We give gifts to our friends, relatives and loved ones. Often we wonder what gift can be given to our dear ones. Particularly, when we take time to visit a family with kids, we always stop at a departmental store to buy toys sweets, toffees, pizzas etc..., to be given to their children. How many of us really pause to think for a while to buy a good collection of reading material to them? As parents you can give books for your children as their birthday and Christmas presents or when they excel well in school. Let us remember the habit of reading can be a life time gift for your child.
Remember the good old habit of traditional families to narrate the history of the family; the struggles and joys of yesteryears to their children to carryon the great legacy which the family cherishes. Impressionable minds can be nurtured and moulded in ways more than one. But books and the printed word are among the best tools used for reaching out to a child in today’s hurry burry world. Despite the deep penetrating reach of the visual media, books have a definite edge over other mediums of communication and entertainment. Child psychologists and counselors have often stressed the importance of the reading habit in modern-day children.
As we realise that reading habit is important for your family, start reading as this habit will sooner or later influence your surrounding. Spending even ten minutes a day with your children will make them love both the time for reading and the time to attach with you. If you include expense for books in your budget you and children should often visit the bookshop or book fair. Even visiting any libraries that are available in your neighbourhood, schools, universities, clubs, etc. will increase their love for books. Sharing books will increase their knowledge without costing you much. When you help your children to make their own books, it is cheap but exciting. They can draw or cut pictures from magazines and write their own stories according to their imagination. It increases their power to actualise.
There is another way that will make children interested in books. Usually children like watching cartoons like “Nemo, Lion King, Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh”, some traditional legends, puppets and stories. It is very interesting if they watch the movie on show and then read the books.
Reading habit should be the example for your children because deeds speak louder than words. When your children see you reading they will know that reading is a good habit.
Do not wait until your children are able to read to give them books. Start as soon as they were born. If you often communicate with your babies and read stories for them, their language ability will increase. It is never too late for your child to start reading. Preferably, catch the child young. Bring him other colorful books, so that reading becomes a favorite pastime. The parent has also got to read enough in order to become a model for the little one. And not to forget, family reading is the best way to grow. Ever remember your initial sessions with your grandma! Bed time reading is considered the best quality time spent with a kid. Psychiatrists feel that bed time reading helps to build strong bonding with the child
Language is a gift for a child and books give this gift in abundance. Children’s brain is easier to absorb language than an adult. Hence another benefit of reading books is they can learn foreign language very easily. If a child is raised up by a couple of different nationalities, the child will be able to speak two languages of his parents. Because of children’s ability to absorb new language fast, you can use foreign language story books to introduce and teach them the languages.
Reading a book aloud can be a good exercise not just for memorization but also for improvement of speech and vocabulary.Reading sharpens the thought processes of a child It increases his or her attention span. It gives them the faculty of thinking and understanding.
So by investing your time and your kids’ time for reading good books, you invest better future for your family.
Showing posts with label cover story. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cover story. Show all posts
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Ten ways to strengthen your reading habit
Pleasures of reading are numerous. Reading of books magazines and news papers has a great impact on our minds .Reading makes us cultured and refined. Most people wish they read more. It is an activity that is both fun and enlightening. It can help us to be more knowledgeable and successful. However, it is an activity that many people don’t engage in very much. According to the 1999 National Household Education Survey, 50% of the U.S. population aged 25 and over read a newspaper at least once a week, read one or more magazines regularly, and had read a book in the past 6 months. What does this mean? It means that 50% of the population hasn’t read a book in the last six months!
Looking at the other end of the spectrum, research shows that if you read ten books a year, you are in the top few percent of all people as readers. Simply stated, it doesn’t take much to be well read, but we do need to know how to get started. The following are ten suggestions to help you strengthen your reading habit – ways to find and make more time for reading.
1. Always have a book around. Don’t go anywhere without reading material. Keep magazines or short stories in your bathroom. Always have something in your briefcase to read. Having things available makes it easier for you to steal otherwise lost moments.
2. Set a reading goal. Determine how much time you want to spend reading, or how many books you want to read over time. Your goal might be a book a month, one per week, or it might be to read 30 minutes a day. As your habit builds, you might set higher goals. Setting a goal is the first step towards reading more.
3. Keep a log. Keep a list of the books you have read, or keep track of how much time you read each day. You might keep these lists in your journal or your day planner.
4. Keep a list. Make a list of things you want to read in the future. Ask your friends and colleagues what they are reading. Watch for recommendations in the newspaper and magazines. Once you start looking for good books, you’ll find them everywhere. This is a great way to keep your enthusiasm up. By knowing what great stuff you want to read, you will reinforce your reading habit.
5. Turn off the television. Many people say they just don’t have enough time. Television is one of our major time consumers. Make your television watching more conscious and less habitual
6. Listen when you can’t read. Use your commute and other time spent in the car to listen! There are great audio versions of all sorts of books. Whether you want to “read” fiction, the latest self-help or diet book, it is probably available on tape. Experience ideas and imagination that reading a book can.
7. Join a reading group or book club. Reading groups typically meet once a month to discuss a book they have all decided to read. Committing to the group provides a bit more impetus to finish the book, and gives you a great forum for discussion and socialization around the book’s themes.
8. Visit the library or bookstore often. You have your list, right? So you’ll have some ideas of what you are looking for when you walk in. But there is more to be gained by walking through places where books reside than just to make a transaction. Take time to browse! Let your eyes find things of interest. Let serendipity happen. Browsing will feed your mental need to read, and give you plenty of new things to read.
9. Build your own strategy. Decide when reading fits your schedule. And there is more to your strategy than just timing. Make your own decisions about reading It is ok to be reading more than one book at once. It is ok to stop reading something before you finish if it isn’t holding your interest. It is ok to skim the book, getting what you want or need, without reading every page. Determine what works best for you, develop your own beliefs and ideas - then make them work for you.
10.Drop everything and read. Many schools have introduced this concept and have succeeded a lot .When the teacher calls for ,that’s just what they do. They read now. That is my last piece of advice for you. Do it. Just get started .Make it DEAR time .Now to READ.
Let us cherish and nourish the good old reading habit.
Looking at the other end of the spectrum, research shows that if you read ten books a year, you are in the top few percent of all people as readers. Simply stated, it doesn’t take much to be well read, but we do need to know how to get started. The following are ten suggestions to help you strengthen your reading habit – ways to find and make more time for reading.
1. Always have a book around. Don’t go anywhere without reading material. Keep magazines or short stories in your bathroom. Always have something in your briefcase to read. Having things available makes it easier for you to steal otherwise lost moments.
2. Set a reading goal. Determine how much time you want to spend reading, or how many books you want to read over time. Your goal might be a book a month, one per week, or it might be to read 30 minutes a day. As your habit builds, you might set higher goals. Setting a goal is the first step towards reading more.
