This is a happy day!

I am immesely happy when i created this web blog site. The thought of sharing information and views simply thrills me.

All of us can hear, but all of us cannot listen. Hearing and listening are not the same thing. Hearing is involuntary and listening involves the reception and interpretation of what is heard. It decodes the sound heard into meaning. Does a knock on the door sound the same all the time? What if you are alone and you hear a knock at late night? What happens when you hear a knock while you are expecting someone whom you like?

People generally speak at 100 to 175 words per minute but we can listen intelligently at 600 to 800 words per minute. This means most of the time only a part of our mind is paying attention, it is easy for the attention to drift. This happens to all of us. The cure: active listening. This involves listening with a purpose. It may be to gain information, obtain directions, understand others, solve problems, share interests, see how the other person feels, even show support. This type of listening takes the same amount of or more energy than speaking. This requires the listener to hear various messages, understand the meaning and then verify the meaning by offering feedback. Here are some of the traits of an active listener:

• Does not finish the sentence of others.
• Does not answer questions with questions.
• Is aware of biases. We all have them… we need to control them.
• Never daydreams or becomes preoccupied with one’s own thoughts when others talk.
• Lets others talk.
• Does not dominate the conversation.
• Plans responses after the other persons have finished speaking, not while they are speaking.
• Provides feedback, but does not interrupt incessantly.
• Analyses by looking at all the relevant factors and asking open-ended questions.
• Keeps the conversation on what the speaker says…not on what interests them.
• Takes brief notes. This forces one to concentrate on what is being said.

Is God Alive?

Well, God is not dead, but neither is he particularly alive as we know it. The deeper question is: "What does it mean to be alive?" Psychologists, biologists and computer programmers debate this question. (Philosophers debate a similar question: "What does it mean to exist?") Unfortunately, they're not very successful at coming up with a useful answer. Psychologists might say that you need a certain degree of self-awareness to be alive, biologists might say that something is alive if it can move and reproduce as a species, while programmers who deal with artificial intelligence might say that giving a deep illusion of being alive is what makes one alive. All these viewpoints can be insightful, but in the end what it boils down to is: "Something is alive if it's like me." Everything is God. In this sense, God is alive, and through the oneness of God the whole world is alive. Being alive or not is a concept that makes sense in everyday human life, but does not really apply to God as God is well beyond these human concepts. God is not a single person - he is all of humanity. He's not bound by time either, so it makes no sense for God to die. In a way, God is the only one truly alive, because compared to God, we are just sleepwalking through life with slumbering consciousness. The breath of life goes both ways: in and out. We are alive through God and God is alive through us!

The Farmers Government

The Government had constituted National Commission on Farmers in 2004 under the chairmanship of Dr. M.S. Swaminathan. The terms of reference of the Commission included, inter alia, methods of enhancing productivity, profitability and sustainability of the major farming systems in different agro-climatic regions of the country and suggesting measures to attract and retain educated youth in farming and working out a comprehensive medium term strategy for food and nutrition security. 

The Commission submitted its final report in October 2006. 

Based on the recommendations made by the Commission in its Revised Draft National Policy for Farmers and the comments/suggestions received from various Central Ministries and Departments and State Governments, the "National Policy for Farmers, 2007" has been formulated and approved by the Government of India. The policy, among other things, aims to improve the economic viability of farming by substantially improving the net income of farmers in addition to improving productivity, profitability, land, water and support services and provide appropriate price policy, risk management measures. 

Main provisions: 

Important provisions and features incorporated in the National Policy for Farmers, 2007 include the following: 

(a) Human Dimension: Focus to be on the economic well-being of the farmers than just on production and productivity and this is to be the principal determinant of Farmers policy. 

(b) Definition of Farmers: Expanded to include all categories of persons engaged in the sector so that they can be extended the benefits of the Policy. 

(c) Asset Reforms: To ensure that every man and woman, particularly the poor, in villages either possesses or have access to a productive asset. 

(d) Income Per Unit of Water: The concept of maximizing yield and income per unit of water would be adopted in all crop production programmes, stress on awareness and efficiency of water use. 

(e) Drought Code, Flood Code and Good Weather Code: To be introduced in drought prone areas, flood prone areas and in arid areas respectively so as to maximize the benefits of monsoon and to be prepared for likely contingencies. 

