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Saudi Cleric Says Women Must Wear One-Eye Veil to Prevent 'Seduction'
Saturday, October 04, 2008
A Muslim cleric has called for Saudi women to wear a full veil, or nigab, that reveals only one eye, in order to control seduction, the BBC reported Friday.
Sheikh Muhammad al-Habadan said that women in Saudi Arabia are encouraged to use eye makeup and look seductive when allowed to wear a veil that exposes both eyes.
How much of their face Muslim women expose differs from country to country, and is an area of contention. The nigab is more common in Saudi Arabia, but in many Muslim societies women wear a headscarf that covers only their hair. more
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
SC slams Orissa HC for acquitting a rape convict on absurd reasons
SC slams Orissa HC
New Delhi, Dec. 16: The Supreme Court today slammed the Orissa High Court for acquitting a rape convict on the absurd reasoning that the victim was a healthy tribal woman capable of resisting the alleged rape and that there was only one eye witness to the alleged crime.
A bench of Justices ~ Mr Arijit Pasayat and Mr Mukundakam Sharma, in a judgement, said that the High Court had taken a wrong view that the accused was either falsely implicated or that it was a case of consensual sex.
“The conclusions are not only confusing but border on absurdity. It baffles us as to why the High Court says that 'law is well settled that it is not possible for a single man to commit sexual intercourse with a healthy adult female in full possession of her senses against her will'. There is not even a single decision which says so,” the apex court observed while quashing the acquittal order passed by the High Court.
In this case the accused Sukru Gowda had allegedly raped the victim in the forest area which was witnessed by another person. On the basis of medical evidence and the purported eye witness account, the Special Judge-cum-Sessions judge, Koraput, Jeypore convicted the accused.
The convict filed an appeal in the High Court which however, disbelieved the prosecution's version and acquitted Gowda of the charge with the above reasoning and other observations. n pti
New Delhi, Dec. 16: The Supreme Court today slammed the Orissa High Court for acquitting a rape convict on the absurd reasoning that the victim was a healthy tribal woman capable of resisting the alleged rape and that there was only one eye witness to the alleged crime.
A bench of Justices ~ Mr Arijit Pasayat and Mr Mukundakam Sharma, in a judgement, said that the High Court had taken a wrong view that the accused was either falsely implicated or that it was a case of consensual sex.
“The conclusions are not only confusing but border on absurdity. It baffles us as to why the High Court says that 'law is well settled that it is not possible for a single man to commit sexual intercourse with a healthy adult female in full possession of her senses against her will'. There is not even a single decision which says so,” the apex court observed while quashing the acquittal order passed by the High Court.
In this case the accused Sukru Gowda had allegedly raped the victim in the forest area which was witnessed by another person. On the basis of medical evidence and the purported eye witness account, the Special Judge-cum-Sessions judge, Koraput, Jeypore convicted the accused.
The convict filed an appeal in the High Court which however, disbelieved the prosecution's version and acquitted Gowda of the charge with the above reasoning and other observations. n pti
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Women get help for sex addiction
  It's more likely you'll hear of a man being a sex addict than a woman. But Newsbeat's own research has found that there's a growing number of females seeking help for the condition in the UK. Many therapists in the US say it's the same there. Rob Weiss, a sex addiction specialist, estimates around 20% of sex addicts in America are women. He works at the Life Healing Centre in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which specialises in sex addiction treatment at a price: around £20,000 for a month's therapy. Newsbeat spent a day in rehab with the female patients. Group therapy The women addicts live together on campus in a red bricked bungalow. There are five bedrooms and each room has two or three single beds. Patients are not allowed TVs, laptops, or mobile phones. They start off their day by chanting "it's not your fault".
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I compulsively had solo sex. I started touching myself about three or four times a day 
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Child benefit greed drove 'British Josef Fritzl' to fathering incest kids
Thu, Nov 27 02:55 PM
London, Nov 27 (ANI): The "British Josef Fritzl," who admitted to repeatedly raping his two daughters and getting them pregnant 19 times, did the evil act to get child benefit payments, claims his sister-in-law.
The 56-year-old's relative said that he fathered nine children by the girls in order to support his lifestyle.
In order to boost his income through benefits and tax credits, the Briton once offered his younger daughter 500 pounds to have another child, the relative said.
"He would always have a roll of 20 pounds notes but everyone knew he had never worked a day in his life," the Telegraph quoted the sister-in-law, as saying. more
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Lokkhi abuse:NCW and Shakti Vahini meet the Haryana governor
Lokkhi abuse: Haryana governor takes note
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Tanushree Roy ChowdhuryPosted: Nov 22, 2008 at 0015 hrs IST
Almost two weeks after a team from theNational Commission for Women (NCW) and an NGO rescued teenaged domestic help who was brutally beaten up by her employers in their Gurgaon residence, Haryana Governor A R Kidwai on Friday took the issue forward. Kidwai asked the NCW to compile various cases of women and child trafficking and domestic labour in Haryana.
He asked the Commission to submit the report by Monday.
Kidwai took the step after representatives from the NCW and the NGO (Shakti Vahini) met the Haryana governor at Haryana Bhawan in the Capital today. At the meeting they discussed developments in the case of the domestic help Lokkhi. The girl’s employers, Devokjyoti and Paromita Das, were arrested on November 8 and charged with battering the teenager. They were later released on bail. source
Monday, October 27, 2008
Violence Against Women Remains Endemic, UN Expert Reports
Women around the world continue to endure violence, abuse and discrimination and often have no recourse to justice, an independent United Nations human rights expert told the General Assembly today as she urged Member States to make greater efforts to record and publicize violations.
"In spite of considerable achievements, violence against women persists in every country as a pervasive and universal violation of human rights and a major impediment to achieving gender equality," said Yakin Ertürk, the outgoing Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences. more
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Rajani Majhi, gang-raped and burnt alive'
'She was gang-raped before being burnt alive'
IANS
Saturday, October 04, 2008 15:11 IST
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NEW DELHI: Rajani Majhi, a 20-year-old Hindu, was gang-raped before being burnt alive by a mob at the church-run orphanage in Orissa's Bargarh district where she worked, says a senior priest. They mistook her for a Christian.
"I am willing to testify in any court of law," T.V Peter, procurator of the Sambalpur diocese in the western part of the state, said. The incident took place Aug 25 as anti-Christian violence engulfed the state.
"Some policemen and locals were witness to the atrocities by a mob led by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Bajrang Dal at the orphanage in Padampur village in Bargarh district. I went to the spot immediately afterwards and spoke to the witnesses.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
The Jagrata Samithis for faster justice to women in Kerala
Taking justice to women's doorstep in Kerala
Sun, Sep 28 10:29 AM
Kozhikode (Kerala), Sep 28 (IANS)
The Jagrata Samithis (Vigilance Committees) in local administrative bodies is slowly turning into sanctuaries of justice for them. The committees have come up in 832 local administrative bodies out of around 1,200 in the state.
.A committee that is led by the panchayat president has nine members, including women panchayat members, a sub-inspector from the local police station, women social workers, a woman advocate and the doctor from the village health centre.
The State Women's Commission is the apex body which monitors the functioning of the committee. 'The Jagratha Samithis are the eyes and ears of the women's commission. It brings the services of the commission to the grass root level,' says K.B. Madanmohan, the programme associate at KILA (Kerala Institute of Local Administration), which works closely in implementing the scheme in the state.
One of the villages where the scheme was pioneered is Pananchery in Thrissur district, where it was implemented as a pilot project in 2005.
'In the last three years we could settle around 600 cases,' Lissy Chacko, a nun and the woman advocate on the committee, told IANS.
Though the committee entertains all complaints, those connected to crime are referred to the police. 'Police also refer cases to us for settlement,' says Lissy.
When the committee takes up a case it studies the issue in depth. 'We had a complaint from a woman saying her husband has ditched her and is planning to marry another woman. Relatives cited many reasons for their discord. But after three sessions of counselling it became clear that some sexual incompatibility was the real issue,' said Vasu.
The commission is also in the process of installing a software to closely monitor the work of the committees across the state.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
: Women Buried Alive in Pak Balochistan
Prominent civil rights activists are demanding that the government act against those responsible for the burial alive of five women in Balochistan, in July, that politicians from the province have defended as an age-old custom.