3. Keep a log. Keep a list of the books you have read, or keep track of how much time you read each day. You might keep these lists in your journal or your day planner.
4. Keep a list. Make a list of things you want to read in the future. Ask your friends and colleagues what they are reading. Watch for recommendations in the newspaper and magazines. Once you start looking for good books, you’ll find them everywhere. This is a great way to keep your enthusiasm up. By knowing what great stuff you want to read, you will reinforce your reading habit.
5. Turn off the television. Many people say they just don’t have enough time. Television is one of our major time consumers. Make your television watching more conscious and less habitual
6. Listen when you can’t read. Use your commute and other time spent in the car to listen! There are great audio versions of all sorts of books. Whether you want to “read” fiction, the latest self-help or diet book, it is probably available on tape. Experience ideas and imagination that reading a book can.
7. Join a reading group or book club. Reading groups typically meet once a month to discuss a book they have all decided to read. Committing to the group provides a bit more impetus to finish the book, and gives you a great forum for discussion and socialization around the book’s themes.
8. Visit the library or bookstore often. You have your list, right? So you’ll have some ideas of what you are looking for when you walk in. But there is more to be gained by walking through places where books reside than just to make a transaction. Take time to browse! Let your eyes find things of interest. Let serendipity happen. Browsing will feed your mental need to read, and give you plenty of new things to read.
9. Build your own strategy. Decide when reading fits your schedule. And there is more to your strategy than just timing. Make your own decisions about reading It is ok to be reading more than one book at once. It is ok to stop reading something before you finish if it isn’t holding your interest. It is ok to skim the book, getting what you want or need, without reading every page. Determine what works best for you, develop your own beliefs and ideas - then make them work for you.
10.Drop everything and read. Many schools have introduced this concept and have succeeded a lot .When the teacher calls for ,that’s just what they do. They read now. That is my last piece of advice for you. Do it. Just get started .Make it DEAR time .Now to READ.
Let us cherish and nourish the good old reading habit.
Good Old Reading
To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life. -W. Somerset Maugham
In an age when browsing the net, playing with funky handsets and passing non-stop SMSs seem to be the order of the day, reading a book in a peaceful corner of a library has become an archaic idea for most people. While technology is slowly taking a steady control over individual lives, the reading habit is fast vanishing into thin air. The city libraries are a mute witness to this. They present a gloomy picture of the gradual depletion of voracious readers who used to flock the libraries every evening. Apart from a few elderly people and a handful of students, the libraries wear a deserted look most of the time.
These libraries are neither stacked nor maintained well. Hundreds of books lie on the shelves gathering dust, and most of them remain ungrouped. Librarians blame it on the lack of staff and proper funds for renovation.
Much after the Internet boom, reading was almost wiped across you lives as the interactive medium of images was so engrossing that it left little room for the dotted line. With the dish antenna entering our reverie-like homes, there was literally such a hue and cry for imagery all around that somehow simple pleasures like an intelligent game of scrabble or even a small get-together of families was a lost feature!
A decade ago if someone said that he or she hadn’t read a Tagore or a Tolstoy, that person was looked down upon by others. There was a strong sense of accountability and responsibility among the youth. They were much more conscious and well read because at that time ‘simple living and high thinking’ was the dictum. But with the gradual advent of globalisation and nuclear family structures, life has become mechanical and money-oriented. Students are constantly being whipped for performance and the concept of intrinsic value addition is now a long lost idea. Despite being educated and brought up in a rational society, there are times when we fail to understand the difference between intelligence and wisdom! Perhaps it’s only when you observe and understand the world around you, do you realize that difference can be altered for increasing your pace of the learning curve.
Sadly, the reading habit is on the decline among children as well. Ordinarily kids dislike reading material that is dedicatedly made for them as their appreciation for listening skills are so honed that school sub consciously makes them listen to tales and instructions. Popeye and his gang, aided by multimedia games have drowned the shuffle of the pages. Though the Harry Potter mania gripped children these days, it could just be another ephemeral phase withering away sooner or later.
“But why blame it on the kids for all this wean-off-from-reading culture? It is the parents who are responsible for this,” says an English professor. Parents blame it on the mounting pressure on the children in schools and tuition classes.
“My son hardly gets time to read story books. In the little time he gets after finishing the home work, all he wants to do is watch the cartoon channel or play video games,” says Vijaylakshmi whose nine-year-old son ”is glued to the idiot” box whenever he gets the time. The other problem is that there is a tremendous pressure upon students to perform and excel.
The situation is no better among college students. Library for them becomes popular only before the final examination. It is then that the students, in a panic state, just browse through their course related books.
There are also regular visitors to the libraries among them, though they constitute a small minority who frequently borrow books. ‘’But more often than not, students visit the libraries for their research work rather than reading a book for their own pleasure. In fact, nowadays libraries have become common hangouts for the college students,’’ remarks another professor.
But what is the reason behind this wean-off-from-reading attitude? ‘’Parents are so psyched about the future of their children that most of the times it is they who discourage their wards from reading any other book than their textbooks,’’ the professors say.
Tough and intense competition has further deepened the insecurity among the middle class families. ‘’But they fail to understand that for an all-round development of an individual, reading habit is essential.’’ If at the primary level, the habit of reading books is not cultivated among children, then at the college level it becomes very difficult to develop the habit. ‘’That is why we feel that extra reading should be made compulsory at the school level,’’ they say.
Some assert that reading is not a diversion from serious tasks; rather it contributes to the fulfilment of those tasks. ‘’At a time when it is not rare to find students using dubious means and short-uts to pass examinations, the reading skill, if instilled in them, will make them savour learning and also increase their faith in themselves and their abilities.’’
In spite of such refrains, books continue to find their way to the right readers. Libraries in the city may not boast of good attendance, but they do attract ardent readers, who still exist somewhere in the midst of this discouraging scenario. That many contemporary writers are coming out with masterpieces on different subjects is an indicator to this fact. At a time when recreation, enjoyment and mechanical learning have become operative words, it is reassuring to find that bibliophiles are there. It does not matter whether these such booklovers access books on-line or browse them physically, before buying them.
However, reading has probably survived a plethora of distractions and has yet maintained to be some of choicest hobbies one would choose to possess! Avid readers tend to have a better grasp on realities and are known to be better judges of people. Of course the type of books you read quite generally depends on your attitude and personality! But reading as a habit has always allowed to nurture a wholesome sense of well being. Being a total book worm it wasn’t difficult to let my brother also accept this so-far genetic habit, but it did take quite a while for me to sell this idea to him! Most of us read books to lull ourselves to sleep.
Walking Tall with a Book
Perhaps we as human beings, distinct as we are from the rest of the living species need to build up this habit of reading as especially for kids it’s really difficult for parents to make the switch from a totally pictured short comic to a immensely boring book of at least a hundred pages, specifically one that has no images or diagrams. I faced that problem myself so I don’t blame any kid who’d frown at the idea.
