resource Center, Mc Bean, Trinidad
Sunday December 2nd, 2007, 5:30 pm
More information: 752-5829 370-2466
Tickets at Little Store, Maharajas, R & A Drugs, Fair & Square, and at the door
INDOCARIBBEAN TIMES – Current issue is available here:
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HARI OM
On Saturday 1st December 2007, Chinmaya Yuva Kendra in collaboration with Chinmaya Mission (Trinidad) will be hosting it’s 2nd annual Bhagavad Gita Symposium. The selected theme for this year’s event is
“GITA: The IM from God”
This event aims at maintaining the flow of this ultimate wisdom and instituting creative, productive and transforming discussions. The symposium’s general overview includes papers on self-selected topics relevant to the text, by differing members of the society. Previous topics included; “Universality of Gita”, “Metaphysics of Gita” and “Gita in the 21 st Century”. A panel of members will also be present during the symposium where participants can pose questions, comments and suggestions coming from the papers and otherwise. A feature of last year’s symposium was very active and compelling group discussion sessions where more one-on-one discussion excels. Furthermore, interactive displays and booths are present whereby persons get the opportunity to learn more about this evergreen scripture.
The public is invited. Please click on this link to our website for more information
http://chinmayamission.edu.tt/index_files/Gita%20Symposium.htm
OM TAT SAT
TRINIDAD, GUYANA, US, UK, FIJI, JAMAICA, SURINAME,
INTERNATIONAL INDIAN DIASPORA at:
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ISHANAA N. RAMBACHAN awarded Rhodes Scholarship
JahajeeDesi.com, Caribbean Hindus Network, and Hindu Council of the Caribbean extend congratulations to ISHANAA N. RAMBACHAN and her family for being awarded a US Rhodes scholarship. Her father, Professor Anantanand Rambachan, originally from Trinidad, is chair of the Religion Department at St. Olaf’s College, and her ncle Dr. Suruj Rambachan is Mayor of Chaguanas, TRINIDAD. It is indeed a wonderful achievement for Ishanaa to be included amongst the 32 winners of this prestigious award. We wish her the very best for continued success in the future.
Deosaran Bisnath
Editor, International Jahajee Journal
Moderator, Caribbean Hindus Network
President, Hindu Council of the Caribbean
Ishanaa N. Rambachan, Apple Valley, Minnesota, is a senior at St. Olaf College where she majors in political science and economics. Ishanaa is chair of the student senate and active in college and Twin Cities political organizations. She has strong interests in international development and has studied or worked in Turkey, Egypt, and with an NGO in microcredit and women’s empowerment in India. She has written about
discrimination against the Hindu diaspora and about caste abuses in India. She plans to do the M.Phil. in development studies at Oxford. Prof. Ramesh Rao writes: “Ishanaa Rambachan is a Hindu American Foundation executive council member and works with me on the Hindu Human Rights report. She is the daughter of Prof. Anantanand Rambachan, chair of the Religion Department at St. Olaf’s College.”
“We have always made education the No. 1 priority of our children,” said Rambachan’s father, Anantanand, the first non-Christian to head the religion department in St Olaf’s 133-year history. The selection has double meaning for the professor who has been teaching at St Olaf since 1985. “My delight is special because it is a dream come true for my daughter, and my wife and I are so proud of her,” Anantanand Rambachan said. “And yet, it’s also an honor for the faculty.”
A friend of Rambachan describes her as “a dark-eyed vixen who enjoys long walks on the beach and the feeling of wind against her face.” The friend adds: “ And don’t be fooled by Ishanaa’s respectable appearance- she knows how to ride a motorcycle in ways that would make even the most hardcore of bikers ashamed of themselves, and then goes home to watch The Disney Channel with her younger brothers.”
V S NAIPAUL: A Tribute
http://www.jahajeedesi.com/forums/index.php?showforum=56
Webpages and Forum dedicated to the NOBLE LAUREATE
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Lost and Found: The Universal Biography of Two Swans
There was once a king named Puranjan. He had a friend whose name was ‘unknown.’ The king wandered all around the world in search of a city to dwell in. When however he failed to find a suitable place to live, he became somewhat disappointed. He had rejected all available cities as unsuitable for fulfillment of his many desires.
