A BAD APPLE
A team works when the members work with mutual understanding to reach the earmarked goal. It leads to an upward growth of individuals and the organization. But if one person has opposed the process then the whole team moves in a downward trend. This affects growth, unity and team work.
A recent survey explained that one “bad apple” can spread negative behavior like a virus to propel officemates downward or act as a means of destruction in a good team. – ‘Conflict in the workplace’ a study conducted by California team. Terence Mitchell, co-author a professor of management and organization says that the negativity of just one individual is pervasive and destructive and can rapidly spreads. One more research scholar said that the bad apple that spoiled the barrel and a single “toxic” or negative team member can be the catalyst for a group’s downward spiral
The consequences of a bad apple, negative behaviour are portrayed in the Bible vividly. Let us look at some of the passages to know about our standing.
I. Achan (Josh 7:1-5):
The Israelites captured many nations and marched towards Canaan under the leadership of Joshua and with the help of God. When they were on the verge of getting into Canaan, they were chased by the small country Ai from the city gate as far as the stone quarries and were struck down on the slopes. They eventually lost a lot of soldiers. Joshua was unable to accept the defeat. So, he tore his clothes and fell down at God’s feet to know the reason behind the Calamities they had faced. God revealed to him that it was due to the disobedience of one person, God’s presence had departed from the camp.
Joshua tracked down the culprit by screening every clan, down to every individual. Finally he found out that Achan the son of Carmi had taken the devoted things and hidden them in his tent.
Due to one man’s mistake, the whole team of soldiers bore the consequences. Let us analyze whether we are on the problem side or in the side of the solution.
II. Peter Gal 2:11-13, John21:3:
On two occasions, Peter led others to make a wrong direction. One incident is portrayed in John 21 and is about taking the first step to resort to fishing. The other apostles joined him and went fishing. God restored him and put him back on track by asking him three different questions, all of them meaning the same. Finally he wept and God was later able to use him mightily.
On another occasion, he simply withdrew from the Gentiles to avoid unnecessary friction with circumcised group. Due to this behavior, the Jews and Barnabas followed him.
Let us analyze and see if we are withdrawing from a team due to peer pressure or because of being unable to cope with the problems. Let us be a partaker of God’s kingdom and also to be part of solution.
J. Peter Daniel M.E., 76, Living Spring Avenue, Sanjeevipuram, Bagayam,
Vellore 632 – 002, Phone. 0416 2260066, 09443800395.
email: peterpearline@yahoo.co.in
http://glocalyouthvision.wordpress.com
Global News
Scientists in UK create artificial blood
12 May, 2007 l 108 hrs IST l IANS
LONDON: Scientists in Britain have developed an artificial plastic blood, which they claim could act as a substitute, easier to store and could be a huge advantage in war zones.
The new artificial blood is made up of plastic molecules that have an iron atom at their core, like haemoglobin, that can carry oxygen through the body.
The researchers say they were looking for extra funding to develop a final prototype that would be suitable for biological testing, according to BBC News.
“We are very excited about the potential for this product and about the fact that this could save lives”, said Lance Twyman of the university’s Department of Chemistry.
“Many people die from superficial wounds when they are trapped in an accident or are injured in the battlefield and can’t get blood before they get to hospital.”
“This product can be stored a lot more easily than blood, meaning large quantities could be carried easily by ambulances and the armed forces.”
A sample of the artificial blood prototype will be on display at the Science Museum in London from May 22 as part of an exhibition about the history of plastics.
Now a vaccine to control blood pressure
12 May, 2007 l 1205 hrs IST l IANS
LONDON: British scientists have developed a vaccine which they claim will help people suffering from hypertension to control their blood pressure. The vaccine developed by Cheshire-based drug firm Protherics has been successfully tested and is expected in the markets within five years.
The vaccine uses a protein found in limpets, a sea creature, to attack a hormone called angiotensin produced by the liver. Angiotensin raises blood pressure by narrowing arteries. The vaccine, however, turns the body’s immune system against the hormone.
It would need a course of just three jabs, with a booster every six months.
