[Goanet] Re: What do Christians believe?
Nasci Wrote: By Christian God, I mean the universal God, that is believed to be a supernatural entity; not resembling animals/reptiles or other fictitious beings known to inhabit the earth.Like Elisabeth said: God has not made Man in his image! rather Man has made God in his image. I subscribe to this analysis. Nobody knows what or who 'GOD' really is! Man is awed with his limited intelligence!However 'tis better that Man makes God in his own image then make God in the image of snakes, elephants, monkey, cow etc. That I think is the hallmark of a 'Christian God! I hope u will accept this, and stop doubting; I believe in only one God for all true religions! Lets move on from here.Nasci Caldeira Nasci-Religion is Universal-to each his own-we all(hopefully) believe in a Supreme Being-that is the most important belief-God is Universal-Dev Tumka Boren Dis Deum! Hinduism also believes in God! Regards Vasant According to the tenets of Hinduism, God is one as well as many. He is to be found every where and in every thing. He is there in the sky, in the rivers, in the plants and trees and even in a particle of dust. He is an enigma, because He is in many things at a time and is many things at a time. He is visible as well as invisible. He is here and He is there. He is above and He is below. He is with forms and also without form. He speaks and He speaks not. He is the self and also the not-self. To say that this is God and this is not is perhaps much more sacrilegious, if there is anything like sacrilegious in the world of God, than seeing God in images and idols and worshipping Him. Hinduism recognizes this fundamental truth about God in letter and spirit. For the Hindus the whole universe is sacred, permeated by His presence, radiating His glory, sustained by Him and manifested by Him. Every thing in it and every aspect of it, without an exception, is sacred and worthy of worship. If God is to be found only in the heavens, nowhere else, sitting on a throne and ruling the worlds or dispensing justice, then He cannot be God but just an aspect of Him. If God favors only those who worship Him in a particular manner, calling Him by a particular name, and declares that every one else who does not follow those percepts will go to Hell, then He cannot be God, but an inferior aspect of Him. Hindus worship God according to their level of understanding. Some worship the highest God, some worship the village deities. Some worship a personal god believing him to be the Highest God. Some worship many gods simultaneously, with the belief that they all are the different manifestations of the same God. Some people worship Him in the form of images. Some worship His name by chanting His name or writing it a million or ten million times. Some make Him offerings of food and money. Some offer themselves completely. Some do not offer Him anything, but just worship Him either out of fear or want. Some do not worship Him at all, but still remain within the fold of Hinduism. In Hinduism there are many schools of thoughts and many layers of thoughts, because Hinduism is not the product of one prophet or one messiah and because it does not believe in the tyranny of religious dogmatism and in the stratification of human thought. It is a product of man's freedom of thought and of action. A constantly evolving and flowering religion, with many streams of thought assimilated in it, it is a product of mankind's history - a synthesis of many experiences and thought processes that make it extremely complex, but generously tolerant and lenient. It views the world as a playground of God where man has to resolve his illusions and pettiness and find the Hidden God. And it gives enormous time and opportunity to each individual to find Him in his or her own way. Some find Him. Some do not. Some do not bother at all and try to find something else: money, happiness, relationships, name, fame and so on. Hinduism waits for them patiently, knowing well the inevitable. There are many ways in which one can pursue the path of liberation. Hinduism broadly classifies them into three categories: the path of devotion, the path of knowledge and the path of duty and on each path an individual has many choices to work out his salvation. There are also many ways in which we can communicate with God. But broadly speaking we can put them into three main categories, namely physical communication, mental communication, and spiritual communication. We communicate with Him physically by worshipping His image or idol, treating with great respect, as if it is alive, and placing it with love and attention in our hearts and houses . We communicate with Him mentally by meditating upon His form, His words or His qualities. And finally, we also communicate with Him spiritually and intuitively through the silence of our minds and the loving nature our hearts as the inmost, invisible, infinite and divine Sel
[Goanet] Catholic Priest makes Bollywood Film