Thus wandering, he came to the south of the Himalayas and saw a city with nine gates, which possessed all the characteristics that a good city should have. It was surrounded by gardens, watchtowers, moats, windows etc and it had houses with crests of gold, silver and iron. It was there that the king laid his eyes on a charming damsel of superb beauty. She was accompanied by ten servants, each of whom was the husband of a hundred ladies. The woman, in search of a suitable husband for herself, was protected on all sides by a five-hooded serpent. She was of an attractive… Continued at:
http://www.exoticindia.com/acrobat/jiva.pdf
TRINIDAD & GUYANA INDIAN DIASPORA at:
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Sunset, 40000 feet above terra firma
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St. John’s University Recognition Honor to Ashook Ramsaran
Namaskaar. JahajeeDesi.com, International Jahajee Journal, The Hindu Council of the Caribbean, and Caribbean Hindu Network extend congratulations to Ashook Ramsaran ji for being honored by St John’s University.
Ashook, who is the Secretary of GOPIO International, deserves this recognition for the fantastic service he has rendered to the International Diaspora Community.
Ashook will be funding the The Ashook K. Ramsaran Scholarship that has been established at St. John’s University for deserving students in Caribbean and Latin American studies at St John’s University in New York. We wish Ashook and his family the very best in the future as he continues to work tirelessly for the betterment of our people. All the best,
Deosaran Bisnath, Editor, International Jahajee Journal & JahajeeDesi.com
St. John’s University Recognition Honor to Ashook Ramsaran
St. John’s University’s Center on Caribbean and Latin American Studies (CLACS) on Thursday, November 15, 2007 paid tribute to Guyanese born Ashook Ramsaran for his extra-ordinary civic and humanitarian efforts, and presented a plaque of recognition to him at the President’s Room at the campus in Queens, New York. The event was a special luncheon attended by….More at: http://jahajeedesi.blogspot.com/
The Asian population of Africa is a small but significant minority. Whereas there have been Asians, primarily merchants, who lived on the east coast of Africa for hundreds, if not thousands, of years, a great influx of Asians came to Africa during the British colonial period. Asians in Africa are primarily from the Indian subcontinent, although there is a small proportion, perhaps 2 percent, who are from China.
A combination of famines in India and plentiful opportunities for work in Africa prompted thousands of Indians to immigrate to east, central, and southern Africa before the end of the nineteenth century. It was the British colonial interests that provided the opportunities for Indian immigration, particularly the building of the Uganda Railway. Local African labor was considered unreliable, so the British government brought in about 32,000 indentured laborers from India. The majority either died from diseases such as blackwater fever or returned to India, but 7,000 settled in East Africa. During the construction of the railway, some Indians began to come in as merchants and to establish dukas (shops), which initially catered to fellow Indians. After the end of the railway construction, merchant immigration from India continued until the 1920s, by which time the entire retail trade of East Africa was monopolized by Indians.
During the colonial period, Asians (Indians) in East and Central Africa came to occupy the middle rung of a three-tiered hierarchial system. Europeans, particularly … continued at:
http://postcardsfromuk.blogspot.com/2007/11/asians-from-afrcia.html
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CHUTNEY: Roots of rhythm
| The Chutney music symbolises the chord of connectivity non-resident Indians experience universally. The music group from Surinam displayed not just the Caribbean-Indian music skill, but their sense of belonging with India, the country of their origin as well. |
SPICY STUFF: The singing is an admixture of styles.
CHUTNEY CONCERT — the nomenclature sounds weird; it is a peculiarly Indian recipe comprising varied ingredients that contribute to the total effect of hot, fast consuming, spicy stuff. This exactly sums up the innovative music created by the Caribbean natives of Indian origin.