A booster shot every six months, or even once a year, would keep blood pressure low, the researchers said. People who have tried it have suffered a few side effects, although one in ten did complain of a brief flu-like illness.
Protherics is planning trials of an improved version of the vaccine, which is ten times more effective at stimulating the immune system than its original formula, the Daily Mail reported.
“Improving compliance in this way could save thousands from life-threatening complications such as heart attack or stroke,” said Andrew Heath, an official of Protherics. High blood pressure which affects a third of all adults doubles the risk of dying from heart disease or stroke and is blamed for 60,000 deaths a year in Britain. It is currently treated with pills with side effects and some patients simply stop taking them.
The Swiss firm Cytos Biotechnology is also developing a similar vaccine that uses an empty virus shell to spur the immune system into action.
372 grads apply for peon’s post
1 Jun, 2007 l 0556 hrs IST l TIMES NEWS NETWORK
NAGPUR: The employment scenario in the Orange City seems dismal. Leave alone the educated youths, even people with physical deformities have to struggle to earn a living.
On Tuesday, the Nagpur division office of Maharashtra State Board Secondary and Higher Secondary Education was crowded with 372 ‘educated unemployed’ youngsters, all of them having one or other with physical deformities, waiting anxiously near the notice board, as the result of their fate was to be out within a few minutes. Many of them came from places like Bhandara, Gadchiroli, Wardha and Yavatmal.
The strange fact about all the 372 candidates was that many of them even possessed a post graduate degree. These candidates have been waiting since morning to be recruited for the post of a peon, which comes under class-IV category, at the Nagpur board office.
Another fact is that the peon’s post carries a meagre salary of Rs 2,500 per month along with other perks. In view of the large number of applications, that too from highly qualified candidates, the board officials decided to conduct a screening examination comprising general knowledge, mathematics and English of 50 marks. The applicants range from SSC to post graduate candidates.
The hour-long examination had 45 objective questions and one descriptive question, each of five marks. The exam was held at St Ursula Girls High school under the supervision of the divisional secretary. Surprisingly, five women were also among the candidates appearing for the exam.
The board officials also swung into action and conducted the entire procedure right from printing the question papers, evaluating them and even declaring the results, within four hours flat. Even the list of candidates selected for the interviews were displayed by evening. Based on their performance, 19 candidates were selected for the interviews to be held on May 31 at 11.30 am.
The results left many disappointed as they had come with high hopes. One of the women candidates, who cleared the test and is a post graduate along with a diploma in computers, said that as she was unable to find any job, despite strenuous efforts and so she appeared for the examination. “My family is living in abject poverty and I want to help them with some money.
My parents are also worried about my marriage. I haven’t told them the nature of the job as they would have never allowed me to come here. I was lucky to get through the screening, and I hope to clear the interview as well. Nowadays, women are competing with men in every sector, then why not here. I am confident that I will do a good job. Once I get the appointment letter, I’ll convince my parents,” she said.
Nevertheless, the entire episode exposed the grim situation of unemployment prevailing in the country and the false claims made by government officials about the decline in the unemployment percentage.
Power cut ‘kills’ woman on oxygen
31 May, 2007 l 0230 hrs IST l AFP
WELLINGTON: A New Zealand woman on an oxygen machine died shortly after a power company cut the electricity supply to her home over an unpaid bill, family members said on Wednesday.
The contractor heard the alarm on her machine go off after he cut the power on Tuesday to the south Auckland home of mother-of-four Folole Muliaga, 44, but said he was just doing his job, her family said. The contractor for Auckland power company Mercury Energy ignored pleas to restore the power after cutting the supply, her son Letitaia Muliaga, 20, said on the TV3 network. Company’s general manager James Moulder said, “We were not alerted that there was a person resident dependent on a medical device reliant on electricity.”
‘Over 1 lakh suicide bombers in Pak’
1 Jun, 2007 l 0124 hrs IST l PTI
ISLAMABAD: A top cleric of the Lal Masjid here has claimed that more than one lakh suicide bombers, including 10,000 in the two madrassas controlled by him, were present in Pakistan and were ready to explode at the command of their superiors.
