Srijan Foundation

Politicians including Tony Blair and various commentators – here’s a Telegraph leader - have urged the moderate voice of Islam to make itself heard above the din of extremist preachers.

Last week, one of the most respected clerics in Shia Islam, Lebanon’s grand ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, condemned the perpetrators of an attack against pilgrims in Iraq as “murderers and animals” and called for the repudiation of a school of thought that it was permissible to spill the blood of Muslims “who embrace another doctrine, or believe in alternative political views”.

While in this case the victims – as well as the attackers – were Muslim, Fadlullah, one of the Muslim world’s few Grand Ayatollahs (they have the authority to make legal decisions within the confines of Islamic law for followers and lower-rank clerics) was condemning the phenomenon of “takfir”, which sees some militant Muslims regard non-believers as a legitimate target.

If you do not remember reading or hearing about his comments that is probably because you did not. His words, reported by Reuters, might have been expected to be picked up by the same media which regularly feature writers bemoaning a lack of moderate Muslims. But there was no mention of his strong words in the British papers, their websites or that of the BBC.

Admittedly, Fadlallah’s comments were made in reference to an attack that would not have raised much of a stir outside of Iraq, immune as we have become to the violence still blighting the country.

But can you remember such a senior figure in Islam, especially one who has called for a boycott of Israeli and US goods, ever hitting out at “silence in the Islamic world over these criminal operations which annihilate children, women and the elderly, from Afghanistan to Pakistan to Iraq”?

The intention of this post is not to hurl wild allegations of Islamophobia at the press – a number of media organisations picked up on Turkey’s attempt to create a modern interpretation of Islam, and it even made it on to the Sun’s discussion board.

But if a leading Muslim cleric had called for a holy war against moderates, would the media not have told us about that?

Alphonsa To Be Canonized In Oct  

TIMES NEWS NETWORK  Thiruvananthapuram:

    With the Vatican deciding to announce full sainthood to Sister Alphonsa of Bharananganam, Kerala, on October 12 this year, the cradle of Christianity in the country has earned the distinction of producing the first completely ‘‘Indian’’ saint who also happens to be a woman.
   The date of Sister Alphonsa’s canonization was announced after a ‘‘consistory’’, or formal meeting, of Pope Benedict XVI and other cardinals at St Peter’s Basilica on Saturday.
   Sister Alphonsa’s beatification — recognition by the church of a dead person’s accession to heaven — was ordained by Pope John Paul II during his visit to Kerala in February 1986. Her journey to sainthood reached its final stages more than two decades later when, in June 2007, Pope Benedict XVI authorized her canonization after he approved a miracle attributed to her on May 11, 1999. The miracle was the healing of a one-year-old boy, Jinil, who could not walk because of a disability. Jinil began walking the day his parents took him to the Sister’s tomb for prayers.
   Sister Alphonsa will be the second saint from India after Gonsalo Garcia and the first woman. Garcia, who was canonized in 1862, was partly Indian. He was from Vasai, near Mumbai, and is believed to have been crucified in Nagasaki in 1597. In joining the ranks of other Catholic saints, Sister Alphonsa’s canonization comes ahead of Mother Teresa’s, who too has been beatified and declared ‘‘blessed’’ by the Vatican.
   Sister Alphonsa’s tomb at Palai in Kottayam is a famous Christian pilgrimage and draws thousands of faithful. News received with jubilation, fireworks

