Sonia G Handa

SILENCE is being in the now of the moment. It is different from just keeping quiet. A person may be sitting quietly but his mind may be all cluttered up. That is not silence. To relax ones mind and make one’s thought process clearer, one has to do some inward thinking, reflecting on life and thoughts. It can be done by meditation or breathing exercises or by just keeping quiet or being company of nature. Our mind is like a muddy pond, one has to stare or think long enough to see the clear water and indeed the mind. Silence is in the quiet of morning time and in the tranquility of the night. It is an essential requisite for any kind of creative thinking. Silence helps in understanding and realization of one’s capabilities. Silence helps one differentiate right from wrong, to understand the truth and take right decisions. Silence is a true friend which never betrays according to Confucius.
Self-discipline and practice is required to be comfortable in silence. Some people have natural stillness but for some it takes a little more effort. Our worries, fears, unfulfilled desires are hindrance to our achieving silence. We are what we think. It is on us

There are no regrets of silence as can be of speech. “Ek chup sau sukh” rightly goes the Punjabi proverb. But there is no point if mind is drifting in negative thoughts. Silence is dangerous when one is stopped by force not to speak and when one is ignoring in silence the harm done to somebody.

In today’s hasty and furious times, silence has become a rare thing. People fill their life with so much noise in order to avoid silence. They work mechanically and tirelessly round the clock to avoid silence. There is no time to stop and ponder what they really want and being silent is equated to boredom or wasting of time. We need to learn from the poet Rumi who says, "A great silence overcomes me, and I wonder why I ever thought to use language."

But the noises in the modern world or the situations are no excuse of not being in silence. It is all up to us as poet Khalil Gibran says, "I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers." One can find it by sitting in a noisy train or sitting in a crowd.

Silence gives one calm personality, helps in thinking clearly, understanding relationships, issues, learning tolerance etc. Silence clears the mind, thoughts become lucid and mature which eventually gives one peace of mind. It is like recharging our battery.

One is able to discover oneself and one’s true potential. It helps in concentrating on some work and doing it well in silence. Poet Rumi wrote only let the moving waters calm down, and the sun and moon will be reflected on the surface of your being. In silence one can take delight in the beauty of nature. Silence is in nature--- air water, waves, ocean etc. Mother Teresa fittingly said, “See how nature - trees, flowers, grass – grow in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence….we need silence to be able to touch souls.”

Silence eventually leads to reduction of conflicts, tolerance, contentment, hale and hearty existence, spiritual understanding, and optimistic, egoless and tolerant personality. Silence has the true power to help us live a normal and successful life. One's true potential is realized, there is inner satisfaction leading to serenity of mind, less violence. Silence helps in tranquility of mind of individuals and making them coherent beings and leading to harmony in the communities, nations and indeed humanity.

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India: Criminalisation deters women candidates

Ranjit Devraj

WHILE India's major political parties are pledged to increase the space for women in the electoral process, a major deterrent to female participation is the steady criminalisation of politics in this country.

''Crime and corruption are bigger deterrents to the entry of women into politics than patriarchal attitudes or any other factor,'' Madhu Kishwar, founder of Manushi Sangathan, an organisation that works for women's rights, told IPS in an interview.

Before the start of the ongoing elections, staggered in five stages between Apr. 16 and May 13 to accommodate some 715 million voters, major parties pledged once again in their manifestos to usher in what they have glaringly failed to do since 1997 - arrive at a consensus on legislation to reserve 33 percent of seats in the Lok Sabha (law making lower house of parliament) and in the state assemblies for women.

A measure of poor progress in female participation can be had from the fact that 44 women were elected to parliament in the last general elections held in 2004 - the exact same number as in the 1984 elections conducted 20 years ago. Of the 6,538 candidates in the first four stages of the ongoing elections only 462 are women.

An easier route to political power for women is to ride on the success of male relatives and gain visibility and power within political parties before attempting to win parliamentary seats by taking to the gruelling campaign trail. Take Sonia Gandhi who owes her pre-eminent position in Indian politics to her membership of the dynastic Nehru-Gandhi family which enjoys unquestioned control over the ruling Congress party.

Similarly Mayawati, currently chief minister of India's largest province of northern Uttar Pradesh, owes much of her success to her late mentor and companion Kanshi Ram who mobilised India's dalits (people at the bottom of the caste hierarchy) into a formidable political force under the banner of the Bahujan Samaj Party.

Jayaraman Jayalalithaa, who served twice as chief minister of Tamil Nadu, was brought into politics by the late M.G. Ramachandran, her constant companion and co-star in many blockbuster Tamil movies of the 1960s and 1970s.

Jayalalithaa, like Mayawati, is considered prime ministerial material. ''Such women rarely encourage other women to come up within their parties,'' Ranjana Kumari, president of Women Power Connect, an umbrella for some 700 women's organisations and individuals, told IPS.

''For the ordinary woman who aspires to be a candidate in an Indian general election the odds are nearly insurmountable,'' Kumari said, adding that on top of everything else female candidates have to contend with criminalisation of politics.

''Because the current election is one of the most closely fought between the Congress party and its allies in the United Progressive Alliance coalition and its rivals in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) - led National Democratic Alliance, the 'winnability' of each candidate is critical, and that means calling into play money and muscle - areas that are often linked to criminality, '' Kumari explained. Contesting a parliamentary seat calls for the raising of, on average, around two million US dollars - all of it in cash since the taxation system makes it nearly impossible to fund a candidate or a party legitimately.

''Politics is dirty, and, if you are a woman, you may need the support of male family members, a father, brother or a husband to act as a buffer against the payoffs, the land-grabbing, extortion and underhand dealings,'' said Kishwar.