The singing is an admixture of styles with a modified calypso beat called `soca’ borrowed from the West and lyrics drawn mostly from the Devanagiri (Hindi) and its dialectical variations with a sprinkling of English/Dutch terms or whatever the local language.
The intonation is individualistic in as much as it can be termed Indian soca. If one imagines the outcome to be a cacophony, well, it is just the opposite. It is a melodious, meaningful, marvellous musical bonanza called Chutney! Kries (perhaps an acronym for Krishna) Ramkhelawan and his Chutney troupe from Surinam (one of the states in the Caribbean) comprising his father Rampersad Ramkhelawan, team mates Rajesh Sewnandan (probably a Surinamese version of Shiv Nandan) and Kries Puran were here in the twin cities as an extension of their tour of Indian metros beginning with the NRI festival in New Delhi recently. It was an evening of excellent musical presentation with just a harmonium and a dholak as accompaniments.
These typically Indian rustic tools could supplement an entire instrumental ensemble. Both the Kries’ adept fingers could produce vibrating resonance with a stunning effect leaving most of us in a state of stupor.
The content of Chutney singing is either romantic bordering on the brazen like most of the rural notes or a nostalgic penchant mood or philosophical in the Oriental fashion…. MORE AT:
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/mp/2003/01/27/stories/2003012701800100.htm
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…HINDUISM…FINANCE…HEALTH…LIFESTYLE…ARTS…at…
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~~~~~~~
HINDU WISDOM
It is a fool who blames the sun for his own blindness….The scriptures even proclaim aloud: “There is in truth no creation and no destruction; no one is bound, no one is seeking Liberation, no one is on the way to Deliverance. There are none Liberated. This is the absolute truth.” My dear disciple, this, the sum and substance of all the Upanishads, the secret of secrets, is my instruction to you.
-Shankaracharya
The mind becomes clear and serene when
the qualities of the heart are cultivated:
friendliness toward the joyful,
compassion toward the suffering,
happiness toward the pure,
and impartiality toward the impure.
-The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, 1:33
Among purifying forces I am the wind; among warriors, Rama. Of water creatures I am the crocodile, and of rivers I am the Ganges.
I am the beginning, middle, and end of creation. Of all the sciences I am the science of Self-knowledge, and I am logic in those who debate.
Bhagavad Gita 10:31-32
~
THE GLOBAL INDIAN MAGAZINE
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Desi Oral History Takes Shape At Indiana U
The first Indian-American oral history project is taking shape at the Center for the Study of History and Memory (formerly Oral History Research Center) at Indiana University archives in Bryan Hall. The project is currently divided into four groups: Indian American Communities in Indiana (1999-2000), Indian American Communities in the Hoosier State (1999-2000), Indian American Communities in Fort Wayne (1999-2000), and Indian American Diaspora in the Hoosier State (1999-2002).According to M. Gail Hickey, professor of education at IU, “the growing presence of Asian Indians here and elsewhere in the U.S., and the diversity of their experiences, calls for new study and interpretive techniques that can suitably capture their memories and preserve their experiences.”The project consists of Indian-American views of all aspects of life in the United States and India which was collected between 1998 and 2002. Most interviewed in this project were born in India and came to America in search of better education, or because their spouse came for more educational and business opportunities. They discuss their reasons for immigrating to the United States, and their reasons for remaining to raise their children. They talk about the ways they practice Indian traditions and values in an American context and the importance of the larger Indian-American community in their lives. They also discuss advantages … MORE AT:
http://www.indolink.com/displayArticleS.php?id=111007104722
“Last night during the Democratic presidential debate, Senator Barack Obama accused Hillary Clinton of frequently changing positions. After hearing this, Bill Clinton said, ‘I wish.’” –Conan O’Brien
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Mauritius: the colour of happiness
Turquoise lagoons, pink pigeons, rose-tinted sunsets – Frances Causer and her family are enchanted by the many shades of Mauritius.
