The statements, opinions, or views in the articles may not necessarily reflect that of the Goan Voice Canada.

The Dance And Decadence Of Indian Democracy
By Adolf Washington 07-04-2008 | By SARNEWS

BANGALORE, Karnataka(SAR NEWS) --The dance of Indian democracy is missing its steps. What are we making of a nation where film stars, religious fanatics, school dropouts and even under-trials and confirmed criminals contest elections! We are making our nation a perfect combo of drama, communalism, crime and socio-economic stagnation.

The sanctity of the Indian parliament has been violated enough and more times by sitting MPs who have stood up in defiance of the Constitutional decorum by being brutally verbose, indulging in vandalism and hooliganism. Whom will we have in the 15th Lok Sabha?

The decadence of our democratic system is becoming all too evident with hate speeches now dominating election campaigns, with one making verbal assaults against the Muslim community and another in Karnataka saying “the heads of those who oppose Hindutva must be cut off” (despite the law forbidding use of religion in campaigning).

Think about party tickets becoming family inheritance with sons and daughters (of course, wives, too) getting party tickets. No party is an exception to such party ticket gymnastics. Think about ageing politicians refusing to give way to younger and newer contestants. Ironically, a very ageing Congressman told the media recently that his party has a special concern for the young but reliable sources tell us that several young aspiring contestants were denied a ticket. It could be true of other parties as well.

We the electorate must laugh at ourselves when we think of politicians declaring their assets in crores but claiming not owning a house or personal vehicle for themselves! Talk about notes for votes scams and the scandalous alliances between parties to ‘fight a common enemy’, even at the cost of diluting revered party ideologies or indulging in horse-trading. Some shrewd politician called the formation of the ‘third-front’ in Karnataka only a parking lot.

Though poverty was a harsh reality even during the early years of our democracy, votes were not bartered for notes or promises of cheap rice or free televisions. What took precedence and priority in election speeches was patriotism and the unity of the nation.

Political leaders carried the people with them in a spirit of patriotism. Even when plates were empty, hearts were full of zeal for the country. With such zeal for the country, socio-economic development followed naturally.

The present scenario is disconcerting. Political speeches are tearing the nation apart, creating chasms and walls between people of different communities, languages and castes. The strife and vendetta is getting stronger within the nation than that taking place at our nation’s borders.

We are making ourselves more vulnerable by creating divides between ourselves. The enemy at the gates is laughing.

Issues of cross-border terrorism, insurgency and militancy can be addressed only when leaders of all political parties have sufficiently convinced themselves that a nation divided cannot stand against an external enemy. Only when party leaders have a commitment to bring down walls that isolate people and communities from each other, will poverty, unemployment, violence and those myriad issues that plague us, soon disappear.

The electorate must decide the dance and the steps. One hopes the 15th Lok Sabha will be a different dance.

A Weekly Visit To A Nursing Home Can Be An Act Of Love
Our vulnerable elders need the voice of a concerned advocate
Source: http://www.wcr.ab.ca/columns/markpickup/2009/markpickup041309.shtml
My Glass is Half Full | By Mark Pickup

In 1979, the Protestant theologian, Dr. Francis Schaeffer, and paediatric surgeon, Dr. Everett Koop, made a film called Whatever Happened to the Human Race? It was a courageous production that dealt with abortion, infanticide and the eventual acceptance of euthanasia.

Here we are 30 years later and the film has proven prophetic. At one point during the film, it was stated, “There is little difference between active euthanasia and the way so many of the elderly are abandoned to a living death in the old folks’ homes.”

WAITING FOR GOD

I’m not sure about the moral comparison to euthanasia, but it is true that many nursing and old folks’ homes are like a living death. This came into striking focus for my wife recently when she visited a nursing home where her mother was scheduled to go to live. I won’t identify the facility: instead I’ll give it the fictitious name of Shady Pines.