On Jul. 14, in the remote village of Babakot, 80 km from Usta Mohammad town in Jafferabad district, three teenage girls and two older women were buried alive, allegedly on the orders of Abdul Sattar Umrani, brother of Sadiq Umrani, a provincial minister belonging to the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).
On Jul. 14, in the remote village of Babakot, 80 km from Usta Mohammad town in Jafferabad district, three teenage girls and two older women were buried alive, allegedly on the orders of Abdul Sattar Umrani, brother of Sadiq Umrani, a provincial minister belonging to the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).
more
Women Buried Alive in Pak Balochistan
By Zofeen Ebrahim KARACHI, Sep 15 (IPS) - Prominent civil rights activists are demanding that the government act against those responsible for the burial alive of five women in Balochistan, in July, that politicians from the province have defended as an age-old custom. On Jul. 14, in the remote village of Babakot, 80 km from Usta Mohammad town in Jafferabad district, three teenage girls and two older women were buried alive, allegedly on the orders of Abdul Sattar Umrani, brother of Sadiq Umrani, a provincial minister belonging to the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). According to the version released by the Hong-Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), the victims were taken to Nau Abadi, in the vicinity of Babakot, where Umrani and his six companions dragged the three younger women out of his jeep and beat them up before shooting and seriously injuring them. The girls were reported still alive when Umrani and his accomplices hurled them into a wide ditch and covered them with earth and stones. AHRC said the two older women were an aunt and the mother of one of the girls. When they protested at the treatment meted out to the girls, they were also pushed into the ditch and buried alive. Apparently the teenagers were being punished for asking to be allowed to marry men of their choice. When the matter was raised in on Aug. 30 in parliament by opposition senator Yasmin Shah -- who accused the government of turning a blind eye to the killings -- a senator from Balochistan, Israrullah Zehri, retorted: "It is part of our custom". Zehri was supported by Senator Jan Mohammad Jamali who said the incident was being ‘’unnecessarily politicised.’’ Ali Dayan Hasan of the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) told IPS that he found Zehri’s comments "sickening" and "reprehensible". "Arguing [in parliament] that it should not be raised because in doing so tribal customs are being politicised is dishonest and contempt of the Senate and the Constitution under which it has been elected," he added. "These beasts in human form have no place in a modern society," said Pervez Hoodbhoy talking to IPS. An internationally-known peace activist, Hoodbhoy said senators Zehri and Jamali were "Neanderthals whose mental framework is that of cavemen’’. Samar Minallah, who has long been fighting against cruel tribal practices in Pakistan, said there are many Zehris and Jamalis in parliament who shared ‘’the same mindset that has more to do with perpetuating the status quo of powerful against weak, man against woman’’. She said the only difference was that the two legislators were honest enough to speak "their minds". Hasan has demanded Zehri’s immediate resignation. "As things stand, he is propagating criminality in the name of tribal custom." "By supporting the unspeakably cruel acts, they [Zehri and Jamali] have shown themselves to be violent, aggressive, and dangerous fiends who should be removed immediately from every public post," said Hoodbhoy. "That there are people in this society who commit multiple murders and then get away with it using their political influence draws a huge question mark on our civility," said A.H. Nayyar, an Islamabad-based academician and rights activist. "Our heads hang in shame for being a part of a nation that tolerates such barbarism." Nayyar recalled that this was not the first time such heinous crimes have been justified in the name of tribal traditions. "Some of our exalted senators from the North West Frontier Province had also justified the cold-blooded killing of a woman by an assassin hired by her parents in the office of her lawyer in Lahore." He was referring to the 1999 murder of 29-year-old Samia Sarwar, who was shot dead for attempting to divorce her husband. Pakistan’s constitution allows a woman aged 18 and above to marry of her own free will, but in practice women are often severely punished or even put to death for straying from tradition. According to the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, in 2007, as many as 636 deaths were attributable to honour killings. Many more such deaths may have gone unreported. Honour killings were banned in 2004 and made punishable with the death sentence, but the law is weak and culprits rarely face justice. "He (Umrani) is going about life with the same pomp and show with armed guards surrounding him, without a fear in the world," a political worker from the Baloch Republican Party (BRP) told IPS over telephone. Speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, the BRP representative said: "The bodies of the three girls have been dug up and buried somewhere else so that the police cannot complete their investigation." He also said that it was a well-known fact that Sattar had killed over two dozen people, mostly over land disputes, but no case has been registered against him. "If you think he will be caught this time, you are mistaken. This is Pakistan, the influential can truly get away with murder, not just one, but scores!" he said. Link |
Sunday, September 14, 2008
All India Democratic Women’s Association’s (AIDWA) Report by T. K. Rajalaksmi in the Frontline
The Frontline
Volume 25 - Issue 19 :: Sep. 13-26, 2008SOCIAL ISSUES
From the margins
T.K. RAJALAKSHMI
in New Delhi
The AIDWA’s convention calls on the government to do its duty by India’s Muslim women.
THERE were stories of exploitation and neglect, first-hand accounts of mindless violence, and resentment at government apathy and injustice at the hands of community elders. And, of course, there were the familiar stories of police harassment after every terror attack. Over 800 Muslim women from across the country attended the All India Democratic Women’s Association’s (AIDWA) national convention of Muslim women on August 27 in New Delhi. Their testimonies defied stereotypes of the passive victim as they spoke of neglect by government agencies, of their appalling living and working conditions and of the experience of living in a patriarchal society that is insensitive to their concerns.
The convention’s charter of demands sought recognition for India’s Muslim women as equal citizens with adequate access to education, health care and employment and asserted that their welfare was the concern of not just the community but the government as well. AIDWA president Subhashini Ali said that while Muslim women felt insecure in the context of rising communal violence, there was also an increasing awareness of their entitlements as citizens.
Among the delegates were elected women representatives, home-based workers, self-help group (SHG) workers, victims of riots and of dowry harassment, and women who had had to deal with police harassment after terror strikes. There were, too, women who had been the victims of decisions made by their own community leaders.
Shakeela, whose seven-year-old son was shot in the head by the Gujarat Police in 2002, broke down as she spoke. Mujibibi, 35, from Davangere in Karnataka, had worked for 20 years as a beedi roller, and very little in her life had changed in these 20 years. She rolls out about 1,100 beedis along with the others in her family in a day, makes Rs.45 for more than 12 hours of work, and enjoys no benefit under the special statute for beedi workers. In Harapanalli taluka, her hometown, scores of Muslim families are engaged in beedi-making. She often gets a “burning” sensation in her face, eyes and chest, an occupational hazard associated with tobacco. “I have to do it, otherwise how will I survive? I do not want my children to go through the same thing, so I have to work,” she said.
Ishrat, from Kanpur, broke down several times while narrating her story. Her husband, a former textile worker, was jobless. Like many other poor Muslim women, she lives in a cramped two-room tenement. Municipal workers, she complained, never visited “Muslim” areas.
Increasing poverty levels among Muslims in the country have led Muslim women to explore avenues to supplement family incomes. However, it is home-based work that most of them are forced to take up. This unorganised employment makes such women dependent on middlemen and a chain of employers. Naseem, a resident of Old Delhi, has worked as a handicraft worker for 22 years. In every other household in her neighbourhood, there are women trying to make a living out of zardozi work and by making envelopes, rachis, bindis and even machine parts. She herself works eight to 10 hours a day. “There are women who have been working for 35 years, and now they earn about Rs.300 a month,” she said. (The minimum daily wage in Delhi is Rs.140.) Malka, a zardozi worker from Lucknow, said she was unable to afford an education for her daughters because of the dwindling returns of the trade. “The chikan kurta sells for thousands of rupees, but we get next to nothing,” she said.
In Tripura, things were slightly better as Muslim women had formed SHGs. Rehana said that of the 20,000 SHGs in the State, 17,000 were run by women from the Scheduled Tribe, Scheduled Caste and Muslim communities.
Among the elected representatives who attended the convention were Mahira Khatun and Sarwar Jahan, both elected members of the Kolkata Municipal Council. Sameena Afroz is the chairperson of the Khammam Municipal Corporation in Andhra Pradesh. Nearly 20 per cent of the population in the Khammam Municipality area is Muslim. Ever since she became the chairperson, more and more Muslim women have been coming out with their problems, according to Sameena. “I fight with my government to give more funds for my municipality. I have succeeded in getting health cards and BPL [below poverty line] cards for the poor,” she said.