Indeed India's vast 'black (or parallel) economy' is closely linked to its electoral system with one feeding on the other. ''Over the last 15 years there has certainly been a tendency for more candidates with criminal charges against them to be standing for the elections,'' says Sanjay Kumar, deputy director of Lokniti - a programme for comparative democracy.

Kumar, an expert on electoral mobilisation and electoral violence, told IPS that while women may not decline an opportunity to contest a seat merely for lack of money or muscle power, political parties do not have sufficient confidence in their 'winnability' in the face of these factors.

In its manifesto, the Congress party claims credit for having successfully steered Constitutional amendments through parliament in 1993 to reserve 33 percent of seats in the village panchayats and urban local bodies for women.

''Today, about 40 percent of the elected representatives in panchayats are women, compared to a reservation of 33 percent mandated for them. This is nothing short of a quiet revolution,'' the Congress manifesto crows, vowing to extend the quota to the national and provincial legislatures if voted back to power. However, the Congress party's arch rival, the BJP, has in its manifesto accused the Congress party of ''not having the courage to stand up to its allies who are opposed to the political empowerment of women''.

But both the Congress party and the BJP are fielding fewer women candidates this time than they did in the 2004 elections.

Kishwar comments that the best way for women to contribute, at this stage, is to get more involved in local level politics where they already enjoy reservation, ''because it is easier to begin cleansing politics of crime and corruption at the neighbourhood level''. ''Also, until reservations are extended to parliament and the state legislatures women should push their parties into democratising internally and giving competent women a chance to get nominations on the basis of merit rather than family ties,'' Kishwar said. [Courtesy IPS]

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India outsources consular services in Canada

IN order to make visa services work faster, hassle-free and efficient, the Indian Consulate in Canada has decided to outsource its consular services under a new visa regime which will become functional from May 22.

“The government has decided to outsource consular services in Canada. The VF Services (Canada) would be the nodal agency which would have collection, processing and distribution centres (for visa services) in Toronto and Brampton,” Preeti Saran, Consul General of India has announced.

The centres would receive applications for visas, except Diplomatic and Official ones, for issue of new passport or renewal of old ones and other passport-related services such as change of name, Persons of Indian origin (PIO) cards, Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI) cards on behalf of Indian Consulate for an additional fee of 19.25 Canadian dollars. The applications would continue to be decided by the Consulate General of India.

The Consulate would, however, continue to entertain requests for emergency visas, attestation of documents, affidavits, life certificates and registration certificates relating birth, marriage and death of Indian nationals.

The VF Service Centres in Ottawa and Montreal have already become operational from Friday last, and remaining centres in Surrey, Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary would become operational before June-end.

For life certificate and attestation of documents, where physical presence of the concerned person was necessary, or issue of diplomatic or official visas people would have to visit their Indian Consulate or the High Commission.

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Wheat brings glow to Punjab

Gobind Thukral

IN Punjab, this year till May 12, a record total of 108.38 lakh tones of wheat had arrived and another record of procuring 108.18 lakh tones were also established. Procurement began from April 1 and continues smoothly. Farmer earned a record Rs 11,808.49 crores that too is a new record as the minimum support price dispute criticism from some self proclaimed food economists was the highest ever at Rs 1,080 per quintal. 98 per cent of the payment was made within 48 hours.

This massive operation, according to officials, involved government procurement agencies of the Punjab government the Food Corporation of India and there was complete coordination. The Indian Railways that move special food trains and the Reserve Bank of India that allows this huge transaction participated fully.

The principal secretary to the chief minister, Mr. D.S.Guru and six senior officers; three divisional commissioners and three officers from the headquarters were area supervisors along with all the deputy commissioners and food department officials. Procumbent agencies were involved in the planning and execution in a war like manner.

The first point as Mr. Guru explained was to create enough storage space. In two months time the government was able to create space for the storage of 115 lakh tones of food grains. It meant both covered and open storage. The operation involved arranging 22 crore gunny bags of 50 kg size. Several agencies worked hard to see that there was no shortage. It needed 3 lakh workers at various stages and a satisfied group 33,000 commission agents or arhtiyas. At one, the chief minister intervened to seek a temporary stoppage of ‘rice specials’ that move from Punjab on daily basis, so that labour could be spared. From April 15 to end of the moth, no rice special moved. Instead the government team was able to move ‘wheat specials’ directly from the procurement markets to railway yards and onto the trains.

It was an election year and no one could bear the anger of the Agriculture experts assess that this record wheat production in over 35.15 lakh hectares , giving a yield from 22 to 24 quintals per acre makes wheat a viable economic option. While Kandi areas had low yield around 18 quintals per acre due to yellow rust, rest of Punjab except Fatehgarh Sahib had good yield. The country’s granary is full with wheat and rice. In case of wheat as some experts feel we have four times of the required stock. They conveniently forget the harsh fact that a good majority of Indians has very little purchasing and thus we can talk about overflowing stocks as one leading Delhi based English newspaper did last. It cursed the government for higher minimum support price for food grains and storing five times of rice and two times of wheat than required in government godowns at a huge cost. It conveniently forgot that food grains not only ensure food for hungry people, but also sovereignty. And, if the farmers do not get ruminative price, how would farming survive.

In Punjab the government would end up earning 11 per cent of the roughly Rs 12,500 crore that should be the finally tally by end of May. The commission agencies would make 2.5 per cent of this huge amount. Three lakh labourers would have a good earning season for five to six weeks. Of course, the corrupt lot of officials involved in this gigantic procurement business from the agencies, the Mandi Board and the food department would make a good extra buck. Also, if Mr. Badal and his trusted teams can work so efficiently procurement of wheat or paddy, why can not they run the other business equally efficiently?

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