Narendra Modi speaks at the 29th Annual Session of FICCI Ladies Organization (FLO)

By Brigadier Chitranjan Sawant, VSM

FICCI is a powerful entity and its women’s wing wields more political and economic power than the main body. At their Annual General Meeting, Narendra bhai Modi was the Chief Guest on Monday, 8th July 2013. The sessiom was so successful that everyone connected with it was patting his or her back. Of course, it was Modi’s show from Aye to Zee, he was on the centre stage all along and every word that left his lips was heard by one and all with rapt attention, never mind the politico-economic views of the listeners. The members and guests kept standing in the auditorium of a five-star hotel in New Delhi as the hall was packed beyond capacity. Of course, the venue was shifted twice to accommodate the unexpectedly large numbers of economists wishing to hear Narendra Modi.

The 42 year-old scion of the Nehru-Gandhi family had addressed the CII audience a couple of days earlier and both the content and the style did not have much to write home about. Indeed that factor aroused people’s imagination and they were rather over keen to hear Narendra Modi and have his speech saved for narration as a bed-time story for adults.

Swami Dayanand Saraswati, the great socio-religious reformer of the 19th century India did a yeoman’s service to Mankind in general and the Hindus of Bharat in particular by unlocking the divine knowledge, VEDAS, and undertaking to take them to commoners in its Hindi translation to empower them, especially the women folk. He achieved tremendous success and the commoners, women folk in particular, felt that they had acquired a place in the Hindu society, under the sun, and the Vedic empowerment enabled them to walk erect and hold their heads high.

EMPOWERMENT OF WOMEN

Narendra Modi was given a theme and it goes to his credit that he had woven his stories around the main there only. He did not go astray nor did he sound irrelevant at any time in his hour and a half speech. The anecdotes that he narrated were from the soil of Gujarat and pointed to the down to earth purpose of the talk. The real life story of Jesuben Ka Pizza as opposed to the fictitious story of Kalavati that his arch rival had narrated and thus had brought himself in the line of fire of his critics, was appreciated by one and all. The stories of how Narendra bhai created a place for the women folk in the financial system went well with the audience. These were real life stories and sounded as such. No one raised an accusing finger at them then or later.

The entire speech can be viewed here:

Humour played an important role in Modi’s address and the audience loved it. Of course, the Congress party was directly being criticized and the ignorant 42-year old young man who is not yet a grown up man bore the brunt in absentia. Chief Minister Modi chose not to spare his state’s governor, Kamla Beniwal, for her constitutional impropriety in sitting over a women’s 50 per cent representation in all elected bodies of the state despite its having been passed by the state legislature with a thumping majority. Modi had an appreciative audience and won bouquets as the man who led a charge for women’s political empowerment but it is a woman governor of the Congress party that has been playing the villain all along.

Peals of laughter of the woman folk could be heard every now and then. When Modi ji volunteered to have a break to enable the women entrepreneurs go out for lunch, there was a loud NO to the proposal and the vast audience wished to sit through without taking lunch. When the speaker said that he could go on and on since his next engagement was scheduled for four pm, the women entrepreneurs took it with wit and indicated their wish to continue listening to Narendra bhai as long as he wished to speak. Never a dull moment right from the word GO and until the celebrated Speaker thanked the audience for coming and also for their patience. All said and done, it was a good show and was enjoyable indeed.

Chairperson of Arghyam Trust Rohini Nilekani at a Function

New Delhi, India (CHAKRA) – Forbes Asia enlisted four women in their 48 Heroes of Philanthropy.  Out of 48 people, only four made Indians made it to the list and all four of them were women. The four heroes are as follows:

Anu Aga, 67, director of Thermax, donates 1% of Thermax’s profits towards charity.  Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, 56, Chairman of Biocon, contributed $10 million to the Bangalore Cancer Centre, annually donates $2 million towards health insurance for villages, and devoted $3 million to the Hyderabad Business School.  Kiran Nadar, 58 and wife of HLC Technologies Co-founder Shiv Nadar, opened a Art Museum.  Rohini Nilekani, 50, and Infosys investor donated $40 million over recent years.

