Manipur, a forgotten hotspot

Read this interesting article in the Economist online, titled "A safe house for dangerous men", about Manipur, a small state in the North-East corner of India.

This article is part of a "Correspondent’s Diary", but I am not sure who the correspondent is.

Wracked by insurgency and a AIDS hot spot, Manipur certainly doesn't sound like it is the "Jewel of India".

Tags: Manipur Insurgency India

Alcoholism and drug addiction treatment

Nobody needs to talk to me about the horrors of drug addiction or alcoholism because I have seen the ill effects with my own eyes. I have seen families torn apart and even people dying because of these two diseases.

The problem with many addicts is the denial. They refuse to accept that they are addicts and will give excuses like "I am only a social drinker".

I was going through Watershed.com's and found this interesting article titled "The Signs & Symptoms of Alcoholism and Drug Addiction". If you have the symptoms listed, you better seek some professional help.

Kids forced into marriages

Children as young as 10 are being forced into arranged marriages. I guess this is nothing new in several developing countries. However, I was shocked to learn that this is occurring here in the UK and more precisely in Coventry.

The Coventry Times reports that many Asian families (read Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi) are taking their children out of their schools, shipping them abroad and forcing them into arranged marriages.

The report says that the authorities keep quiet for fear of upsetting the Asian communities involved. I agree when the newspaper adds that this is a case of "..political correctness gone mad".

Just proves that even though these people are living in a developed country, their mentality is still way behind.

Drug rehab centres

Have had a few members of my family fall prey into the jaws of drug addiction and alcoholism. And let me tell you, these are diseases as bad as cancer or other life threatening diseases, maybe worse because they can effect people around them in a very very bad way.

I have no research data to support it but I personally feel that people suffering from drug addiction and alcoholism who want to get better should go into a rehabilitation centre rather than getting treatment at home.

When we talk about drug rehabilitation centres in Malaysia, the first thing that comes to mind are jail like conditions where the patients are treated like prisoners.

I am not sure but that might not be the right way to treat any form of addiction. Forcing them to stop will only be a temporary situation. Once they get out, they will most likely get back into the habit again.

Instead of jailers, they should have qualified nursing and medical staff on premises includes members who have actually graduated from the very program. They would be able to relate and understand each and every person that joins their program.

James Cameroon challenges Christianity

Now for some highly controversial news.

James Cameroon, director of the movie "Titanic" has claimed that he has found the tomb of Jesus Christ and his family in a documentary that he says will "rock the foundation of Christianity".

Cameron and filmmaker archeologist Simcha Jacobovici sets to to prove that the Talpiot Tomb uncovered 27 years ago, once held the remains of Jesus of Nazareth and his family.

The really shocking part is where he claims that Jesus fathered a a son named Judah with Mary Magdalene.

The documentary, "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" will be on the Discovery Channel on March 4th on the Discovery Channel at 9 p.m. ET/PT.

Related links:
- Discovery Channel To Roll Out Freemason Cameron On Jesus Tomb Claim
- Academy Winner of "Titanic" James Cameron Navigates "The Lost Tomb of Jesus"
- James Cameron finds grave of Jesus & Son

Tags: Discovery
Documentary James Cameroon Jesus Mary Magdalene Simcha Jacobovici

Egyptian blogger jailed

Abdul Kareem Suleiman Amer, an 22 years old Egyptian blogger has been jailed for 4 years after he criticised the al-Azhar university and President Hosni Mubarak in his blog. He will go down in history books as the first Egyptian blogger to be prosecuted in the country.

Abdul Kareem (sometimes Abdul Kareem Nabeel Suleiman) who blogs under the alias Kareem Amer, was a former student of the country's top Islamic University. He was expelled from the University early last year.

The University is very popular with Malaysian students too.

Amnesty International has condemned the jail sentence and called for his immediate and unconditional release.

Related Link: Free Kareem!

Tags: Abdul Kareem al-Azhar Amnesty

Alcohol and the youth

Channel 4 is fast becoming my favourite channel here in the UK. They have so many interesting documentaries.

Today morning there was this documentary called "Booze: A Young Person's Guide" on one major problem in the UK. I am sure you must have guessed it from the title.

It was not really shocking for me to see young people boozing away like there's no tomorrow because I went through that phase myself. Was just an inch away from becoming an alcoholic during my undergraduate days in University. We drank alcohol to enjoy ourselves and that meant getting dead drunk.

