19-25 February 2018 - 16 new-min

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12 19 - 25 February, 2018 Editorial NEW DELHI TIMES Palestine seeks Russia’s support over Jerusalem W ◆◆By NDT Bureau @NewDelhiTimes info@newdelhitimes.com ithin three days of Indian Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Ramallah, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas set out on a visit to Russia in a bid to secure Russian President Vladimir Putin’s support following Washington’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. His visit came within two weeks of a similar visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Moscow. According to reports from Interfax news agency, Mahmoud Abbas told Russian President Vladimir Putin that he could no longer accept the role of the United States as a mediator in talks with Israel because of Washington’s behavior. “Given the atmosphere created by the United States’ actions, we refuse any cooperation with the United States as a mediator,” Abbas told Putin. “In case of an international meeting, we ask that the United States be not the only mediators, but just one of the mediators.” Palestinians see the Trump administration’s recognition of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital at the end of 2017 as an out-of-sync step that broke with years of international diplomacy. Washington’s decision meant a denial of Palestine’s claim to East Jerusalem and put paid to their hopes of projecting the city as the capital of an eventual Palestinian state. Abbasis naturally miffed since and refuses any contacts whatsoever with Trump. Of course he is officially scheduled to visit the US to speak at the United Nations Security Council on February 20. The US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, has accused Abbas of lacking the courage needed to forge a peace deal with Israel thattook control of East Jerusalem in the 1967 Six-Day War, annexed it and later declared it the indivisible capital of Israel. Abbas in turn has rejected any mediation by Washington in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and has promised his people to work towards full recognition of a Palestinian state by the United Nations. Critics view Abbas’s Moscow visit ‘an attempt to cosy up to Russia - a consistent ally - and to stop Netanyahu leading Moscow astray thro.ugh improved Russia- Israeli ties,’ which, after Netanyahu’s visit, seems positioned on a more stable platform. During his Russian visit on January 29, Netanyahu along with Putin attended a memorial ceremony at the Jewish museum in Moscow for the victims of Nazi camps. While Netanyahu accused Iran of wanting to ‘destroy’ the Jewish state, Putin likened anti- Photo Credit : Shutterstock Semitism to ‘Russophobia’ and said Russia and Israel were ‘cooperating closely’, against ‘attempts to falsify history’. Given this background, Abbas’s Moscow visit appears a ‘necessary political gesture’ but can do little in the practical sense with no break-through expected from this visit. The Russian offer in 2016 to host one-on-one talks on Israel-Palestine issue without preconditions between Abbas and T ◆◆ By Mark Parkinson @Mark_Parkinson markp.india@gmail.com markparkinson.wordpress.com oo often in education there’s an inconsistency that’s a little hard to explain. On the one hand, most are quick to state as a truism that the key to better quality of education for every child is the teacher. However, these words don’t tend to be backed with adequate and effective action to raise the professionalism of teachers. That the professionalism needs to be higher is the case, backed by recent research by the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development – the same body that runs the PISA tests), and not limited to teachers in any one country or part of the world. I believe we can put some of the blame on the fixed industrial model that plagues education. When the teachers are seen as interchangeable widgets in an industrial process or production line, this is not a conducive mindset to think positively about how to enhance the skills levels, attitude, motivation and purpose of the individual teacher. This article shares the key findings from the recent OECD research. I think it’s appropriate that they haven’t tried to simplify or suggest that there is one simple solution that can be applied every where. Professionalism is a sophisticated set of standards, expectations Teacher Professionalism Netanyahu never materialised. Russian Foreign Minister has recently estimated the chances of direct talks between the two sides as ‘close to zero’. The Palestinians currently have strong emotions towards Trump. There has been rumour in recent months that the US is about to publish some ‘major deal’ that could satisfy all. However nobody has seen or heard of such a document or even any statement. Abbas may be hoping against hope that as US-Russia relations dip to a record low for the post-Cold War era, it could get even worse and then Russia could do something to spite the US. In the meanwhile Trump had a telephonic talk with Putin regarding Israel-Palestine peace agreement. On November 29, 2012, after a vote by the General Assembly, the United Nations designated Palestine as a non-member observer state. That enabled the Palestinians to join international organizations and the International Criminal Court. Today, more than 130 countries recognize Palestinian statehood. However Palestine is yet to become a full UN member state. Jerusalem being a holy place for all the Muslims has never remained just as a Palestinian issue. All the Shias and Sunnis seem united on Jerusalem. Both Russia and China, however, should stay clear of Palestine issues not to complicate the matter further. Abbas’s Moscow visit takes the moral responsibility of hammering out a solution off India’s shoulder a bit. and common norms that all members buy in to. This isn’t about lessening autonomy or scope for creativity. In fact, commitment to continuous improvement, innovation and contribution of new and innovative ideas to the profession are important components of what it should man to be a professional teacher. The Journal – OECD – Teacher Professionalism Needs Improvement Worldwide When looking at the findings, I can see them from the perspective of teachers in the Indian private school system. Teachers do get pre-service training whilst in-service development is often rather ad hoc. However, we know that the quality and standards of that pre-service development are woefully inadequate. Talk of major overhaul of the B.Ed syllabus has gone on for years with little meaningful change. Worse, vat numbers of the colleges given licence to run B.Ed courses are substandard