http://protectacow.typepad.com/Prabhupada:people are engaged unnecessarily to work very hard day and night, the capitalist, the worker. Big, big factory, iron factory, in so many factories, unnecessarily. So Prahlada Maharaja was concerned. He was living, his father was a demon, in the demonic state. So this is natural. If one saintly person do not be disturbed by people’s unhappiness, he is not saintly person. He is not saintly person. If he is simply satisfied that “I have got a temple, I am getting good income, let me eat and sleep.” My Guru Maharaja condemned this process. He said that to earn livelihood by showing some temple and collecting money and eat and sleep, better to become a sweeper in the street and earn his livelihood instead of earning livelihood in this so-called spiritual way. So practically all over the world a class of men, a priestly class of men, they have made it a means of earning livelihood, temple achar(?), taking money from people and enjoying, and then become drunkard. In your country, five thousand drunkard priests were consolidated in a hospital for treatment. They’re getting money. So there is possibility, we are opening temples, public is contributing. But if we become easy-goer, “Now money is coming, let us eat sumptuously and eat, eat and sleep, and if possible drink also.” But, of course, we are restricting. But naturally when one man becomes idle, idle brain is the devil’s workshop. So if he can get… Just like rich man’s son, they become. Everyone has got experience in every country. When he has no difficulty to get money, then what he will do? He will simply drink or invent some means of intoxication, naked dance. So they became very much perturbed. Venasyaveksya durvrttasya vicestitam, vimrsya loka-vyasanam krpaya ucuh sma… Krpaya, they were very much compassionate. They cannot see. Para-duhkha-duhkhi. Therefore, Vaisnava is always unhappy by seeing other’s unhappiness. They know how they are going to . Just like any gentleman will be aggrieved when they pass on the Bowery Street, seeing their fallen condition. So if any gentleman can become unhappy by seeing such condition of people, what to speak of saintly persons who are supposed to be responsible for spiritual up…Room Conversation Jaipur, January 18, 1972
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The Government of Japan has provided US$311,814 (approximately Rs. 36 million) for the Support for Livelihood of Returnees in Batticaloa District (Phase 2) to be implemented by JEN, a Japanese humanitarian NGO, under the Japan-NGO Cooperation Grant scheme.
The project contributes to construct 40 agro-wells, provide 40 water pumps, and to conduct workshops to strengthen communities in the 8 Grama Niladhari Divisions of Kiran and Chenkalady District Secretary division in Batticaloa. It is envisaged that the project provides stable water supply, ensures livelihood and food security, and improves income of 1,000 people.
The project is the forth phase of the Livelihood Project for Returnees in Batticaloa that JEN has implemented since 2007 through the Japan-NGO cooperation Grant scheme as well as the Japan Platform (JPF), an umbrella organization for conducting emergency humanitarian istance outside Japan under the partnership among the Japanese Government, NGOs, private sector, and economic sector. JEN also has been supporting the Emergency Water Supply for the Internal Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the North, utilizing Rs. 60 million through the JPF. In addition to JEN, six Japanese Humanitarian NGOs, namely, Save the Children Japan (SCJ), Japan Agency for Development and Emergency (JADE), World Vision Japan, Japan Center for Conflict Prevention (JCCP), PARC Inter-Peoples Cooperation (PARCIC), and Peace Winds Japan (PWJ) are providing emergency support for the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the North through JPF. These supports show the strong relationship between Sri Lanka and Japan not only at the governmental level but also at the grass-roots level.
The Grant Contract was singed between His Excellency, Mr. Kunio Takahashi, Ambassador of Japan and Mr. Shu Nishimaru, Head of Colombo Main Office of JEN, on 8th September 2009 at the Embassy of Japan in Colombo.
Duration : 0:2:37
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Over the last 10 years the Kup district has been transformed from one of PNGs most violent areas to one of it’s most peaceful. The work of Kup Women for Peace has resulted in community policing, clean water, livelihoods projects, better health care and an HIV/AIDS hospice.
Duration : 0:5:23
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A Society Based on a Regime that Combined the Political and Religious Powers, and Divided People into Three Strata and Nine Grades Tibet before 1959 had a society of feudal serfdom. Along with the general characteristics of feudal serfdom, there were many remnants of slavery. This social system was more cruel and reactionary than serfdom in Europe in the Middle Ages. The serf-owners economic interests were protected by a political system that combined political and religious powers, ruling over the Tibetan people spiritually as well as politically. The local government of Tibet (in Tibetan, Kashag, and meaning “the institute that issues orders”) was composed of powerful and influential monks and aristocrats. It upheld a series of social, political and legal institutions that rigidly stratified society. The Thirteen Laws and The Sixteen Laws divided the Tibetan people into three strata in nine grades according to their family background and social status.
The Feudal Lords Ownership of Means of Production
The monasteries, officialdom and the aristocrats owned all the arable land and pastures as well as overwhelming majority of livestock. These means of production were granted to them by the Dalai Lama. They had the right to govern and inherit the land.