And as we age the books also tend to age with us. With our professional lifestyles, it’s difficult to manage a non-fiction, with deadlines set for the next day’s presentation! After all who’d want a taste of the boss’s ire! Many of us miss out on reading in this very manner and sadly it is only in times of sorrow or grief that we seek refuge in reading some sensible stuff that is either in the form of a ’Live it up!’, book or some of us might be inclined towards religion!Of course all of this reading comes only next to our listening to others talk about optimism when we are down an out! From all of this I can only conclude that if you choose to make reading your constant companion, you’ll never walk alone! Besides you’ll have more to discover in life than you’d ever thought about! Think about it, somewhere, in some bright corner of the world, there’s some book waiting for you!
In an age when browsing the net, playing with funky handsets and passing non-stop SMSs seem to be the order of the day, reading a book in a peaceful corner of a library has become an archaic idea for most people. While technology is slowly taking a steady control over individual lives, the reading habit is fast vanishing into thin air. The city libraries are a mute witness to this. They present a gloomy picture of the gradual depletion of voracious readers who used to flock the libraries every evening. Apart from a few elderly people and a handful of students, the libraries wear a deserted look most of the time.
These libraries are neither stacked nor maintained well. Hundreds of books lie on the shelves gathering dust, and most of them remain ungrouped. Librarians blame it on the lack of staff and proper funds for renovation.
Much after the Internet boom, reading was almost wiped across you lives as the interactive medium of images was so engrossing that it left little room for the dotted line. With the dish antenna entering our reverie-like homes, there was literally such a hue and cry for imagery all around that somehow simple pleasures like an intelligent game of scrabble or even a small get-together of families was a lost feature!
A decade ago if someone said that he or she hadn’t read a Tagore or a Tolstoy, that person was looked down upon by others. There was a strong sense of accountability and responsibility among the youth. They were much more conscious and well read because at that time ‘simple living and high thinking’ was the dictum. But with the gradual advent of globalisation and nuclear family structures, life has become mechanical and money-oriented. Students are constantly being whipped for performance and the concept of intrinsic value addition is now a long lost idea. Despite being educated and brought up in a rational society, there are times when we fail to understand the difference between intelligence and wisdom! Perhaps it’s only when you observe and understand the world around you, do you realize that difference can be altered for increasing your pace of the learning curve.
Sadly, the reading habit is on the decline among children as well. Ordinarily kids dislike reading material that is dedicatedly made for them as their appreciation for listening skills are so honed that school sub consciously makes them listen to tales and instructions. Popeye and his gang, aided by multimedia games have drowned the shuffle of the pages. Though the Harry Potter mania gripped children these days, it could just be another ephemeral phase withering away sooner or later.
“But why blame it on the kids for all this wean-off-from-reading culture? It is the parents who are responsible for this,” says an English professor. Parents blame it on the mounting pressure on the children in schools and tuition classes.
“My son hardly gets time to read story books. In the little time he gets after finishing the home work, all he wants to do is watch the cartoon channel or play video games,” says Vijaylakshmi whose nine-year-old son ”is glued to the idiot” box whenever he gets the time. The other problem is that there is a tremendous pressure upon students to perform and excel.
The situation is no better among college students. Library for them becomes popular only before the final examination. It is then that the students, in a panic state, just browse through their course related books.
There are also regular visitors to the libraries among them, though they constitute a small minority who frequently borrow books. ‘’But more often than not, students visit the libraries for their research work rather than reading a book for their own pleasure. In fact, nowadays libraries have become common hangouts for the college students,’’ remarks another professor.
But what is the reason behind this wean-off-from-reading attitude? ‘’Parents are so psyched about the future of their children that most of the times it is they who discourage their wards from reading any other book than their textbooks,’’ the professors say.
Tough and intense competition has further deepened the insecurity among the middle class families. ‘’But they fail to understand that for an all-round development of an individual, reading habit is essential.’’ If at the primary level, the habit of reading books is not cultivated among children, then at the college level it becomes very difficult to develop the habit. ‘’That is why we feel that extra reading should be made compulsory at the school level,’’ they say.
Some assert that reading is not a diversion from serious tasks; rather it contributes to the fulfilment of those tasks. ‘’At a time when it is not rare to find students using dubious means and short-uts to pass examinations, the reading skill, if instilled in them, will make them savour learning and also increase their faith in themselves and their abilities.’’
In spite of such refrains, books continue to find their way to the right readers. Libraries in the city may not boast of good attendance, but they do attract ardent readers, who still exist somewhere in the midst of this discouraging scenario. That many contemporary writers are coming out with masterpieces on different subjects is an indicator to this fact. At a time when recreation, enjoyment and mechanical learning have become operative words, it is reassuring to find that bibliophiles are there. It does not matter whether these such booklovers access books on-line or browse them physically, before buying them.
However, reading has probably survived a plethora of distractions and has yet maintained to be some of choicest hobbies one would choose to possess! Avid readers tend to have a better grasp on realities and are known to be better judges of people. Of course the type of books you read quite generally depends on your attitude and personality! But reading as a habit has always allowed to nurture a wholesome sense of well being. Being a total book worm it wasn’t difficult to let my brother also accept this so-far genetic habit, but it did take quite a while for me to sell this idea to him! Most of us read books to lull ourselves to sleep.
Walking Tall with a Book
Perhaps we as human beings, distinct as we are from the rest of the living species need to build up this habit of reading as especially for kids it’s really difficult for parents to make the switch from a totally pictured short comic to a immensely boring book of at least a hundred pages, specifically one that has no images or diagrams. I faced that problem myself so I don’t blame any kid who’d frown at the idea.
And as we age the books also tend to age with us. With our professional lifestyles, it’s difficult to manage a non-fiction, with deadlines set for the next day’s presentation! After all who’d want a taste of the boss’s ire! Many of us miss out on reading in this very manner and sadly it is only in times of sorrow or grief that we seek refuge in reading some sensible stuff that is either in the form of a ’Live it up!’, book or some of us might be inclined towards religion!Of course all of this reading comes only next to our listening to others talk about optimism when we are down an out! From all of this I can only conclude that if you choose to make reading your constant companion, you’ll never walk alone! Besides you’ll have more to discover in life than you’d ever thought about! Think about it, somewhere, in some bright corner of the world, there’s some book waiting for you!
Religious Divide
Men of sense are all of one religion. But men of sense never tell what it is.
India is a land not only blessed with cultural and linguistic conglomeration but also with multiple religion adding to the unfathomable riches of this nation’s heritage. Religions like Buddhism, Confucianism, Christianity, Hinduism, Isalm, Judaism, Shintoism and various others decorate the Indian heritage.