money-making operations with lack of consistency, standards or awareness of international best practices. For this reason, I’ve often seen that better results can be achieved taking teachers without the B.Ed who have more worldly professional experience, training them on the job and merely requiring them to get the B.Ed within 3 years to satisfy the rules and requirements. The fifth of the observations is an interesting one, that I’ve seen in practice. There tends to be more professional development available to teachers working with younger children than for those in secondary and higher secondary. This often comes because of perceptions from both sides (the teachers and management) that for those teachers, niceties like theory or science of learning are mere flim-flam and that their job is to know the syllabus material and to target all of their time and energies on putting as much of it as possible in to the pupils’ heads long enough for it to stick to produce the best possible results in competitive examinations. People who are merely dispensers of gobbits of knowledge don’t require much professional development! In fact, its sometimes seen as a distraction and a waste of their time. The four recommendations make a lot of sense and are quite strongly in aligment with ideas that I’ve been developing lately in looking at the whole ‘end to end’ process of recruiting and developing professional educators who rise above the average. Acknowledging that the pre-service training available to them isn’t all it might be, we have to go further to counteract this negative effect. High impact induction, proper mentoring and buddying systems and setting them on the right path as lifelong learners are critical factors, after recruiting for attitude, EQ, child-centricity and commitment to the role. Talent with the sciope to grow in to leadership roles should be identified Photo Credit : Shutterstock early and nurtured. This isn’t always easy in single stand-alone schools. Groups can do it. otherwise, schools should learn to collaborate more in this area, perhaps where they are not in direct competition. Then, the teacher professional networking can be taken to higher levels. Today, teachers have the scope to network with fellow professionals anywhere in the world. Within schools, we need a culture where teachers don’t feel threatened by each other’s presence in their classrooms and we need to be training teahers in action research – especially in countries where there is little or no education research coming out of universities. In short, if we start to really act like we mean it when we say that teachers are the key to raising the bar, there is much we can do. That work needs to start now. www.NewDelhiTimes.com India’s only International Newspaper
19 - 25 February, 2018 13 Think - Tanks India’s only International Newspaper NEW DELHI TIMES Why should we practice mindfulness meditation “T O ◆◆ By Dr. Pramila Srivastava @PramilaBK ps.a@iins.org o understand the immeasurable, the mind must be extraordinarily quiet, still” Jiddu Krishnamurti According to the Buddhists traditions, meditation is a means of transforming the mind. They have practices and techniques that encourage and boost concentration, positivity a feeling of Zen in all aspects of our lives. Mindfulness meditation is often seen as a method to rewire our minds and subsequently our bodies to learn new patterns and habit, it allows us to nurture and develop more positive ways of being. A lot of people I’ve met tell me that meditation is a waste of time: they would rather be doing something at the gym or at work. Sitting quietly for 20 minutes is very difficult for a lot of people and hence the dismissal as it being a fad. Meditation can be spiritual or just an emotional form of expression. Its benefits are so large that it can literally change your entire life. People underestimate the power of mindfulness and meditation, but as someone professionally has encountered a lot of people dealing with anxiety, mindfulness is the difference between depressed or having ◆◆ By International Institute for Non - Aligned Studies @iinsNAM iins@iins.org a happy life. So if you don’t believe me, I will let science do the talking research has shown that meditation is very beneficial for our mental and physical health. Here are the different ways it can change your life. Change our immune system Yes, mindfulness meditation can boost your immunity in this modern world where we simple living has been exchanged for a heavy price, we are surrounded by pollution, toxins, viruses etc and having a strong immunity makes a big difference. A research showed that just 8 weeks of meditation activated the left hemisphere of the brain and when they studied the immune responses between the two groups, one who had meditated daily for 8 weeks and the other group which didn’t they discovered that the group who had meditated had more antibody titers to the vaccine which basically means they had better immune function and the effects of that lasted for months. Decreases pain and inflammation Living with pain has becomes the new reality for a lot of people young and old, people resort to painkillers and various other means to reduce the pain. One skeptical researcher tried out the efficiency of mindfulness on reduction of emotional and physical pain and the results blew his mind, he found out that out of all the groups mindfulness showed the best result beating even the score of medication. He found out that while morphine reduces physical pain by 22%, people who practiced mindfulness meditation showed a 27 % decrease in pain intensity and a 44% reduction in emotional pain. Using MRI results he found out that the mindfulness group was using a different part of the brain region to cope with pain. Similar results were found for inflammation in the body as well. In each study mindfulness based meditation outperformed all other techniques. Though a doctor should be consulted before switching to any other technique. Integrating mindfulness based meditation in our day to day lives is a practice that could save us a lot of pain. Helps us go from negative to positive Mindfulness meditation is clinically known to help combat depression and other symptoms of the same. When we are depressed one of the main symptoms is having a constant negative thought factory in our mind, we cannot process the positive and only continue to see the negative. Meditation helps increase positive emotions and also helps reduce symptoms of depression. Anxiety another cause and symptom of depression also can be reduced with the help of mindfulness based meditation. Just taking that 20 minutes or 45 minutes to quiet the mind and focus on the positive helps us to