I no longer drink and haven't touched anything alcoholic for a little more than 6 years now. No more beers, whiskey, vodka or even an alcopop for me. I don't care when you try to convince me that "it contains only 1% alcohol". Never for me means NEVER!

Coming back to the documentary, what was shocking for me was watching kids as young as 16 drinking hard liquor, which had been bought by their parents.

A BBC report reveals that "alcohol causes more problems amongst teenagers than any illegal drug".

The documentary also points out that half of all date rapes are alcohol related. Something which an earlier BBC report had warned about.

Picture by Rick A. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License.
Tags: Alcohol Channel 4 Drunk Teenage drinking

Is God green?

This Monday there was this very interesting documentary on Channel 4. Presented by Mark Dowd, the documentary "God is Green" seeks to find out why leaders of the World's major faiths are saying so little on a very important issue facing the Earth today, namely Climate change.

It was really sad to see that most of the religious leaders approached by him didn't really seem to be concerned. For some it's inevitable - "the end of the world is coming". Other's blamed the west.

FYI, it will be repeated on Monday 5th March at midnight.

Creating awareness about sexual harassment

One of my lady friends was once telling me some stories about her old job. It seems that the guys there were very careless with their speech and used to tease the younger girls and even crack dirty jokes when the ladies were around. It was shocking when she told me that she didn't like it but she just smiled and got on with her work. Eventually she left the job to further her studies, eventually becoming a lecturer.

When I told her that the actions of her colleagues may constitute sexual harassment, she was quite surprised. She didn't realise that there is such a thing as a verbal harassment.

According to her, she was quite resigned. According to her, there was nothing she could have done. If any of you ladies are facing such a situation, I suggest you to see Sexual Harassment Lawyers who are specialised in such cases.

I guess, many victims prefer to remain silent because they are fear the bad consequences that might happen. I think it is wrong to tolerate such behaviour in the work place and leaving the job means that you are giving in.

Related Links:
- A Memorandum On STOP SEXUAL HARASSMENT
- Code of practices by the Ministry of Human Resources, Malaysia.
- Lawyerment

Crazy mullah

I was watching ITV news a few minutes ago when they showed an interview with Abu Izzadeen, one of Britain's leading Muslim extremist. It was really chilling. First time I heard about him was on CNN's "The War Within" one hour documentary about extremism in the UK by Christiane Amanpour.

It was really chilling when he said that Muslim soldiers in the British army should be beheaded because according to him they were apostates. Previously he had described the 7/7 bombers as "completely praiseworthy".

According to the ITV website, a video of him preaching a message of hate was found on an underground website.

The funny thing is that he living here in the UK, criticising "unbelievers" and freely spreading messages of hate. He would have been quickly put inside bars under the ISA he had done that in Malaysia.

Read more about the guy on Wikipedia.

Doing our bit for the environment

A few days back, I wrote the post "Humans cause Global warming" and was discussing the issue with my wife. According to her, "there's nothing much we can do about it". Or is there...

I have come up with a small list of things we can do:
1. Install energy saving bulbs. Implemented. All lights in our house has been replaced.
2. Stop using the dryer in the washing machine. Implemented. We now dry our clothes outside whenever we can and over the radiators most of the time.
3. Shut off lights in rooms not in use. Implemented.
4. Turning off computers when not in use. Bit harder as I hate waiting for the computer to start up (I am using a Windows PC) and all the software to load.
5. Turn off the TV and other electrical appliances when not in use. I mean shutting off the switch and not just using the remote. There is still some electrical leak if you see the red light on the appliance. Implemented.
6. Take public transport. Bit hard after getting used to driving everywhere.
7. Walk to your nearby newsstand or grocer instead of driving there. Implemented. Doing that now.
8. Take a shower instead of a bath. Implemented.
9. Support green companies. I like Tesco for their initiatives such as giving green points for reusing bags.
10. Recycle. Trying to implement it. Have already got a composting bin but haven't started making my own compost yet.

We are not only doing our bit to save the environment but reducing our bills in the process.

Can you think of some more ways.

Tags: Earth Environment Recycle

9 11 Conspiracy theories

I have never believed in all the 9/11 conspiracy theories. You can read a good review of the various theories in Wikipedia.