‘It looks like dinosaur country!” exclaimed my daughter when we first saw Mauritius from the air, with its lush, green and improbably jagged hills. “Enjoy yourselves in Paradise!” said the immigration official with a big smile as he handed back our passports. In all our travels we had never seen a smiling immigration official, and we decided there and then that Mauritius was going to be special…. Continued at:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/main.jhtml?xml=/travel/2007/11/18/et-mauritius-118.xml
Inspiration
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RISE ABOVE THE TWO MOODS
In vedanta there are only two kinds of moods – joy, exultation or exhilaration and grief or depression. Now there is joy and five minutes later there is depression – the currents alternate. They belong to the sad-urmis (six waves, i.e. grief, delusion, hunger, thirst, decay and death). People of gloomy moods attract gloomy thoughts from others and from the akasic (etheric) records in the psychic ether. Persons with hope, cheerfulness and confidence attract similar thoughts from others – they are always successful in their attempts. People with negative moods of depression, anger and hatred do positive harm to others – and great damage in the thought world.
Try to eradicate depression through prayer, meditation, counter-thoughts of joy, chanting Om, self-enquiry and singing divine songs. There are various causes for depression – cloudy day, associating with evil persons, indigestion, influence of astral spirits and revival of old impressions of depression. When you get into a talking mood – practise mouna (silence) at once. When you are in a mood of hatred, develop the opposite virtue, love, and the mood will pass quickly. When you feel selfishness arise, do selfless work. When you are in the mood of separateness, mix with others – through service, love, kindness and forgiveness. If you feel lazy, do some active work.
A liberated being is free from all moods – he has become their master. In atman (self) there are no moods, there is only pure consciousness. Identify with Atman and you will easily destroy all moods. However, there is one good mood – the meditative mood. When this manifests, immediately give up reading, writing, talking etc., and begin to meditate. Watch for this kind of mood – when meditation comes by itself, without effort.
Laugh and smile. How can a mind that is dull and gloomy think of God? Try to be happy always. Happiness is your very nature. The spirit of cheerfulness must be cultivated by all aspirants.
SWAMI SIVANANDA READINGS
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FIJI: A good call on the land
Quite candidly, it was almost like a diabolical scheme for the tenant to come in, do all the back-breaking development work and get chased off just when his children reach marriage age. There is, however, one over-riding suspicion which must be mentioned. All past governments since 1970 were afraid to tamper with native land even though they knew the archaic laws constrained native landowners to remain poor…..I remember a brilliant Indian leader from my young days who said something about a boy in a manger mentality which Fijians had. A.D. Patel’s phrase remained with us for about 50 years.
Cane farmers and truck drivers take a break at FSC
We protected our land and denied its use to those who genuinely wanted to do so, in much the same way as the dog chases away horses and cattle that want to eat the grass in the manger…..When the tears of farmers started streaming down their faces when their 30-year farm leases started expiring in 1997, we were entrapped in a rig of our own making. It was a silly thing to do.
We watched in disbelief as our brothers tore down their houses, harvested their crops, turned their backs on their parents mandir, school, lifetime friends and moved to nowhere. They now make home in mangrove areas on the outskirts of towns as squatters. All those hundreds of years of farm knowledge and skills out the window…. MORE AT:
http://www.fijitimes.com/story.aspx?id=74597
Word of the Week
flaneur \flah-NUR\, noun:
One who strolls about aimlessly; a lounger; a loafer.
Burrows and Wallace show how New York embraced the idea of the flaneur — of the disinterested, artistically inclined wanderer in the city, of what they call “city watching.”
– Jed Perl, “The Adolescent City”, New Republic, January 22, 2001
The restricted hotel lobby has replaced the square or piazza as a public meeting place, and our boulevards, such as they are, are not avenues for the parade and observation of personality, or for perusal by the flaneur, but conveyor belts to the stores, where we can buy everything but human understanding.
– Anatole Broyard, “In Praise of Contact”, New York Times, June 27, 1982
Baudelaire saw the writer as a detached flaneur, a mocking dandy in the big-city crowd, alienated, isolated, anonymous, aristocratic, melancholic.
