Mard ya Namaru


Should anything more need be said?

PS: Image from blank noise

Don't pay us to be patriotic

There has been enough said by many (including yours truly) and little done by people who matter about the issue of madrasas being given special grants by the govt of India under the 11th five year plan to celebrate Independence and Republic days. Finally there was some news today about the All India Muslim personal board criticizing the plan and asking the govt to not pay them to be patriotic.

But, interestingly, there was no explicit statement by the spokesperson saying that we will not accept such funds or some other statement to that effect. Would be interesting to know if atleast a few of the madrasas give a forthright no to such funding.

Dying for a cause

Reproduced from Timesonline report on Kelesau Naan. I added the links.

— Sister Dorothy Stang, a 73-year-old American nun, was shot dead in Brazil in 2005 while fighting to protect the Terra do Meio region from loggers. Within days, the area was declared a protected site

— Chico Mendes, a rubber tapper and environmental activist, became a posthumous icon in Brazil after he was murdered in 1988 by ranchers opposed to his campaign to protect the Amazon from deforestation

— Aldo Zamora was collecting data on illegal logging for Greenpeace in Great Water forest, Mexico, when a logging gang ambushed his car and killed him in May 2007

— Kinkri Devi went on hunger strike against a court’s refusal to hear her case against a mining project in Himchal Pradesh. She won her case and an award for her efforts. She died this week.

If Nature had rights

'If Nature had rights' - A wonderful article I read today. It starts with the following African story.

IT WAS THE SUDDEN RUSH of the goats’ bodies against the side of the boma that woke him. Picking up a spear and stick, the Kenyan farmer slipped out into the warm night and crept toward the pen. All he could see was the spotted, sloping hindquarters of the animal trying to force itself between the poles to get at the goats—but it was enough. He drove his spear deep into the hyena.

The elders who gathered under the meeting tree to deliberate on the matter were clearly unhappy with the farmer’s explanation. A man appointed by the traditional court to represent the interests of the hyena had testified that his careful examination of the body had revealed that the deceased was a female who was still suckling pups. He argued that given the prevailing drought and the hyena’s need to nourish her young, her behavior in attempting to scavenge food from human settlements was reasonable and that it was wrong to have killed her. The elders then cross-examined the farmer carefully. Did he appreciate, they asked, that such killings were contrary to customary law? Had he considered the hyena’s situation and whether or not she had caused harm? Could he not have simply driven her away? Eventually the elders ordered the man’s clan to pay compensation for the harm done by driving more than one hundred of their goats (a fortune in that community) into the bush, where they could be eaten by the hyenas and other wild carnivores.

This story made my day today :)


PS: Wish you all a fantastic 2008!!!