'Aisa Kyon Hota Hai' is entertainment with a message By Vishal Arora Tuesday, 07 February , 2006 Aisa Kyon Hota Hai? is a purely Bollywood film thought out, conceived and executed by a Catholic priest. For the first time in the history, the Catholic Church in India has joined hands with Bollywood to make a feature film. The film, the brainchild of Dr Dominic Emmanuel SVD and presented by Bollywood film-maker Mahesh Bhatt, highlights the role of love, loyalty and commitment in relationships. Directed by former UNICEF officer Ajay Kanchan, the film carries a message on two crucial issues facing the country: HIV/AIDS and communalism. The film will hit the cinema halls on February 17. Set in the college campus, the story revolves around a single mother Kiran (Rati Agnihotri) and her son Raj (Aryan Vaid). Though Kiran brings up Raj with a lot of affection, he grows up with no respect for emotional relationships. It’s not love, but lust that is the reality of his life. Every now and then he is also haunted by the thought that he is an illegitimate child. He wants to achieve success and fame so that he can gain legitimacy and get people to respect his mother. Sify spoke to Emmanuel, national president of the Signis India (Catholic Association for Radio, Television & Cinema) and spokesman for the Delhi Catholic Archdiocese, on the Church joining hands with Bollywood. Emmanuel holds a PhD in communication from the UK. Currently he hosts a weekly television programme called the Voice of Christianity, which is aired on Jain TV every Sunday. He has also made two tele-films that were aired on Doordarshan and Zee TV. Excerpts: How did you get the idea of making a Bollywood film? The original idea was to make a tele-serial on inter-religious harmony, which still remains the main theme of the film. I have been writing on the theme, and recently finished a series of books on value education for school children where the idea is emphasised. I have also broadcast on radio on this theme earlier. But since there were no takers for such a TV serial, we thought of making a film. I must, however, hasten to add that at that time I never thought that the film would take such a shape and turn out to be an all out Bollywood film. Can we call your endeavor an “unholy alliance for a holy purpose”? I don't think that it has anything to do with being "unholy". It is all about using a medium, which is not only the most popular in India, but also available to everyone. The question is how one uses the medium. Any medium can be used for a good purpose or a bad one. A knife in the hands of a doctor can remove a tumour and in the hands of an assailant can kill someone. It depends on who uses the medium and for what purpose. Why did you choose issues like HIV/AIDS and communalism out the numerous issues facing our country? I have been working on inter-religious harmony and understanding it for the past 25 years. I did two weekly radio talks on Radio Veritas Asia for five years, from 1988 to1993. I then did a Ph D from London on communication as dialogue. So inter-religious harmony, due to the lack of which communalism breaks out, was the most natural of choices. And since the curse of HIV/AIDS is growing everyday, threatening to wipe out all the progress the country is making, and taking the lives of so many, especially the young ones, it was important to include it as well. Do you think issues like HIV/AIDS and communalism will sell in our country? Our purpose in making the film is not to make profit. But it has five songs and all the Bollywood ingredients of entertainment, including a mild item number with wonderful music, which was released by Times Music on January 2. If we can combine education with entertainment and call it edutainment, that would be a great achievement. And when you go to see the film, you will find out that we have hit on a very successful formula. What is the USP of your film? Entertainment with a message. Enhancing the risk perception of young people about their vulnerability, and encouraging them to delay their sexual debut; safe sexual practices and stress on formation of long-term loyal and faithful relationships with their partners. And becoming aware of the prejudices against people of other religions, which give rise to communal violence and bloodshed. How is the Ca
[Goanet] Why What's Good for India Is Good for the US
--- | New on Goanet's website's A&E section - http://www.goanet.org | | Book in Review: A Kind of Absence - Joao da Veiga Coutinho| | POEM: SUSEGAAD - Cynthia Gomes James| | http://www.goanet.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=216 | --- by Charles Wheelan, Ph.D. Wednesday, January 4, 2006 I spent two weeks last month in India, one of the most fascinating places on the planet. Where else can you stroll through the gleaming high-tech Bangalore campus of Infosys only hours after getting stuck in a traffic jam on a major highway caused by a collision between a tractor and an ox cart? So far, India has attracted mainstream attention mostly as the place where the guy booking your airline ticket -- or transcribing your medical records or even preparing your taxes -- happens to be sitting. That's true enough. But India is far more than a telemarketing curiosity, and "outsourcing" is only a tiny piece of the economic transformation going on there. Having grown at roughly 6 percent a year for the past decade with the potential to do even better, India is likely to be one of the most important economic stories of the next decade. America has a huge stake in that success -- even as some jobs migrate across the Indian Ocean. Indeed, here are four reasons we should hope that the next decade in India is at least as good as the last decade has been. 1. Because it's the world's largest democracy. If we're going to promote democracy around the globe, particularly as a solution for what ails the Middle East, then we ought to wish success upon the world's largest and most vibrant democracy. India has a billion people, 22 official languages, and so many ethnicities that everyone is a minority. If democracy can work here, it can work anywhere. And it is working. Indians vote in far higher numbers than Americans, even when it means trekking for hours to the closest polling place. India's government is plodding, fractious, and permeated by corruption. But it has also brought stability, the rule of law, and respect for individual rights to a place that looks ungovernable on the surface. And did I mention that India has the world's third largest Muslim population? 