The Feudal Lords Ownership of Their Serfs
Serfs and slaves accounted for 95 percent of the Tibetan population (peasants 60%, herdsmen 20%, and lower-class monks 15%). They were owned by serf-owners, just like the means of production. They had no political rights or personal freedom. They and their children were freely given away as gifts of donations, sold or exchanged for goods. Their marriages had to be approved in advance by their manorial lords. Serfs who married out of the manorial estate had to pay ransom money to their lords. Those who could not perform corvee or went out to seek a livelihood elsewhere should pay corvee taxes to show their dependence on the lords. If a serf lost his ability to work, his thralkang field, livestock and farm tools would be those who died without issue was confiscated.
The Serfs Economic Burden
Taxes and levies in Tibetan areas included land rent, stock rent, corvee and taxes.
The main form of land rent was forced labor. In addition, there was a mixed form of land rent, which was paid in kind, forced labor and cash.
The manorial lords generally kept 70 percent of their land under their own management and rented out the rest to their serfs as thralkang land. The serf tenants of the thralkang land also had to till the land managed by the manorial lord, using their own farm animals and tools. The entire harvest on land managed by the manorial lords belonged to them alone.
The serfs had to do corvee for manorial lords and local government and pay taxes in kind and cash. Corvee duties were allotted by the local government.
There were two kinds of stock rent: paid in animal products to the manorial lords according to the original number of livestock rented from them, or in products according to the actual number of livestock.
Other taxes included land tax, corvee tax, and countless others.
The Oppression of the Serfs by Manorial Lords
In Tibet under the serfdom, not only did the local regime at various levels, set up judicial institutions, but the big monasteries, manorial lords and tribal chieftains could also judge cases and had their own private prisons.
If the serfs stood up against the manorial lords, violated the law or could not pay rent or taxes in time, the lords would punish them according to the Thirteen Laws or other laws. They used such inhuman tortures as gouging out the eyes, cutting off the feet or hands, pushing the condemned person down from cliff, drowning, beheading, etc
The Serfs Miserable life
The wealth of the society was highly concentrated in Tibet before 1959. More than 80 percent was possessed by the manorial lords and less than 20 percent belonged to the serfs, who accounted for 95 percent of the population. The masses of serfs lived in extreme poverty.
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Gandhi’s major statement on the Palestine and the Jewish question came forth in his widely circulated editorial in the Harijan of 11 November 1938, a time when intense struggle between the Palestinian Arabs and the immigrant Jews had been on the anvil in Palestine. His views came in the context of severe pressure on him, especially from the Zionist quarters, to issue a statement on the problem. Therefore, he started his piece by saying that his sympathies are all with the Jews, who as a people were subjected to inhuman treatment and persecution for a long time.
“But”, Gandhi erted, “My sympathy does not blind me to the requirements of justice. The cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me. The sanction for it is sought in the Bible and in the tenacity with which the Jews have hankered after their return to Palestine. Why should they not, like other peoples of the earth, make that country their home where they are born and where they earn their livelihood?”
He thus questioned the very foundational logic of political Zionism. Gandhi rejected the idea of a Jewish State in the Promised Land by pointing out that the “Palestine of the Biblical conception is not a geographical tract.” The Zionists, after embarking upon a policy of colonization of Palestine and after getting British recognition through the Balfour Declaration of 1917 for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jews,” tried to elicit maximum international support. The Jewish leaders were keen to get an approval for Zionism from Gandhi as his international fame as the leader of a non-violent national struggle against imperialism would provide great impetus for the Jewish cause. But his position was one of total disapproval of the Zionist project both for political and religious reasons. He was against the attempts of the British mandatory Government in Palestine toeing the Zionist line of imposing itself on the Palestinians in the name of establishing a Jewish national home. Gandhi’s Harijan editorial is an emphatic ertion of the rights of the Arabs in Palestine. The following oft-quoted lines exemplify his position: “Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs… Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home.”
Gandhi’s response to Zionism and the Palestine question contains different layers of meaning, ranging from an ethical position to political realism. What is interesting is that Gandhi, who firmly believed in the inseparability of religion and politics, had been consistently and vehemently rejecting the cultural and religious nationalism of the Zionists.
Duration : 0:4:58
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This film documents the impact of Oxfam Canada’s Peace Building intervention among the people of Ampara.
In the wake of the Tsunami of December 2004, Oxfam Canada interventions, spanning 32 villages and around 3000 people across Ampara District, aimed to create new livelihood opportunities for women and men and provide them with sustainable sources of water. The strategies included the Diversified Alternative Farming Technology (DAFT) initiative, the setting up of a Sustainable Agricultural Resource Centre, formation of Self Help Groups for livelihood and income generating activities and establishing access to sources of water.
Duration : 0:3:5
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In January 2005, Sudan’s government and southern rebels signed a historic peace agreement. This video portrays the work of Canada’s CHF and its partners to ultimately render the peace agreement more viable and sustainable.
Duration : 0:9:36
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