Naseem from Jaipur was angry about the way the police harassed Muslims after the blasts in May. She said that the police barged into homes demanding to be shown identity cards of young people. “If we give them the green notes, then there isn’t any problem. If we do not, then we are labelled as Bangladeshis who should be deported,” she alleged. She received applause from the audience when she asserted: “As Hindustanis, we have every right to live in any part of the country just like anyone else.”
Kaifi from Delhi was a dowry victim who had realised that her liberation lay in financial independence. She broke down while narrating how she lost her nine-month-old daughter to pneumonia. “She died in my arms. I did not have a single paisa to get her treated. My in-laws refused to help me because I had given birth to a daughter,” she said. Determined not to look back, she trained as a beautician and has decided to devote her life to helping other Muslim women in distress.
Najma from a village in Bhadrak, Orissa, described how she stood up to community elders who insisted that she was divorced after her husband pronounced the triple talaq one night in a drunken state, only to retract it the next morning. Finally, she secured a court order that restored the couple’s right to live together. Qamar from Hyderabad, an AIDWA activist, had spent a week in jail following an agitation for housing rights. “We were told that stepping into a police station or a court was a gunaah [crime], but if we have to do that for our rights, let us do it,” she said.
The convention came up with a charter of demands that asked for a “sub-plan for the socio-economic, educational, health and other development of the Muslim community in India”. It demanded a 15 per cent allocation of the annual budget under various Ministries for the community and sought an “equitable allocation” under the sub-plan for specific schemes for Muslim women. The charter demanded recognition and support for Muslim minority educational institutions, facilities for the formal education of Muslim girls and women, and upgrading of madrassas, following the West Bengal model, to provide modern education and vocational training. There were also demands for more health centres and ICDS (Integrated Child Development Scheme) centres to cater to the needs of the community.
The charter demanded that 15 per cent of bank loans should be provided to Muslims “in priority sectors as well as commercial and business sectors”. It asked for easy credit to SHGs, craftswomen and women involved in petty trade and commerce and sought training centres at the district level to nurture skills in the unorganised sector. The charter also called for the enactment of the Bill giving 33 per cent reservation to women in the legislatures. It sought reservation for Dalit Muslims and adequate representation for Dalit Muslim women. It called for justice to riot victims.
Brinda Karat, Member of Parliament, said that while the condition of women in India was generally bad, that of Dalit and Muslim women was worse. “It is strange that a country that is ready to spend on imported nuclear reactors should have no money for meeting the minimum needs of poor women,” she said. The convention was a call for change, with the broad understanding that the issues confronting women in general could not be dealt with if specific problems that women of the more marginalised sections faced were not focussed upon.
Link
Volume 25 - Issue 19 :: Sep. 13-26, 2008SOCIAL ISSUES
From the margins
T.K. RAJALAKSHMI
in New Delhi
The AIDWA’s convention calls on the government to do its duty by India’s Muslim women.
THERE were stories of exploitation and neglect, first-hand accounts of mindless violence, and resentment at government apathy and injustice at the hands of community elders. And, of course, there were the familiar stories of police harassment after every terror attack. Over 800 Muslim women from across the country attended the All India Democratic Women’s Association’s (AIDWA) national convention of Muslim women on August 27 in New Delhi. Their testimonies defied stereotypes of the passive victim as they spoke of neglect by government agencies, of their appalling living and working conditions and of the experience of living in a patriarchal society that is insensitive to their concerns.
The convention’s charter of demands sought recognition for India’s Muslim women as equal citizens with adequate access to education, health care and employment and asserted that their welfare was the concern of not just the community but the government as well. AIDWA president Subhashini Ali said that while Muslim women felt insecure in the context of rising communal violence, there was also an increasing awareness of their entitlements as citizens.
Among the delegates were elected women representatives, home-based workers, self-help group (SHG) workers, victims of riots and of dowry harassment, and women who had had to deal with police harassment after terror strikes. There were, too, women who had been the victims of decisions made by their own community leaders.
Shakeela, whose seven-year-old son was shot in the head by the Gujarat Police in 2002, broke down as she spoke. Mujibibi, 35, from Davangere in Karnataka, had worked for 20 years as a beedi roller, and very little in her life had changed in these 20 years. She rolls out about 1,100 beedis along with the others in her family in a day, makes Rs.45 for more than 12 hours of work, and enjoys no benefit under the special statute for beedi workers. In Harapanalli taluka, her hometown, scores of Muslim families are engaged in beedi-making. She often gets a “burning” sensation in her face, eyes and chest, an occupational hazard associated with tobacco. “I have to do it, otherwise how will I survive? I do not want my children to go through the same thing, so I have to work,” she said.
Ishrat, from Kanpur, broke down several times while narrating her story. Her husband, a former textile worker, was jobless. Like many other poor Muslim women, she lives in a cramped two-room tenement. Municipal workers, she complained, never visited “Muslim” areas.
Increasing poverty levels among Muslims in the country have led Muslim women to explore avenues to supplement family incomes. However, it is home-based work that most of them are forced to take up. This unorganised employment makes such women dependent on middlemen and a chain of employers. Naseem, a resident of Old Delhi, has worked as a handicraft worker for 22 years. In every other household in her neighbourhood, there are women trying to make a living out of zardozi work and by making envelopes, rachis, bindis and even machine parts. She herself works eight to 10 hours a day. “There are women who have been working for 35 years, and now they earn about Rs.300 a month,” she said. (The minimum daily wage in Delhi is Rs.140.) Malka, a zardozi worker from Lucknow, said she was unable to afford an education for her daughters because of the dwindling returns of the trade. “The chikan kurta sells for thousands of rupees, but we get next to nothing,” she said.
In Tripura, things were slightly better as Muslim women had formed SHGs. Rehana said that of the 20,000 SHGs in the State, 17,000 were run by women from the Scheduled Tribe, Scheduled Caste and Muslim communities.
Among the elected representatives who attended the convention were Mahira Khatun and Sarwar Jahan, both elected members of the Kolkata Municipal Council. Sameena Afroz is the chairperson of the Khammam Municipal Corporation in Andhra Pradesh. Nearly 20 per cent of the population in the Khammam Municipality area is Muslim. Ever since she became the chairperson, more and more Muslim women have been coming out with their problems, according to Sameena. “I fight with my government to give more funds for my municipality. I have succeeded in getting health cards and BPL [below poverty line] cards for the poor,” she said.
Naseem from Jaipur was angry about the way the police harassed Muslims after the blasts in May. She said that the police barged into homes demanding to be shown identity cards of young people. “If we give them the green notes, then there isn’t any problem. If we do not, then we are labelled as Bangladeshis who should be deported,” she alleged. She received applause from the audience when she asserted: “As Hindustanis, we have every right to live in any part of the country just like anyone else.”
Kaifi from Delhi was a dowry victim who had realised that her liberation lay in financial independence. She broke down while narrating how she lost her nine-month-old daughter to pneumonia. “She died in my arms. I did not have a single paisa to get her treated. My in-laws refused to help me because I had given birth to a daughter,” she said. Determined not to look back, she trained as a beautician and has decided to devote her life to helping other Muslim women in distress.
Najma from a village in Bhadrak, Orissa, described how she stood up to community elders who insisted that she was divorced after her husband pronounced the triple talaq one night in a drunken state, only to retract it the next morning. Finally, she secured a court order that restored the couple’s right to live together. Qamar from Hyderabad, an AIDWA activist, had spent a week in jail following an agitation for housing rights. “We were told that stepping into a police station or a court was a gunaah [crime], but if we have to do that for our rights, let us do it,” she said.
The convention came up with a charter of demands that asked for a “sub-plan for the socio-economic, educational, health and other development of the Muslim community in India”. It demanded a 15 per cent allocation of the annual budget under various Ministries for the community and sought an “equitable allocation” under the sub-plan for specific schemes for Muslim women. The charter demanded recognition and support for Muslim minority educational institutions, facilities for the formal education of Muslim girls and women, and upgrading of madrassas, following the West Bengal model, to provide modern education and vocational training. There were also demands for more health centres and ICDS (Integrated Child Development Scheme) centres to cater to the needs of the community.
