Mrs. Shobana Bharatiya, Mr. Vir Sanghvi, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Let me begin by congratulating Shobanaji and her colleagues, for bringing together yet again, so many eminent personalities. You have just heard the Prime Minister who in his own direct and self-effacing style, has articulated a road map for us to follow towards “building a better future”.For “Building a Better Future”, without any doubt faster economic growth is essential.Clearly, enhanced investment in economic, social and physical infrastructure is crucial.To be sure, increased engagement with the rest of the world is necessary.Beyond question, a new political culture, based on caring and concern for the larger public good, is critical.But in addition to all this, I believe we need to give a whole new momentum to public action.This will call for the government to be even more purposeful and effective.It will also call for a new compact between the government and civil society.And it is this partnership that I want to speak on today.India’s entrepreneurs are justly celebrated these days. They are doing the country proud. I for one believe that they must be given every opportunity to realize their full potential.Indian scientists and technologists have made major contributions to nation-building. Now our colleges, universities, institutes of higher learning and laboratories need a renewed vitality coupled with creative energy.But if our concern is with people at large and their day-to-day lives, particularly of the weaker sections, then we need a new paradigm for sustained cooperation between the government and civil society.What do I mean by “civil society”?To me, civil society embraces the very large number of social action groups, voluntary agencies, NGOs, peoples’ movements, citizens’ associations, community organizations and, as a mirror of society, the media.India’s democracy has flowered and that is really our most remarkable achievement.And one key reason for this has been the existence of a vigourous civil society in which discussion, argument and mobilization thrive.

It is the arena in which alternative visions of the future have been articulated, in which alternative paths to attain that future have been debated.It is also the arena in which we, who are in a position of power, are being held accountable to our promises and pledges.In many parts of the country, civil society is making a real difference in education, health, nutrition, credit, rural development and the environment. Civil society associations have provided a forum for lakhs of workers in the unorganized sector.

In some regions, civil society has taken the lead in promoting social peace and harmony. At times of natural calamities, we have seen how quickly and how sensitively it has stepped in to assist the government’s efforts in providing relief and rehabilitation.All this has happened spontaneously, almost entirely because of individual drive, dedication and determination. We have in our country a tradition of social service – of sewa – exemplified most vividly by the Gandhian legacy.The government has to create an institutional framework for the involvement of a diverse array of civil society groups and organizations in both the democratic and developmental process. The challenge is to make space for them and encourage the proliferation of their success stories.The corporate sector too-and I see captains of industry here this morning– has a role in strengthening civil society networks. I am aware that we have some outstanding examples of corporate philanthropy and social service. I believe the corporate sector wants to and can do more.But let me be clear. Just as economic reforms do not mean the abdication of the role of the state, the involvement of civil society also does not imply the abandonment of the role of the state.There are many areas where such a collective effort can be mounted.I can immediately think of the implementation of social legislation as one example so that the progressive laws we have passed for the welfare of women and children particularly do not remain confined to paper.We now have a far-reaching Right to Information Act. Civil society has contributed much to the passage of this legislation. It is a historic opportunity to help enforcing a new culture of transparency and accountability in administration, starting at the panchayat level itself.Or take the historic Rural Employment Guarantee Act that Parliament passed in its last session. Here again, the involvement of NGOs will be essential not only for mobilizing the people but also for social audit and monitoring.In recent years, another remarkable segment has emerged and these are women’s’ self-help groups. I see panchayats and these self-help groups as two sides of the same coin.Panchayats are institutions of democratic representation. Self-help groups are institutions of voluntary participation. Working together, they can transform rural India.Incidentally, is it really a surprise that the most successful self-help groups are those run and managed by women?

[I know that some of the men in the audience may not agree,] but isn’t it true that the natural instinct of women is to save. And isn’t it true that the spirit of cooperative action is instinctively nurtured by women? It is not a coincidence that some of the most prominent names in civil society happen to be those of women.It is because of the centrality of women’s’ movements in civil society that we need to push harder for gender justice. While major initiatives have been taken like, for example, the reservation for women in panchayats and nagarpalikas, the struggle for complete gender equality must continue unabated.I hope you will not misunderstand my emphasis on women. I know there are many men whose contribution to civil society is second to none. But it is a fact that in our society women have to strive much harder for recognition and results.I have spoken of cooperation between the government and civil society. But I do recognize that at times there may well be an elements of conflict in this relationship. That is because the status quo may be threatened, that is because vested interests may come under scrutiny. That is because of fear that credit may be taken by others.