These “suicide attackers are ready to operate anywhere and anytime in Pakistan,” Lal Masjid’s head cleric Abdul Aziz said. “We consider suicide attacks are right in Pakistan under a few circumstances while we consider them as absolutely justified in the context of Afghanistan and Iraq,” he was quoted by the News as saying. “We favoured the Taliban not only in the past, we favour them even today.”
The Lal Masjid-controlled two madrassas for boys and girls had thousands of students. The burqa-clad girl students and the bamboo sticks-wielding boys have been giving a tough time to police in the capital since January.
Kerala boy scores 91%, ends life
31 May, 2007 l 0300 hrs IST l TIMES NEWS NETWORK
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Thomas family in Aluva near Kochi is in a state of shock. It’s youngest member, 18-year-old Prince Thomas committed suicide on May 24 — only days after the class XII results were out. The irony is he was the school’s topper.
Prince’s brother Pravin told TOI that the boy, who studied in Boys Higher Secondary School, Aluva, had scored 91%.
“About 1.30 in the morning, when my father went to the lavatory, he saw the light in Prince’s room on. When despite knocking there was no response, we broke open the door only to find him hanging,” Pravin said.
The family still doesn’t know why the boy took the extreme step. The only plausible explanation is that Prince may have found it painful to put the family, which was already steeped in a financial crisis, under pressure to fund his further studies.
His father M C Thomas is a vegetable vendor. “Actually we had a successful business till a few years back. But then we suffered some losses and the business collapsed. We had to sell our house and shift to a rented accommodation,” said Pravin. “My sister had to sit at home for one year after completing her class XII as we did not have Rs 50,000 to pay for her admission. But finally, we got the money with some help and she is now in a nursing college,” said Pravin.
These kids dying a slow death
25 Jun, 2007 l 0337 hrs IST l Ambika Pandit/TIMES NEWS NETWORK
NEW DELHI: ” Main solution ko bread pe laga ke jam ki tarhan khata hoon ,” said Raju (name changed) a rag-picker. This 10-year-old is not talking of some delicious bread-spread but refers to the lethal chemical that comes packaged as correction fluid in stationary shops. Raju is not alone, there are many like him dying out to the slow poison.
A study on substance abuse among street and working children carried out by CHETNA (Childhood Enhancement Through Training and Action) has found that 73 per cent of the children in the age group 8 to 18 were drug addicts. The study was conducted on 63 children, mostly migrants from states like UP, Bihar and Rajashtan who came in search of jobs but ended up on the streets.
“Correction fluid is the most commonly used drug among the children. Most of them sniff the solution. Since it is not yet listed as a banned drug, children have easy access to it. Hence the government needs to step in and take stock as we prepare for yet another International Day against drug abuse on Tuesday,”said Sanjay Gupta, director, CHETNA.
It was found that 47 percent of the children were addicted to at least three or more drugs. Nearly 54 per cent were hooked on to correction fluid. A health assessment of the children showed that out of 63 respondents, 52.38 % suffered from various health problems like cough, headache, and pain in the ears, mouth, chest and stomach, and fever.
“The children said that they cannot live without drugs. If they don’t have the money then they steal, beg or borrow,”Gupta said. The problem is considerably widespread. According to rough estimates there are 5 lakh child workers in Delhi. If one took into account that 73% of them took an average of three bottles of white fluid in a day then the monetary transaction of correction fluid in Delhi per day alone is calculated to be around Rs. 69 lakhs.
The study shows that out of the 46 drug-addicted children, about 33% of them earned between Rs.50 to Rs.100 per day and 25 per cent made more than Rs.150. The children revealed that the cost of white fluid per bottle is about Rs.22 and there is also another fluid, which cost Rs.36. Most of them started using drugs by tasting gutkha and then moved on to correction fluid, smack, ganja etc.
SIT: NGO turns child predator
Anita Sinha CNN-IBN
Bodhgaya: Declared a world heritage site by UNESCO in 2002, Bodhgaya in Bihar is a holy city for Buddhists the world over. Over 600 NGOs operate here, many claiming to work for the welfare of the district’s under-privileged children.