The charter demanded that 15 per cent of bank loans should be provided to Muslims “in priority sectors as well as commercial and business sectors”. It asked for easy credit to SHGs, craftswomen and women involved in petty trade and commerce and sought training centres at the district level to nurture skills in the unorganised sector. The charter also called for the enactment of the Bill giving 33 per cent reservation to women in the legislatures. It sought reservation for Dalit Muslims and adequate representation for Dalit Muslim women. It called for justice to riot victims.
Brinda Karat, Member of Parliament, said that while the condition of women in India was generally bad, that of Dalit and Muslim women was worse. “It is strange that a country that is ready to spend on imported nuclear reactors should have no money for meeting the minimum needs of poor women,” she said. The convention was a call for change, with the broad understanding that the issues confronting women in general could not be dealt with if specific problems that women of the more marginalised sections faced were not focussed upon.
Link
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Ten things about Sarah Palin
It has been a week since Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was catapulted from relative obscurity to centre stage as US Republican John McCain's choice for running mate. Here are 10 things we now know about her.
1. Her five children are named Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper and, last but not least, Trig Paxson Van Palin. According to the Washington Post newspaper, Track was named after the course of the sockeye salmon the family fishes off the town of Dillingham, while her eldest daughter's name comes from Bristol Bay, an area known for its salmon fisheries. The name Willow relates to the state bird, the willow ptarmigan, and a nearby town, the paper says, while daughter Piper shares her name with the family's small plane. Trig is the Norse word for "brave victory", the Post adds. More from BBC
Friday, September 12, 2008
Record number of women to attend the Catholic Bishop's Synod
Church in the World
13 September 2008
Robert Mickens
A record number of women will participate in next month's Synod of Bishops on the Word of God. Pope Benedict XVI has named six female scholars as "experts" and 19 women as observers, making it the largest group of women ever appointed to a synod assembly.
There were no women among the experts at the 2005 Synod on the Eucharist and just one at the Synod on Religious Life in 2001.
The women figure in the list of papal appointments to the forthcoming synod published on 6 September. They are among a total of 41 experts and 38 "auditors" or observers.
The women experts include three scripture scholars - Professor Bruna Costacurta and Sr Nuria Calduch Benages, both of whom teach at Rome's Gregorian University, and Sr Mary Jerome Obiorah, professor at the major seminary in Onitsha, Nigeria. Also appointed was Sr Sara Butler, professor of dogma at St Joseph's Seminary in New York and one of only two female members of the Vatican-sponsored International Theological Commission. The other two women experts at the synod are Marguerite Léna, philosophy teacher at the Madeleine Daniélou school for girls in Paris; and Sr Germana Strola, a Trappist nun in Italy.
The lone female among 16 experts at the Synod on Religious Life was Sr Enrica Rosanna, who has since become a co-undersecretary of the Congregation for Religious.
"The Vatican is to be congratulated," said FutureChurch, a US-based reform group that has been lobbying bishops around the world over the last two years to include more women experts at the synod. "We look forward to the day when half of the designated experts are women, rather than 15 per cent," the group said in a statement.
Among the other experts appointed to the synod are Br Enzo Bianchi, founder of the Bose Ecumenical Community in northern Italy; Fr Stephen Pisano, rector of the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome; Fr Klemens Stock, secretary of the Pontifical Biblical Commission; and Fr Giorgio Zevini, dean of theology at the Pontifical Salesian University in Rome and author of the Synod's working paper. Experts take part in small group discussions and assist the Synod officers on technical and theological questions. Neither they nor observers have a vote. Only bishops and representatives of male religious orders may vote. More
13 September 2008
Robert Mickens
A record number of women will participate in next month's Synod of Bishops on the Word of God. Pope Benedict XVI has named six female scholars as "experts" and 19 women as observers, making it the largest group of women ever appointed to a synod assembly.
There were no women among the experts at the 2005 Synod on the Eucharist and just one at the Synod on Religious Life in 2001.
The women figure in the list of papal appointments to the forthcoming synod published on 6 September. They are among a total of 41 experts and 38 "auditors" or observers.
The women experts include three scripture scholars - Professor Bruna Costacurta and Sr Nuria Calduch Benages, both of whom teach at Rome's Gregorian University, and Sr Mary Jerome Obiorah, professor at the major seminary in Onitsha, Nigeria. Also appointed was Sr Sara Butler, professor of dogma at St Joseph's Seminary in New York and one of only two female members of the Vatican-sponsored International Theological Commission. The other two women experts at the synod are Marguerite Léna, philosophy teacher at the Madeleine Daniélou school for girls in Paris; and Sr Germana Strola, a Trappist nun in Italy.
The lone female among 16 experts at the Synod on Religious Life was Sr Enrica Rosanna, who has since become a co-undersecretary of the Congregation for Religious.
"The Vatican is to be congratulated," said FutureChurch, a US-based reform group that has been lobbying bishops around the world over the last two years to include more women experts at the synod. "We look forward to the day when half of the designated experts are women, rather than 15 per cent," the group said in a statement.
Among the other experts appointed to the synod are Br Enzo Bianchi, founder of the Bose Ecumenical Community in northern Italy; Fr Stephen Pisano, rector of the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome; Fr Klemens Stock, secretary of the Pontifical Biblical Commission; and Fr Giorgio Zevini, dean of theology at the Pontifical Salesian University in Rome and author of the Synod's working paper. Experts take part in small group discussions and assist the Synod officers on technical and theological questions. Neither they nor observers have a vote. Only bishops and representatives of male religious orders may vote. More
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Transgenders, transvestites, eunuchs
NEWSMAKERS
On the frontline
VAISHNA ROY
As Rose, the host of ‘Ippadikku Rose’, fights to realign rigid notions about gender and sexuality, it’s worth asking if we know what tolerance really means.
As Rose says: “What about my hobbies, my friends, my skills? There’s so much more to me.”
Transgender: An umbrella term that represents a whole range of people from drag queens to transvestites to eunuchs. I am headed towards my first social encounter with one. But I am not yet sure just what Rose is. All I have is a woman’s name, a man’s voice and a celebrity status as talk-show anchor.
I am curious but also wary, a fastidious shrinking from meeting another tedious exhibitionist. Aravanis are characteristically loud, aggressive and lewd. Rose has chosen to challenge this stereotype and her on-screen personality is intriguing, which is why I am in this narrow street in the bowels of West Mambalam, reluctant to ask for directions.
At any rate, the auto driver has guessed and is leering. Then I find the number, look up and see Rose on the balcony.
Gender identity
First, let’s settle the pronoun. Rose is ‘she’, a woman. This means she is neither a transvestite, someone who dresses like a woman; nor a eunuch, usually a castrated male.
She is a transsexual, someone born male with male genitalia, but who identifies strongly as a woman, including in her sexual preference for men. This is a gender identity disorder, where your body is one gender but your head disagrees.
And what you can do is try to make your body more sympathetic to your mind by using hormonal therapy and sometimes surgical procedures to become physically a woman or, conversely, a man.
Rose takes hormone pills but hasn’t had surgery yet. She explains her identity to me with infinite patience and grace. I am touched by how untiringly she handles the probing. Talking to her, I realise that anything I write about Rose will also necessarily be about reactions to her.
Because these reactions have traditionally decided that Rose and her ilk do not belong. They have decided that there are only two genders into which you can be born, and that leaves a considerable number outside the pale.
What do you do with transsexuals, homosexuals, or hermaphrodites, to name just a few? The last are born with characteristics of both genders, named after Hermaphroditus, son of Hermes and Aphrodite, a handsome man who the gods fused with a nymph.
For now, we have conveniently lumped them all together as ‘aravanis’, ‘hijras’, ‘chakkas’. This effectively means we don’t have to understand how or why they are different; we know they are and we can therefore shunt them into life’s sidelines, from where they impinge on our consciousness every now and then as nuisances, beggars or prostitutes.
Rose refused to be shunted. Born Ramesh into an ordinary, middle-class Tamil family, the boy from the first preferred the company of girls: “I was a softy who liked Barbie and found boys aggressive.” A class-topper, the chubby boy was teacher’s pet and life wasn’t tough yet.
Then came +2, a boys’ school, and the start of bullying and name-calling. The boy realised he was different but wasn’t sure why. Evidently, his assigned sex at birth was male but he ‘felt’ female, so who exactly was he? “Boys called me gay, I thought I was gay.”