(f) Use of Technology: New technologies which can help enhance productivity per unit of land and water are needed. Biotechnology, information and communication technology (ICT), renewable energy technology, space applications and nano-technology to provide opportunities for launching an "Evergreen Revolution" capable of improving productivity in perpetuity without harming the ecology. 

(g) National Agricultural Bio-security System: To be set up to organize a coordinated agricultural bio-security programme. 

(h) Inputs and services-Soil Health: Good quality seeds, disease free planting material, including in-vitro cultured propagules and Soil health enhancement hold the key to raising small farm productivity. Every farm family to be issued with a Soil Health Passbook. 

(i) Support Services for women: When women work in fields and forests the whole day, they need appropriate support services like crèches, child care centers and adequate nutrition. 

(j) Credit & Insurance: Credit counseling centers to be established where severely indebted farmers can be provided a debt rescue package to help them out of debt trap. Need for both credit and insurance literacy in villages, Gyan Chaupals to help in the task. 

(k) Setting up of Farm Schools in the fields of outstanding farmers to promote farmer to farmer learning and to strengthen extension services. 

(l) Gyan Chaupals to be established in as many villages as possible to harness the help of Information and Communication Technology. 

(m) A comprehensive National Social Security Scheme for the farmers for ensuring livelihood security by taking care of insurance needs on account of illness, old age, etc. 

(n) Minimum Support Price (MSP) mechanisms to be implemented effectively across the country so as to ensure remunerative prices for agricultural produce. 

(o) Market Intervention Scheme to be strengthened to respond speedily to exigencies, specific crops to be identified. 

(p) Community Foodgrain Banks: To be promoted to help in the marketing of unutilized crops. 

(q) Single National Market: To develop a Single National Market by relaxing internal restrictions and controls. 

(r) Expanding Food Security Basket to include nutritious crops like bajra, jowar, ragi and millets mostly grown in dryland farming areas. 

(s) Farmers of the future: Farmers may adopt cooperative farming, create service cooperatives, undertake group farming through self-help groups, establish small holders' estates, adopt contract farming and create farmers' companies. This is expected to increase productivity, efficiency of small farmers and would create multiple livelihood opportunities through crop livestock integrated farming systems as well as agro processing. 

(t) A Cabinet Committee on Food Security is to be constituted. 

Mechanism for operationalising the policy: 

In order to operationalise the Policy, the Department of Agriculture & Cooperation will constitute an Inter-Ministerial Committee for preparing a suitable plan of action for the purpose. 

Agriculture Coordination Committee under the Chairmanship of the Prime Minister would oversee and coordinate the integrated implementation of the National Policy for Farmers.

Anna Hazare in election campaigns

: Mamata Banerjee's first election rally with Anna Hazare in Delhi ended up as an embarrassing solo act for the West Bengal Chief Minister, with the Gandhian activist giving it a miss. 

His aides cited health reasons, but Ms Banerjee said "she had no idea" why he didn't show up.

"It is not our rally. Anna invited me, so I came here despite my work, as I had promised," the Trinamool Congress leader said at Delhi's Ramlila Maidan, visibly upset at the activist's absence at what was meant to be her pitch to the nation ahead of next month's general election.

At the sprawling venue, which was awash with posters of Anna and Mamata, the absence of one of only two star speakers was glaring. Sources say Anna changed his mind after his aides reported a lukewarm gathering at the site of his 2012 anti-corruption campaign alongside former protege Arvind Kejriwal.

The Trinamool was clearly taken aback by Anna's no-show. As the party's Mukul Roy met the 76-year-old at the Maharashtra Sadan in Delhi, reportedly to persuade him to attend the rally, Ms Banerjee declared on stage, "I don't care who supports me. I don't want anything for myself."

Speaking to NDTV later, she insisted that she wasn't bitter.

"I am not disappointed. It wasn't a political rally. It was a social rally. I came because Annaji wanted to address the crowds and invited me to come. It was only after I arrived that I was told he is not coming," said the Chief Minister.

The Trinamool is fielding candidates in at least eight states apart from West Bengal and is expected to name candidates for all seven seats in Delhi.