Samanvaya Ashram is one such NGO that shelters children essentially from the Dalit-Bhuiyan community.
But that’s not all they do here. CNN-IBN has found children just five years old are illegally subjected to labour at the Ashram, having made to wash clothes and work in the Ashram kitchen.
“We cook, get water, work in the kitchen and even out there in the fields,” says an Ashram student Amritya.
Another student Sonu also testified to therampant child labour. “We wash our clothes and after class go to the fields where we are made to plough. Thereafter we cook too.”
Shahbuddin, a leading Western Union money transfer agent for many NGOs run by foreigners in Gaya, alleges that most NGOs that offer shelter to children in the holy town are actually dens for paedophiles and child-molesters.
“It is an open secret. There are many paedophiles here,” he says.
The Gaya police do admit to the problem of paedophilia off-the-record but say that without a complaint, they cannot investigate.
However, they do accuse some NGOs of pushing a religious conversion agenda.
“In the name of religion and helping the people, there are many underground conversions also. For that purpose, some of the foreign countries are spending a lot of money. They can’t directly come to the local people so NGOs are the best medium. They must be approaching NGOs,” says DIG, Magadh Range Umesh Kumar Singh.
Investigation done by CNN-IBN clearly establishes the suspicious role of NGOs. But this might be just a tip of the iceberg.
Now, as the saviours turn tormentors and pocket the donation money, it’s for the state government and the administration to wake up and take due action.
Now, quota for Dalit Christians
14 Jun, 2007 l 0058 hrs IST l Sonia Sarkar/TIMES NEWS NETWORK
NEW DELHI: Despite strong opposition from faculty members, St Stephen’s College will reserve 10% seats for Dalit Christians this year. The cut-off for students from the category will be 60% — the lowest in the college, and usually applicable only to Sanskrit — for all courses. There will also be some financial assistance extended to them.
The 40% quota for Christians — which will include the 10% seats reserved for Dalit Christians — will now be filled up ‘‘at all costs’’ and for that the college is ready to give students from the community more than the usual 15% relaxation in cut-off. However, to allay fears of faculty members that the elite institution’s academic standards may be compromised, the college proposes to start a regular ‘‘merit audit’’.
‘We will explore all avenues to make the stint of Dalit Christian students in the college burden-free. But we are yet to decide whether that should be in the form of scholarships or fee waivers. All financial assistance will be need-based,’’ said the college’s officiating principal, Valson Thampu.
As per the admission policy cleared by the Supreme Council of the college on Tuesday, 40% seats are to be reserved for Christian students — and mandatorily filled — out of which 25% will be reserved for Dalits of the same category, that is, 10% of the total seats. Forty per cent will be reserved for non-minority groups and 15% for underprivileged non-minority students, including SCs, STs, OBCs, wards of war victims and physically challenged students. The remaining 5% will be reserved for admission through the sports quota.
This year, for the first time, the college will admit at least 40 Dalit Christians out of a total of 400 students to be admitted to courses at the undergraduate level. Christian students who qualify on merit will also be counted in the 40% quota.
In 1992, when the college got minority status, it was directed by the apex court to reserve at least 50% seats for Christians. However, it has so far been able to admit only 30-32% students from the category, with 70% seats open to general category students who are admitted solely on the basis of merit.
The latest proposal will cut general category seats by 30%, leaving only 196 seats up for grabs.‘‘It is now mandatory for us to fill the 40% seats meant for Christian students. If the quota doesn’t get filled by providing the usual relaxation in the cut-off by 15%, we will lower the cut-off further,’’ said Thampu. The 15% relaxation given to SC/ST students till last year will continue this year. All candidates though will need to appear for interviews regardless of their caste status, Thampu added.
21st century cities – Two billion slum dwellers
Elisabeth Eaves |
Forget about Utopia or even the dystopian Los Angeles depicted in Blade Runner. The future of the city is a vast Third World slum.
This year, the world will pass a milestone so profoundly significant that 2007 will become a touchstone for future historians. For the first time, more people will be living in cities than in the country. The individual who tips the scales might be a baby born to a city dweller or an adult migrating from the countryside, but in either case, it’s likely that his or her new surroundings will include flimsy walls, disease and an enveloping stench of sewage and trash. The newcomer will have arrived in a Third World slum.