The above are the four female heroes of philanthropic deeds. Rajan Zed, acclaimed Hindu statesman said in a statement to Nevada (USA) today that each Indian should take a vow to help at least one charitable project for this year to support the underprivileged members of the community. Zed who is the president of the Universal Society of Hinduism quote Hindu scriptures saying that donating to charities and helping others in related ways is a duty of society which should be taken seriously with modesty and sympathy.  He suggested that Hindu should search for inner peace, should teach more about spirituality to their children, explore wisdom in Hindu scriptures, stay away from greed and always keep God in your life.

Rajan Zed stressed renunciation while pointing out three opening words of ancient scriptures from the Isha Upanishad: “tena tyaktena bhunjita”, which means by renouncing the world, enjoy it. The Bhagavad-Gita, another ancient scripture, also promises “freedom through renunciation”.

Rajan Zed further argued that consumerism is what has caused the neglect of spiritual values by Hindus.  The Gita states that there are three gates to self-destructive hell: anger, greed, and desire.  If these three attributes are discarded then one will reach a higher form of freedom and achieve life’s highest goal.

Hinduism is the oldest religion out of all world religions and its ultimate goal is moksh which means liberation.  Forbes is an American publishing company headquarters in New York (USA) and was started in 1917.  Steve Forbes is the editor-in-chief of the company.

By Sukhdharshan

Thousands of Sikhs have fled Afghanistan as refugees

Kabul, Afghanistan (CHAKRA) – In a society where many women still breathe under full covering veils and live surrounded by patriarchy, Dr. Anarkali Kaur Honaryar fight’s for women’s rights.

“It is difficult for a woman to be a pilot in Afghanistan. My father said it does not fit in with this country’s culture,” she says.  Instead she has taken on a challenge much greater than flying a plane.

The 25-year-old is known in Afghanistan, after being chosen as their “Person of the Year”, by Radio Free Europes Afghan chapter, in May 2009.

Dr. Honaryar, a dentist, is one of 3000 Sikhs and Hindus that remain in Afghanistan.  Before the civil war of 1991, there were roughly 50 000 Sikhs and Hindus in ethnically diverse Afghanistan but now only a small percentage of that number remains.

The war caused most, including Honaryar’s family and relatives to move away to other countries such as India, Europe, and Canada.

“Some people still think we are foreigners. They think we are Indians who are working and living here for a while. But we are Afghans too, and we should have all the rights and opportunities that other Afghans have,” says the strong outspoken doctor.

In the early 1990’s, Afghanistan was in the middle of a war with an abundance of power in the Taliban’s hands. Due to this war-torn climate girls-schools were banned and closed down and religious minorities were threatened by the Taliban’s extremist Sunni Muslim ideology.

Dr. Honaryar was a victim not only for being a female but also because she was a non-Muslim.  Fortunately for her, she graduated from high school four years before her peers because Baghlan was not taken over by the Taliban.

 ”I am grateful to my parents for supporting my education. Not all Afghan girls have been so lucky,” she says.

“The situation for women has improved since the Taliban days. Now if the Karzai government does not listen to us, at least we can appeal to human rights groups,” she says.

That is why she joined the Afghan Humans Independent Human Rights Commission in 2006.

“They know I am a Sikh but they still trust me with their most personal problems,” she says of the hundreds of mostly Muslim women she meets.

“The culture here is loaded against women. We try to solve their problems, but we also need to change the laws.”

The female literacy rate in Afghanistan is less than 20%.  Honaryar recalls a women coming to her for assistance after husband wanted to divorce her after she was expecting their child.

“She didn’t know that Afghan laws state a husband cannot divorce his pregnant wife. He has to wait till the child is at least two months old. We helped her secure her rights,” she said positively.

Although Dr. Honaryar travels to different places across the globe, she regrets not being able to see India, her ancestral land—her top priority is to visit the Golden temple in Amritsar as well as the Taj Mahal.