The place was dirty, dingy and depressing. Patients sat in dreary grey wheelchairs in dreary grey rooms, marking time. Human dignity had been replaced by utility and attrition. It was a nursing home in name only. The word “nursing” conjures up images of loving care and “homes” are where people live. Shady Pines was neither.

HUMAN DUMPING GROUND

No, Shady Pines is a human dumping ground for poor, unwanted and unloved old people or the severely disabled. People do not live at Shady Pines they exist there. It is the last stop, a place where unwanted people are warehoused until they die.

Why do I think patients at Shady Pines must be poor, unwanted and unloved? I believe this because surely no one’s family would leave a loved one in that terrible place unless finances prohibited any other option. If a life well lived is like a beautiful rhapsody then Shady Pines is atonal, discordant and jarring noise that insults the concept of being alive. My wife began to militate for a better option. Happily, people who have the power to make such decisions relented and found a better facility. My wife illustrated the truth of the adage about squeaky wheels getting the grease.

PERSONAL ADVOCATE

Vulnerable people need advocates, otherwise they can get lost in bureaucratic decision-making that may not be in their best interests. It may not be intentional, but those who are unable to speak up for themselves can easily be overwhelmed by government regulations, policies, institutional procedures and general human ineptitude. It can work against them and in extreme cases even prove deadly.

The need for personal advocates will increase as the population ages. But what will happen to people who have nobody to advocate for them? Precisely. What about them? The voiceless always lose, but things can be different. As Christians we are called to show our concern — through our words and actions — for “the least of these.” What we do for the needy, the lonely, the suffering, the disenfranchised . . . we do to Christ. He told us this.

Elsewhere, Jesus said, “Do to others whatever you would have them do to you. This is the law of the prophets” (Matthew 7.12, also Luke 6.31). As the Saviour said, this moral standard for human behaviour dates back to antiquity. Since the 18th century, this principle has been known as the Golden Rule.

Would you want people to visit you, or to advocate for your welfare if you lived in an institutionalized or inferior nursing home? If so, then that is how we must behave toward others who are in that situation. Living by the Golden Rule does not always mean going up against a giant bureaucracy for the sake of somebody being hurt by it. It can be something as easy and simple as regularly visiting a person in a nursing home who may have been forgotten or who gets few visitors.

You do not have to know the patient. Introduce yourself, start a friendship. Perhaps it might only require an hour or two of your week, but it may mean the world to the nursing home patient. For all we know those few hours might be their only connection to the outside community — or anything that resembles human affection.

LOVE IS A VERB

Little things can mean so much to people and to God. When Jesus said, “Love one another as I have loved you,” it was a command to his followers, not a suggestion. He meant the word “love” as a verb.

Real love is not passive. Real love is engaged with the living Christ and reflects onto the lives of other people — especially those who need love most. Jesus said if we do this, then everyone will know we are his disciples. Love is the best evangelism.

Digital Darwinism: Today's reality
http://www.merinews.com/catFull.jsp?articleID=15764644
Article by Samiha Nettikkara

Darwin's theory of the 'survival of the fittest' applies to the present era where those who need to be economically and socially progressive, cannot afford to be technologically backward.

In today’s terms, Charles Darwin should be writing about bandwidth-hungry megapolises, in which wired humans try to eke out a cyber living. Some of them, obviously, would tire out in the evening or be another’s food. Some will cease to exist, as did their forefathers whose muscles waned and thence lost wars, women and land.

Darwin talked about species getting wiped out if they could not find and protect enough pastures. New age companies wait agonizingly at every turn for the predator’s breath to blow over them in a Darwinian apocalypse. Some survive, some not. The fittest survived then, the best wired will survive from now on. Digital Darwinism is here.

E-fitness is the ticket to your tomorrows though the journey to the zenith of technology is rough. There may be treacherous detours. Novices and laggards are deserted without a qualm. The savage ruthlessness of Darwin’s so-called 'natural selection' has further alienated the North and the South that have always been at odds. Obsession with gaining the techno-savvy Numero Uno title has made all oblivious to this glaring 'Digital Divide'.

