Sustainable environment

I challenge you to think!

If you are participating in a one day discussion on environment protection, how much paper would you use during the day?

Now if you are participating in a world event, attended by dignitaries and delegates, including Heads of States and Heads of Government from across the world, how much paper would you need there?

Now multiply this number by 40,000 -- yes -- forty thousand was the particpation of the recently concluded United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, better known as Rio+20.

I am sure, you can all imagine, from a Conference of this importance and magnitude, how important the Outcome Document will be. And if even a third of the participants wanted the Document, about 50 pages, in print with them, it would mean that more than 650,000 sheets of paper would have been needed.

Do you know how much was actually used in this process? It was 30,000 sheets of paper!

That is less than 1 sheet of paper per participant!

Now it is my humble request, keep this basic  statistic with you today. It's Friday, and if you can bring it with you next week when you come to work and try to use only one sheet of paper during the day. You will make a big difference and contribute a lot in saving our planet.

Thank you,

You run in and bowl, you run in and bowl with a big heart!

The sun is beating down, hardly any cloud or breeze, you come in first change, you run and bowl, hoping for the elusive swing or any help off the surface, there isn't any, the ball is too new and the pitch is rock solid. Ball after ball, you bowl a tight line and length, the batsman gets behind it and shows the full face as he defends it to short point...

You return to 2nd slip as the guy at the other end tries his heart out...

You are again standing at the end of your run up, look up, the sweat drips off your forehead, you run in, bowl the line and length, you keep hoping and hoping for that little help off the surface, or that tiniest of mistakes from the batsman, there isn't any, its only the first session of Day 1, pitch is a belter and the batsmen aren't novices...

Ball after ball, over after over, you run in and bowl, you run in and bowl with a big heart. This is not going to be over in the blink of an eye, this is the Test and it will test you, it will test your heart... and it will keep testing you every breath you take and every ball you bowl over the next five days...

This is Test Cricket and there is no test finer than this...

Guru Purnima, homage to our teachers

गुरुर्ब्रह्म गुरुर्विष्णु गुरुर्देवो महेश्‍वर: ।

गुरु: साक्षात् परब्रह्मा तस्मै श्री गुरुवे नम: ।।

Today is Guru Purnima, the full moon day of Shrawan. It is day for paying homage to out teachers.  I wrote a status update on Facebook a short time back,

standing to attention when a country's national anthem is being played is not only honoring the country you are in, but also honoring your own nation -- ten times more -- for having taught the values and the civics to respect and revere a country's pride and heritage...

And even though I saw a message earlier today from a friend from Nepal about today being Guru Purnima, it was only after writing the message (above),  scrolling down and seeing an update from another friend who's in the States also writing about Guru Purnima, it hit me, I am writing about being taught the civics and the values, and I forget the most important teachers who actually taught us this -- our Gurus, our teachers.

Today where I am, what I am, I owe to my teachers, starting with my parents, my wife, my family, my friends, who taught me the basics and I keep learning from them each second, all the teachers who taught me during my school and later college days -- my teachers from Modern Indian School, Kendriya Vidyalaya, my college in Delhi and then Kathmandu University. I bow down in reverence to you. 

Often, as we perform our daily routine -- work, eat, spend time with the family, travel -- we forget the basics, we forget that we are breathing, our hearts are beating, we are thinking, it is not that these are any less important than what we "do", it is at our core, we are nothing, absolutely nothing (I am reminded of the "null" set, as my maths teacher from 6th Class put it "example of null set is the number of fishes swimming in the tree") we are nothing without this core. Our teachers are simply the core of our lives, they are at the core of what we are.

Thank you

Report about the 100-day campaign website on CNN

It is not often that a drop in the ocean feels like much, infact I will still call an action I took few months back as a mere drop in the ocean, but I am proud that I was atleast able to to make this one drop contribution.

I developed the website for the 100-day campaign against caste-based discrimination and untouchability, http://www.100daysagainstcastediscrimination.com. At the end of its 100-day activism, the website proudly received pledges from more than 1600 people who committed themselves to end caste-based discrimination and untouchability practices.

I was especially gratified to see the website being featured on the CNN iReport website, http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-676684. Rikke Nöhrlind, Coordinator of International Dalit Solidarity Network noted, “The campaign is a fantastic initiative and we would like to encourage everyone to go to the website and register their commitment to help end one of the biggest human rights issues the world is facing today.”

Read the complete CNN iReport at http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-676684

UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions concludes official visit to India

Christof Heyns, the UN Special Rapporteur (SR) on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions on Friday concluded his 12-day long official visit to India. Prior to concluding his visit, he called upon the Government to continue to take measures to fight impunity in cases of extrajudicial, communal and traditional killings.

The SR has praised the high level of commitment by the Government to human rights and most importantly, the right to life. He also recognized the size, complexity, security worries and diversity of India, but also expressed some concerns that the challenges with respect to the protection of the right to life were still considerable.

Other areas of concern relate to the prevalence of communal violence, and, in some areas, the killing of so-called witches, as well as dowry and so-called “honour” killings, and the plight of dalits (‘untouchables’) and adivasis (‘tribal people’).

The UN Special Rapporteur’s final conclusions and recommendations will be submitted as a comprehensive report to the Human Rights Council at a future session in 2013.

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The Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Christof Heyns (South Africa), is a director of the Institute for International and Comparative Law in Africa and Professor of Human Rights Law at the University of Pretoria, where he has also directed the Centre for Human Rights, and has engaged in wide-reaching initiatives on human rights in Africa. He has advised a number of international, regional and national entities on human rights issues. Mr. Heyns’ research interests include international human rights law and human rights law in Africa. Learn more, log on to: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Executions/Pages/SRExecutionsIndex.aspx