Struggles
Gay is a bad word in our rigidly bi-gendered society. It is the stick with which you beat the faintest hint of femininity in a male and vice-versa. It is enough to frighten most transgenders into a perpetuity of deception, where they marry heterosexuals, dress for their assigned gender, and stay safe.
Rose didn’t want safe; she wanted a life, and on her terms. She struggled to discover herself through visits to psychiatrists (who dismissed her as ‘confused’ or ‘misled’) and to dingy gay spots (where she had unsatisfactory sexual encounters with homosexuals), until finally an Oprah Winfrey show on gender identity crisis showed her a glimmering of the truth.
But that wasn’t the end, it was the beginning. For Ramesh to become Rose in a society where even women cannot tackle their sexuality or identity comfortably takes incredible courage. Today, the West has counsellors and help groups, and parents who join support rings to help their transgendered children.
It’s a small island of acceptance in a sea of hate crime and extreme prejudice, an island India is struggling to create. For now, much like women, transgenders here are seen as willing male tools, there to be raped, marginalised and criminalised.
I remember a highly educated friend dismissing homosexuals as freaks and mutants. Well, a transgender is as much a freak as a blind person, or anyone an accident makes paraplegic. But in a Photoshop world where everybody has perfect smiles, sculpted bodies, eats Big Macs and uses fairness creams, how can you tolerate difference, especially when it is ugly and incomprehensible?
The 29-year-old Rose is no freak. She is charming, articulate and completely comfortable with who she is and how she got here. Thrown out on the street by an orthodox family, a victim of rape, fraud and abuse, she has clawed her way up. Armed with a Masters’ degree in biomedical engineering from the US, she wanted more. “I wanted media success as a transgender.” That happened when “Ippadikku Rose” was launched on Vijay TV, and a star was born.
Celebrity tag
The decision to join media is smart. Fame and glamour can make you heard like nothing else. It was the celebrity tag that got her and her friend Kalki, who started the Sahodari Foundation for transgenders, the tiny flat they call office, because people don’t let houses to transgenders, just as they don’t give jobs.
To survive these petty indignities and taunts, that’s the challenge. And to fight the assumption that there is only one dimension, the sexual dimension, to your entire life. As Rose says: “What about my hobbies, my friends, my skills? There’s so much more to me.”
For now, she knows she is on the frontline, paving the way for others. Of the quantities of fan mail she gets, the most satisfying are the ones from other transgenders, thanking her for giving them the courage to fight on.
The author is a freelance writer/editor. E-mail: vaishnaroy@yahoo.com.
PHOTO: K.V. SRINIVASAN
Link
On the frontline
VAISHNA ROY
As Rose, the host of ‘Ippadikku Rose’, fights to realign rigid notions about gender and sexuality, it’s worth asking if we know what tolerance really means.
As Rose says: “What about my hobbies, my friends, my skills? There’s so much more to me.”
Transgender: An umbrella term that represents a whole range of people from drag queens to transvestites to eunuchs. I am headed towards my first social encounter with one. But I am not yet sure just what Rose is. All I have is a woman’s name, a man’s voice and a celebrity status as talk-show anchor.
I am curious but also wary, a fastidious shrinking from meeting another tedious exhibitionist. Aravanis are characteristically loud, aggressive and lewd. Rose has chosen to challenge this stereotype and her on-screen personality is intriguing, which is why I am in this narrow street in the bowels of West Mambalam, reluctant to ask for directions.
At any rate, the auto driver has guessed and is leering. Then I find the number, look up and see Rose on the balcony.
Gender identity
First, let’s settle the pronoun. Rose is ‘she’, a woman. This means she is neither a transvestite, someone who dresses like a woman; nor a eunuch, usually a castrated male.
She is a transsexual, someone born male with male genitalia, but who identifies strongly as a woman, including in her sexual preference for men. This is a gender identity disorder, where your body is one gender but your head disagrees.
And what you can do is try to make your body more sympathetic to your mind by using hormonal therapy and sometimes surgical procedures to become physically a woman or, conversely, a man.
Rose takes hormone pills but hasn’t had surgery yet. She explains her identity to me with infinite patience and grace. I am touched by how untiringly she handles the probing. Talking to her, I realise that anything I write about Rose will also necessarily be about reactions to her.
Because these reactions have traditionally decided that Rose and her ilk do not belong. They have decided that there are only two genders into which you can be born, and that leaves a considerable number outside the pale.
What do you do with transsexuals, homosexuals, or hermaphrodites, to name just a few? The last are born with characteristics of both genders, named after Hermaphroditus, son of Hermes and Aphrodite, a handsome man who the gods fused with a nymph.
For now, we have conveniently lumped them all together as ‘aravanis’, ‘hijras’, ‘chakkas’. This effectively means we don’t have to understand how or why they are different; we know they are and we can therefore shunt them into life’s sidelines, from where they impinge on our consciousness every now and then as nuisances, beggars or prostitutes.
Rose refused to be shunted. Born Ramesh into an ordinary, middle-class Tamil family, the boy from the first preferred the company of girls: “I was a softy who liked Barbie and found boys aggressive.” A class-topper, the chubby boy was teacher’s pet and life wasn’t tough yet.
Then came +2, a boys’ school, and the start of bullying and name-calling. The boy realised he was different but wasn’t sure why. Evidently, his assigned sex at birth was male but he ‘felt’ female, so who exactly was he? “Boys called me gay, I thought I was gay.”
Struggles
Gay is a bad word in our rigidly bi-gendered society. It is the stick with which you beat the faintest hint of femininity in a male and vice-versa. It is enough to frighten most transgenders into a perpetuity of deception, where they marry heterosexuals, dress for their assigned gender, and stay safe.
Rose didn’t want safe; she wanted a life, and on her terms. She struggled to discover herself through visits to psychiatrists (who dismissed her as ‘confused’ or ‘misled’) and to dingy gay spots (where she had unsatisfactory sexual encounters with homosexuals), until finally an Oprah Winfrey show on gender identity crisis showed her a glimmering of the truth.
But that wasn’t the end, it was the beginning. For Ramesh to become Rose in a society where even women cannot tackle their sexuality or identity comfortably takes incredible courage. Today, the West has counsellors and help groups, and parents who join support rings to help their transgendered children.
It’s a small island of acceptance in a sea of hate crime and extreme prejudice, an island India is struggling to create. For now, much like women, transgenders here are seen as willing male tools, there to be raped, marginalised and criminalised.
I remember a highly educated friend dismissing homosexuals as freaks and mutants. Well, a transgender is as much a freak as a blind person, or anyone an accident makes paraplegic. But in a Photoshop world where everybody has perfect smiles, sculpted bodies, eats Big Macs and uses fairness creams, how can you tolerate difference, especially when it is ugly and incomprehensible?
The 29-year-old Rose is no freak. She is charming, articulate and completely comfortable with who she is and how she got here. Thrown out on the street by an orthodox family, a victim of rape, fraud and abuse, she has clawed her way up. Armed with a Masters’ degree in biomedical engineering from the US, she wanted more. “I wanted media success as a transgender.” That happened when “Ippadikku Rose” was launched on Vijay TV, and a star was born.
Celebrity tag
The decision to join media is smart. Fame and glamour can make you heard like nothing else. It was the celebrity tag that got her and her friend Kalki, who started the Sahodari Foundation for transgenders, the tiny flat they call office, because people don’t let houses to transgenders, just as they don’t give jobs.
To survive these petty indignities and taunts, that’s the challenge. And to fight the assumption that there is only one dimension, the sexual dimension, to your entire life. As Rose says: “What about my hobbies, my friends, my skills? There’s so much more to me.”
For now, she knows she is on the frontline, paving the way for others. Of the quantities of fan mail she gets, the most satisfying are the ones from other transgenders, thanking her for giving them the courage to fight on.
The author is a freelance writer/editor. E-mail: vaishnaroy@yahoo.com.
PHOTO: K.V. SRINIVASAN
Link
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Equality for Women Moves at a Snail’s Pace
A snail could crawl the length of the Great Wall of China in the 212 years it would take, at the current rate of progress, for women to be equally represented in our parliament. Snail would have to crawl to Venus and back before we see women priests in the Roman Catholic church, let alone bishops -- Read more from the report from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC)
To Be A Woman, To Be A Christian And To Be Prophetic Are Interlinked
Thursday, September 4, 2008
LAHORE, Pakistan (UCAN) -- Christian women are doubly marginalized in Pakistan, because they are women and because they belong to a religious minority, says Sister Zakai Jamal.