Think of two Indian Muslims with two very different experiences of their homeland. While one chooses to serve the nation by joining the police force while the other feeling sorry about the state of affairs leading to poverty and inequality joins a terrorist organization. Both are Indian Muslims. They began their careers simultaneously. But they could hardly have chosen more different paths. While the policeman was taking his civil service exams, the other was being admitted as a full time activist in a fundamentalist group.
This may be true with every religion. But the truth is that the two share a fundamental burden: in the eyes of many Hindus, uly belong in India. The origins of this antagonism are centuries old. In essence, hard line Hindus regard as a national humiliation the Islamic influence and the Christian influence and for that matter any other religious influence other than Hinduism. This distrust of other religions particularly Islam has only increased since independence in 1947: modern India was founded in the Muslim-Hindu bloodletting of partition of the subcontinent, in which a million people died, and since then tensions have boiled over into three wars against Islamic neighbour Pakistan. Today, much of the religious tension in the region stems from India’s rule over Muslim dominated Kashmir in the face of strident Pakistani opposition. The war on terror and the 1998 election of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on a Hindu nationalist agenda, which focused debate on physically undoing the Mughal invasion by razing mosques built over Hindu temples, have lent a veil of legitimacy to India’s lurking anti-Muslim prejudice. “Muslims are a despised minority, disliked by a large section of the majority,” wrote Muslim commentator Firoz Bakht Ahmed in the Hindu news paper.
Indian Muslims do have their high achievers: President Abdul Kalam; Wipro chairman and India’s richest man, Azim Premji, and a host of Bollywood stars. But for every President or Muslim tech entrepreneur or movie star or policeman, there are 1,000 others with tales of discrimination in the workplace or the education system, harassment by wayward police officers or segregation into ghettos by Hindu landlords. Whatever the causes, there is no disputing the fact that Indian Muslims today are less educated, poorer and live shorter, less secure and less healthy lives than their Hindu counterparts. Census figures paint a bleak picture of their plight. In rural India, 29% of Muslims earn less than $6 a month, compared with 26% of Hindus; in the cities (where a third of all Muslims live) the gap rises to 40% vs. 22%. Some 13% of India’s population is Muslim, yet Muslims account for just 3% of government employees, and an even smaller percentage are employed by private Hindu businesses. Meanwhile, in the cities, 30% of Muslims are illiterate, vs. 19% of Hindus. Nor are any of these indices improving.
India’s Muslims are also far more likely than Hindus to be victims of violent attacks. In all the communal riots since independence, official police records reveal that three-quarters of the lives lost and properties destroyed were Muslim, a figure that climbed to 85% during last year’s riots in Gujarat. The Gujarat authorities even went so far as to price Muslim lives below those of Hindus, offering $2,050 in state compensation for Muslims killed but double that for the riots’ 58 Hindu victims. “There is often a tendency in India to treat Muslims as them rather than us,” says K.C. Tyagi, former leader of the moderate Hindu Samajwadi Party. “And this tendency does have terrible manifestations. Even today, by and large, Muslims have not been admitted to what we call the Indian mainstream.” The portion of the population affected by this systemic discrimination is staggering: India’s Muslim “minority” numbers 150 million people (vs. 850 million Hindus)—after Indonesia, the second-largest Islamic community in the world. Religious divide stems from the unequal distribution of wealth. It has its roots in violation of fundamental rights. Every demand for human rights is termed as a terrorism. W
India is a land not only blessed with cultural and linguistic conglomeration but also with multiple religion adding to the unfathomable riches of this nation’s heritage. Religions like Buddhism, Confucianism, Christianity, Hinduism, Isalm, Judaism, Shintoism and various others decorate the Indian heritage.
Think of two Indian Muslims with two very different experiences of their homeland. While one chooses to serve the nation by joining the police force while the other feeling sorry about the state of affairs leading to poverty and inequality joins a terrorist organization. Both are Indian Muslims. They began their careers simultaneously. But they could hardly have chosen more different paths. While the policeman was taking his civil service exams, the other was being admitted as a full time activist in a fundamentalist group.
This may be true with every religion. But the truth is that the two share a fundamental burden: in the eyes of many Hindus, uly belong in India. The origins of this antagonism are centuries old. In essence, hard line Hindus regard as a national humiliation the Islamic influence and the Christian influence and for that matter any other religious influence other than Hinduism. This distrust of other religions particularly Islam has only increased since independence in 1947: modern India was founded in the Muslim-Hindu bloodletting of partition of the subcontinent, in which a million people died, and since then tensions have boiled over into three wars against Islamic neighbour Pakistan. Today, much of the religious tension in the region stems from India’s rule over Muslim dominated Kashmir in the face of strident Pakistani opposition. The war on terror and the 1998 election of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on a Hindu nationalist agenda, which focused debate on physically undoing the Mughal invasion by razing mosques built over Hindu temples, have lent a veil of legitimacy to India’s lurking anti-Muslim prejudice. “Muslims are a despised minority, disliked by a large section of the majority,” wrote Muslim commentator Firoz Bakht Ahmed in the Hindu news paper.
Indian Muslims do have their high achievers: President Abdul Kalam; Wipro chairman and India’s richest man, Azim Premji, and a host of Bollywood stars. But for every President or Muslim tech entrepreneur or movie star or policeman, there are 1,000 others with tales of discrimination in the workplace or the education system, harassment by wayward police officers or segregation into ghettos by Hindu landlords. Whatever the causes, there is no disputing the fact that Indian Muslims today are less educated, poorer and live shorter, less secure and less healthy lives than their Hindu counterparts. Census figures paint a bleak picture of their plight. In rural India, 29% of Muslims earn less than $6 a month, compared with 26% of Hindus; in the cities (where a third of all Muslims live) the gap rises to 40% vs. 22%. Some 13% of India’s population is Muslim, yet Muslims account for just 3% of government employees, and an even smaller percentage are employed by private Hindu businesses. Meanwhile, in the cities, 30% of Muslims are illiterate, vs. 19% of Hindus. Nor are any of these indices improving.
India’s Muslims are also far more likely than Hindus to be victims of violent attacks. In all the communal riots since independence, official police records reveal that three-quarters of the lives lost and properties destroyed were Muslim, a figure that climbed to 85% during last year’s riots in Gujarat. The Gujarat authorities even went so far as to price Muslim lives below those of Hindus, offering $2,050 in state compensation for Muslims killed but double that for the riots’ 58 Hindu victims. “There is often a tendency in India to treat Muslims as them rather than us,” says K.C. Tyagi, former leader of the moderate Hindu Samajwadi Party. “And this tendency does have terrible manifestations. Even today, by and large, Muslims have not been admitted to what we call the Indian mainstream.” The portion of the population affected by this systemic discrimination is staggering: India’s Muslim “minority” numbers 150 million people (vs. 850 million Hindus)—after Indonesia, the second-largest Islamic community in the world. Religious divide stems from the unequal distribution of wealth. It has its roots in violation of fundamental rights. Every demand for human rights is termed as a terrorism. W
Superpower dreams!