By 2030, an estimated 5 billion of the world’s 8.1 billion people will live in cities. About 2 billion of them will live in slums, primarily in Africa and Asia, lacking access to clean drinking water and working toilets, surrounded by desperation and crime.
Already these slums are huge. According to Mike Davis, author of Planet of Slums, nearly 80% of Nigeria’s urban population, or some 41.6 million people, live in slums. The comparable numbers in India are 56% and 158.4 million. Many of these slum dwellers are also squatters, lacking leases or legal title to their homes.
Not all slums are equal. By the United Nation’s definition, their residents are missing at least some of the following: durable walls, a secure lease or title, adequate living space, and access to safe drinking water and toilets. A fifth of slum households are missing at least three of these basic needs.
To the outsider, many developing-world slums look unbearably awful, but to their residents they do function, complete with social hierarchies, commerce and a degree of home-grown government. Still, when one sees a family living in a flyblown concrete cell in Karachi, inside a mud hut in Nairobi or in a cardboard shack in Lagos, one might be inclined to ask, Are they really better off than in the villages they fled?
Dismal though the slums may be, the answer is often yes. After all, nearly all of the residents are there by choice (many, in fact, pay some sort of rent), so they themselves think they are better off. The vast majority moved to the city seeking better economic prospects, and many find them. A 2005 study on migration and poverty in Asia by the International Organisation for Migration notes that “even if migrant jobs are in the risky informal sector, the gains to be made can be several times higher than wages in rain-fed agriculture.”
Many slum dwellers are in fact entrepreneurs, albeit writ very small. They recycle trash, sell vegetables, do laundry. Some even run tiny restaurants and bars for their neighbours. Even though they are technically squatters, lacking legal title to their land, many also improve their dwellings–often just one brick at a time. After decades of home improvement, some of the best dwellings in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro sport balconies and ocean views.
Indeed, for many decades the slums offered a degree of upward mobility. Migrants squatted on city outskirts, drawn by free or nearly free land and proximity to urban jobs. Over the decades many of the residents built permanent housing and succeeded–often after a long wait–in getting services like water, sanitation and electricity routed to their neighborhoods. Onetime poor colonias in Mexico City have gentrified since the early 1980s. The favelas of Rio de Janeiro, the oldest of which date back to 1897, are famously vibrant, replete with lively bars and low crime rates–even if they happen to be “governed” by local drug gangs.
Davis, the author of Planet of Slums, comes to a darker conclusion. “That frontier of free land is essentially over,” he says. “Squatting has now been privatised.”
Since the 1980s, he says, new migrants to the slums have had to pay for the privilege of living there. In some cases, as in Pakistan and Kenya, the land is ostensibly public, but local police forces or corrupt politicians demand “rent.” In others, as in many Latin American slums, the newest, poorest arrivals rent space from more-established squatters. A by-product of this diminishing supply of free land is that new arrivals move onto more marginal land: steep gullies in Tijuana, vertical hillsides in Caracas, flood-prone flats in Dhaka.
Davis also argues that in cities like Mumbai, urban job growth has failed to keep pace with city growth since the 1990s. “These areas are now supersaturated with Darwinian competition,” he says.
And even when there is more economic opportunity in the city, life in the slums is extremely perilous. According to the United Nations, slum children in sub-Saharan Africa are more likely to die from water-borne and respiratory illnesses than rural children, while women living in slums are more likely to contract HIV than their country cousins. In countries including Egypt, Bangladesh and Guatemala, slum children are less likely to be enrolled in primary school than their urban counterparts.
Still, the dream of a better life in the city persists. Overall, the world’s urban population is expected to grow at an annual rate of 1.78% until 2030, while rural communities shrink.
Ways to mitigate poverty amid this massive shift are not easy to find. Just last month, the government of the Indian state of Maharashtra announced an ambitious plan to transform one of Asia’s largest slums. The neighbourhood, Dharavi, is home to about 600,000 people crammed into one square mile at the heart of Mumbai. But no sooner had the government proposed the $2.3 billion scheme, which would rehouse the slum dwellers for free, than local activists denounced it for favouring the rich and driving out Dharavi’s myriad of small businesses.