The term 'Digital Divide' was popularised by Larry Irving in the mid-1990s. It symbolises two groups of the world, the digital haves and the digital have nots, the 'us' and 'them' that may obliterate the fragile world peace. Societies and economies are defined in terms of Internet access and computer use. Digital divide isn't merely about the matter of Internet access. Keeping in sync with Darwin's evolution theory, technology and Internet grew in more advanced statures. Social penetration took place. The cybercafé became a medium for cheap access. Then, the competition turned to a higher level of technical skills and literacy.

The ability to use Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) effectively, the availability of useful, quality digital data, quality of connection, auxiliary services, processing speed of the computer and the like were assessed diligently though PCs are no longer requisites for Internet access. In an age where life without the latest gizmos is inconceivable for the average urban individual, global statistics paint a different picture. Only 19% of the Chinese have access to the Internet in a country that saw a 20% Internet population growth in 2006. Of all the Internet users worldwide, 60 per cent reside in North America, where a mere five per cent of the world's population resides.

This demarcating situation became an issue among concerned parties, such as scholars, policy makers and governments, in the late 1990s. Some countries were better equipped than others to reap the benefits of the burgeoning Internet technology. It widened the chasm between the economies of the world. Contrarily, global digital divide could also be a mere reflection of the prevalent economic conditions. Whatever maybe the situation, it's grossly unfair that only a handful of nations thrive economically on a local and global scale while the less-endowed countries languish.

Jobs and education correlate closely with the Internet. So, obviously the poor remain uneducated and are nullified from competing in the global economy. Greater economic downfall naturally follows. The utopian 'Information Society' and the so-called revolutionary power of the Internet are impotent to stop this crisis from affecting the world on all levels, be it social, political or economic. Closing this digital divide is crucial for Digital Inclusion or the incorporation of information technologies into the community for promoting education and improving the quality of life. Though it won't lead to the fruition of an ideal world, it provides socio-economic benefits.

In theory, two perspectives to remedy digital divide exist: pro-intervention and anti-intervention.

The former staunchly believes in the omnipotence of technology and the urgent need to bridge the North-South gap. Else, the brainpower, skilled labor force and the ideas the South has to offer are lost to the world. This crisis calls for an obligation on the part of the Global North to share their wealth and advances with the rest of the world, especially if there is extra money and aid available. If not, running a slow economy at par with fast-paced technology will become a tougher ordeal. A few others hold the opinion that the poor have more pressing needs like hunger, poverty, water, etc. Intervention to close the digital divide would seem shallow. Suspicions are rampant about whether closing the digital divide is a façade for 'Americanization' or some 'hidden agenda of the rich.'

The techno-savvy nations lack the first-hand experience needed to assimilate the wants and needs of the poor. Much Internet content is one-sided; from North to South. Also, funding would be wasted in the absence of trained personnel. Skeptics of the 'Digital Divide' problem maintain that it is just a reflection of divides that have always existed within society while some say that that the entire divide is just a perception and does not really exist. Some industry analysts even say that there is no digital divide but rather an education divide that is only exaggerated because of the growth of information technology.

According to Gordon Moore, one of the Intel founders, the power of computer chips will double every 18 months while the cost remains constant. With worldwide Internet usage rising exponentially and projected to reach 375,000,000 users this year, there is no need for the divide to become a front-page issue. The UN has also made hoopla about it in its summits and action plans. But research indicates the steady shrinking of the divide, with little UN intervention. Organizations and foundations such as AMD, Solectron, DOT Force, YTF, Cottonwood and Gates Foundation are helping the needy with donations and innovative but cheap technologies. This is the kind of international effort that is needed to bridge the digital divide.

It will be the world's entrepreneurs, not its bureaucrats, who get the job done and hopefully, Digital Divide will become an unfortunate memory from the past and cease to exist as a global barrier.