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Community action urged at Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce Open House http://www.southasianfocus.ca/business/article/82901 Wednesday December 16 2009 Steve Gupta, President and CEO of Easton's Group of Companies, exhorted Canadians of Indian origin to become active in community work and enhance their participation in community activities. "It's by working together that we can make our community rise and shine," Gupta said. He was addressing members of the Indian community at an Open House event of the Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce. The event was organized at the Hilton Garden Inn in Mississauga, a part of the chain of Easton's Group's hotels. The Open House event attracted several residents of the Peel region. Many of them became members of the Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce during the event. Asha Luthra, President of the ICCC, emphasized some of the recent achievements of the chamber. "Our chamber has actively participated in the formation of the Greater Toronto Business Alliance, an alliance that involves the Chinese, the Italian and the Portuguese chambers of commerce," Luthra said. She also informed the audience that the Chamber had recently signed an MoU with Commonwealth Canada. "It'll create more impact for India's effort to sell the Commonwealth Games next year." Imtiaz Seyid, Director of Membership and Advocacy, explained the value of membership to the audience. "We focus on business, knowledge, and social parameters.

Stop forcing children to grow up too quickly, says Archbishop of Canterbury http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6967782.ece December 26, 2009 | Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent | Dr Rowan Williams Children are being forced to grow up too quickly in a culture that refuses to recognise that human beings are naturally dependent on one another, the Archbishop of Canterbury warned yesterday. Dr Rowan Williams condemned the pressure on children to become “active little consumers and performers” at the earliest opportunity. Preaching at Canterbury Cathedral, Dr Williams said contemporary life had become characterised by a basic impatience about learning. He said that too many people, including the elderly and children, were expected to stand on their own feet without support from outside. “We send out the message that if you’re not standing on your own two feet and if you need regular support, you’re an anomaly. We’ll look after you (with a bit of a sigh), but frankly it’s not ideal,” he said. The message being sent out to children today was: “We shall test you relentlessly in schools, we shall bombard you with advertising, often highly sexualised advertising, we shall worry you about your prospects and skills from the word go. We shall do all we can to make childhood a brief and rather regrettable stage on the way to the real thing, which is ‘independence’, turning you into a useful cog in the social machine that won’t need too much maintenance.” Parents should learn to enjoy their children’s dependence on them, instead of forcing them prematurely into independence. He also referred to the sufferings of children being used as child soldiers and caught up in conflicts around the world, such as “the meaningless and savage civil wars in places like Congo and Sri Lanka - children who are abducted, brutalised, turned into killers, used as sex slaves”. The Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, also addressed the pressures faced by young people. Preaching at Westminster Cathedral, he said: “Each of us is called to grow and mature from an infancy of faith into a mature willingness - like Mary’s - to be instruments not of our own ambition, but of God’s will. “This is our struggle, for while we long for peace there is still conflict within our hearts. Conflicts fill the news and cause injury and death to those in Afghanistan and Iraq who are so much in our prayers at this time. While we long for a sense of community, so many youngsters resort to gangs and gang violence to bolster their weakened sense of identity. While we long for reconciliation there is still such bitterness in our bloodstream.” The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, also preached on the theme of offering refuge to the oppressed and those fleeing persecution. The “revolutionary” story of Christmas proclaims the reign of God over all other rulers, the Archbishop of Wales, Dr Barry Morgan, said. The first Christians had chosen Jesus as their Lord over Caesar, he said. “Caesar was lord through conquest and oppression and violence. Jesus was Lord because He had come to bring justice and non-violence to the Earth. “So these birth stories are not at all what they seem. They proclaim the lordship of Jesus and the reign of God over and against the rulers of this world - so much for keeping religion and politics apart.” In his sermon at Llandaff Cathedral, Cardiff, he said: “To say Jesus is Lord is to join Him in His fight against everything and anything that dehumanises and degrades human beings. “It’s pretty revolutionary stuff - and when we come and worship at that crib, we need to realise exactly what we are signing up to.”

