Problems Persist

Good morning,the magical word everyone says atleast from the day he/she starts going to school and make it a habit .But do we know how many in India get the previlage to go to school .The number of children attending school has gone up many-fold since the time of India’s Independence – increasing from around 19.2 million in 1950-51 to 113.8 million in 2000-01.Although poverty is often cited as the cause underlying child labour, other factors such as discrimination, social exclusion, as well as the lack of quality education or existing parents’ attitudes and perceptions about child labour and the role and value of education need also to be considered. In states like Bihar, Mizoram, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, 60 per cent or more girls dropped out before completing their five years primary education.Trafficking of children also continues to be a serious problem in India. The nature and scope of trafficking range from industrial and domestic labour, to forced early marriages and commercial sexual exploitation. Existing studies show that over 40 per cent of women sex workers enter into prostitution before the age of 18 years.  But several problems persist.

Several million more suffer from multiple episodes of diarrhoea and still others fall ill on account of Hepatitis A, enteric fever, intestinal worms and eye and skin infections caused by poor hygiene and unsafe drinking water.

Despite the Government and UNICEF’s best efforts, diarrhoea remains the major cause of death amongst children, after respiratory- tract infections. Unhygienic practices and unsafe drinking water are some of its main causes. More than 122 million households in the country are without toilets. Even though toilets are built in about 3 million households every year, the annual rate of increase has been a low 1 per cent in the past decade.

Among the many contributing factors is the quality of the physical space that children inhabit.

Of India’s 700,000 rural schools, only one in six have toilets deterring children especially girls from going to school, and if enrolled, in remaining there.In addition are cultural factors: continuing discrimination against the girl child plays a crucial role in creating resistance around sending girls to school. Government efforts have been intensified in recent years following the launch of various programmes including the District Primary Education Programme (DPEP) in 1992, the Minimum Levels of Learning (MLL) initiative and more recently the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (or the National Programme for Universal Elementary Education). 

 
UNICEF is an active partner in the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan supporting its objective to ensure all children complete five years of school and have access to good quality education.

Road Accidents

In India, according to the World Bank reports, about 1 Lakh people were killed in road accidents in the year 2007 and among these about forty youngsters died every day. The toll is not just on life but also on the country's economy. The World Bank report estimates that road accidents cost India about 3% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP).Road accidents place a tremendous expense on health care services, costs of providing rehabilitation, value of lost household services, lost earnings of victims, and lost income of survivors in the respective families. These costs directly impact the country's economy by burdening the financial resources of the country.Road fatalities are considered a serious public health issue and are gradually overtaking deadly diseases like tuberculosis and AIDS. Due to the widespread impact, the issue of road accidents has been termed a global epidemic.

Safety beings at home.Right from the birth ,human beings develop a sence of safety to protect themselves from the environment.Safety is not only necessary for the individual but also for the socity on the whole.The population now has grown up to an alarming level.Earlier,when there was no much pressure on the land,man was free to movefrom place to place at his will.
The main cause of the car accidents are drivers distractions,drunken drivers,driver fatigue,using cellular phones while driving,speeding,aggressive driving,mechanical failure,road conditions and weather.Usually the most affected in car accident is driver,but the passengers and the pedestrians are also affected by it.Road accidents are the biggest cause of death among 15 to 24 year olds.The past couple of months alone have seen several horrific fatal crashes .
Seat belts ,speed limits ,sensible driving,tool roads,proper zebra crossings,correct lane driving anything that makes drivers safer will benefit everyone on the road.

Kamal कमल (Nelumbo nucifera) -- Lotus

The (red) lotus has pride of place in Indian literature. The national floweris another universal favourite of the Gods, and its beauty is often used in in similes for the beauty of heros/heroines: "face as beautiful as a blooming lotus" or "eyes shaped like lotus petals". A woman's beauty may be compared to that of a pond full of blooming lotuses (Nalinī, padminī) or her slender frame to that of a lotus stem. A famous couplet ascribed to Kalidasa describes a woman's face as a miracle of flower blooming within a flower: her beautiful eyes are like dark blue lotuses blooming in the pink lotus of her face!
The goddess Lakshmi sits on a red Lotus, and Sarasvati, on a white one. The Lotus is associated with Lord Brahma, who was created sitting on a lotus arising from the navel of Lord Vishnu. The lotus has esoteric and sacred significance in spirituality. The Mother Goddess (Devi) is called Kamalāmba or "Lotus Mother": she resides in a thousand-petalled lotus said to be located in the Sahasrāra Chakra in the head. Raising the serpent power kundalini to this place leads to Realization, which is the aim of the practitioners of "Sri Vidya Upasana". Lotus symbols are central in yantra patterns, and form part of many designs of decoration in more secular contexts. The lotus blooms at day and closes at night: so the sun is referred to as the "Friend of the Lotus".