2. Because it's where a large proportion of the world's poor live. If you don't care about starving people, then skip to number three. If you do, then India matters a lot. It's just basic math; roughly a third of the world's poor live in India. Robust economic growth will help these people far more than any check you might mail to one of those places that sends you free return address labels. It's already started. India's growth over the past several decades has lifted some 100 million people out of dire poverty. 3. Because a richer India will make for a richer America. How can a place that "competes" with American companies and replaces American workers make us better off by growing wealthier? First, a growing Indian middle class will buy our products. The guy in Bangalore who answers questions about your Dell computer probably drinks Coke, uses Microsoft Word, and reads my column on Yahoo! Finance. (Okay, I can't prove that last one, but you get the point.) It doesn't matter what business you're in, having 300 million new middle class consumers in India is good for you. Second, Indian firms will design and sell products that make our lives better. That's what happens when you unleash new human potential. Imagine the following scenario: Your child has just been diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia. The doctor sits you down and says, "I have good news and bad news. The good news is that the disease can now be treated successfully. The bad news is that the treatment was discovered by an Indian scientist, and the drugs are produced by a leading Indian pharmaceutical company." Actually, that's not really bad news, is it? Third, at a minimum, Indian competition and outsourcing by American companies will lower the cost and improve the quality of all kinds of goods and services. Do you remember the crap that Detroit produced before Honda and Toyota became serious players in the American market? (True, Detroit still produces a shocking amount of crap, but now we don't have to buy it, as GM shareholders and bondholders have learned.) Cheaper imports from places like India or China are just like a tax cut; there is more money left in your wallet at the end of the month. And they create American jobs, too, which is less intuitive and therefore often overlooked. If you save money on cheaper cotton towels, much of that extra cash is likely to be spent on American goods and services. A Canadian trade minister made this point to me once when he asked rhetorically, "Lo
[Goanet] India's "Girl Deficit" Tragedy
-- | Wishing all Goanetters | | a Prosperous | | and | | Happy New Year - 2006 | |Goanet - http://www.goanet.org | -- India's 'girl deficit' deepest among educatedStudy: Selective-sex abortion claims 500,000 girls a year. By Scott Baldauf | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor NEW DELHI - Banned by Indian law for more than a decade, the practice of prenatal selection and selective abortion remains a common practice in India, claiming up to half a million female children each year, according to a recent study by the British medical journal, The Lancet. The use of ultrasound equipment to determine the sex of an unborn child - introduced to India in 1979 - has now spread to every district in the country. The study found it played a crucial role in thetermination of an estimated 10 million female fetuses in the two decades leading up to 1998, and 5 million since 1994, the year the practice was banned. Few doctors in regular clinics offer the service openly, but activists estimate that sex-selection is a $100 million business in India, largely through mobile sex-selection clinics that can drive into almost any village or neighborhood. The practice is common among all religious groups - Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Muslims, and Christians - but appears to be most common among educated women, a fact that befuddles public health officials and women's rights activists alike. "More educated women have more access to technology, they are more privileged, and most educated families have the least number of children," says Sabu George, a researcher with the Center for Women's Development Studies in New Delhi, who did not participate in the study. "This is not just India. Everywhere in the world, smaller families come at the expense of girls." Like China, India has encouraged smaller families through a mixture of financial incentives and campaigns calling for two children at most. Faced with such pressure, many families, rich and poor alike, are turning to prenatal selection to ensure that they receive a son. It's a problem with many potential causes - from social traditions to the economic burden of dowries - but one that could have strong social repercussions for generations to come. The Lancet survey, conducted by Prabhat Jha of St. Michael's Hospital at the University of Toronto and Rajesh Kumar of the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Research in Chandigarh, India, looked at government data collected from a 1998 sample of Indian families in all the districts of the country. From this data, they concluded that 1 out of every 25 female fetuses is aborted, roughly 500,000 per year. Many doctors, including the Indian Medical Association, dispute the findings of the report, saying that the number of female feticides is closer to 250,000 per year. They note that the data sample used by The Lancet study precedes a 2001 Supreme Court decision outlawing the use of ultrasounds to check for girls. But activists note that the law is largely unenforced. "If there were half a million feticides a year," S.C. Gulati of the Delhi Institute of Economic Growth told the Indian news channel IBN, "the sex ratio would have been very skewed indeed." Yet the sex ratio is skewed. According to the official Indian Census of 2001, there were 927 girl babies for every 1,000 boy babies, nationwide. The problem is worst in the northwestern states of Haryana, Punjab, Delhi, and Gujarat, where