Polio breakthrough: India marks disease-free year
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5h0dTKJTf9wcHnu1uba7z1Xb4YyiA...
By Adam Plowright (AFP) – 13 hours ago

In the year since January 13, 2011, India has had zero cases of polio. Previously, India led the world, accumulating over 5,000 cases since 2000. Polio's last victim in India was 18 month-old Rukhsar, a girl in West Bengal who began showing signs of paralysis on this day in 2011. Now, epic immunization efforts have brought global eradication of the disease a giant step closer. Outside India, however, backsliding Pakistan and Nigeria and splotches of polio across Africa have blocked the final stamping out of the disease worldwide.

New Delhi — India marked a year since its last new case of polio Friday, a major milestone in a country once considered the epicentre of the disease and one that gives hope the scourge can be eradicated worldwide.

There were 150,000 cases of the highly contagious virus in India in 1985, but the country has now gone 12 months since discovering a new case -- in an 18-month-old girl in the eastern state of West Bengal. India, which until recently accounted for half of all the polio cases in the world, is one of four countries -- with Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria -- where the disease is still officially endemic.

But if all laboratory tests for the wild polio virus return negative in January, India will follow recent success stories Niger and Egypt and be removed from the endemic list by the World Health Organisation by mid-February.

There was cautious optimism in New Delhi as health workers and the government celebrated the milestone while stressing that the virus -- which mainly affects young children and can cause paralysis and deformed legs -- could resurface at any time. "We are excited and hopeful, at the same time, vigilant and alert," Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said in a statement to mark the occasion.

Since the last new case was reported on January 13 last year, another vast effort to immunise children has seen 2.3 million vaccinators travel across India to deliver 900 million doses. "What India has achieved is reaching a first milestone in a very important process," Lieven Desomer, head of the polio unit at UN children's agency UNICEF in India, told AFP.

"It's not the end of the road, but it's something to be very proud of.

"Achieving this milestone is going to instil confidence in polio eradication efforts globally. If it can be done here, it can be done everywhere." India will only be judged to have eradicated the disease if it stays polio-free for another two years. Polio was one of the most feared diseases of the 20th century for children, but it has been successfully controlled through a programme of vaccination in most countries.

UNICEF figures show India, where the crowded and impoverished northern states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have historically been the hotspots, had 150,000 cases of the disease in 1985. This had fallen to about 6,000 in 1991, to 741 in 2009 and to just 42 in 2010. The decline worldwide, through a concerted effort by governments, UN agencies and private donors, has raised hopes polio might go the way of smallpox, the only disease successfully eradicated globally.

"If we can achieve that it will be of great benefit to the children of the world," said Desomer. "But the last bit is the toughest."

The precipitous fall in polio cases in India is attributed by UNICEF to a huge campaign by the Indian government, which is often pilloried by critics for its failure to tackle malnutrition and poor sanitation.

It represents a rare public health success story in a country where four in 10 children under five are underweight due to malnutrition and only a third of people have access to toilets.

"India's success (with polio) is arguably its greatest public health achievement," said World Health Organisation Director-General Margaret Chan.

Desomer estimated the Indian government contribution to polio eradication to be about $2 billion over the last 10-15 years.

The other two important factors in combating the virus were a new, more efficient oral vaccine introduced in 2010 and partnership comprising the government, private donors and UN agencies.

He singled out the Rotary International charity for helping kickstart efforts to eradicate polio in the 1980s, as well as more recent donations from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

In pursuit of a truly local Church
http://www.cathnewsindia.com/2012/01/10/in-pursuit-of-a-truly-local-church/print/
Posted By cninewsletter | On January 10, 2012

The transition from an era of foreign missionaries to a local Church is almost at an end in Pakistan but the real change is yet to come.

This struck me after a long conversation with a senior part-time catechist on Christmas Eve. We were in a Christian slum in Lahore where the midnight Mass was delayed because of power cuts. It is easy in our part of the world to get engaged in lengthy conversation especially when you have got nothing to do except sit in the dark. The topical nature of our discourse made it even more revealing.
The guy had worked for more than 26 years in the parish but was having a tough time this Christmas. Apparently he had not met his “target” of getting the monthly offertory from 60 to 70 families and the parish priest was none too happy about it.