A great news had hit the headlines in the recent days: “India 12th wealthiest nation in 2005, says World Bank.” PTI had published this on Saturday, July 08, 2006. According to this news India has emerged as the 12th wealthiest nation in the world with its GDP touching 785.47 billion dollars or Rs. 35,34,615 crore in 2005, calculated by the World Bank. US was the wealthiest nation with GDP of 12.46 trillion dollars, according to a list of 15 wealthiest countries prepared by the World Bank in terms of their gross domestic product. While India was way down compared to China, positioned fourth with 2.23 trillion dollars of GDP, it was wealthier than Mexico, Russia and Australia. The United States was followed by Japan with 4.51 trillion dollars and Germany 2.78 trillion dollars. Britain, France and Italy occupied fifth, sixth and seventh ranks. Next came Spain, Canada, Brazil and South Korea. There was no African country among the 15 richest nations, while India was the only south Asian country in the list.
There is jubilation among the economist, investors, ruling elites and the upper strata. Many other surprises popped up simultaneously. With 28 states and 7 Union territories, having 16% of the world population and with a super power status, the Indian leaders nurture the superpower dreams.
59 years in the life of a nation is probably not very long, but in the life of all individuals in India it is certainly long. But finally, what is a nation after all if not the sum total of the growth of its citizens. The per capita income add up to GNP and thus if the individual has progressed, so has the nation or vice versa.
Looking back over the chequered path that our shifting developmental paradigm has traversed, one can be overwhelmed with the whole lot of bungled opportunities, shoddy growth and the continued multifarious socio-economic problems that the present generation of Indians have inherited. Not that we have not progressed, we have progressed long. But the regional and social imbalances of immense magnitude persist. The dictum “India is not poor, but Indians are poor” remained stuck.
We had inherited an India which was bereft of most developmental resources. Except some railway lines and roads and other infrastructure mainly to supply raw materials to England and to maintain the administrative apparatus in support of colonial interest were left belvind
According to government sources, some 300 million lived either below the poverty line No doubt 59 years down the line the conditions have changed in many ways. But the size of the population below the poverty line has increased in absolute terms. In 1947, it was 90% at 300 million, today it is around 35% at over 350 million of 1000 million population of the country, a reflection of our failure at redistributive justice.
If the absolute number of the poor in India has not reduced over the last 59 years, there must be profound reasons. Some clue can be had from China and other far eastern countries.
Unlike our politicians and their elite babus, people at the helm in these countries showed real concern for the fundamentals of human well being. Quietly they went about attending to primary health care, basic education and providing for gainful employment to all their people. Yes, even after 59 years we still have lot to learn from these countries. These countless have left India far behind in Human Development Index (HDI). Our meaning system simply didn’t work and failed to deliver. Could it be, as Rajeev Gandhi had said, ‘only 15 paise of the rupee reached the people and the 85 paise go lost in transit’. The classic example of our granaries being full and people dying of starvation is a sad commentary on our monumental failure to measure upto even minimum expectation in a democratic setup.
It is ironical that despite manifold increase in the physical infrastructure for primary education almost 40% of the population is illiterate. In spite of high enrolment in government schools, at any given time, some 50% of primary school children are believed to be out of school. However, in recent days, due to the programmes like Sarva Siksha Abhiyan and Mid-Day meal scheme the dropout rate has sharply declined in some stales.
After nine Five year Plans over 250 million are without safe drinking water. Over 600 million lack basic sanitation facility. Incidentally providing sanitation facility is not one of the priorities of all governments whether state or federal. Housing is another problem, successive governments have failed to address. However since last 5 years there has been a spurt in the housing sector, although a decent house for the below the poverty line (BPL) population is still a distant dream.
In India, the prevailing socio economic system, compounded by the economic liberalisation, continues to generate poverty. The political structure is either unconcerned or helpless about it. The civil servants, who are really powerful and self serving, excel in a status, as was in colonial era, loaded against the people. They continue to be masters in disguise with the politicians often eating out of their hands.
The failure of the social policy and planning in respect of human development has resulted in India’s inability to stabilise the already high population, which was mainly due to the fear among poor people of high mortality and low individual earning capacity, where every additional hand shall add in some money to the family. This increase in number only increases the low quality of population and that is a matter of concern.
The present stage of economic administration in India represents an ambiguous social philosophy which weeps for the poor but sides with the rich. Interest of the working class is sidelined in the name of economic competitiveness, as we have witnessed these days with protest against reservation policy.
Corruption is another malaise that has grown to endemic proportion as years passed by. As a social evil corruption has got a powerful entry into our delivery system. We have been bracketed among the most corrupt nations of the world by the Transparency International. This steep level of corruption had made Rajiv Gandhi to make that famous statement of 15 paise a rupee of the development money reaching the people. India Corruption Study 2005 has indicated the amount of sleaze that has permeated into the civil society.
According to the study biggest beneficiaries of corruption are schools, the schools of haves, with Rs. 4137 crores going its way, followed by Police Rs: 3899 crores, LandAdministration Rs. 3126 crores. According to Lokayukta of Karnataka Justice Venkatachala, the sub registrars’ office -the Land Registrars -across the state is the most corrupt. Study also revealed that Judiciary was also one of bigger beneficiaries of bribes with Rs. 2630 crores, so was the electricity department with Rs. 2169 crores. Thus it is very clear that corruption has really affected our developmental efforts.
Revenue and financial administration of the country is another of the shoddy dimension of our governance. Close to 100,000 crores are provided and written off as non performing assets of public sector banks, and mostly owed by private sector enterprises, where again sleaze plays its roll, so also some of the badly managed, sinking public sector units, but kept alive for political reasons. Then you have departments of income tax, excise, and other revenue departments of the state where thousands of crores are remaining to be collected, but no action initiated for reasons other than administrative and economic.
India, 12th wealthiest nation in the world. Is that true? Are we really getting richer? For us, India still lives in its villages and people still have little access to its vast land and water, fruits of the soil and seas, jobs in thriving factories and the improving quality of life. It is with this background the World Bank report has to be analysed. For the outsiders, India is a very attractive market. According to Huw Jenkins, Chairman & CEO, UBS Investments Banking, India is extremely bullish. It has a good merger and acquisition business and also a good equities business. But for the devoted Indians it is not a market. It is a soil where after years of toil our elders brought us meaning, peace and freedom.
Yet, India’s foreign policy and security establishment is backed by a fawning media. Meanwhile, Indian nuclear scientists and engineers have moved from sulking over the deal to condemning it outright.