Anna recently overcame his aversion to supporting political parties and joined the Mamata bandwagon, drawn, he says, by her simplicity, austere life and leadership qualities. At today's rally, he was widely expected to root for the 59-year-old as a prime ministerial probable.

Religion makes a lot of mistakes.

Faith traditions can be so harsh that they drive away everyone but the self-righteous scolds. Or they can so indulge in therapeutic comfort and manufactured joy that they come to seem like a charlatan’s game.

They can be so otherworldly that they offer no guidance to those living in this one on matters of justice, freedom and how we should live together. Or they are so captive to the here-and-now that it becomes hard to distinguish between a congregation and a party headquarters.

And for many in the wealthy nations and among the young, religion has no relevance to their lives whatsoever. It’s seen by some as a charming throwback and by others as one more insidious force focused on power, money and self-preservation.

When Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected pope a year ago, only a few expected that he would confront all of these challenges simultaneously.

Yes, his choice of the name Francis was a promising sign that he would emulate a saint devoted to the poor and to simplicity. Yes, he was already on record with searing criticisms of the injustices of global capitalism. From the beginning, he stressed his more humble role as the “Bishop of Rome,” suggesting an anti-imperial papacy.

And then it continued. He disdained the trappings of piety and might, including the ornate regalia that appeal to so many prelates. The Roman joke was that as priests got with his program, one could find many lacy surplices on sale at steep discounts on eBay. On his first Holy Thursday, Francis washed the feet not of the usual group of priests but of a dozen young people being held at a juvenile detention center, including two women and two Muslims.

He has not altered church doctrine, but his shift in emphasis has been breathtaking. “We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods,” he has said. “This is not possible.” He thus declared that the church’s main mission would no longer be as a lead combatant in the culture wars. It would stand primarily with and for the neediest.

The most important aspect of a Pew survey released this month was not its finding that 68 percent of American Catholics thought Francis was changing the church for the better, or that 76 percent said he was doing a good or excellent job of addressing the needs and concerns of the poor. No, the truly revealing fact about this study is that it did not even occur to Pew’s pollsters to ask in their benchmark poll a year ago whether poverty should be a priority of the new pope. This is no knock on Pew; the fact that its researchers had to include a new question about poverty this year shows how much Francis has transformed the church.

The pope said recently he was uncomfortable with being seen as a “superman,” and indeed, he is not. Francis expressed his unease in an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera during which he made the most troubling misstep of the year.

Speaking of the pedophilia scandal that has shaken the faith of so many Catholics, particularly in the United States and in Ireland, he was uncharacteristically defensive and aggressive, insisting that the Catholic Church “is perhaps the only public institution that has moved with transparency and responsibility.”

“No one has done more,” he added, “and yet the church is the only one that has been attacked.”

In fact, the church is not “the only one that has been attacked.” Even if it were, a pope who has emphasized the urgency of seeing the world from the perspective of the vulnerable and the wounded should have been the first to hear how his words might sound to the victims of abuse. A leader who has criticized a “psychology of princes” and the “spirit of careerism” should have known better.

But the keen disappointment felt over this is a mark of how high Francis has lifted expectations. He has shown that the spiritual life is also a life of social commitment. He demands a lot while preaching a God of mercy, confounding scolds and religious therapists alike. By engaging joyfully with nonbelievers and those who believe differently, he speaks to those skeptical that Christianity has anything left to say.

He called for a church that is “bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets,” and has proved that such a church is hard to ignore.

(c) 2014, Washington Post Writers Group

Greater Love For Easter

Beloved brothers and sisters, the Lord defined that fullness of love which we ought to bear to one another when He said: “Greater love than this no one has, that a person lay down his life for his friends (Jn 15:13). Earlier he had said, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” and then added to these words what you have just heard: “Greater love than this no one has, that a person lay down his life for his friends.” From this there follows what this same Evangelist John says in his epistle, “As Christ laid down His life for us, even so we also ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters” (1 Jn 3:16), loving one another in truth as He loved us who laid down His life for us.