Such adversarial positions are not always wholly undesirable. Discourse is the essence of the democratic process and it is important to keep the dialogue alive, by the two sides talking to each other, rather than at each other. Still, I would say, that the onus remains both on political activists and the bureaucracy to provide expanding opportunities to civil society, to protect their autonomy and to permit them to engage in advocacy.

Having said this, let me also point out that civil society itself has to do some introspection. It has to subject itself to the same standards of audit and governance as it demands from elected representatives and the government. It has to avoid getting embroiled in partisan politics. It has to dispel the impression that sometimes it gives of being instinctively anti-growth and anti-technology.

Earlier, I spoke of the media itself as an institution of civil society. I must acknowledge the role our media is playing in highlighting the accomplishments of both individuals and groups. There is a vast army of professionals, of educated and talented young men and women whose vision of a better future is to work for the betterment of the lives of the less fortunate. Our media can play an even greater role in highlighting their contributions. This, in turn, will inspire others — I know that “good news” in the media is rarely “news” in fact it probably means “bad business” but it is good if the media forgets this basic rule once in a while.

Ladies and Gentlemen, a better future for India must mean a better future for all Indians, a future in which each and every Indian leads a life of dignity and is assured of the basic securities. Globalisation presents numerous opportunities that we must not miss. At the same time, we have a vast agenda
for local transformation which we must address with a new sense of commitment. A vibrant partnership between government and civil society is the springboard for such a new resolve. Such a partnership will, I am sure, provide a durable foundation for “Building a Better Future”.

Thank You

Popularity: -5% [?]

A CALL for substantial and sustained support for research to guide evidence-based policies and development of new malaria tools, to save countless lives, sign-posted the world’s largest malaria conference, which opened in Nairobi, Kenya, yesterday.

And pneumonia, one of the biggest causes of child death in the world, will by 2011 be controllable with the use of a Pneumonia Conjugate Vaccine (PVC) scheduled to be available for routine immunisation of children below five years.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) will also invest $39 billion to tackle the disease.

The vaccine, being developed to reduce the incidences of newborn and child mortality, is to help in the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 4.

The 5th Multilateral Initiative on Malaria (MIM) Pan-African Conference brings together 2,000 researchers, health workers, public health officials, policy-makers and activists from across Africa and the world.

According to a Pan-African News Agency (PANA) report, Kenya’s Vice President, Kalonzo Musyoka, opened the conference, the first to be held in four years. It will highlight the latest research in malaria prevention and treatment.

The theme of this year’s conference is “Building knowledge for action”, but the key question for malaria is which knowledge for which action?” said Dr. Adrian Luty, Senior Researcher at Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, The Netherlands, and Chairman of the MIM conference Scientific Committee.

“If we as a global community are to be ready to achieve eradication, we must invest in the science that can guide these efforts and provide the tools and methods that will make success possible,” Luty said.

Although preventable and treatable, malaria continues to be one of the world’s most deadly and persistent diseases.

Ninety per cent of all malaria deaths occur in Africa, and 85 per cent of these deaths are among children under the age of five.

Since the last MIM conference in 2005, the global community has made tremendous strides against the disease, the conference organisers said.

But they noted that despite this progress, many African countries are struggling to meet Millennium Development Goal 6, which aims ‘to halt and begin to reverse the incidence of malaria,’ and are unlikely to meet the WHO target to halve malaria mortality by 2010.

One of the key goals of MIM is to strengthen African research capacity to guide policies for malaria control and to develop new tools for prevention and treatment.

Research conducted in africa has helped guide new practices, for example, in Rwanda, where just five years ago malaria was the leading cause of death.

A multi-faceted approach using long-lasting insecticide treated nets (LLINs) and training for community health workers has decreased the malaria death rate by 60 per cent in just two years.

In Zanzibar, a mass distribution of LLINs in early 2006 and insecticide spraying programmes triggered a 95 per cent reduction in malaria infections for children less than two years of age.

“Over the past four years, new strategies coupled with unprecedented global attention and support from endemic country governments have increased access to malaria treatment and prevention for some of the world’s most vulnerable communities,” said Dr. Francine Ntoumi, MIM Secretariat Co-ordinator at the African Malaria Network Trust (AMANET), which has hosted the MIM secretariat for the past four years as the organisation’s first African secretariat.

“However, we must continue to build a critical mass of scientists working on malaria in sub-Saharan Africa, so that countries with the greatest burden are themselves setting the research agenda,” she said.

Due to continued cost and availability challenges, those most at-risk of malaria often have limited access to proven prevention tools, such as insecticide-treated nets and access to the current gold-standard drug, artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs).