Here lies a terrible irony. Just as India radically reshapes its relations with the world, it is deeply divided, public opinion is irrevocably split, even elite views are polarised. We have never before seen such a chasm on a foreign policy issue neither over non-alignment in the 1950s, nor over the friendship treaty with the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in the 1970s. This should make the deal’s zealous advocates pause and think.
After all, the agreement is an integral part of the global system of alliances that Washington is building in its effort to dominate the world by preventing the emergence of a rival power or an alliance of states that could challenge it in the future. There is a paradigm shift in India’s foreign and security policy posture with the March 2 agreement between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Bush.
In some ways, U.S. plans for India, declared overtly through its March 2005 offer to help India become “a major world power in the 21st century”, and other far reaching initiatives, are comparable to Washington’s strategy of the early 1970s to wean China away from the USSR. This, as well as the content of the deal, with its negative implications for India’s sovereignty and for the cause of world peace and global nuclear disarmament, furnishes a strong, logical, and rational ground for opposing it. But that is not where its most vocal Indian opponents come from.
The bulk of them, former and serving officials of the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), and a few media commentators lack a political perspective critical of the U.S. and its global role, which on balance is negative. Some have a history of taking pro-U.S. positions. They are guided by a narrow, militaristic and chauvinistic idea of the national interest and an absolute concept of sovereignty, which must be rethought in respect of weapons of mass destruction or acts that can constitute crimes against humanity. They do not ground their criticism of the deal either in India’s declared “minimum credible nuclear deterrent” doctrine, or in principles of transparency and accountability, leave alone universal values such as human security and peace which actually makes us a super power.
There is jubilation among the economist, investors, ruling elites and the upper strata. Many other surprises popped up simultaneously. With 28 states and 7 Union territories, having 16% of the world population and with a super power status, the Indian leaders nurture the superpower dreams.
59 years in the life of a nation is probably not very long, but in the life of all individuals in India it is certainly long. But finally, what is a nation after all if not the sum total of the growth of its citizens. The per capita income add up to GNP and thus if the individual has progressed, so has the nation or vice versa.
Looking back over the chequered path that our shifting developmental paradigm has traversed, one can be overwhelmed with the whole lot of bungled opportunities, shoddy growth and the continued multifarious socio-economic problems that the present generation of Indians have inherited. Not that we have not progressed, we have progressed long. But the regional and social imbalances of immense magnitude persist. The dictum “India is not poor, but Indians are poor” remained stuck.
We had inherited an India which was bereft of most developmental resources. Except some railway lines and roads and other infrastructure mainly to supply raw materials to England and to maintain the administrative apparatus in support of colonial interest were left belvind
According to government sources, some 300 million lived either below the poverty line No doubt 59 years down the line the conditions have changed in many ways. But the size of the population below the poverty line has increased in absolute terms. In 1947, it was 90% at 300 million, today it is around 35% at over 350 million of 1000 million population of the country, a reflection of our failure at redistributive justice.
If the absolute number of the poor in India has not reduced over the last 59 years, there must be profound reasons. Some clue can be had from China and other far eastern countries.
Unlike our politicians and their elite babus, people at the helm in these countries showed real concern for the fundamentals of human well being. Quietly they went about attending to primary health care, basic education and providing for gainful employment to all their people. Yes, even after 59 years we still have lot to learn from these countries. These countless have left India far behind in Human Development Index (HDI). Our meaning system simply didn’t work and failed to deliver. Could it be, as Rajeev Gandhi had said, ‘only 15 paise of the rupee reached the people and the 85 paise go lost in transit’. The classic example of our granaries being full and people dying of starvation is a sad commentary on our monumental failure to measure upto even minimum expectation in a democratic setup.
It is ironical that despite manifold increase in the physical infrastructure for primary education almost 40% of the population is illiterate. In spite of high enrolment in government schools, at any given time, some 50% of primary school children are believed to be out of school. However, in recent days, due to the programmes like Sarva Siksha Abhiyan and Mid-Day meal scheme the dropout rate has sharply declined in some stales.
After nine Five year Plans over 250 million are without safe drinking water. Over 600 million lack basic sanitation facility. Incidentally providing sanitation facility is not one of the priorities of all governments whether state or federal. Housing is another problem, successive governments have failed to address. However since last 5 years there has been a spurt in the housing sector, although a decent house for the below the poverty line (BPL) population is still a distant dream.
In India, the prevailing socio economic system, compounded by the economic liberalisation, continues to generate poverty. The political structure is either unconcerned or helpless about it. The civil servants, who are really powerful and self serving, excel in a status, as was in colonial era, loaded against the people. They continue to be masters in disguise with the politicians often eating out of their hands.
The failure of the social policy and planning in respect of human development has resulted in India’s inability to stabilise the already high population, which was mainly due to the fear among poor people of high mortality and low individual earning capacity, where every additional hand shall add in some money to the family. This increase in number only increases the low quality of population and that is a matter of concern.
The present stage of economic administration in India represents an ambiguous social philosophy which weeps for the poor but sides with the rich. Interest of the working class is sidelined in the name of economic competitiveness, as we have witnessed these days with protest against reservation policy.
Corruption is another malaise that has grown to endemic proportion as years passed by. As a social evil corruption has got a powerful entry into our delivery system. We have been bracketed among the most corrupt nations of the world by the Transparency International. This steep level of corruption had made Rajiv Gandhi to make that famous statement of 15 paise a rupee of the development money reaching the people. India Corruption Study 2005 has indicated the amount of sleaze that has permeated into the civil society.
According to the study biggest beneficiaries of corruption are schools, the schools of haves, with Rs. 4137 crores going its way, followed by Police Rs: 3899 crores, LandAdministration Rs. 3126 crores. According to Lokayukta of Karnataka Justice Venkatachala, the sub registrars’ office -the Land Registrars -across the state is the most corrupt. Study also revealed that Judiciary was also one of bigger beneficiaries of bribes with Rs. 2630 crores, so was the electricity department with Rs. 2169 crores. Thus it is very clear that corruption has really affected our developmental efforts.
Revenue and financial administration of the country is another of the shoddy dimension of our governance. Close to 100,000 crores are provided and written off as non performing assets of public sector banks, and mostly owed by private sector enterprises, where again sleaze plays its roll, so also some of the badly managed, sinking public sector units, but kept alive for political reasons. Then you have departments of income tax, excise, and other revenue departments of the state where thousands of crores are remaining to be collected, but no action initiated for reasons other than administrative and economic.
India, 12th wealthiest nation in the world. Is that true? Are we really getting richer? For us, India still lives in its villages and people still have little access to its vast land and water, fruits of the soil and seas, jobs in thriving factories and the improving quality of life. It is with this background the World Bank report has to be analysed. For the outsiders, India is a very attractive market. According to Huw Jenkins, Chairman & CEO, UBS Investments Banking, India is extremely bullish. It has a good merger and acquisition business and also a good equities business. But for the devoted Indians it is not a market. It is a soil where after years of toil our elders brought us meaning, peace and freedom.