Such also is doubtless the meaning of what we read in the Proverbs of Solomon: “If you sit down to supper at the table of a ruler, consider wisely what is set before you; and so put out your hand, knowing that you art bound to prepare similar things” (Prov 23:1-2). For what is the table of the ruler but the one from which we take the body and blood of Him who laid down His life for us? And what is it to sit at that table but to approach it humbly? And what is it to consider intelligently what is set before you but worthily to reflect on the greatness of the favor? And what is it so to put forth your hand knowing that you must prepare similar things but what I have already said: that, as Christ laid down His life for us, so we also must lay down our lives for the brothers and sisters? For as the Apostle Peter also says, “Christ suffered for us, leaving us an example, that we should follow His steps” (1 Pet 2:21). This is to prepare similar things. This is what the blessed martyrs did in their burning love. If we do not celebrate their memories in a merely formal way, if we approach the table of the Lord for the banquet at which they themselves were utterly filled, we must, as they did, be also ourselves preparing similar things. For at this table we do not commemorate them in the same way as we do others who now rest in peace and for whom we pray; rather we remember them so that they may pray for us that we may closely follow in their footsteps, because they have actually achieved that full love than which, our Lord has told us, there cannot be a greater. For they offered to their brothers and sisters things similar to the ones they too had received from the table of the Lord. (In Ioannem Tr. 84, 1; PL 35, 1846-1847)

Holy Week day by day

“Even if you do not believe me, believe the works, so that you may realize and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.” (John 10:38) In the Gospel of John, Jesus consistently calls his disciples to believe — believe in him, believe in God, believe in the Good News. What can you do today to deepen your belief in Jesus?

April 12

“It is better for you that one man should die instead of the people, so that the whole nation may not perish.” (John 11:50)

The high priest Caiaphas said this in support of getting rid of Jesus. Yet the irony is that Jesus woulddie so that the people would not perish, but have eternal life. God can take evil plans and transform them. Give thanks to God for this great plan of love.

April 13 Palm Sunday

As we read the story of the Passion according to St. Matthew (26:14-27:66), we see how Jesus fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah 50 and gives himself completely for us. As we begin Holy Week, spend some time in prayer and reflect on what Jesus has done for you.

April 14 Holy Monday

“I the Lord have called you for the victory of justice, I have grasped you by the hand.” (Isaiah 42:6)

“Our life does not exist by accident…My life is willed by God, from eternity. I am loved. I am necessary. God has a plan specifically for me.” (Pope Benedict XVI) Where have you heard the Lord call you this Lent? Can you believe in his love and his plan for you? 

April 15 Holy Tuesday

“Master, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.” (John 13:37) Peter had confidence in his own abilities, claiming he would die for Jesus. Yet a short time later, he will deny him. Judas, too, will betray Jesus. Yet Peter later accepted forgiveness, but Judas didn’t. We are asked to trust in Jesus’ forgiveness for our sins. Can you believe in his pardon? 

April 16 Holy Wednesday

“The Lord God has give me a well-trained tongue, that I might know how to speak to the weary a word that will rouse them.” (Isaiah 50:4)

Jesus was able to speak words of comfort to the weary, to the broken, to the lost. Can you believe in his presence, even when you feel lost?

April 17 Holy Thursday

“If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet. I have given you a model to follow.” (John 13:14-15)

The model Jesus gives us is one of loving service, of laying down his life for his friends. How can you follow Jesus’ example? How can you love? 

April 18 Good Friday

“Let us confidently approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and to find grace for timely help.” (Hebrews 4:16)

The Cross is Jesus’ throne of grace, from which mercy and love pour out upon us. Jesus spent his life giving of himself, loving us and trusting in God. He took all of our sin, all of our pain, and took it to the cross with him.

April 19 Holy Saturday

“Something strange is happening — there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh.” (from an ancient homily on Holy Saturday)

Spend some time today reflecting on the past 40 days of Lent and give thanks for what Christ has done for you. After reading this, turn off the electronics and silently listen for God.

April 20 Easter Sunday

“I know that you are seeking Jesus the crucified. He is not here, for he has been raised just as he said.” (Matthew 28:5-6)

Alleluia! Jesus is risen! As Pope Francis said: “Love has triumphed, mercy has been victorious! God’s mercy always triumphs because God’s love is stronger than evil and death itself. God’s love can transform our lives too.” Rejoice and be glad! Seek to continue living in the new life God has given you! Alleluia!