As a result, the disease disproportionately affects poor rural communities in malaria-endemic countries.

In Nigeria, the Minister of State for Health, Dr. Aliyu Idi Hong, at the World Pneumonia Day celebration yesterday in Abuja, stated that although “the vaccine is not in the market all over the world as we speak, it is still under production, but I’m confident that it will be available by then (2011)”.

The first of its kind, the celebration with the theme, “Prevent, Protect and Treat,” is aimed at drawing attention to the disease as a public health concern and increase awareness on its prevention and control.

Pneumonia is the second killer disease of children under five in Nigeria after malaria, with about six million new cases yearly. It kills about 200,000 children in Nigeria and two million globally.

A joint press statement by the WHO and UNICEF spoke of a strategy called the Global Action Plan for the prevention and control of Pneumonia (GAPP), which aims to save up to 3.5 million children from dying by 2015.

According to the two bodies, the cost of implementing the GAPP by scaling up the recommended measures in the 68 high burden countries is estimated at $39 billion between 2010 and 2015. The cost is expected to rise over the six-year period from a yearly need of $3.8 billion in 2010 to $8.0 billion in 2015.

The Director-General of WHO, Dr. Margaret Chan, said: “This action plan provides the strategy to prevent and control pneumonia, which today kills more children than any other illness” and that “we know the strategy will work, and if it is applied in every high burden country, we will be able to prevent millions of deaths.”

UNICEF’s Executive Director, Ann Veneman, who also stated that the disease, a leading cause of death of over 4,000 children daily, added: “Effective interventions to reduce deaths caused by pneumonia must be used more widely and made more readily available for children at risk.”

Caused by a bacterial, viral or fungus infection, prevention of the disease was identified as a key to solving the problem through exclusive breastfeeding, proper nutrition for older children, reduction of indoor air pollution from tobacco and stove smoke as well as improvement of pre-natal care to reduce incidences of low birth weight.

To this end, however, other underlying diseases like measles and diarrhea should also be prevented from gaining grounds among children.

Popularity: unranked [?]

Copyright 2005 Black Butterfly Press

By Maxine Thompson (http://www.maxinethompson.com)

While at the Pacific Ocean the other day, penning this article,
I watched a homeless man dig inside a garbage can and ferret out
a thrown away bag of fast food. Of course, I felt moved to give
him a small token, but it made me reflect. What if he had
attended The Small Business Success Summit? Perhaps his life
would have been different. He could have learned from Ted
Nicholas, known as the 4 billion dollar man,
(www.TedNicholas.com) and Joel Christopher,
(www.JoelChristopher.com) called The Master List Builder
(www.masterlistbuilder.com), how to start a business from
scratch. Instead of giving him a fish, he could have been given
a fishing rod.

No doubt about it, this conference, held on 10-10-03 to 10-12-03
at the Airport Marriot in the sparkling San Francisco Bay area,
headed by Superstar Speakers, Ted Nicholas and Joel Christopher,
delivered what the two men promised. Not only was the Conference
taped on video, it was broadcasted live to the world on the
Internet.

The Summit was considered a success by all the attendees, as
well as by the people who watched the event globally. Promoted
as “The impossible-to-fail small business success system that
will build the Million Dollar Empire you have always dreamed
of,” it met the intended objectives and more. The three-day
conference provided life-transforming information, and hands on,
experiential exercises. This groundbreaking, history-making
event of the new millennium was the best seminar we ever
attended.

In addition to many technical and inside secrets as to how to
make your words sell, one of the main themes Ted Nicholas
emphasized was this: integrity always remains in style. In light
of the many big business scandals, Nicholas’s philosophies were
truly refreshing. To give you an insight into this great man’s
longstanding success, here are just a few of the business
principles of which he spoke.

1. Make all your dealings win/win. Do not take advantage of
other businesses when their chips are down. 2. If you
unwittingly under charge for a job, in the name of keeping a
good business ethic, eat the loss. Don’t try to mark up the
price after agreeing on a lower price. 3. Keep your word, at all
costs, to build trust with your customers. 4. You can build a
great business without being a workaholic. He addressed the need
for balance in the areas of health, spirituality, and
relationships. 5. Finally, use magic words when it comes to
getting people to buy your products or do business with you.
From Joel Christopher, who proudly tells you of his Filipino
heritage and, in spite of the language barrier, the success he
has had in the United States, we saw up close:

1. How you can make $31,000 Swiss dollars in 24 hours on the
Internet. 2. How to build your online business with offline
marketing. 3. The secret method he used that has helped him to
create joint ventures with many of the top leaders in the
internet marketing field. 4. The secrets of how he tripled his
opt-in list in 99 days. 5. The autohumanization factor that
makes a difference in all relationship capital.