the ratio is less than 900 girls for every 1,000 boys. Against common expectations, female feticide is not a crime of India's backward masses. Instead, it is most common among India's elite, who can afford multiple trips to an ultrasound clinic, and the hushed-up abortion of an unwanted girl. In the prosperous farming district of Kurukshetra, for instance, there are only 770 girl babies for every 1,000 boys. In the high-rent Southwest neighborhoods of New Delhi, the number of girl babies is 845 per 1,000 boys. Some activists say it is wrong to blame Indian society for the incidents of female feticide. The main cause for the "girl deficit," they say, is the arrival of ultrasound technology, and the entrepreneurial spirit of Indian doctors. "This is not a cultural thing," says Donna Fernandez, director of Vimochana, a women's rights group based in Bangalore. "This is much more of an economic and political issue. It has got a lot to do with the globalization of technology. It's about the commodification of choices." Cultures don't change overnight, of course, so it's no wonder that activists are focusing at
[Goanet] A True Legacy
-- | Wishing all Goanetters | | a Prosperous | | and | | Happy New Year - 2006 | |Goanet - http://www.goanet.org | -- Lakshmi Mittal's on his visit to Jamshedpur (Jharkand)I visited Jamshedpur over the weekend to see for myself an India that is fast disappearing despite all the wolf-cries of people like Narayanamurthy and his ilk. It is one thing to talk and quite another to do and I am delighted to tell you that Ratan Tata has kept alive the legacy of perhaps Indias finest industrialist J.N. Tata. Something that some people doubted when Ratan took over the House of the Tatas but in hindsight, the best thing to have happened to the Tatas is unquestionably Ratan. I was amazed to see the extent of corporate philanthropy and this is no exaggeration.For the breed that talks about corporate social responsibility and talks about the role of corporate India, a visit to Jamshedpur is a must. Go there and see the amount of money they pump into keeping the town going; see the smiling faces of workers in a region known for industrial unrest; see the standard of living in a city that is almost isolated from the mess in the rest of the country. This is not meant to be a puff piece. I have nothing to do with Tata Steel, but I strongly believe the message of hope and the message of goodness that they are spreading is worth sharing. The fact that you do have companies in India which look at workers as human beings and who do not blow their software trumpet of having changed lives. In fact, I asked Mr Muthurman, the managing director, as to why he was so quietabout all they had done and all he could offer in return was a smile wrapped in humility, which said it all. They have done so much more since I last visited Jamshedpur, which was in 1992. The town has obviously got busier but the values thankfully haven't changed. The food is still as amazing as it always was and I gorged, as I would normally do. I visited the plant and the last time I did that was with Russi Mody.But the plant this time was gleaming and far from what it used to be. Greener and cleaner and a tribute to environment management. You could have been in the mountains. Such was the quality of air I inhaled! There was no belching smoke; no tired faces and so many more women workers, even on the shop floor. This is true gender equality and not the kind that is often espoused at seminars organised by angry activists. I met so many old friends. Most of them have aged but not grown old. There was a spring in the air which came from a certain calmness which has always been the hallmark of Jamshedpur and something I savoured for a full two days in between receiving messages of how boring and decrepit the Lacklustre Fashion Weak was.It is at times such as this that our city lives seem so meaningless. Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata had created an edifice that is today a robust company and it is not about profits and about valuation. It is not about who becomes a millionaire and who doesnt'. It is about getting the job done with dignity and respect keeping the age-old values intact and this is what I learnt.I jokingly asked someone as to whether they ever thought of joining an Infosys or a Wipro and pat came the reply: "We are not interested in becoming crorepatis but in making others crorepatis."Which is exactly what the Tatas have done for years in and around Jamshedpur. Very few people know that Jamshedpur has been selected as a UN Global Compact City, edging out the other nominee from India, Bangalore. Selected because of the quality of life, because of the conditions of sanitation and roads and welfare. If this is not a tribute to industrial India, then what is? Today, Indian needs several Jamshedpurs but it also needs this Jamshedpur to be given its fair due,its recognition. I am tired of campus visits being publicised to the Infosys and the Wipros of the world. Modern India is being built in Jamshedpur as we speak. An India built on the strength of core convictions and nothing was more apparent about that than the experiment with truth and reality that Tata Steel is conducting at Pipla.Forty-eight tribal girls (yes, tribal girls who these corrupt and evil politicians only talk about but do nothing for) are being educated through a residential program over nine months. I went to visit them and I spoke to them in a language that they have just learnt: Bengali. Eight weeks ago, they could only speak in Sainthali, their local dialect. B
[Goanet] A Goan's unusual path to success in New York
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/02/magazine/02martins.html
October 2, 2005So the Jains, They Have a Problem With Beef in the School Lunches. Who
They Gonna Call?