Thiruvananthapuram: Believers say numerous miracles — apart from the one approved by the Pope — have occurred at the tomb of Sister Alphonsa. The occurrence of these miracles are confirmed by sources at the Clarist Congregation of which sister Alphonsa was a part.
   The news of her imminent sainthood was received with jubilation and fireworks at Alphonsa Chapel at the Forane Church at Bharananganam. Said Sister Celia of the Franciscan Clarist Congregation, ‘‘I am leaving for Rome. This is the last step to her sainthood.’’ Priests at Bharananganam held the Holy Mass throughout the day, even as pilgrims thronged the ancestral house of the Sister at Kudamaloor, about 40km from Bharananganam.
   ‘‘With her attaining full sainthood, Sister Alphonsa’s portrait can be placed at Catholic churches all over the world and she can be venerated. Churches and Catholic institutions can be named after her,’’ said Reverend Babu Joseph, the spokesman of Catholic Bishop’s Conference of India. In Mumbai, the Kerala Catholic Association (KCA) announced several functions to mark the momentous occasion. ‘‘Hundreds of devotees from Kerala, who are now settled in different parts of India, will prepare to travel to Rome in October to attend the official canonization ceremony,’’ said KCA president Johnson Theratil.
   Born Anna Muttathupadathu on August 2, 1910, in Kudamaloor, a village near Kottayam, to Muttathupadathu Ouseph and Mariam in the Archdiocese of Changanacherry, Kerala, she lost her mother when she was just three. She was looked after and brought up by her maternal aunt. As a child, Anna was inspired by St Therese of Lisieux; she wanted to follow the religious path and stoutly resisted her family’s wish that she get married. TNN

Kolkata: Though churches in Kolkata were happy that Sister Alphonsa had been granted sainthood, there were murmurs that the same honour should be conferred immediately on Mother Teresa, who is ‘‘more well-known and a Nobel laureate’’.
   The Missionaries of Charity expressed happiness at the canonisation plans, but added that they were ‘‘trying their best to fast-track the procedure of conferring sainthood on Mother Teresa’’.
   Confirming a miracle by Mother Teresa, Pope John Paul II had beatified her on October 19, 2003, at St Peter’s Square in Rome.
   To be recognised as a saint, the Vatican needs to recognise a second miracle performed by her.
   ‘‘It is great news that Sister Alphonsa has been declared a saint. Mother Teresa, too, will be given the honour and it is just a matter of time. The Vatican has to find another miracle, which I am sure they will do. They have their own procedure and we must pray for Mother,’’ said Father Gregory Monteiro of Francis Xavier Church, Bowbazar.

Road to Sainthood

A local bishop investigates the candidate’s life and writings for evidence of heroic virtue, reports to the Vatican

Congregation for Cause of Saints evaluates the candidate’s life. If it approves, the pope proclaims the candidate ‘venerable’, a role model of Catholic virtues

The next step, beatification, allows a person to be honoured by a particular group or region. Beatification requires proof that the person was responsible for a posthumous miracle. Martyrs — those who died for the religious cause — can be beatified without evidence of a miracle

If there is proof of a second posthumous miracle, the person can be canonized (considered a saint)

        Illiteracy in UK More than a million adult Britons have a standard of literacy no better than that of a seven-year-old. For them, reading road signs, writing their names or understanding instructions on pill bottles is a hardship. Anuskha Asthana reports on how beating illiteracy can cut poverty and restore dignity 

       By the time he was 32 and had hung up his boots, Scott Quinnell had played rugby union for Llanelli 146 times, captained Wales, gained 52 caps and scored 11 international tries. He had even been chosen to play for the British Lions in Australia in 2001.

         Yet on the day that he decided to retire, Quinnell – an undisputed Welsh hero – still only had the reading age of a seven-year-old. His writing and spelling were also poor, meaning that his wife had to fill in cheques for him. On more than one occasion fans threw autographs back in anger.

      When the sports star decided to tackle the first book in the Harry Potter series, in his late twenties, it took him two months to complete the 223 pages.This week Quinnell will become one of the leading figures of a major campaign aimed at helping the millions of adults in Britain who are barely literate to read for pleasure. He will tell his story in a book that he wrote himself after being treated for severe dyslexia. .The campaign comes as new research reveals that teaching the country’s illiterate parents to read will transform the futures of millions of children.