Recently got to watch a provocative documentary called "911 In Plane Site" on the Static brain blog. I must admit that after watching the movie, I had some doubts about official accounts of the tragedy in New York for the first time.

Anyway, Popular Mechanics published by Hearst Communications, refutes these theories on their site.

So do you think the 9/11 attacks were a conspiracy?

News from Muslim World

Just learnt from the BBC that 130 people have been killed in Baghdad.

Meanwhile, rival Palestinian factions from the Hamas and Fatah, are killing each other in the Gaza Strip. According to this report, they have agreed on an immediate ceasefire - again. Hope they keep it this time.

Things have cooled down a bit in Lebanon after last weeks fighting and the clerics are trying their best to keep peace.

Fighting still continues in Afghanistan with the Taliban taking over a town.

Over here in the UK, police are still holding nine Birmingham men arrested over an alleged kidnapping plot, in a Coventry police station. They were alleged to have plotted to kidnap and kill a Muslim soldier and then post up videos on the net.The names of some of the guys have come out.

Humans cause Global warming

Picture of Greenpeace activists scaling the 327 meters high Eiffel Tower in Paris, France to unfurl a giant banner delivering the Climate Change message 'It's not too late to save the climate'.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) adopted the Summary for Policymakers of the first volume of “Climate Change 2007”, also known as the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) yesterday in Paris.

The report, drafted by around 500 of the World's top scientists, supported by hundreds of other contributors, say that humans are most probably causing global warming.

Is that something surprising?

So it's not a question of whether there's Global warming or not but rather who causes it.

According to the report, World temperatures will likely rise 3.2 to 7.1 degrees Fahrenheit, and sea levels will rise 7 to 23 inches, plus another 4 to 8 inches if polar ice sheets keep melting. Means that a lot of place including London will be in danger of coming under the waves.

The responses from various governments were quite interesting.

The EU said it was the starkest warning yet, while the UK said climate change threatened world peace and prosperity.

On the other hand, a White House spokesperson said that this report "will be valuable to policymakers".

Related Links:
- International climate change report rings the alarm bell
- Greenpeace analysis of the IPCC Climate Change confirmed – now take action before it’s too late

Tags: Earth Environment IPCC

Mother Earth

Wrote this in 1991 while I was an undergraduate student in India., titled : Where is the World going to?

Destruction of the rain forests- the lungs of the Earth; increasing number of human beings fighting for limited resources; growing urbanisation and industrialisation -- more and more cities and factories, cars and other vehicles- churning out smoke and rubbish; polluted rivers and oceans; endangered species of flora and fauna and most serious of all - toxic and radioactive waste.

The warning signs are already here, but we just ignore them. Warming of the Earth's atmosphere, ozone holes over the poles, melting of the polar ice caps and acid rain.

Are the increasing incidences of floods, storms, earthquakes and other natural disasters, the emergence of new deadly and strange diseases - AIDS, the JE Virus, the Nipah virus, Chicken Flu, Mad Cow disease - a sign that Mother Earth has had enough.

Why do we forget that, even though we are separated by man made boundaries - we live on the same Earth and breathe the same air.

Are we really superior to other species of animals?
The way we act sometimes, shows that deep down we are the worst of beasts. If we don't stop to think and act before its too late...
In the end, it might be us the human beings, who come under the endangered list.

When we talk about the Environment and the need to preserve it, many people just ignore it saying:
- It's none of our business;
- It's the Government's Job;
- Why should the Third World worry about polllution when the developed countries are the worst polluters;
- What can we do?
- Leave that to Green Peace and other tree huggers.
.... and so on.

Come on Guys! We can't continue giving excuses. The environment is everybody's business. After all we inherited it from our ancestors and we are only borrowing it from our children.

The fact that the developed nations are the worst polluters doesn't mean that the developing world has to follow them. We should learn from the mistakes that they made and avoid making the same. We can start by teaching our children to recycle, teaching them the wonders of nature and to save energy. We can't leave that to the Green Peace movement. It's everybody's duty.

"The Forest is a peculiar organism of unlimited kindness and benevolence that makes no demand for its sustenance and extends generally the products of its life activity; it affords protection to all beings, offering shade to the axe man who destroys it." -- Gautama Buddha

Tags: Earth Environment