One aspect of this marginalization is the violence and discrimination that Christian women face, given the intolerant attitude to openness and modern values that is part of the "Talibanization" of Pakistani society, says the nun, who belongs to the Sisters of Charity of Jesus and Mary.
More than 95 percent of Pakistan's 160 million people are Muslims, while Christians account for less than 1 percent.
To be a woman, to be a Christian and to be prophetic are interlinked realities here. Each can produce similar consequences.
Youhanabad is a thickly populated Christian colony in the outskirts of Lahore where most of the women work in factories and in the houses of rich Muslims. Of course they get minimum wages, but they also are often harassed, disgraced and ill-treated. Most of these cases are never reported.
Quite often young girls go missing or are kidnapped, raped or killed in this locality. In other cases, acid is thrown on their face. The highest degree of their suffering is that however hard they work, they get very little to provide sufficient food or security to their children. The daily rise in the cost of basic commodities -- flour, rice, sugar, milk -- is a heavy burden on their minds. Though outwardly fit, due to malnutrition and hard work they are victims of tuberculosis, typhoid, scabies and hepatitis.
Among the various categories of women, Religious women have more space to breathe and are given some recognition in society. What affects nuns most is the Islamic rejection of the vow of chastity. According to Islamic tradition, it is unacceptable because it is against the plan of God for human beings.
Another threat is the growing Talibanization of society. Terrorist groups influence the minds of simple people as well. For them, women are not human beings, just articles of daily use to be hidden within the four walls at home. The Taliban movement involves the destruction of all that promotes life, love, beauty and healthy relations among nations. About 125 schools have been burned and bombed by militants so far this year in the troubled districts of Swat and Dir, in North West Frontier Province. Some are occupied by militants and some by security forces. Bombing of girls' schools and threatening letters sent to them have driven away both the teachers and female students, making the attendance drop more than 50 percent. Read more
LAHORE, Pakistan (UCAN) -- Christian women are doubly marginalized in Pakistan, because they are women and because they belong to a religious minority, says Sister Zakai Jamal.
One aspect of this marginalization is the violence and discrimination that Christian women face, given the intolerant attitude to openness and modern values that is part of the "Talibanization" of Pakistani society, says the nun, who belongs to the Sisters of Charity of Jesus and Mary.
More than 95 percent of Pakistan's 160 million people are Muslims, while Christians account for less than 1 percent.
To be a woman, to be a Christian and to be prophetic are interlinked realities here. Each can produce similar consequences.
Youhanabad is a thickly populated Christian colony in the outskirts of Lahore where most of the women work in factories and in the houses of rich Muslims. Of course they get minimum wages, but they also are often harassed, disgraced and ill-treated. Most of these cases are never reported.
Quite often young girls go missing or are kidnapped, raped or killed in this locality. In other cases, acid is thrown on their face. The highest degree of their suffering is that however hard they work, they get very little to provide sufficient food or security to their children. The daily rise in the cost of basic commodities -- flour, rice, sugar, milk -- is a heavy burden on their minds. Though outwardly fit, due to malnutrition and hard work they are victims of tuberculosis, typhoid, scabies and hepatitis.
Among the various categories of women, Religious women have more space to breathe and are given some recognition in society. What affects nuns most is the Islamic rejection of the vow of chastity. According to Islamic tradition, it is unacceptable because it is against the plan of God for human beings.
Another threat is the growing Talibanization of society. Terrorist groups influence the minds of simple people as well. For them, women are not human beings, just articles of daily use to be hidden within the four walls at home. The Taliban movement involves the destruction of all that promotes life, love, beauty and healthy relations among nations. About 125 schools have been burned and bombed by militants so far this year in the troubled districts of Swat and Dir, in North West Frontier Province. Some are occupied by militants and some by security forces. Bombing of girls' schools and threatening letters sent to them have driven away both the teachers and female students, making the attendance drop more than 50 percent. Read more
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Mar Thoma Church
Mar Thoma Church official web
http://marthomasyrianchurch.org/index.htm
Mar Thoma. Com
Christian Community Portal
http://www.marthoma.com/home/
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
New York Times books page
Windows Live Hotmail
Books Update
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On the Cover of the Sunday Book Review This powerful, brilliantly researched and deeply unsettling book recounts the emergence of the widespread use of torture as a central tool in the fight against terrorism. Book News & More Reviews »ADVERTISEMENT Also in This Week's Book Review Ammon Shea spends a year plowing through the entire Oxford English Dictionary -- and lives to write about it.  A New York writer recalls how she created and sold hundreds of fake letters “by” celebrities such as Noël Coward and the silent-film star Louise Brooks.  How Hitler, Mussolini, Lenin, Stalin and Mao so effectively spread their messages to the masses.  Patrolling a city of cemeteries, a police officer can see some strange things. Julia Blackburn’s memoir of her monstrously self-involved, catastrophically unfit parents manages to be completely distinct yet hauntingly familiar.  Kevin Phillips argues that America’s monomaniacal focus on finance is hurting us in the diverse global economy. This first novel, a modern twist on “Hamlet,” revolves around a mute boy in a family of dog trainers.  Julia Reed’s Hurricane Katrina memoir describes how she fell in love with New Orleans. A new look at the 12 years between the fall of the Berlin Wall and 9/11, an era with no catastrophe to brand it.  John Darnton’s thriller is set in the office of a major metropolitan newspaper that sounds a lot like The Times. In this novel, an immigrant laborer defies a gangster and enters the U.S. government’s Chinese Confession Program. | |
Slide Show: Letters Forged by Lee IsraelFriday, August 1, 2008
Integrity: What's in a Word?
Integrity: What's in a Word?
Integrity: What's in a Word?
Albert Mohler
President, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
July 18, 2008
According to The Los Angeles Times, scores of United Methodist pastors in Southern California are planning to defy church law by performing same-sex marriages. The paper provides rather extensive detail about these plans, acknowledging that performing same-sex marriages could lead to disciplinary action against the pastors.
In addition, a large group of retired United Methodist ministers in the region has volunteered to perform the marriages on behalf of pastors who might be defrocked or disciplined if they performed the marriages themselves.
The paper's report includes some fascinating statements from pastors who plan to defy the discipline and doctrine of their church -- and the clear teachings of the Bible.
For example:
"I'm tired of being part of a church that lacks integrity," said the Rev. Janet Gollery McKeithen of Santa Monica's Church in Ocean Park, who plans to conduct weddings for two gay couples in August and September. "I love my church, and I don't want to leave it. But I can't be part of a church that is willing to portray a God that is so hateful. I would rather be forced out."
And:
The Rev. Sharon Rhodes-Wickett of Claremont United Methodist Church joined a retired deacon from her congregation to co-officiate at the July 5 wedding of two longtime members, Howard Yeager and Bill Charlton. The wedding was held off site -- at a Claremont complex for retired clergy and missionaries -- to avoid violating the rule against such ceremonies in churches. Rhodes-Wickett, who led the Lord's Prayer and gave a homily, said she hoped to avoid discipline by stopping short of actually pronouncing the couple married. That action was performed by the retired deacon, who also signed the marriage license. Rhodes-Wickett said she did not want Yeager and Charlton to leave her church to exchange vows. "This is my flock," she said, adding that the men have been together 40 years, 22 of them as members of her Claremont congregation. "It's a matter of integrity and a matter of what it is to be a pastoral ministry."
There is a very curious and revealing feature to these comments. Both of these pastors oppose and defy the Book of Discipline -- the authoritative teachings and policies of the United Methodist Church -- and they claim to do so in the name of "integrity."
Pastor Janet Gollery McKeithen said her church "lacks integrity" because it identifies homosexuality as a sin and prohibits pastors from performing same-sex unions. Pastor Sharon Rhodes-Wickett said that her act of defiance is "a matter of integrity."
Integrity is crucial to the Christian ministry, and it is a word that is integral to the matter at hand. What makes the use of the word by these two pastors so disappointing -- and revealing -- is that the word is used to mask and justify an act that lacks all integrity.
These two women are defying the very policies they are bound and committed to uphold. They sought and accepted ordination in their church knowing that these policies and doctrines were in place. They are defying their church, their doctrine, and the Bible. They pledged to uphold these doctrines, but now they defy them.