By SUKETU
MEHTA
It was the night of this year's New York primary, and when a billionaire like
Mayor Michael Bloomberg holds a party to celebrate his candidacy, it's no small
affair. The spacious ballroom of the Marriott in downtown Brooklyn was
overflowing with free beer and pigs-in-blankets, and a band revved up the
throngs of supporters. "We love Mike! We love Mike!" they chanted. Among the
supporters was Alex Martins, a goateed Indian lawyer in a business suit and a
Hawaiian shirt. He was flanked by three fellow Indians in shirt-sleeves who
looked a little lost. Martins waved a big blue Bloomberg poster enthusiastically
and joined in the chant; his entourage stood around silently.
Martins's companions were wearing "Mike '05" buttons, but it was safe to
assume that they had little clue what the mayor's political platform was. They
were at the Marriott because, being relatively new immigrants, they wanted
things "fixed" - visas, jobs, business permits - and Martins is a master at
this. If Martins was attending the event, they would join him. They told me they
don't have much trust in politicians because they had known the ones back home
in India. ("Politicians are like creatures," one of them, a computer programmer
from Mumbai, said. "They're like sharks.") But they were hoping that through
their association with Martins, who is on the board of the New Era Democrats, a
political club that has endorsed Bloomberg, they might see some results. Martins
is a slim, dark man of 40 who looks understandingly at you over the top of his
glasses as he speaks. "Within this week I will solve your problem" is one of his
favorite phrases.
When I first asked for his card, Martins gave me four. One identified him as
an immigration and personal-injury lawyer affiliated with the firm Frenkel,
Hershkowitz & Shafran. A second card testified to his role as C.E.O. of Ara
Global Trading, "Importer and Distributor of Exclusive Wines." Two others
actually belonged to his wife, Maureen Martins, D.D.S., of Bright Smile Dental
Care in Flushing and Valley Stream, N.Y. ("We love to see you smile.") He
frequently conducts business out of her offices.
Martins is not a high-profile mover and shaker in New York City politics. But
he does play a role in helping to meet the needs of many of the city's residents
- particularly South Asian immigrants. He is a fixer, an expediter: a link
between the vast, anonymous, forbidding face of the system and the immigrant
cabby or student or maid, perhaps without papers, fresh off a long-haul flight
at J.F.K.
In the absence of powerful elected officials - there's not a single South
Asian holding a major elected office in New York - the Indian community has to
rely on other conduits to power. Martins fills that role by running a favor
bank, brokering the barter of services - for instance, a largely Indian taxi
company agrees to distribute campaign literature in return for his intervention
with officials on the Taxi and Limousine Commission. Martins's fees are not made
explicit, but the people who come to him are more or less aware of what they
need to do to pay him back, because they come from countries where the trading
of influence is necessary to survival.
Historically, every immigrant group that has come to New York has relied on
people like Martins: a man of connections, a man you call when your son is
caught shoplifting or your cousin needs a visa or your nephew needs a city job.
He is not a politician - not yet, at least - but he is a political creature. He
is the representative who helps new immigrants reach their elected
representatives.
For the politicians whom Martins deals with, the benefits of helping a new
immigrant are often not immediately apparent, because most of the immigrants are
not citizens and can't vote. But some of these immigrants have money, and many
of them will, eventually, become citizens and remember who came to their
assistance when they were new to the country. The politicians are also keenly
aware that New York's demographics are changing. This year, for the first time
in history, non-Hispanic whites make up a minority of the city's voters. Which
means that every New York politician seeking citywide office now has to form a
coalition: no one can win on the basis of appealing to a single voting bloc,
whether it's whites, blacks or Hispanics. Politicians will need the support of
the Jains, the Catholics from Goa, the Sikhs - all the people who turn to
Martins to get things fixed.
"How's the sick and the dying?" Marty Golden, a New York state senator,
asked Dr. Narmesh Shah on a recent summer day, walking into a pizza parlor next
to Golden's Brooklyn office in the 22nd District in Bay Ridge. Martins, who was
sitting with Shah, had arranged this meet
[Goanet]Re:Konkani and Roman Script
LANGUAGE Tongue In A Twist Kannada or Devanagari? The dialect-rich Konkani sets off furious debate on the choice of script in Karnataka. http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20050627&fname=Konkani+%28F%29&sid=1
