Sunday, 16 August 2015
Wednesday, 17 June 2015
Indian Army Animals Butchery
Indian army dogs and horses are being senselessly killed when they get too old to serve. The head of India’s main animal welfare board just complained to the Defence Ministry, but hewon’t win a lifeline for these amazing animals unless huge numbers of us join his call. Add your name, then share widely:
Dear friends,
It’s a brutal use-and-throw policy -- Indian army dogs and horses dedicate their lives to service. But the minute they grow old or fail a fitness test, the army kills them!
The head of India’s main animal welfare board, an ex-Army man himself, is now questioning this cruel and senseless policy. But the Defence Ministry could ignore his letter unless thousands of us back his call. Thesebrave animals regularly save citizens’ lives, and should be given medals, not death sentences.
Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar has spoken out for “voteless animals” before. Now he can ensure we don’t betray our best friends. Let’s rush to hit 20,000 signers. We’ll then march with people and pets to his office to deliver our message. Sign now and tell others:
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/save_army_dogs_rb/?bhXdHbb&v=60562
For years these animals were killed in secrecy, but a Right To Information query just blew the lid off the army’s inhumane methods. Army dogs train from the time they are puppies, serving the world’s third largest army in critical areas like explosive detection, guarding bases, and finding disaster victims -- most recently during the tragedy in Nepal. But after a lifetime of saving lives, only the affection of individual soldiers or trainers can ensure they don’t meet the fate set out by official policy -- a death sentence when they are not deemed useful anymore.
The law only allows killing animals under very rare circumstances such as an incurable disease. But these army-owned animals are not covered under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act -- which is why the army gets away with murder.
India is slowly increasing its defence budget -- this year it is 2.47 trillion rupees! Yet animal rights groups are shocked that the army can’t spare a small amount of that budget to shelter these animals once they are old and unfit.
Now this scandal is finally in the open, let’s speak up for the silent pain of these intelligent creatures, and ensure they are treated well, not discarded like broken equipment. Join now and forward this email:
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/save_army_dogs_rb/?bhXdHbb&v=60562
Our community stands for the protection of all of nature's unique species -- whether it's standing up to protect the delicate coral in the Great Barrier Reef from unchecked mining or calling for a massive marine park for the ocean's myriad species. Let’s unite our voices now for the innocent and loyal animals who serve the Indian army day in and day out till they have the strength.
With hope and determination,
Risalat, Alex, Emma and the rest of the Avaaz team
More Information:
Retirement means death for Army’s Canine Comrades (Times of India)
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Retirement-means-death-for-Armys-canine-comrades/articleshow/47520753.cms
Indian Army Dogs Euthanised after Retirement (Huffington Post)
http://www.huffingtonpost.in/2015/06/04/indian-army-dogs-euthanised-after-retirement_n_7507820.html
Army urged to re-think policy of euthanising dogs (Times of India)
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Army-urged-to-re-think-policy-of-euthanising-dogs/articlesh...
Parrikar lends his voice to rights of ‘voteless animals’ (Times of India)
http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=VE9JTS8yMDEyLzExLzIxI0FyMDE0MDE
India increases military budget by 11% to nearly $40 billion (WSJ)
http://www.wsj.com/articles/india-increases-military-budget-by-11-to-nearly-40-billion-1425124095
The Prevention of Cruelty To Animals Act, 1960 (GoI)
http://moef.gov.in/legis/awbi/awbi01.html
Sunday, 14 June 2015
A unique series! A singular achievement!
Wednesday, 10 June 2015
Sunday, 17 May 2015
Rafeef Ziadah – Shades of Anger
N j‡'$&
Allow me to speak my Arab tongue
before they occupy my language as well.
Allow me to speak my mother tongue
before they colonise her memory as well.
I am an Arab woman of color.
and we come in all shades of anger.
All my grandfather ever wanted to do
was wake up at dawn and watch my grandmather kneel and pray
in a village hidden between Jaffa and Haifa
my mother was born under an olive tree
on a soil they say is no longer mine
but I will cross their barriers, their check points
their damn apartheid walls and return to my homeland
I am an Arab woman of colour and we come in all shades of anger.
And did you hear my sister screaming yesterday
as she gave birth at a check point
with Israeli soldiers looking between her legs
for their next demographic threat
called her baby girl “Janeen”.
And did you hear Amni Mona screaming
behind their prison bars as they teargassed her cell
“We’re returning to Palestine!”
I am an Arab woman of colour and we come in all shades of anger.