“I know a few other catechists whose hearths lay cold these winters. The monthly expenses for my child are more than the Christmas bonus I get each year … I would have been on a good wage scale if I had opted for another profession,” said the catechist who used to work with missionaries for around two decades.

Pursuit of an autonomous, participatory and local Church has been the biggest challenge for the Catholic Church for many years. According to senior clergy, finance is the biggest challenge for the Catholic Church in Pakistan today. Proper management of institutions is a big concern for bishops. The priests have been, and are, making many attempts to realize this goal. Parishioners are presently being encouraged to give something back in return for what the Church has done for them over many years. This includes promoting lay leadership, looking for more donations, boosting local vocations and arranging funding for basic Church needs: construction, repairs and maintenance are to name a few.

Missionaries mostly used to manage these issues, helped in the main through their contacts abroad. Whenever they were away on a holiday or mission, they always returned with cash. However, many local priests now see this as having caused more harm than good.

“As much as we appreciate their sowing the seeds of faith; their imperial attitude negated human dignity turning locals into beggars. We can preach better; we know them [local people] better and thus can guide the faithful better,” a senior Punjabi priest told me.

The Catholic Church in Pakistan now almost has a local face. Among the seven present bishops, six are Pakistanis. However, two among them were born in India from where we inherited the mission.

The same trend continues slowly in foreign congregations. The year 2011 saw the ordination of the first Pakistani Camillian priest in Faisalabad diocese. This followed the 2009 ordination of the first Pakistani Jesuit in Lahore.

Having a local face does not mean it’s a local Church. This will come from within enculturation, contextualizing the way of prayer and celebrating liturgy, following new modules of interfaith dialogue as well as implementing social teachings of the Church (especially through the press and media).

Our Church is still Roman in many aspects. It still has a long way to go from being introvert, narrow and fearful to becoming traditional and institutionalized. The new leaders must strive to rediscover Pakistani Christians rather than producing Christians in Pakistan. Investing in the formation of laity is equally important as empowering Church institutions.

Likewise, a priest who fills a spot left vacant by a missionary has to tread very carefully. Simple things like frequent visits from families or relatives to the parish house can affect their relations with the communities. Burdening an already struggling middle class, which most Pakistani Christians are, with funding requests won’t do any good.

People love their priests, foreign or locals, and likewise priests must “show” their love and support for the flock.

Silent Thinker is a pseudonym used by a Catholic commentator in Lahore.

Source: www.ucanews.com

Pope sounds alarm over plight of Pakistan’s Christians
Posted By cninewsletter On January 18, 2012

In his message to the 180 accredited ambassadors at the Roman Curia, which commemorated the martyrdom of the Catholic Shahbaz Bhatti, Federal Minister for Religious Minorities (killed on 2 March of last year for his opposition to the blasphemy law and his defense of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman sentenced to death for this reason), Pope Benedict XVI openly voiced his concern.

Now the Holy See comes more to the point, drawing international attention to religious persecution in the Muslim-majority country, denouncing the rape and torture of Christian children, extortion of families, abuse and violence that take place in silence - and in the terror of the victims.

Through its media channels, the Vatican denounced the violence and abuses that are taking place in the Christian communities of some suburban neighborhoods in Karachi, the largest city in southern Pakistan and capital of Sindh province.

Michael Javed, Catholic parliamentarian active in Sindh, spoke out for the religious minority subjected to cruel persecution, and, through Vatican Radio and Fides news agency, issued a dramatic warning: for months, Christians in the Essa Nagri, Ayub Goth, and Bhittaiabad neighborhoods have been the victims of unspeakable violence perpetrated by members of political movements with strong Islamic and ethnic connotations, such as the Pashtuns.

Christian families are living through an ordeal, but “people do not report abuse, for fear of retaliation. Just last month,” Javed said, “we recorded 15 cases of rape.”