In the end, we left the seminar exhausted, but exhilarated about
the possibilities we now face and the tools we had been given to
grow our small businesses into million dollar empires. With this
in mind, I want to be one of the caring people with an abundance
who will be able to help with the world’s homeless and hunger
problem.

______________________________________________________ If you
are interested in upcoming writing teleclasses, please contact
me at maxtho@aol.com or maxtho@sbcglobal.net.

Popularity: -14% [?]

Akron is a medium sized city located in the Northeast Ohio region in Summit County in the State of Ohio in the United States.
Akron is the centre of a metropolitan area that includes the cities of Cuyahoga Falls, Tallmadge and Stow and several villages. At 329 metres above sea level, it was named for its high place.
Akron is privileged to have access to some of Americas finest hospitals, all of which also support significant medical education and research, which is a great thing to be proud of.
It can be describe as the Rubber Capital of the World. Before this it can be describe as the original home of Quaker Oats. Before this it can be describe as a pottery works.
The first rubber plant was established in 1870. Focused on tire production, its rubber industry grew and declined with the automobile industry. By the mid 1980s virtually all the tire plants had shut down.
Canal Park is similar to many new parks being built today. It is a park built in the downtown with a brick exterior that fits in well with the surrounding buildings.
The Akron Bicycle club invite you to enjoy the beautiful Northeast Ohio bike ride.
It can be describe as where life is quiet side streets where children play and neighbours know one another. The smell of fresh cut grass and backyard barbeques drift through the streets on any given weekend. Swinging on a front porch is the favourite place to spend time in the humid evenings. Come and see for yourself its like the olden days.
Now using technology in the medical field. High tech weaponry is forcing the many residents in the area to become sick, with cancers, heart disease, as well as other long term acute care medical issues. It is up to local people to take action against Big Business at the expense of citizens and their precious families health.
The Farmers Market, sponsored by the Akron Area Chamber of Commerce is held every Wed, in the Akron City Park.
Akron School leaders were surprised to learn new information about a teacher who molested a student. The women recent conviction for having sex with a 14 year old girl was the first black mark against the music teacher and coach at Akrons Jennings Middle School or at least thats what school leaders thought when they hired Crane in 1997.
Plan a trip. A interesting place to go. Come and see for yourself what the place has to offer.

Popularity: -5% [?]

Looking for a primary care provider anywhere in Nashville can be exhausting, since there are many to choose from but most don’t seem to offer all of the services a person requires. However, having someone to provide primary care in your area of Nashville is the key to the health of your family no matter what their age. For example, having a good doctor who takes the necessary time to learn about you and your family, to provide primary care in Nashville, can mean the difference between a very sick child and a child who is treated for an illness well before it advances.Summit Primary Care in Nashville, located at 3939 Central Pike in the town of Hermitage near Nashville, is a well appointed building offering a wide variety of services to families in their area. Visit their website to see all the services they offer at Summit Primary care and contact them directly with any questions or concerns.In addition to primary care services in Nashville, Summit Primary Care can provide diagnostic services such as basic ultrasound testing, urine drug testing for pre-employment and more serious services such as EKG testing, and pulmonary heart testing. Having these tests available on-site gives patients who receive primary care in the Nashville area from Summit Primary Care an advantage.Their facility also has a Walk-in Clinic available for both primary care patients in Nashville and those without a current primary care physician. With fast access to on-site primary care doctors in the Nashville area, as well as on-site testing, this facility is well designed to meet the needs of its patients. Providing services outside of normal business hours is also an excellent advantage, as illness doesn’t always respect work hours! For more information on their walk-in clinic hours and the care they provide, visit their website at Summit Primary care.Primary care patients in Nashville who call Summit Primary Care their home benefit from their state of the art EMR system, or Electronic Medical Record system. This secure and convenient medical record keeping system allows doctors to access your records digitally, making your primary care in Nashville more efficient and without papers to lose or files to mix up, there are far fewer mistakes. Most people would agree that preventative medicine is far better than treating an illness once it has progressed. At Summit Primary Care in the Nashville area, they assist with prevention by providing screenings and annual check ups for both men and women, in the areas unique to them. In the event you or the relative you are assisting are elderly, they also work in harmony with nursing homes and home care to ensure your primary care in Nashville is of the highest quality possible. From infancy to the twilight years, Summit Primary Care provides families with comprehensive and competent care using state of the art testing and compassionate people-centered care. For more information, visit SummitPrimarycare.

Popularity: -5% [?]