But you tell me, this womb inside me
will only bring you your next terrorist
beard wearing, gun waving, towelhead, sand nigger
You tell me, I send my children out to die
but those are your copters, your F16′s in our sky
And let’s talk about this terrorism business for a second
Wasn’t it the CIA that killed Allende and Lumumba
and who trained Osama in the first place
My grandparents didn’t run around like clowns
with the white capes and the white hoods on their heads lynching black people
I am an Arab woman of colour and we come in all shades of anger.
“So who is that brown woman screaming in the demonstration?”
Sorry, should I not scream?
I forgot to be your every orientalist dream
Jinnee in a bottle, belly dancer, harem girl, soft spoken Arab woman
Yes master, no master.
Thank you for the peanut butter sandwiches
raining down on us from your F16′s master
Yes my liberators are here to kill my children
and call them “collateral damage”
I am an Arab woman of colour and we come in all shades of anger.
So let me just tell you this womb inside me
will only bring you your next rebel
She will have a rock in one hand and a Palestinian flag in the other
I am an Arab woman of color
Beware! Beware my anger…
Friday, 8 May 2015
An interesting read in the wake of the Salman Khan verdict and its aftermath
Bombay Pavement Dwellers and OLGA TELLIS – And a Quiet Verdict in Ahmedabad : N. Jayaram
Posted by subhash gatade
Guest Post by N. Jayaram
After the order in the case of film star Salman Khan over a 2002 hit-and-run case was delivered by Sessions Court Judge D.W. Deshpande on Wednesday, 6 May 2015, there understandably were divided opinions on whether he deserved to be handed five years in jail.
But the rather more shockingly breath-taking comments from some of his friends in the industry and his fans were to do with pavement dwellers, such as the victim Nurullah Mahboob Sharif.
“Kutta rd pe soyega kutte ki maut marega, roads garib ke baap ki nahi hai (If a dog sleeps on the road, he’ll die a dog’s death. Roads are not poor people’s property)…,” singer Abhijeet Bhattacharya tweeted. “Roads are meant for cars and dogs not for people sleeping on them…,” he said, appealing to the film industry to back the star, whose sentence has now been suspended by the High Court.
Designer Farah Khan Ali chipped in with this: “No one should be sleeping on the road or footpath. It is dangerous to do that just like it is dangerous to cross tracks.” She quite rightly laid the blame on the state: “The govt should be responsible for housing ppl. If no1 was sleeping on d road in any other country Salman wuld not have driven over anybody.”
Perhaps she had read the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights, to which India is a state party:http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CESCR.aspx. Article 11.1 of the Covenant says: “The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions. The States Parties will take appropriate steps to ensure the realization of this right…”
The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the treaty body monitoring states’ compliance with the Covenant’s provisions issued a General Comment in 1991 setting out specific measures states need to take to ensure adequate accommodation, what “adequacy” implies and how to deal with homelessness:https://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/gencomm/epcomm4.htm.
Bhattacharya, Farah Khan and others questioning the presence of pavement dwellers and advising them not to be there could have benefited from reading one of the most remarkable documents generated nearer home – the remarkable judgement of the Supreme Court of India almost 30 years ago inOlga Tellis and others Vs Bombay Municipal Corporation and others(10 July 1985). Journalist and activist Olga Tellis, the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, Committee for Protection of Democratic Rights and others had challenged the municipal authorities’ move to forcibly evict pavement dwellers.
A pithy summary of Olga Tellis – and importantly – its failure to provide for adequate resettlement is available on this website devoted to Economic, Social and Cultural Rights:http://www.escr-net.org/docs/i/401006.
The historical verdict (http://indiankanoon.org/doc/709776/) is cited not only in courts around India but in many other Common Law jurisdictions. Moreover, Olga Tellis is studied in law schools around the world and is cited in books and journal articles. During an intensive course on refugee law at the University of Hong Kong in 2006, this writer heard Australian jurist, Professor Penelope Mathew,[1] extol the poetic language that figures in parts of Olga Tellis. And it is worth savouring the words written by Chief Justice Y.V. Chandrachud on behalf of the distinguished five-judge bench:
“The sweep of the right to life conferred by Article 21 (of the Indian constitution guaranteeing the protection of right to life) is wide and far reaching. It does not mean merely that life cannot be extinguished or taken away as, for example, by the imposition and execution of the death sentence, except according to procedure established by law. That is but one aspect of the right to life. An equally important facet of that right is the right to livelihood because no person can live without the means of living, that is, the means of livelihood. If the right to livelihood is not treated as a part of the constitutional right to life, the easiest way of depriving a person his right to life would be to deprive him of his means of livelihood to the point of abrogation. Such deprivation would not only denude the life of its effective content and meaningfulness but it would make life impossible to live. And yet, such deprivation would not have to be in accordance with the procedure established by law, if the right to livelihood is not regarded as a part of the right to life. That, which alone makes it possible to live, leave aside what makes life livable, must be deemed to be an integral component of the right to life. Deprive a person of his right to livelihood and you shall have deprived him of his life. Indeed, that explains the massive migration of the rural population to big cities. They migrate because they have no means of livelihood in the villages… So unimpeachable is the evidence of the nexus between life and the means of livelihood. They have to eat to live: Only a handful can afford the luxury of living to eat. That they can do, namely, eat, only if they have the means of livelihood. (Emphasis added.)