Yet, India’s foreign policy and security establishment is backed by a fawning media. Meanwhile, Indian nuclear scientists and engineers have moved from sulking over the deal to condemning it outright.
Here lies a terrible irony. Just as India radically reshapes its relations with the world, it is deeply divided, public opinion is irrevocably split, even elite views are polarised. We have never before seen such a chasm on a foreign policy issue neither over non-alignment in the 1950s, nor over the friendship treaty with the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in the 1970s. This should make the deal’s zealous advocates pause and think.
After all, the agreement is an integral part of the global system of alliances that Washington is building in its effort to dominate the world by preventing the emergence of a rival power or an alliance of states that could challenge it in the future. There is a paradigm shift in India’s foreign and security policy posture with the March 2 agreement between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Bush.
In some ways, U.S. plans for India, declared overtly through its March 2005 offer to help India become “a major world power in the 21st century”, and other far reaching initiatives, are comparable to Washington’s strategy of the early 1970s to wean China away from the USSR. This, as well as the content of the deal, with its negative implications for India’s sovereignty and for the cause of world peace and global nuclear disarmament, furnishes a strong, logical, and rational ground for opposing it. But that is not where its most vocal Indian opponents come from.
The bulk of them, former and serving officials of the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), and a few media commentators lack a political perspective critical of the U.S. and its global role, which on balance is negative. Some have a history of taking pro-U.S. positions. They are guided by a narrow, militaristic and chauvinistic idea of the national interest and an absolute concept of sovereignty, which must be rethought in respect of weapons of mass destruction or acts that can constitute crimes against humanity. They do not ground their criticism of the deal either in India’s declared “minimum credible nuclear deterrent” doctrine, or in principles of transparency and accountability, leave alone universal values such as human security and peace which actually makes us a super power.
Religion Enters Media Mainstream
Big Public Response to Christian Message
A lot is written, said and shown about religion these days. Of course the people governing the media govern also the positive or negative religious propaganda. Religion, once hailed as a meaning system of people of all ages, seems to be at the behest of media, as it may seem after the media highlight on Da Vinci Code and Judas Gospel. All of a sudden media seem to have taken control of the religion and people’s belief system.
Obviously, the demand for religious content in the media also continues to grow. This can have its downside, as “The Da Vinci Code” revealed. Along with these a host of other earlier banned books have also come into the light. But it also means that doors are opening up for guardians of religions who want to get their message across. From the death of Jesus to the present times the Church seems to have grown and matured to handle negative religious propaganda tactfully.
A Boom in the West
Domestic sales of religious products in the United States are likely to reach $9.5 billion by 2010. The estimate comes from market research publisher ‘Packaged Facts.’ During the recent annual awards for religious television programs. The head of the judging panel, Jane Drabble, a former BBC executive, expressed her surprise at the good quality of the contestants. The winner was “A Test of Faith,” based on the London terrorist bombings of last July 7. The runner-up was an experimental series, “Priest Idol,” which chronicled the efforts of Anglican priest James McCaskill in trying to revive a dying parish. “The Monastery,” showed the experiences of five men, who spent 40 days in an abbey, won a merit award. The programme attracted 2.5 million viewers, and a sequel is being planned.
In another instant, The catholic church and the Church of England have joined forces in calling for reforms in the BBC Charter. Their prime concern is that the Government ensures that the BBC not only commissions religious programmes but that it demonstrates a real commitment to broadening religious references.
Reality shows
Television is also opening up to religious programmes. The BBC is giving the finishing touches to a project that will depict the life of Jesus and the events leading up to his crucifiction.
Reality-type religious programs are gaining popularity. ‘The Independent’ observed that in order to attract the attention of a new generation, religion needs to entertain. And the human-interestangle, typical of reality television shows is one way to do this.
Channels from London will telecast “The Convent,” portraying the experience of four women spending six weeks in a community of nuns. Channel 4 will transmit “Six Feet Under: The Muslim Way,” about a London-based Muslim funeral service.
The same is true in the United States. “God or the Girl,” a five-part series started on Easter Sunday, broadcast on A&E Television. The four protagonists had to decide whether to enter the seminary or to opt for marriage. A U.S. version of “The Monastery” is under way. Five men and five women from a variety of backgrounds are depicted as they spend 40 days in a monastery,
“We’re interested in exploring how people like us can live a good and purposeful life and what the 1,500-year-old monastic tradition can teach modern people,” explained the producer, Sarah Woodford.
Publishing Boom
In the print sector a wave of religious books is hitting the stores. Authors are anxious to ride the coattails of Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code.” Offerings include Michael Baigent’s “The Jesus Papers,” which denies Christ died on the cross. Books criticizing Brown are also enjoying success; Erwin Lutzer, an evangelical minister, has sold 300,000 copies of his “The Da Vinci Deception.”
Other books include “Divine,” a parable about a modern Magdalene figure, by Karen Kingsbury, described as a Christian fiction writer. Her books have sold more than 4 million copies. And Bart Ehrman will be coming out with “Peter, Paul and Mary Magdalene.” The book looks at some of the issues raised by Brown, and denies there is evidence of any marriage between Jesus and Mary Magdalene. On a lighter note, religious comic books are also selling well. There is a project to turn the lives of the saints into comic books. It’s part of an effort to attract young people to the Catholic Church.
In Hong Kong, meanwhile, a comic book version, in a number of installments, of the New Testament is being published. Apeiron Production Company was commissioned to publish the text by Australian-based property developer Larry Lee Siu-kee.
Lee said he was spurred to do it after the recent publication of what he called falsehoods. “By stating their stories as fact, like in ‘The Da Vinci Code,’ they are poison for young people, many of whom will think it is real,” he explained. Lee said that the 6,000 copies of the first installment have been flying off the shelves, prompting him to print a further 20,000 copies.
From print to the
electronic media.
The best-selling series of apocalyptic “Left Behind” books are now being converted into a video game. The game, “Left Behind: Eternal Forces,” made its debut at the annual Electronic Entertainment Expo, in Los Angeles.
It was not alone. Another producer was marketing games based on the “Veggie Tales” series of Christian videos for children. And another was pushing “Bibleman: A Fight for Faith,” reported about a superhero who stands up for the word of God.
One of the best-selling Christian based video games, “Catechumen,” produced by the San Diego-based Christian Game Developers Foundation, has sold 80,000 copies. This falls far short of such successes as the 5.1 million copies of “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.”
Other initiatives to get the religious message across include a satellite radio station for New York City. The Catholic archdiocese there recently announced a venture with Sirius Satellite Radio to establish a channel. It has to be noted that of the 17,000 licensed terrestrial radio stations in the United States, 1,700 are Protestant or evangelical Christian in nature, and 130 are Catholic.