Integrity would not lead these pastors to defy their church and violate their ordination vows, but to uphold them. If they cannot uphold these doctrines and policies, let them resign in conscience.
Sydney Biddle Barrows, the infamous "Mayflower Madam" convicted of running an elite prostitution service in the 1980s, once remarked, "I ran the wrong kind of business, but I did it with integrity."
Misused in this way and employed as moral artifice, "integrity" is claimed where no real integrity can exist. There is no "integrity" in running a prostitution ring, and there is no integrity in defying ordination vows.
In addition to being one of Salem’s nationally syndicated radio talk show hosts, R. Albert Mohler, Jr. is the president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. Contact Dr. Mohler at www.albertmohler.com.
Integrity: What's in a Word?
Albert Mohler
President, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
July 18, 2008
According to The Los Angeles Times, scores of United Methodist pastors in Southern California are planning to defy church law by performing same-sex marriages. The paper provides rather extensive detail about these plans, acknowledging that performing same-sex marriages could lead to disciplinary action against the pastors.
In addition, a large group of retired United Methodist ministers in the region has volunteered to perform the marriages on behalf of pastors who might be defrocked or disciplined if they performed the marriages themselves.
The paper's report includes some fascinating statements from pastors who plan to defy the discipline and doctrine of their church -- and the clear teachings of the Bible.
For example:
"I'm tired of being part of a church that lacks integrity," said the Rev. Janet Gollery McKeithen of Santa Monica's Church in Ocean Park, who plans to conduct weddings for two gay couples in August and September. "I love my church, and I don't want to leave it. But I can't be part of a church that is willing to portray a God that is so hateful. I would rather be forced out."
And:
The Rev. Sharon Rhodes-Wickett of Claremont United Methodist Church joined a retired deacon from her congregation to co-officiate at the July 5 wedding of two longtime members, Howard Yeager and Bill Charlton. The wedding was held off site -- at a Claremont complex for retired clergy and missionaries -- to avoid violating the rule against such ceremonies in churches. Rhodes-Wickett, who led the Lord's Prayer and gave a homily, said she hoped to avoid discipline by stopping short of actually pronouncing the couple married. That action was performed by the retired deacon, who also signed the marriage license. Rhodes-Wickett said she did not want Yeager and Charlton to leave her church to exchange vows. "This is my flock," she said, adding that the men have been together 40 years, 22 of them as members of her Claremont congregation. "It's a matter of integrity and a matter of what it is to be a pastoral ministry."
There is a very curious and revealing feature to these comments. Both of these pastors oppose and defy the Book of Discipline -- the authoritative teachings and policies of the United Methodist Church -- and they claim to do so in the name of "integrity."
Pastor Janet Gollery McKeithen said her church "lacks integrity" because it identifies homosexuality as a sin and prohibits pastors from performing same-sex unions. Pastor Sharon Rhodes-Wickett said that her act of defiance is "a matter of integrity."
Integrity is crucial to the Christian ministry, and it is a word that is integral to the matter at hand. What makes the use of the word by these two pastors so disappointing -- and revealing -- is that the word is used to mask and justify an act that lacks all integrity.
These two women are defying the very policies they are bound and committed to uphold. They sought and accepted ordination in their church knowing that these policies and doctrines were in place. They are defying their church, their doctrine, and the Bible. They pledged to uphold these doctrines, but now they defy them.
Integrity would not lead these pastors to defy their church and violate their ordination vows, but to uphold them. If they cannot uphold these doctrines and policies, let them resign in conscience.
Sydney Biddle Barrows, the infamous "Mayflower Madam" convicted of running an elite prostitution service in the 1980s, once remarked, "I ran the wrong kind of business, but I did it with integrity."
Misused in this way and employed as moral artifice, "integrity" is claimed where no real integrity can exist. There is no "integrity" in running a prostitution ring, and there is no integrity in defying ordination vows.
In addition to being one of Salem’s nationally syndicated radio talk show hosts, R. Albert Mohler, Jr. is the president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. Contact Dr. Mohler at www.albertmohler.com.
ABC News: Custom Stem Cells Around the Corner?
ABC News: Custom Stem Cells Around the Corner?
Personalized Stem Cells One Step Closer to Reality
Researchers Create Disease-Specific, Individualized Human Stem Cells
By RADHA CHITALE
ABC News Medical Unit
July 31, 2008
For the first time, scientists have proven that embryonic-like stem cells that are specific to both a person and to a disease can be manufactured using adult human cells.
stem cells
A scientific researcher manipulates drops of embryonic stem cells in a laboratory, at 'Hospital do Coracao' heart institute, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on 5 March, 2008.
Personalized stem cells may be the holy grail of science because of their potential to treat and allow the study of a myriad of diseases and conditions. And while there are still a number of hurdles to clear before this advance can be applied to humans, in the clinical setting this latest step, some say, shows promise of eventual human therapies.
Researchers from Harvard and Columbia Universities used skin cells from two patients with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, to create stem cells and then reprogrammed them to morph into replacement motor neurons.
"It opens doors to making patient-specific stem cell lines," said Dr. Kevin Eggan, principle faculty member at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and lead author of a study that was released today in the journal Science. "You can use these cells to make the actual cell type for that person's disease."
People with ALS experience progressive degeneration in their motor neurons to the extent that the brain and spinal cord can no longer signal the body to move. Patients in later stages of the disease often become paralyzed.
Eggan and his colleague, Dr. Christopher Henderson, co-director of the Center for Motor Neuron Biology and Disease at Columbia University and the other lead author, stressed that their study shows "proof of principle" for how embryonic-like stem cells can be created from adult cells using induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, a technique introduced widely last year.
Stem cell researchers not involved in the study called the advance promising.
"The hope for iPS cell technology is that you could create cells from your own body to treat your own defects," said Dr. Curt Freed, professor of medicine and pharmacology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. "They are immunologically matched to yours."
But Freed pointed out that iPS derived stem cells will never be used for therapeutic purposes because the method requires using retroviral genes to copy the cells -- genes which result in cancer-producing cells.
A New Approach
The ideal scenario for stem cells would be to create them by injecting the desired DNA -- DNA that's free from genetic defects -- into human egg cells and letting them become stem cells before reprogramming them into specific cell types, a technique known as somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). But getting human egg donations -- as well as funding for such research -- has been difficult for the researchers.
"The inability to have success with SCNT is wrapped up in logistical and political quagmires," Eggan said.
At the moment, the next step for this study is to determine how similar and different the new motor neurons from the iPS derived stem cells are from human motor neurons.
"We have the opportunity to study these motor neurons and see whether they behave in a manner that they do in the culture dish," Henderson said. "Although the promise of these ideas are there, there is much validation to do in terms of their potential to generate different types of neurons.... The [SCNT] embryonic stem cell model is really our gold standard."
But the discovery that only a few genes are necessary to nudge a human stem cell to develop into a specialized adult cell is encouraging. The finding also underscores the theory that almost any cell of any age in the body can be reprogrammed into any other type of cell, given the right genetic expression.
"It gets us closer to when we are able to use chemicals alone," Eggan said.
Not Ready for Clinical Setting... Yet
Rather than be used for therapy right now, Eggan and Henderson said that the cells they created will be most useful to study the nature and pathology of the disease, particularly in terms of determining what drugs might be effective to treat it.
"Studies... suggest that things are going wrong in those individuals far, far, far before they're ever outwardly sick," Eggan said, referring to a potentially fundamental difference between diseased neurons and normal neurons. "And it's those molecular correlates of disease which will be our first inroads into better understanding of the disease and then, in turn, treatment."
Personalized Stem Cells One Step Closer to Reality
Researchers Create Disease-Specific, Individualized Human Stem Cells
By RADHA CHITALE
ABC News Medical Unit
July 31, 2008
For the first time, scientists have proven that embryonic-like stem cells that are specific to both a person and to a disease can be manufactured using adult human cells.
stem cells
A scientific researcher manipulates drops of embryonic stem cells in a laboratory, at 'Hospital do Coracao' heart institute, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on 5 March, 2008.
Personalized stem cells may be the holy grail of science because of their potential to treat and allow the study of a myriad of diseases and conditions. And while there are still a number of hurdles to clear before this advance can be applied to humans, in the clinical setting this latest step, some say, shows promise of eventual human therapies.