Chief Justice Chandrachud declared that
“the economic compulsions under which these persons are forced to live in slums or on pavements impart to their occupation the character of a fundamental right”.
Abhijeet Bhattacharya has mockingly tweeted: “Mumbai ke road Aur footpath pe sone ka shauk hai ?? (You have a thing for sleeping on Bombay’s road and footpath?) Y not at your village no vehicles to kill u.”
Olga Tellis had addressed that:
“It is a notorious fact of contemporary life in metropolitan cities that no person in his senses would opt to live on a pavement or in a slum, if any other choice were available to him. Anyone who cares to have even a fleeting glance at the pavement or slum dwellings will see that they are the very hell on earth.”
The judgement had taken note of some fascinating findings of contemporary social scientists about the contributions pavement dwellers were making to society and their interest in leading peaceful lives in amity with others on the street as well as with affluent folk nearby.
Pavement and slum dwellers give back to the economy far more of a share of their income than the super-rich do. The indigent spend almost all or all of their daily earnings on buying food and for transport and other services. The ‘multiplier effect’ of their incomes on the economy is immense. Not even going into the issue of how much of the incomes of the super-rich is jetted away to Swiss Banks and tax havens, the billionaires can only consume so much of the daily necessities that keep the economy oiled. In Hong Kong, for instance, some of the poorest people renting tiny “cage-homes” pay more per cubic metre than the tycoons do for their palatial flats or houses in one of the prime locations in the city, namely The Peak.
Bhattacharya, Khan et al, might want to ponder a little about the pavement dwellers’ economic worth and the contribution they make to the economy before making dismissive remarks that insults their inherent dignity.
Meanwhile, on the same day that the Indian media was giving saturation coverage of the sentence handed to Salman Khan, was it a mere coincidence that a man named Keshav Joshi had his death sentence for having raped his two-and-a-half-year-old niece and left her to die in 2007 commuted to life imprisonment by the Gujarat High Court? (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/HC-commutes-death-penalty-to-life-term/articleshow/47168578.cms)
The surname Joshi, as with Pandit or Shastri, indicates the Brahmin caste. How might India’s media and public have reacted – and on a slow news day – if a Muslim or a Dalit convicted of an identical crime had gotten a commutation? Did the Gujarat High Court choose carefully the day on which it announced commutation for Keshav Joshi?
To be sure, this is not to begrudge Joshi his commutation, which is most welcome, and not only because a person who raped and murdered such a young child must have been suffering deep psychological disturbance. As Judge Jyotsna Yagnik said while pronouncing sentences on Maya Kodnani, Babu Bajrangi and others in the Naroda Patiya case (in connection with the 2002 Gujarat pogrom), the death penalty “undermines human dignity”.
But a question arises as to why large percentages of under-trial detainees, convicted prisoners and those on death row happen to be from among Muslims, Dalits and Other Backward Castes. It took near-superhuman efforts on the part of a large team of lawyers and human rights activists to get the death sentence passed on the Dalit, Surinder Koli – perhaps unfairly convicted in connection with the “Nithari Killings” – commuted to life earlier this year.
The bail and sentence suspension afforded to a Salman Khan is denied to tens of thousands of others who cannot afford decent legal counsel. And a commutation so quietly extended to a Keshav Joshi is often denied to Muslims, Dalits and OBCs. Rather, an almost entirely innocent Kashmiri named Afzal Guru was hanged two years ago to satisfy the “collective conscience of the society”.
