COVER STORY

Who are the heroes and heroines in Mumbai?

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Perhaps we are seeing a transition in the kind of heroic behaviour required to make life meaningful? This thought comes to me as I reread Ashis Nandy’s introduction to his Tao of Cricket where he ends with the reflection that today “heroes are expected to redeem the killing banality and boredom of everyday life”. He is referring to media and sporting heroes but the reference can be extended to other faces of heroism.
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The Virus analogy or metaphor is a useful framework to help people in organisations influence and accelerate the desired change.

The sequence of incidents after the most fatal attack indicates that it was a around failure. Many heads rolled down as a face saving exercise.

How can there be a Loving and Caring God if there is so much human misery and suffering in the world today?

“India on the brink of water crisis panel”, “Water turns poisonous in rural Punjab”, “Women dies of ‘thirst’ in Bihar villages”, “Number of dark zones increasing in the country”. “4573 state schools have no drinking water”.

It has been long recognized that humans possess four basic longings viz., ka'ma (physical longing); artha (psychic longing); dharma (psycho-spiritual longing) and moks'a (spiritual longing). Human beings are 'sentimental' beings. They share many instincts with other creatures but also possess some developed emotions and capabilities which put them on a special pedestal among the wide spectrum of species in this universe.

It is very easy to talk big about revolution. Audiences may be awestruck and applaud, but to actually bring about a revolution is not at all easy.

A model of resolving the differences between two communities to make them function as one community is offered by Dudley Weeks in his book The Eight Essential Steps to Conflict Resolution which views conflicts as opportunities to strengthen a relationship. This approach unlike most conflict resolution approaches does not focus on the differences at the expense of what groups have in common in terms of mutual interest and needs; focusing more on working in a partnership as a unified community.

FEATURES

Lifting the Blackness of New Moon

The News reporters and anchors of the TV channels competed with each other in giving moment-by-moment updates of security plans and showing each and every move of the security personnel and army helicopters without...

RESEARCH

The discourse is on "Microvitum, the Mysterious Emanation of Cosmic Factor." It is one of the human wonts that whatever we do not know, in order to conceal our limitations or hide our imperfections, we either say that it is non-existent, or in a more intelligent style, we will say it is abstract.

In the process of our so called developmental efforts, we went on exploiting every ‘other’ the ‘non-humans’ for the welfare of what we thought was ‘Human’, and landed up into the present situation of threats from all over i.e. from global warming, climate change, ice-age, UV-radiations through depleted Ozone layers and many other ecological and environmental calamities. So there must be some significant elements missing in our ‘humanism’.

COMMENTARY

In the past few months we have been hearing about a lot of “bail outs” in Washington. First there was a $700 billion rescue package for the struggling banking system and then there was a proposed bailout for the big three automakers of Detroit. While it may be possible to remedy some economic problems by “throwing money at them,” this approach will only work for a short time and eventually we will have to look at the real causes of the problems and address them accordingly.

In the hills south of Santa Barbara thereis a beautiful meditation temple where I would occasionallygo to meditate or to hear the sun set vespers of the resident nuns. One evening I went to hear a lectureby an elderly Indian monk who had lived many years in America and was the author of my favorite translation of the Bhagavad Giita ( a well known Indian spiritual text ). I was accompanied by a female college friend who also practiced meditation.

Lord Shiva is also known as Nataraj, the Dancing God. This divine art form is performed by Lord Shiva and his divine consort Goddess Parvati. The dance performed by Lord Shiva is known as Tandava. Shiva's Tandava is a vigorous dance that is the source of the cycle of creation, preservation and dissolution. Tandava depicts his violent nature as the destroyer of the universe.

Ending exploitation is a key objective of Prout. Exploitation means an economic, political or social relationship in which certain persons are being mistreated or unfairly used for the benefit of others. This cruelty and injustice can also be directed at animals, plants or things.

STRANGE EXPERIENCES

I went and sat on the side of the grave. But because there was not any grass in that spot, after a little while I got up from there and sat down with my back to the grave in a small area amidst three palm trees. Of course I was not really at ease since I would constantly look back to see whether or not Dhiren was coming.