      It was Quinnell’s two children, Lucy, 11, and Steele, nine, who were also dyslexic, that made him want to change his life. ‘I did not want them to go through the same experiences as me, going to their bedroom at night and crying because they were different to everyone else,’ he said. ‘I struggled at school – it was a frustrating time. If you are called lazy and stupid often enough you start to believe it. I was lucky I had sport. I found out I was dyslexic when I was 21, but I did not do anything. I just kept playing.’     

       Not so for millions of others. There are 1.1 million adults in England with a reading age lower than that of a typical seven-year-old.

     For them, reading road signs, taking in the instructions on a medicine bottle or simply writing their name is a hardship. Many try to hide their lack of ability, even from partners or children, often claiming to have forgotten non-existent glasses. When those whose literacy is so poor they could not keep up with an average 11-year-old are taken into account, the number rises to 5.2 million, or almost one in six of all 16- to 65-year-olds. The figures are also high in Wales and Scotland.      Others are more sceptical about efforts being made in schools. ‘People who do not learn the basics end up doing the same thing over and over again,’ said Dr Bethan Marshall, an academic at King’s College London.

      ‘They are taught in exactly the same way again. Then they are identified as the children who are failing,’ she added. ‘Increasingly children are set by ability, and these children are always in the bottom set because they cannot read or write. They might be good at some things but because of that they are cast as irredeemably stupid.’ 

            For her fellow author, Quinnell, reading was something he never even tried until his late 20s, and when he did ‘my eyes would get tired and I would miss paragraphs’, he said. Things have changed dramatically. When the rugby star decided to try Harry Potter again, he finished the last one in the series – which has 607 pages .

Streetsmart bankers  

      Srijan Founadation congradulates organisers of CDB, Ms Sinha and TNN who have brought this to public notice.

      Earn and save: That’s the new mantra for hundreds of street children across the country. All thanks to a bank where they get to do their own accounts  

      Extracts from an article by Ms Meenakshi Sinha | TNN  

          The Fatehpuri night shelter for street children near the heavily congested Old Delhi Railway Station is quite a contrast to the chaos outside. Around 20 children, aged between 12 and 16, are gleefully watching cartoons on a television set placed in the middle of a spartan hall painted bright pink. There’s a wooden table and chair for the caretaker, neatly piled beddings for the children and a wall covered with graffiti. There is also a cubicle, around three by three feet, at the far end. This red-andyellow enclosure is the Children’s Development Bank (CDB) — run by street children, exclusively for street children.
         As soon as the bank opens at 6:30 pm (unlike regular banks, CDB operates only in the evening because street children work during the day), its young customers line up to make withdrawals or deposit their day’s earnings. Thirteenyear-old Durgesh (see box) waits patiently as the cashier — who is as old as Durgesh — makes an entry in his passbook and hands him a note of Rs 50. Apart from his daily expenses and an occasional movie outing, Durgesh is saving up hard to go home. “The bank is a safe place to deposit my money,’’ he says.
         There are many like him — runaways from desperately poor rural homes who join the big city’s floating population of ragpickers and street vendors. ‘‘Most of them are boys; there aren’t many girls on the streets,’’ says Suman Sachdeva, development manager of Butterflies, the NGO behind the initiative.
         The bank opens for an hour everyday — a busy time for its manager-cum-cashier, a nominated child volunteer who runs the affairs. The job is rotated every six months, giving youngsters (usually in the 12-14 age group) a chance to learn accounting and be responsible with money. Ajay Kumar, 13, who’s currently in charge of the Fatehpuri branch, came to Delhi from Chamoli district in Uttaranchal over a year ago. Dressed nattily in navy blue trousers, sweater and white shirt, with hair neatly combed back, he looks every inch the typical branch manager. Studying in fifth standard at a school nearby, Ajay has been running the show for four months now. ‘‘Daily savings range anything between Rs 150 and Rs 300,’’ he says.
         Initially, CDB’s little employees were trained by HSBC in the basics of banking. Children were taught how to maintain cash, ledgers and passbooks. ‘‘They were also taught how to budget their earnings and the value of saving. Earlier, they spent all their earnings on watching films,’’ says Sachdeva.
         Launched in 2000, with Rs 2 lakh as seed money from the National Foundation for India, CDB began with a membership of 20. These street children agreed to be part of the project because no mainstream bank would give them entry. This core group also framed the rules and regulations. Any working child, for instance, can approach the bank — except those who are in the habit of stealing, begging, selling pornographic material or substance abuse. Like any bank,    