Indian Response
While we see a revival in the west with regard to the positive propagation of faith through literature and television shows, the Indian Media too is gaining momentum in a slow pace. On the one hand the protesting groups managed to ban the movie version of Da Vinci Code in some states, positive move to religious propaganda is yet to take place in a large scale. Quite a few instances of protests have captured media attention. Apart from that a few religious congregation and the laity have brought out some awareness through the cost effective e-mail and the church run magazines.
In his message for the World Commu-nications Day, Pope Benedict XVI urged the media to “contribute constructively to the propagation of all that is good and true”.
The Pope also noted that Christians are called to share God’s message with others. This call stems from recognition of Christ’s dynamic force within us, “which then seeks to spread outward to others, so that his love can truly become the prevalent measure of the world”. A force that is increasingly finding an outlet in the media.
The times are good for religion to make a positive entry into the media mainstream. The Church can not remain silent all through as a silent spectator, Instead time is ripe for religion to make the best use of the media without losing its own identity.
A lot is written, said and shown about religion these days. Of course the people governing the media govern also the positive or negative religious propaganda. Religion, once hailed as a meaning system of people of all ages, seems to be at the behest of media, as it may seem after the media highlight on Da Vinci Code and Judas Gospel. All of a sudden media seem to have taken control of the religion and people’s belief system.
Obviously, the demand for religious content in the media also continues to grow. This can have its downside, as “The Da Vinci Code” revealed. Along with these a host of other earlier banned books have also come into the light. But it also means that doors are opening up for guardians of religions who want to get their message across. From the death of Jesus to the present times the Church seems to have grown and matured to handle negative religious propaganda tactfully.
A Boom in the West
Domestic sales of religious products in the United States are likely to reach $9.5 billion by 2010. The estimate comes from market research publisher ‘Packaged Facts.’ During the recent annual awards for religious television programs. The head of the judging panel, Jane Drabble, a former BBC executive, expressed her surprise at the good quality of the contestants. The winner was “A Test of Faith,” based on the London terrorist bombings of last July 7. The runner-up was an experimental series, “Priest Idol,” which chronicled the efforts of Anglican priest James McCaskill in trying to revive a dying parish. “The Monastery,” showed the experiences of five men, who spent 40 days in an abbey, won a merit award. The programme attracted 2.5 million viewers, and a sequel is being planned.
In another instant, The catholic church and the Church of England have joined forces in calling for reforms in the BBC Charter. Their prime concern is that the Government ensures that the BBC not only commissions religious programmes but that it demonstrates a real commitment to broadening religious references.
Reality shows
Television is also opening up to religious programmes. The BBC is giving the finishing touches to a project that will depict the life of Jesus and the events leading up to his crucifiction.
Reality-type religious programs are gaining popularity. ‘The Independent’ observed that in order to attract the attention of a new generation, religion needs to entertain. And the human-interestangle, typical of reality television shows is one way to do this.
Channels from London will telecast “The Convent,” portraying the experience of four women spending six weeks in a community of nuns. Channel 4 will transmit “Six Feet Under: The Muslim Way,” about a London-based Muslim funeral service.
The same is true in the United States. “God or the Girl,” a five-part series started on Easter Sunday, broadcast on A&E Television. The four protagonists had to decide whether to enter the seminary or to opt for marriage. A U.S. version of “The Monastery” is under way. Five men and five women from a variety of backgrounds are depicted as they spend 40 days in a monastery,
“We’re interested in exploring how people like us can live a good and purposeful life and what the 1,500-year-old monastic tradition can teach modern people,” explained the producer, Sarah Woodford.
Publishing Boom
In the print sector a wave of religious books is hitting the stores. Authors are anxious to ride the coattails of Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code.” Offerings include Michael Baigent’s “The Jesus Papers,” which denies Christ died on the cross. Books criticizing Brown are also enjoying success; Erwin Lutzer, an evangelical minister, has sold 300,000 copies of his “The Da Vinci Deception.”
Other books include “Divine,” a parable about a modern Magdalene figure, by Karen Kingsbury, described as a Christian fiction writer. Her books have sold more than 4 million copies. And Bart Ehrman will be coming out with “Peter, Paul and Mary Magdalene.” The book looks at some of the issues raised by Brown, and denies there is evidence of any marriage between Jesus and Mary Magdalene. On a lighter note, religious comic books are also selling well. There is a project to turn the lives of the saints into comic books. It’s part of an effort to attract young people to the Catholic Church.
In Hong Kong, meanwhile, a comic book version, in a number of installments, of the New Testament is being published. Apeiron Production Company was commissioned to publish the text by Australian-based property developer Larry Lee Siu-kee.
Lee said he was spurred to do it after the recent publication of what he called falsehoods. “By stating their stories as fact, like in ‘The Da Vinci Code,’ they are poison for young people, many of whom will think it is real,” he explained. Lee said that the 6,000 copies of the first installment have been flying off the shelves, prompting him to print a further 20,000 copies.
From print to the
electronic media.
The best-selling series of apocalyptic “Left Behind” books are now being converted into a video game. The game, “Left Behind: Eternal Forces,” made its debut at the annual Electronic Entertainment Expo, in Los Angeles.
It was not alone. Another producer was marketing games based on the “Veggie Tales” series of Christian videos for children. And another was pushing “Bibleman: A Fight for Faith,” reported about a superhero who stands up for the word of God.
One of the best-selling Christian based video games, “Catechumen,” produced by the San Diego-based Christian Game Developers Foundation, has sold 80,000 copies. This falls far short of such successes as the 5.1 million copies of “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.”
Other initiatives to get the religious message across include a satellite radio station for New York City. The Catholic archdiocese there recently announced a venture with Sirius Satellite Radio to establish a channel. It has to be noted that of the 17,000 licensed terrestrial radio stations in the United States, 1,700 are Protestant or evangelical Christian in nature, and 130 are Catholic.
Indian Response
While we see a revival in the west with regard to the positive propagation of faith through literature and television shows, the Indian Media too is gaining momentum in a slow pace. On the one hand the protesting groups managed to ban the movie version of Da Vinci Code in some states, positive move to religious propaganda is yet to take place in a large scale. Quite a few instances of protests have captured media attention. Apart from that a few religious congregation and the laity have brought out some awareness through the cost effective e-mail and the church run magazines.
In his message for the World Commu-nications Day, Pope Benedict XVI urged the media to “contribute constructively to the propagation of all that is good and true”.
The Pope also noted that Christians are called to share God’s message with others. This call stems from recognition of Christ’s dynamic force within us, “which then seeks to spread outward to others, so that his love can truly become the prevalent measure of the world”. A force that is increasingly finding an outlet in the media.
The times are good for religion to make a positive entry into the media mainstream. The Church can not remain silent all through as a silent spectator, Instead time is ripe for religion to make the best use of the media without losing its own identity.
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