Expectations bring misery

• Expectations are the root cause of misery . Life is full of expectation.We are very sensitive to our expectations and if these are not met with-We are restless, tend to react sharply. Our behaviour changes.And we revolve around meeting expectations, making expectations. And the life goes on. A mother expects her children to settle well in their life. If you are miserable today how do you think tomorrow is going to be blissful. Tomorrow will come out of you. Your tomorrow comes out of you. All your yesterdays together plus today is going to be your tomorrow. Simple arithmetic.  A wife expects her husband to be caring and loving. A husband expects his wife to fulfill his desires. Children expect their parents to buy what all they want in their life. So this type of expectation continues from person to person. When these expectations are not fulfilled then starts the misery for which each and every individual becomes prey.Junk thoughts are any thoughts that create anxiety, depression, guilt, shame, anger, blame, resentment, jealousy, envy - any thoughts that create misery.We all have junk thoughts at times, but many people never connect their junk thoughts with their misery. They think that their misery is coming form other people, or from events or circumstances. Yet research on happiness and unhappiness shows that only about 10% of unhappiness comes from outside circumstances, while fully 50% of happiness or misery comes from your own thoughts and actions. The other 40% is genetic - i.e. some people are born with sunny dispositions while others are more serious or morose. However, the research also shows that even those who are born more serious or morose, have the choice to be happy by developing the habit of thinking thoughts and taking actions that bring them joy.The soul leaves the body, expectations do not.Do we run away from meeting expectations? Or stop making expectations because, these cause misery. Both the statements are untrue. So what do we do? We expect and deliver to expectations.It is the individual’s perception to be contended with- what is available or feel miserable. So the problem lies with the perception or the one who perceives.Being contended is a source of lethargy or a state of mind is statement of fact as is true for sleep and peace of mind. Misery is just like a smoke. Somewhere there is fire inside us. Penetrate deep into the smoke so we can find the fire. we can’t put the smoke off as it is a byproduct. Only by the cause can something be done. If we fight with the effect it’s all in vain. Go to the cause… it’s somewhere there.

The Puttaparthi Sai Baba

From ordinary believers to the President of India, his clout spread far and wide but controversy also followed Puttaparthi Sathya Sai Baba all along.

India had, and has, several godmen but none could match his name and fame.

The death of Sathya Sai Baba was wrongly predicted by him, he did not live into his 90s as he prophesies on numerous occasions! Yet another false boast, and one which confounds all the devotees who blindly believed his words and in his divinity. He died a sick man, in more sense than one!  The BBC has announced his death, but adds that he has been accused of fraudulent miracle tricks and sexual abuses. This is an epitaph that will always follow him and, as researchers and historians collect and study the evidence, the accusations and the reason Sai Baba avoided prosecution will become evident and a permanent part of his otherwise largely bogus ‘story’

In fact, Sathya Sai Baba's influence had no barriers as his millions of followers spanned the globe.

Top-ranking politicians including prime ministers, Union ministers, governors, chief ministers, filmstars, sportspersons, industrialists and virtually the 'who's who' of the country rank among the high-profile devotees of the Baba.

Born into an ordinary family as Satyanarayana Raju in the sleepy Puttaparthi village in the dry Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh, on November 23, 1926, he was to later become Sathya Sai Baba, the reincarnation of the saintly Sai Baba of Shirdi.

Now, Puttaparthi -- which metamorphosed into a self-contained city -- finds itself on the international map, thanks to the large number of the Baba's foreign devotees who visit Prasanthi Nilayam day in and day out. It boasts of an exclusive airport where chartered flights, carrying Baba's devotees from different parts of the globe, land.

In 1944, a small temple was built for Sathya Sai Baba's devotees at Puttaparthi and in 1950 a sprawling ashram popularly called the 'Prasanthi Nilayam' was built, making it his permanent abode.

His divine preaching apart, Satya Sai Baba pioneered many social service activities beginning with a tiny general hospital at Puttaparthi which has now transformed into the Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Medical Sciences, a 220-bedded super-speciality hospital.

Another super-speciality 333-bedded SSIHMS was established at Whitefield on the outskirts of Bangalore, where the Baba's summer abode Brindavan also stands.

The Sathya Sai Central Trust manages all the service activities and also runs the Sathya Sai University (formerly Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning) at Puttaparthi. Besides, the trust also runs many schools and dispensaries in different states while it has also completed large water supply projects in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra.