– Ian Buruma, “The Romance of Exile”, New Republic, February 12, 2001
Flaneur comes from French, from flâner, “to saunter; to stroll; to lounge about.”
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“The Washington Post reports that Senator Hillary Clinton is trying to win the Democratic nomination by reaching out to women. After hearing this, Bill Clinton said, ‘Oh sure, when she does it, it’s okay.’” –Conan O’Brien
INDIA BLOOMING: Uganda today shouts the ‘India wanted’ slogan.
KAMPALA: Scars of trauma have given way to smiles of success. Thirty five years after dictator Idi Amin hounded their forefathers out of Uganda, this country is once again witnessing a blooming of Indian entrepreneurship. The past, for this generation, is an aberration scripted by an eccentric Field Marshal. Right from the ‘chapathi company’ at Kewano on the outskirts to huge Mehta Group’s well-illumined board, Uganda today shouts the ‘India wanted’ slogan.
Though only 2,000 of the 55,000 Indians returned after President Kaguta Museveni rolled out a red carpet immediately after ascending power, Uganda today has close to 20,000 Indians involved in a gamut of businesses from steel to pharmaceuticals.
“It has always been a people-to-people relation. Today, Indians are the biggest tax payers. The government is also offering them all support and protection,” says High Commissioner Neeraj Srivasthav. He said even minor incidents … MORE AT:
http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEH20071123133043&Headline=India+blooms+but+Chinese+dragon+too+is+here&Title=Top+Stories&Topic=0
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The Secret Of Immeasureable Wealth
The secret of immeasureable wealth is to need less. The wealthiest human beings ultimately give away vast amounts of the money that they have spent half their lifetime acquiring, This suggests that the motivation behind all their efforts was not the pursuit of wealth but something else. The need to prove something to oneself, for instance? Replace need – whether it be at an emotional or physical level – with an unshakeable faith in one’s self and in God. Neither will ever let you down, if you hold fast to this faith.
“Did you hear that Dick Cheney and Barack Obama are cousins? It’s strange, isn’t it? In a related story, 20 years ago, it turns out Rudy Giuliani was briefly married to himself.” –David Letterman
The nation certainly sounds as if it’s in an angry place on immigration
A major Senate reform bill collapsed in rancor in June, and every effort to revive innocuous bits of it, like a bill to legalize exemplary high school graduates, has been crushed. Gov. Eliot Spitzer of New York hatched a plan to let illegal immigrants earn driver’s licenses — and steamrollered into the Valley of Death. Asked if she supported Mr. Spitzer, Senator Hillary Clinton tied herself in knots looking for the safest answer.
The Republican presidential candidates, meanwhile, are doggedly out-toughing one another — even Rudolph Giuliani, who once defended but now disowns the immigrants who pulled his hard-up city out of a ditch. A freshman Democratic representative, Heath Shuler of North Carolina, has submitted an enforcement bill bristling with border fencing and punishments. Representative Tom Tancredo, Republican of Colorado, for whom restricting immigration is the first, last and only issue, says he will not run again when his term expires next year. I have done all I can, he says, like some weary gunslinger covered in blood and dust.
The natural allies of immigrants have been cowed into mumbling or silent avoidance. The Democrats’ chief strategist, Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, went so far as to declare immigration the latest “third rail of American politics.” This profile in squeamishness was on full display at the Democratic presidential debate last week in Las Vegas, when Wolf Blitzer pressed the candidates for yes-or-no answers on driver’s licenses and Mrs. Clinton, to her great discredit, said no.
This year’s federal failure will not be undone until 2009 at the earliest, while states and local governments will continue doing their own thing, creating a mishmash of immigration policies, most of them harsh and shortsighted. But the wilderness of anger into which Mr. Tancredo helped lead America is not where the country has to be on this vitally important issue, nor where it truly is.