China on course to overtake Japan http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/5379542.cms?prtpage=1 26 Dec 2009, BEIJING: China raised its 2008 growth estimate to 9.6% from 9% and said this year’s quarterly figures will increase, narrowing the gap with Japan, the world’s second-biggest economy. Gross domestic product was 31.405 trillion yuan ($4.6 trillion) last year, the statistics bureau said at a briefing in Beijing on Friday. That compares with a previous 30.067 trillion yuan and the World Bank’s estimate of $4.9 trillion for Japan. China’s expansion will be more than 8% in 2009, according to government officials, and the nation is poised to overtake Japan next year, International Monetary Fund projections show. Friday’s figures result from an economic census which showed a bigger contribution from services and continue a pattern of China revising up preliminary growth estimates. “The big underlying factor propelling China’s growth is the continued migration of people from the agricultural sector to the more modern economy - industry and services,” said David Cohen, an economist at Action Economic in Singapore. “There’s no stopping China.” For 2009, revisions will mainly affect the value of the year’s gross domestic product, with a “very small” impact on the growth rate, said Peng Zhilong, the head of the bureau’s national economy calculation department. China’s expansion in 2008 compares with US growth of less than 1%. Japan’s gross domestic product shrank 1.2%. The Indian economy expanded 6.7% in the fiscal year ended March 2009. This year, the Chinese economy grew 8.9% in the third quarter from a year earlier, 7.9% in the second and 6.1% in the first. The government has pledged to maintain a “moderately loose” monetary policy in 2010 to sustain a rebound driven by a stimulus package and record lending. The pace of growth is attracting more investment. Foreign direct investment climbed 32% in November to $7 billion from a year earlier. Luxury carmaker Bayerische Motoren Werke said last month that it will build a new factory worth 5 billion yuan in China to tap an auto market set to overtake the US as the world’s largest. “Investors are anxious to participate in what remains, with India, the biggest story that’s out there,” Action Economics’ Cohen said. Friday’s figures showed a 13.1 trillion yuan contribution from services in 2008, compared with 12 trillion yuan previously. The census, intended to give a better picture of the economy’s make-up, focused on industry and services rather than agriculture. Gross domestic product figures for 2005, 2006 and 2007 will also be revised as a result of the census, Peng said. China’s economy was 4.4% bigger in 2008 than originally estimated, today’s figures showed. In comparison, a previous census in 2005 showed the statistics bureau had under- estimated the size of the 2004 economy by 17%. Besides the census, China routinely carries out a first and second check of each set of annual figures for gross domestic product, issuing revisions where necessary. In April last year, the bureau raised the growth figure for 2007 to 11.9% from 11.4%, citing larger estimates for the contribution from service industries such as telecommunications and retailing. In January this year, it raised the estimate again to 13%. “Upward revisions of China’s GDP numbers are frequent, large and well expected, so we expect little market impact from today’s revision,” Lu Ting, a Hong Kong-based economist for Bank of America-Merrill Lynch said. China also revised energy consumption per unit of economic output in 2008, officials led by chief statistician Ma Jiantang said. The measure showed a drop of 5.2% compared with an earlier estimate of a 4.59% decline. The statisticians revised up energy consumption for the year by 2.12% to the equivalent of 2.91 billion tonnes of standard coal. Before this month’s talks in Copenhagen on climate change, China announced a target of cutting its 2005 levels of carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by between 40 percent and 45% by 2020. Today’s figures suggest “it should be a reasonable goal,” Merrill’s Lu said.

Copenhagen Accord excludes Inuit but contains promise of hope http://www.itk.ca/media-centre/media-releases/copenhagen-accord-excludes Submitted by itkadmin on Monday, December 21, 2009 National Inuit Leader Mary Simon, president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, responded to the Copenhagen Accord, recognized by 193 nations on Friday, including Canada, with a mixture of disappointment and hope. “It is disheartening that this document contains no mention of Arctic regions,” said Simon, who was in Copenhagen last week as one of 17 special advisors to Canadian Environment Minister Jim Prentice. But she expressed hope that the process going forward will be responsive to Inuit concerns, in particular because of its historic nature – it is the first time the world’s two biggest emitters, the United States and China, have found common ground on climate change. The Accord recognizes the need to limit the rise in global temperatures to no more than 2C above pre-industrial levels. But even with such limitations, the Arctic will experience a much larger increase, which may lead to changes in the Arctic ecosystem that will make it hard for Inuit to continue to hunt and travel safely the way we have for thousands of years. “To be effective,” said Simon, “the process emerging from this conference must recognize the impact of climate change on Inuit by pursuing targets that will eliminate further climate change impacts on the Arctic.” Simon had urged world leaders to make adaptation programs and financing available to populations at risk in both developing and developed countries, including the Inuit populations. And while the Accord “recognize[s] the critical impacts of climate change and the potential impacts of response measures of countries particularly vulnerable to its adverse effects,” it contains no specific mention of the Arctic. “It is incumbent on world leaders to acknowledge the needs of all populations at risk and I am disappointed that this lengthy international process failed to recognize the disproportionate effects of climate change on areas dependent on ice and snow,” she said. “The onus is now on Canada to make concrete and meaningful financial commitments to help Inuit adapt.” About ITK Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, formerly Inuit Tapirisat of Canada, is the national voice of Canada's Inuit. Founded in 1971, the organization represents and promotes the interests of Inuit. In its history, ITK has been effective and successful at advancing Inuit interests by forging constructive and co-operative relationships with different levels of government in Canada, notably in the area of comprehensive land claim settlements, and representing Inuit during the constitutional talks of the 1980s. For more information: Patricia D’Souza, communications officer Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami dsouza@itk.ca; 613/292-4482

Sikhs in Canada deliberate on Climate change http://www.southasianobserver.com/south_asian_canadian_news.php?mid=1&cid=1910 Dec 20 2009 Toronto area Sikh community for the first time had series of events on Climate change and environmental issues throughout the weekend in various gurdwaras. Sikh environmentalist activist Baba Sewa Singh from Khadur Sahib, India, was honored during these meetings by the Sikh community for his efforts on behalf of the environment.  Climate Action Network, in partnership with Dixie Road Gurdwara and EcoSikh.org had invited Baba Sewa Singh and Dr. Rajwant Singh, Chairman of Sikh Council on Religion and Education and Convener of EcoSikh, to speak in three programs focused on Climate change issues in major Sikh centers in Toronto. Baba Sewa Singh and Dr. Singh addressed over 500 Sikh youth at Dixie Road Gurdwara in Mississaua and a large gathering in Malton Gurdwara in Mississauga. Final conference was held at the Dixie Road Gurdwara on Sunday which was attended by a large congregation.