       The bank also sanctions advance loans linked to vocational skills. A committee of nine members (comprising NGO volunteers and children) assesses the requests during monthly meetings. “These loans have played a special role by empowering girls, who would otherwise be pushed into prostitution,’’ says Sachdeva. A few girls with skills in embroidery and tailoring have got loans to start businesses of their own.
       Over the years, this streetside story has travelled way beyond the Capital. In the first year, membership grew from 20 to 800 at the Fatehpuri centre alone. At present, the bank operates from three night shelters and 14 contact areas in Delhi. But its network is spread all over: parks, bus stations, and pavements. In 2004, other NGOs tied up with CDB which branched out to Chennai, Leh and Kolkata. In Muzaffarpur, Bihar, sex workers’ children joined the bank. In the Andamans, CDB was already operational when the tsunami hit the islands.

      The Capital alone has 1,700 members, with savings amounting to Rs 1.5 lakh.
       

       Of course, membership ceases when the child turns 18. The youngster has the option to either close the account or shift to a mainstream bank (Andhra Bank and ICICI are affiliates). Until then, they’re happy banking on CDB — their security blanket in an insecure world.
meenakshi.sinha@timesgroup.com

Miracle baby feeds on mother’s milk
      TNN AHMEDABAD: The miracle baby’s life is slowly but gradually getting on the track.

     The tiny bundle who is a fighter, having survived the dangerous fall from her mother’s womb on to the rocky railway track when she slipped through the toilet bowl as her mother delivered her in the train toilet, took small sips of her mother’s milk.  

         This is the first time she was introduced to food since her adventurous birth on Tuesday night. “Milk expressed from her mother’s breasts was fed to her through tubes. This is the first day she was fed her mother’s milk since her birth,” said attending paediatrician Dr Raj Kumar.        Doctors have put the baby girl on an elaborate antibiotic cover to protect her from any infections she may have got exposed due to her umbilical cord being yanked off and she getting abandoned on the tracks for some hours

extracts from HT    

THE UTTAR Pradesh Police has arrested the son of a minister from Girdharpur on Thursday night in a triple murder case. The minister’s son, one of the accused in the case, had been absconding since the filing of the case on February 6.

        SSP A.  Satish Ganesh, addressing a press conference at Kasna Police Station on Friday , said, “We received information that one of the accused in the triple murder case, Ravinder Bhatti, son of UP Home Guard Minister Ved Ram Bhatti, was at his home in Girdharpur village. 

       A police team was sent and he was arrested around 2 a.m. from his house.” “So far the minister’s involvement has not come up during investigation. If at any stage the minister’s involvement is found, he will also be arrested.

       Nobody is above the law,” the SSP said. Meanwhile, Ravinder Bhatti told the media that he was being falsely implicated in the case. He denied any involvement in the case and added that he had full faith in judiciary. On February 6, Yusuf and Shahbuddin, two brothers and transporters, and their driver Suresh were gunned down in Kasna area over some business rivalry .  

      The police have arrested three accused so far. The minister was named an accused in the case, while his son was named a murder accused.

       Due to pressure from various political leaders, Noida police had declared the minister’s son a runaway and property attachment proceeding were initiated against him.

        The complainant, brother of the deceased, N.K. Ballar, told Hindustan Times, “The police arrested the minister’s son only after political pressure but they are still shielding the minister. Our drivers are still terrorised by their group. We have demanded a CBI inquiry in the case.”

         Also Pl see post on Prince Harry of UK