•
Mrs. Clinton was closer to being right the first time, when she haltingly defended Mr. Spitzer’s reasoning. Fixing immigration is not a yes-or-no question. It’s yes and no. Or if you prefer, no and yes — no to more illegal immigration, to uncontrolled borders and to a flourishing underground economy where employer greed feeds off worker desperation. Yes to extending the blanket of law over the anonymous, undocumented population — through fines and other penalties for breaking the nation’s laws and an orderly path to legal status and citizenship to those who qualify.
These are the ingredients of a realistic approach to a complicated problem. It’s called comprehensive reform, and it rests on the idea that having an undocumented underclass does the country more harm than good. This is not “open-borders amnesty,” a false label stuck on by those who want enforcement and nothing else. It’s tough on the border and on those who sneaked across it. It’s tough but fair to employers who need immigrant workers. It recognizes that American citizens should not have to compete for jobs with a desperate population frightened into accepting rock-bottom wages and working conditions. It makes a serious effort to fix legal immigration by creating an orderly future flow of legal workers.
Americans accept this approach. The National Immigration Forum has compiled nearly two dozen polls from 2007 alone that show Americans consistently favoring a combination of tough enforcement and earned legalization over just enforcement. Elections confirm this. Straight-talking moderates like Gov. Janet Napolitano of Arizona and Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico thrive in the immigration crucible along the southern border. Those who obsess about immigration as single-issue hard-liners, like the Arizonans J. D. Hayworth and Randy Graf, have disappeared, booted by voters. Voters in Virginia this month rejected similar candidates and handed control of the State Senate to Democrats.
It may not be “amnesty” that gets Americans worked up as much as inaction. They seem to sense the weakness and futility in the enforcement-only strategy, the idea of tightening the screws on an informal apartheid system until it is so frightening and hopeless that millions of poor people pack up and leave.
That is the attrition argument, the only answer the anti-amnesty crowd has to comprehensive reform. It is, of course, a passive amnesty that rewards only the most furtive and wily illegal immigrants and the bottom-feeding employers who hire them. It will drive some people out of the country, but will push millions of others — families with members of mixed immigration status, lots of citizen children and practically a nation’s worth of decent, hard workers — further into hiding.
We are already seeing what a full-bore enforcement-only strategy will bring. Bias crimes against Hispanic people are up, hate groups are on the march. Legal immigration remains a mess. Applications for citizenship are up, and the federal citizenship agency, which steeply raised its fees to increase efficiency, is drowning in paperwork and delays. American citizens are being caught up in house-to-house raids by immigration agents.
•
America is waiting for a leader to risk saying that the best answer is not the simplest one. As John Edwards said at the last debate, “When is our party going to show a little backbone and strength and courage and speak up for those people who have been left behind?”
He was talking about the poor and people without health insurance, but he could — and should — have included a host of others: Business owners who want to hire legal workers. Americans who don’t want their opportunities undermined by the off-the-books economy. Children whose dreams of education and advancement are thwarted by their parents’ hopeless immigration status. And the immigrants, here and abroad, who want to find their place in a society that once welcomed their honest labor, but can’t find a way to do it anymore.
Indian Diplomat Kamalesh Sharma New Commonwealth Secretary-General
The 53-nation Commonwealth of mainly former British colonies on Saturday appointed an Indian diplomat, Kamalesh Sharma, as its next secretary-general.
The term of office of the current secretary-general, Don McKinnon of New Zealand, ends on March 31, 2008. McKinnon, has held the job for two terms, or eight years.
Sharma is currently a member of the Board of Governors of Commonwealth Secretariat and the Commonwealth Foundation where he has taken keen interest in the activities and guided India’s close engagement with the Commonwealth since 2004.
He has served as India’s Permanent Representative in New York during which he chaired the Working Group on Financing for Development and the successful consensus building that he has achieved led to the conference yielding the ‘Monterrey Consensus’ in the conference in Mexico.
He was closely engaged in the process which led to the formulation and adoption of the Millennium Development Goals.
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‘jahaj’ = ship; ‘desi’ = Indian
‘JahajeeDesi’ = The Indians who crossed the Kala Pani by ship,
the Indentured Indian Immigrants, and their descendents.
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