Volunteers from the Sathya Sai Seva Organisation are always found in the forefront carrying out relief and rehabilitation work during natural calamities not only in AP but also in other states.

Sathya Sai Baba established three primary mandirs (spiritual centres) in India - Dharmakshetra in Mumbai, Shivam in Hyderabad and Sundaram in Chennai.

Besides, there are Satya Sai centres located in over 114 countries in the world.

In 1957, Sathya Sai Baba went on a temple tour of north India and made his only overseas trip to Uganda in June 1968. In 1963, Sathya Sai Baba suffered a stroke and four severe heart attacks but survived.

Since 2005, Baba used a wheelchair and his failing health forced him to make fewer public appearances. In 2006 he suffered a fractured hip when a student standing on an iron stool slipped and both the boy and the stool fell on Baba. He gave darshan from a car or his porte chair.

Sorry

2 Corinthians 7:8-9
"Even if I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it. Though I did regret it—I see that my letter hurt you, but only for a little while—yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us."




It's not the hurt that we should be apologizing for. Nobody expects your dentist to apologize to you for doing wisdom tooth surgery on you.
But it's the intent behind the hurt. Was it to protect ourselves that we ended up hurting the other person, or was it to really help the other person be built up or was it simply because we were not in the best of moods, and the other party just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Sometimes we apologize for causing hurt. But is that a biblical practice? As though the absence of hurt was a cardinal virtue? Then God would have so much to apologize for. But obviously, the absence of pain is not a virtue in itself, as the Bible clearly teaches.
Rather, what we have to reflect on is the heart's motive behind causing the hurt, & our mistakes in rendering the hurt, if well-intentioned. Of course, if it's really just us being frustrated at something else at hand, I think that's perfectly understandable.
Thus that's why an "I'm sorry I made you feel this way." is one of the most backhanded and selfish "apologies". Far better not to apologize then. Stop adding to the hurt and piling up your sins before God.

But if you're genuinely sorry for your selfish reasons, an apology is a great way to demonstrate your repentance, especially when followed up with a clear statement of where you were wrong.
And if your conscience was clear but your actions caused harm and more damage than intended, it would be the right thing to apologize too.
Don't just say sorry. Explain and confess clearly what you are saying for. Then you will be in a very good position to a receive grace and mercy and be at peace with all men.

So next time you say sorry ,better Be sorry before you say it .

Should'nt we change the game ?

Hockey is the National Game of India. Hockey has been played in India for time immemorial. There was a golden period of Indian hockey when hockey stalwarts of India ruled the game. On the international scenario there were no competitors to match the magical hands of Indian hockey players. The might and power of Indian hockey made India synonymous with the game. Unmatched excellence and incomparable talent of Indian players became folklore. The ball-juggling feats of players like Major Dhyanchand made people to think that Indian players used some kind of black magic. The Golden Era of hockey in India was the period from 1928 - 1956 when India won 6 successive gold medals in the Olympic Games

 in the 2010 Hockey World Cup, frankly speeking it was sad to see the type of performances. Except the match against Pakistan,  the players were seriously missing the preparation which the team need for a big tournament like World Cup.

 if you ask  a spectator then he will surely say that the performance was not up to the mark. Although we cheered the team many times in the matches, but was really surprised to see that none of the Indian players were there near to the goal post to protect the attacks of the opposition.

Our defense was the worst in the matches, attack was good, but they never dominated the oppositions. Now come back to the Hockey India. In my honest opinion they were the real culprits behind this poorperformance of the team. They were only thinking about how to become the boss of the association.

Controversies too played major role in the poor performance of our national team in the world cup of our national game. Players were looking for money (which was their rights too) but they got it from winning only one match. The elections of the Hockey India too played a big role in the preparation of the players.

Now the real  topic here is , weather the time has arrived when we seriously need to think about the national game. Do you think that Hockey is played in schools or collages ? I don’t think so. We don’t have the bench strength, so we need to rely on these tested players only. Go for cricket and you will see that children’s of nursery schools too have the knowledge of cricket. BCCI, the Board of Cricket Control in india is the richest sport organization in India. The team is getting good sponsors too.

Believe me that here are so many players available in the bench that you can create 100 or even thousands cricket team, and all of them will have almost the same strength. Indian Premiere League, one of the most popular sports in India is one of the examples of the bench strength of cricket players and the flow of money in this game.

So considering all these factors, why are we crying for the Indian Hockey Team? There are no sponsors for it, while players are not that much good, and no one is serious about promoting it, so why to cry for it? Just move ahead and make cricket the national game, which has all the glamour and money