[1] Author of Reworking the Relationship Between Asylum and Employment, Routledge, 2012:http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415580793/
( N. Jayaram, is a senior journalist who blogs at https://walkerjay.wordpress.com)
Saturday, 21 February 2015
7 Natural Remedies Using Honey
The medicinal properties of honey were first recognized by the ancient Egyptians, and has since been used as a natural home remedy solution. Honey contains powerful anti-inflammatory components that help strengthen your immune system and protect you from diseases. Honey can soothe an upset stomach, prevent fatigue, repair sore muscles, treat toothaches, get rid of fungus in athlete's foot, and even aid in weight loss. Suffice it to say, you should always have a jar of honey in your closet. Here are 7 natural home remedies you can prepare using a dash of honey: 1) Ginger and Honey: Treating Upset Stomach Ginger helps alleviate symptoms of inflammation while promoting proper blood circulation. Honey contains many essential enzymes that prevent harmful bacteria, such as E. coli and Candida, from entering your body. What You Will Need: 1 cup of honey 1 tablespoon finely chopped ginger root A pinch of ground ginger (optional) Directions: Pour 1 cup of honey into a saucepan and add 1 tablespoon of finely chopped gingerroot. You can add a small pinch of ground ginger if you’d like as well, but it does have a strong flavor. On low heat let the mixture sit for 10 minutes. When it’s done let it infuse for 2 hours or up to 2 weeks in a glass jar with a tightly fitting lid. Strain when it’s finished if you’d like. Alternatively, you can also add chopped ginger root to herbal tea. 2) Homemade Cinnamon Mouthwash: Bad Breath Cinnamon is widely used to calm upset stomach and treat other gastrointestinal disorders. Cinnamon also contains the carminative herb, which is used as a flavoring agent in the production of toothpaste and mouthwash to kill off bacteria. What You Will Need: 2 lemons 1/2 tablespoon of cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon-1 teaspoon baking soda 1 ½ teaspoons of honey 1 cup of warm water A bottle or jar with a tight fitting lid Directions: Add ½ tablespoon of cinnamon into a bottle or jar with a tight fitting lid. Add the juice of the 2 freshly squeezed lemons along with 1 ½ teaspoons of honey. If you’d like you can also add in 1/2-1 teaspoon of baking soda and leave out the honey, or use both. Pour 1 cup of warm water, which is used to melt the honey, into the jar, and stir well. When you need to freshen up your breath, give it a quick shake and swish/gargle 1-2 tablespoons for 1 minute. 3) Honey and Coconut Water Drink: Sore Muscles Coconut oil prevents dehydration, which can lead to headache, fatigue, and dry mouth. Coconut water helps repair damaged tissues in the body and keeps your joints functioning properly at all times. What You Will Need: 3 cups of coconut water 1 cup of strawberries 1 cup of fresh water 1 cup of ice 1/8 teaspoon of sea salt 2 tablespoons natural sugar or honey Directions: Mix everything into a blender and drink as a healthy smoothie. 4) Honey and Brown Sugar Scrub: Dry Skin Honey and brown sugar combine to exfoliate and moisturize the skin. The mixture fights acne and wrinkles while cleansing the pores at the same time. Make sure you use a toner after the treatment process to remove any excess oil. What You Will Need: 2 1/4 cups brown sugar 1/2 cup olive oil 1/4 cup honey 1 tsp vanilla 1/4 tsp cinnamon (optional) Directions: In a bowl combine all ingredients until fully mixed. Store the mixture in an airtight container. Tie the jar with bakers twine, add a wooden spoon, and you have the perfect sugar scrub gift. You can purchase these jars at the Hobby Lobby or any retail store. 5) Apple Cider Vinegar and Honey: Acid Reflux The natural antibiotics contained in apple cider vinegar helps prevent gastric acid from entering the stomach, which causes reflux problems. The cider and honey work together to while promote healthy digestion. What You Will Need: 1 cup of honey 2-3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar Directions: Add 1 cup of honey to a saucepan, and then pour in 2-3 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar. Allow the mixture to heat over low flame for 10 minutes, stirring well about halfway through. Place the mixture into a jar and let it sit for a while or until you are ready to use. It doesn’t need to sit as long as something like cinnamon sticks or cloves would. 6) Fenugreek Seeds, Honey and Ginger Remedy: Asthma Fenugreek seeds help fight off respiratory problems, such as asthma and bronchitis. Honey helps prevent airway constriction, which occurs when mucus accumulates in the bronchial tubes. Ginger contains many natural anti-inflammatory properties that allow you to breathe better. What You Will Need: 2 tbsp fenugreek seeds 2 tsp ginger paste (make it from fresh ginger root) 1 tsp honey 4 cups of Water Directions: Add the fenugreek seeds to water, and allow them to simmer for 30 minutes. Strain the water after 30 minutes. Put the ginger paste into a sifter and press to extract it’s juice. Add the ginger juice to the water you just strained. Add honey to this solution and mix well. Drink a glass every morning. 7) Clove and Honey: Toothache Cloves contain a pain-relieving anesthetic called Eugenol that is used to treat toothaches and gingivitis. Honey acts a natural antiseptic that kills germs and bacteria, which adds to the infection. What You Will Need: 1 cup of honey 5-10 whole cloves Directions: Pour 1 cup of honey into a saucepan, and then add 5-10 whole cloves. On low, heat for 10 minutes before letting it infuse for 2 hours or up to 2 weeks, placing it in a jar with a tightly fitting lid. Strain when it’s finished (optional).