Researchers from Harvard and Columbia Universities used skin cells from two patients with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, to create stem cells and then reprogrammed them to morph into replacement motor neurons.
"It opens doors to making patient-specific stem cell lines," said Dr. Kevin Eggan, principle faculty member at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and lead author of a study that was released today in the journal Science. "You can use these cells to make the actual cell type for that person's disease."
People with ALS experience progressive degeneration in their motor neurons to the extent that the brain and spinal cord can no longer signal the body to move. Patients in later stages of the disease often become paralyzed.
Eggan and his colleague, Dr. Christopher Henderson, co-director of the Center for Motor Neuron Biology and Disease at Columbia University and the other lead author, stressed that their study shows "proof of principle" for how embryonic-like stem cells can be created from adult cells using induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, a technique introduced widely last year.
Stem cell researchers not involved in the study called the advance promising.
"The hope for iPS cell technology is that you could create cells from your own body to treat your own defects," said Dr. Curt Freed, professor of medicine and pharmacology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. "They are immunologically matched to yours."
But Freed pointed out that iPS derived stem cells will never be used for therapeutic purposes because the method requires using retroviral genes to copy the cells -- genes which result in cancer-producing cells.
A New Approach
The ideal scenario for stem cells would be to create them by injecting the desired DNA -- DNA that's free from genetic defects -- into human egg cells and letting them become stem cells before reprogramming them into specific cell types, a technique known as somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). But getting human egg donations -- as well as funding for such research -- has been difficult for the researchers.
"The inability to have success with SCNT is wrapped up in logistical and political quagmires," Eggan said.
At the moment, the next step for this study is to determine how similar and different the new motor neurons from the iPS derived stem cells are from human motor neurons.
"We have the opportunity to study these motor neurons and see whether they behave in a manner that they do in the culture dish," Henderson said. "Although the promise of these ideas are there, there is much validation to do in terms of their potential to generate different types of neurons.... The [SCNT] embryonic stem cell model is really our gold standard."
But the discovery that only a few genes are necessary to nudge a human stem cell to develop into a specialized adult cell is encouraging. The finding also underscores the theory that almost any cell of any age in the body can be reprogrammed into any other type of cell, given the right genetic expression.
"It gets us closer to when we are able to use chemicals alone," Eggan said.
Not Ready for Clinical Setting... Yet
Rather than be used for therapy right now, Eggan and Henderson said that the cells they created will be most useful to study the nature and pathology of the disease, particularly in terms of determining what drugs might be effective to treat it.
"Studies... suggest that things are going wrong in those individuals far, far, far before they're ever outwardly sick," Eggan said, referring to a potentially fundamental difference between diseased neurons and normal neurons. "And it's those molecular correlates of disease which will be our first inroads into better understanding of the disease and then, in turn, treatment."
Monday, July 28, 2008
Navanethem Pillay the new UN rights chief
Malayala Manorama Indian Newspaper of Malayalam Language from eight places in Kerela
Indian-origin judge is new UN rights chief
United Nations: Indian-origin ICC judge Navanethem Pillay has been named the United Nations' new human rights chief, despite some initial opposition from the US. Pillay, 67, who is from South Africa, will succeed Louise Arbour of Canada who completed her term on June 30.
The job of human rights commissioner is both high profile and controversial as member States are very sensitive to their respective records. Arbour too had annoyed Islamic countries as also some western nations by her outspoken statements.
The 192-member General Assembly is expected to confirm Pillay's appointment for a four-year term on Monday. The search for new human rights commissioner started when Arbour said she does not intend to seek a second term.
Born into an ethnic Tamil family during apartheid daysm she was brought up in a poor neighbourhood and had to discrimination. Her father was a bus driver. Despite odds, she became the first woman to start law practice in South Africa's Natal Province in 1968 and defended several anti-apartheid activists and successfully fought for the right of political prisoners, including Nelson Mandela, to have access to lawyers.
Officials and diplomats at the UN said the US had at one stage opposed her nomination because of her views on abortion and some other issues as also South Africa's opposition to impose sanction on Zimbabwe.
But it finally gave the go ahead which led UN Secretary General Ban-Ki-moon to announce the appointment.
A Harvard alumna, Pillai is serving as a judge on the International Criminal Court in the Hague since 2003. She had earlier served both as judge and president on the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda which she had joined in 1995.
Ban's spokesperson Michele Montas told reporters that the decision was taken after "an extensive selection process" which included consultations with member States and with broad-based non-governmental organisations.
As a judge of the Rwanda tribunal, Pillay led the landmark decisions defining rape as an institutionalised weapon of war and a crime of genocide. In Early 1970s, she helped expose torture and illegal interrogation methods.
Pillay earned Master of Law degree from Harvard in 1982, her second law degree, and Doctor of Judicial Sciences in 1988. In 1992, she co-founded Equality Now which works women's rights across the world. In 2003 she received the inaugural Gruber Prize for Women's Rights.
A Geneva-based human rights watchdog has, meanwhile, urged Pillay to play more proactive role in bringing rights violations by various countries, including Russia and China, to forefront than her predecessor. "We look forward to working with Judge Pillay in Geneva," said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, an independent human rights monitoring organisation. He urged Pillay to use her "unique bully pulpit" to throw a spotlight on the world's worst violations, including in Darfur, Myanmar, China and Zimbabwe.
A UN Watch report on Arbour's tenure to be released next week finds that her UN statements in 2007 and 2008 addressed violations by 40 countries around the world, including Afghanistan, Nepal, Iraq, the U.S. and Sudan.
However, Arbour kept silent on "systematic violations" by Russia and Egypt, and issued only one statement on China, the report says.
"Because Pillay is from Africa," said Neuer, "we hope she will have the political leeway to go where some Westerners feared to tread."
| Saturday,26 July 2008 12:3 hrs IST |  |  |
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The job of human rights commissioner is both high profile and controversial as member States are very sensitive to their respective records. Arbour too had annoyed Islamic countries as also some western nations by her outspoken statements.
The 192-member General Assembly is expected to confirm Pillay's appointment for a four-year term on Monday. The search for new human rights commissioner started when Arbour said she does not intend to seek a second term.
Born into an ethnic Tamil family during apartheid daysm she was brought up in a poor neighbourhood and had to discrimination. Her father was a bus driver. Despite odds, she became the first woman to start law practice in South Africa's Natal Province in 1968 and defended several anti-apartheid activists and successfully fought for the right of political prisoners, including Nelson Mandela, to have access to lawyers.
Officials and diplomats at the UN said the US had at one stage opposed her nomination because of her views on abortion and some other issues as also South Africa's opposition to impose sanction on Zimbabwe.
But it finally gave the go ahead which led UN Secretary General Ban-Ki-moon to announce the appointment.
A Harvard alumna, Pillai is serving as a judge on the International Criminal Court in the Hague since 2003. She had earlier served both as judge and president on the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda which she had joined in 1995.
Ban's spokesperson Michele Montas told reporters that the decision was taken after "an extensive selection process" which included consultations with member States and with broad-based non-governmental organisations.
As a judge of the Rwanda tribunal, Pillay led the landmark decisions defining rape as an institutionalised weapon of war and a crime of genocide. In Early 1970s, she helped expose torture and illegal interrogation methods.
Pillay earned Master of Law degree from Harvard in 1982, her second law degree, and Doctor of Judicial Sciences in 1988. In 1992, she co-founded Equality Now which works women's rights across the world. In 2003 she received the inaugural Gruber Prize for Women's Rights.
A Geneva-based human rights watchdog has, meanwhile, urged Pillay to play more proactive role in bringing rights violations by various countries, including Russia and China, to forefront than her predecessor. "We look forward to working with Judge Pillay in Geneva," said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, an independent human rights monitoring organisation. He urged Pillay to use her "unique bully pulpit" to throw a spotlight on the world's worst violations, including in Darfur, Myanmar, China and Zimbabwe.
A UN Watch report on Arbour's tenure to be released next week finds that her UN statements in 2007 and 2008 addressed violations by 40 countries around the world, including Afghanistan, Nepal, Iraq, the U.S. and Sudan.
However, Arbour kept silent on "systematic violations" by Russia and Egypt, and issued only one statement on China, the report says.
"Because Pillay is from Africa," said Neuer, "we hope she will have the political leeway to go where some Westerners feared to tread."
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