overcome the negative in our lives. There are so many other proven benefits to mediation like boosting our social life, meditation helps us increase our emotional intelligence and by doing so we can make Name :.......................................................................................................................................... Address :....................................................................................................................................... Mobile / Phone :............................................................................................................................. Date of Birth :............................................................................................................................... Cash/Cheque / Draft / :................................................................................................................ Bank :........................................................................................................................................... Date :........................................................................................................................................... Subscription Fee Subscription Form better social connections. It helps us become more compassionate and that helps forge that beautiful connection of the mind body and soul. If you think that meditation requires a lot of time think again, even taking 10-20 minutes every day to meditate can make a huge difference. It will be difficult in the beginning but we soon learn to take some quiet time for ourselves, sit in the right posture and allow the rest of the world to quite the mind and focus on our breathing and get out chaotic mind in control. Mindfulness meditation is a lifestyle, it is not to be done once in a while, it can be done using religion or it can just with breathing exercises and positive thinking. It doesn’t have to be elaborate it can be fit into any lifestyle; mindfulness meditation is a way for our mind, body and soul to forge a connection, so why wait. One researcher asked Dalai Lama as to the minimum amount of time a person should practice meditation and he replied a ‘lifetime’. NAM encouraging Trade Flow among Members ne of the key reasons for the formation of the Non –Aligned Movement was to declare solidarity between nation states with a shared history of oppression and facing similar challenges of technological and economic development. The cold war which became the pretext of this new solidarity also influenced many political and cultural changes in many nation states. The need for NAM back then during Cold War ushered in with factions dividing the world into two grabbing for power creating a vacuum between US led West and Soviet Union leading the East turning other nations as mere pawns to their own game of power and authority on the global chessboard. However, NAM came into existence bringing a balanced outlook and catering and protecting also while strengthening the developing countries. But in the present where the relevance of NAM has been questioned again and again, Non-Aligned Movement has a very relevant and vital part to play with certain important issues facing the Southern countries on the globe. The Movement has not only sought a greater role in increasing the assertion of the developing world in the international order, but has also striven for active participation of its member state in international financial institutions, so as to ensure transparency and bridge the divide between the global North and the Global South. One of the major contributions of the Non–Aligned Movement towards this objective is the conceptualizing of the New Economic International Order (NEIO). Developing countries have lost their growth due to asymmetric global economic order. They have lagged due to technology deficiency, exploitation of their resources by developed countries and ever increasing debt burdens. They have fallen under dependency in under the unequal impact of globalization. Born out of the African-Asian Solidarity Conference held in Bandung, Indonesia, in 1955, the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), created officially in Belgrade in 1961, allowed the Third World Countries to affirm an autonomous political existence and call for more equitable economic exchanges between North and South. NAM has co-sponsored a number of resolutions presented by the Group of 77 on issues such as trade and development, cooperation for industrial development, environment and sustainable development, human settlements, population, external debt, food and sustainable agricultural development, an Agenda for Development and renewal of the dialogue on strengthening international economic cooperation for development through partnership. NAM has urged the developing countries to review their development policies in view of the global economic situation. This involves issues like how the global south can rely less on exports to the West and rely more on domestic and regional demand and on South- South trade and investment, and promote a strong role of the state in economic policies, along with devising appropriate policies for industry, agriculture and services, including financial policy in developing countries. NAM has urged the need for South-South coordination and cooperation. As North- South relations go through difficult or tumultuous times, South-South solidarity and action is even more urgent. NAM has a critical role to play in this. From its inception, the idea of South-South cooperation was very much based on a model But within the broader concept of South- South co-operation, there is also a specific development co-operation dimension. It typically combines aid with investment and enhanced market access opportunities. The southern actors are delivering “expertise and financial support to foster the economic and social welfare of other developing countries”. (in arrangement with News from Non-Aligned World) www.iins.org One year Five year Rs. 350 Rs. 1500 A-2/59 Safdarjung Enclave New Delhi - 110029 India Ph. No : +91-11-26102520, Fax : +91- 11- 26196294 E-mail : info@newdelhitimes.com Web : www.newdelhitimes.com Photo Credit : Shutterstock of solidarity among developing countries and collective self-reliance through various co-operation agreements to address common development challenges. The emergence of a number of large developing countries as major players on the international stage has brought the question of South-South co-operation to centre-stage once again. South-South ties, be it economic or political, are more important now than they have ever been. www.NewDelhiTimes.com
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