Source: Vatican Insider

Tracing history of East Indians and the growth of Mumbai
http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report_tracing-history-of-east-indians-and-the-growth...
Source: gulf-goans@yahoogroups.com | From: bcsabha.kalina@gmail.com

Few communities in India have their history so intertwined with that of a great metropolis. The story of the evolution of the East Indians on the North Konkan coast runs parallel to the growth of a few marshy islands into India’s prima urbis.

That is the reason why Neville Gomes, author of Viva Queimada, a coffee table book on the community, starts his story in 1498 when Vasco da Gama landed in India. This was also the time when Mumbai’s history as a great port city began.

When Gomes started his research for the book, he did not want to write yet another book on the East Indians. “I did not want to do a pedestrian book. We are not antediluvian East Indians; I said the book will be about Mumbai. The history of this community runs parallel with the city,” says Gomes, who studied history at St Xavier’s College and runs an advertising and public relations firm.
The battle of Diu in 1509 AD when the Portuguese defeated a coalition of Muslim rulers and maritime powers is in the first chapter of the book. Gomes said the battle which paved way for the expansion of European colonialism in Asia is as important as the battle of Panipat, which brought Muslim sultanates to India.

The title of the book comes from Keemadh, the spice-flavoured punch served at community functions. The loss of the community’s land to Mumbai’s growing sprawl is the subject of one chapter.The book explores the competition for jobs and commissions in the East India Company between the local Catholics and those who migrated from Goa. The locals petitioned the queen of England for the privilege to be called East Indians, said Gomes.

This information solves the mystery why a community living on India’s west coast should be called East Indians. The queen is reported to have issued an ordinance to this effect though the diktat document has not been traced to any archives. “But we have been able to prove, by deducing reports, that such a diktat was issued,” said Gomes. The 134-page book is priced at Rs2,500 and proceeds from sales go to three charities.

China cornerstone of Pak's foreign policy: Gilani
http://zeenews.india.com/news/south-asia/china-cornerstone-of-pak-s-foreign-policy...

Islamabad: Relations with China remain the cornerstone of Pakistan's foreign policy, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said on Monday.

"Pakistan and China enjoyed complete trust and conversion of views on all bilateral and international issues," Xinhua quoted Gilani as saying while addressing the Chinese students who met him in Islamabad.

According to a statement from the Prime Minister's office, Gilani said that Pakistan firmly opposes any attempts to undermine China's sovereignty and territorial integrity.
"I reiterate Pakistan's full support to China's core issues including China's position on Taiwan, Tibet and Xinjiang," he said, adding that Pakistan-China friendship was based upon mutual trust and respect and was all weather and time tested.

IANS

As U.S.-Pakistani relations sink, nations try to figure out ‘a new normal’

In a call to her Pakistani counterpart this month, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton reiterated the Obama administration’s counterterrorism “red line”: The United States reserved the right to attack anyone who it determined posed a direct threat to U.S. national security, anywhere in the world.

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On Cars India Buzz: January 17, 2012

• Hyundai has launched three new variants of their smallest car Eon that fit in the little gap between the existing models. More importantly, the new variants have option of LPG fuel option for Rs 27,000 extra.

• Mahindra will re-open bookings of XUV500 on January 25 for a period of 10 days across 19 cities. Mahindra had to stop accepting bookings for the crossover twice due to high demand.

• Tata has finally confirmed launch of their small car Nano in Bangladesh; the first lot of 200 cars is expected to reach our neighbouring country by mid-February.

• Mini is recalling 2,35,000 units globally for a potential fire risk caused by faulty water pumps.

• Finance ministry has proposed a 10 per cent additional duty on diesel cars and the heavy industries ministry has opposed the move. We will know the final outcome only when the 2012 Budget is announced.

• Nissan has developed a self-healing case for iPhones and Andriods from their experience in the automobile industry. As the name suggests, this case self-repairs scratches and similar cosmetic flaws that most of us tend to place upon our smartphones either through dropping them, running them into other objects, etc.