Turkey offers some lessons to governments serious about grappling with urban poverty. As Robert Neuwirth documents in his book Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters, a New Urban World, Turkey has two laws giving squatters legal and political rights, which encourages them to invest in their homes and neighbourhoods. Neuwirth, who lived in the squatter communities of Rio de Janeiro, Nairobi, Mumbai and Istanbul, writes that a legal system like Turkey’s could benefit squatters all over the world. Of course, that kind of legal reform presupposes a measure of democracy and good government, something much of the developing world doesn’t have.
For decades, governments around the world simply abdicated responsibility for this massive urban influx. One result is that most of the world’s slum dwellers–a billion people–remain cut off from the legal economy, working outside the tax system and with only tenuous rights to the land on which they live. Into this vacuum of power have stepped all sorts of organic movements. Some are potentially positive: Pentecostalism is on the rise in slums, according to Davis, and Indian slums have spawned influential groups that fight for squatters’ rights. But for every benign community organization that rises to power in a slum, so does a criminal gang or a militant movement like Hamas.
Western security experts rightly fear failed states; in the future, they will have to worry about failed cities. Mega-cities, of 10 million or more, are on the rise across Asia, while cities like Dhaka, Jakarta, Lagos and Delhi will cross the 20 million threshold by 2020. Planning and building is not keeping pace. The world ignores the slums at its own peril.
200 mn people in world use drugs: UN
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
New Delhi: About 200 million people around the world consume drugs each year, with cocaine, opium and its derivatives – including heroin – topping the list of favourites, a United Nations report said today.
“Though a large share of the world’s population – about five percent of the people between the ages of 15 and 64 – uses illicit drugs each year, only a small fraction of these can be considered ‘problem drug users’,” the report issued by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said.
According to the report, opium continued to be the prime drug in most of Europe and Asia. In South America, victims queue up mostly for cocaine-abuse treatment and in Africa, abuse is primarily confined to cannabis.
More than half of the world’s opiate (opium derivatives)-using population lives in Asia, with the highest levels of abuse occurring along the main drug-trafficking routes out of Afghanistan.
The total number of opiate users in Central Asia is close to 300,000. Around one million people around the world use heroin.
The report said that the global consumer market of narcotics has remained stable in 2006 despite a significant increase in drug abuse in the countries along major trafficking routes.
However, the report noted that several Asian countries – Pakistan, Iran and India included – and some parts of Africa, Russia and Europe had recorded an increase in heroin consumption over the last decade.
“Many of these areas have high levels of poverty and HIV, leaving people vulnerable to the worst effects of this drug,” said the report.
The UN organisation added that cocaine use in Asia had increased slightly, mainly due to higher levels of use in India. Still, in most parts of Asia, cocaine use remained at very low levels.
Cocaine use increased in 2006 in Africa, especially western Africa. High and rising levels of cocaine use had also been reported from Britain and Italy.
However, the UNODC stressed that the global drug problem was being contained. The production and consumption of cannabis, cocaine, amphetamines and Ecstasy had stabilised at the global level – with one exception.
“The exception is the continuing expansion of opium production in Afghanistan. This expansion continues to pose a threat – to the security of the country and to the global containment of opiate abuse.”
The report also said that the global opiate interception rate rose from just nine percent in 1990 to 15 percent in 1995, 21 percent in 2000 and 26 percent in 2005 – reflecting increased efforts made by various countries to curb trafficking in opiates.
In Pakistan, where poppy is grown in the Afghan-Pakistan border region, the government reported a 59 percent reduction in the area under cultivation in 2006, bringing it to 1,545 hectares.
The report said that injecting drug use has contributed to increasing HIV infections in India, Indonesia, Iran, Libya, Pakistan, Spain, Ukraine, Uruguay and Vietnam.
“In China, Central Asia and several countries of eastern Europe, injecting drug use has been the most frequently cited mode of transmission of HIV in recent years,” the report said.
