What is the role of the UN in the world today and what role should it Essay

What is the role of the UN in the world today and what role should it play in the future - Essay Example 335-60). United Nations is also working for regulating international commerce, compiling data and delivering services. UN had established UNICEF. Women of child-bearing age and children are benefited with the help of UNICEF in more than 100 countries (Arnold, 1995, p. 47) Another most important role the UN playing since its creation and nowadays is to maintain peace worldwide. For this purpose, the United Nations has directed 17 interventions whose function is to form peace keeping forces. These peace keeping forces are formed with the help of different nations that are member of United Nations. The purpose of these peace keeping operations is to reduce the strain that the United Nations had to face in the form of cost of several hundred million dollars a year to spend during the Cold War. Peace keeping operations are in progress to maintain peace in all nations (Barnett, 1995, p. 79-97). The future role of United Nations will be to meet different needs such as security, politics and economic needs of the international community. This role will make sure that the United Nations and its programs, to improve health, peace and other conditions in all nations, are working properly (Beigbeder, 1987, p. 174). New challenges will be met with the help of upgraded management systems and program delivery. United Nations will also establish several services that will improve accountability of management and financial sectors of all nations. It will also make sure that all the spending for the development of different programs, departments and agencies are cost effective. To achieve success in all the future plans, the United Nations will have to develop a clear road map (Boutros-Ghali, 1992/1993, p. 89-102). The programs that had been proven highly effective in the past now seem less important and less effective. This is so because implementation of

12 Steps to Recovery Essay Example for Free

12 Steps to Recovery Essay Addiction of any substance is an extremely difficult thing to accept. When we finally realize that We have a problem it is up us to admit it. Once we have accepted that we are addicted we have made the first and most important step to recovery. We learn that once recovery is what we want in our lives there are steps to take these steps is to mean we are ready to completely give yourself to a higher power. This higher power can be anything or anyone we want it to be, whether it be God or someone we can really trust and depend on. There are 12 steps to recovery that will help us stay clean and help us be successful in staying in recovery. This we call the â€Å"12 Step Program. † The first step to recovery is we admit we’re powerless over our addiction and our lives have become unmanageable. This means admitting weeven have an addiction problem. By saying your life has become unmanageable states that we don‘t want to continue living your life the way have been during your addiction. Our addiction has taken over our life, and admitting that we’re an addict helps us take responsibility for our actions instead of blaming others as we did before. The second step is we have come to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity as we knew it. See more:  The Story of an Hour Literary Analysis Essay For most of us our higher power is god. We would give everything to our higher power and ask him for forgiveness. We then would recite the Serenity Prayer to help us. The Serenity Prayer is â€Å"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference! † This is a very powerful prayer as I feel today. The third step is that we’ve made the decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand and know him. We allow him to guide us through the recovery process we are going through. He lets us know that we are not alone in this, and we will never be alone again as long as we have him in our lives. The fourth step is making a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. We look inside ourselves to find out what our morals are and to figure out what we believe in. We figure out what we stand for and learn what we think is right and wrong in life. In this step you must become brutally honest with yourself knowing that there’s nothing we can do to change the past. This does not mean you are a bad person but that you have made some bad decisions in our lives, that we as human beings are not perfect. The fifth step is when we have admitted to God, ourselves, and another human being the exact natures of our wrongs we have done during our addiction. Completing this step gets the monkey off your back pursay. More than most people the addict lead a double life. This means we are only showing what we want people to see. Not being honest and showing our true colors. We still continued to lie and expected to be able to stay clean. Through this step we learned that this is not possible in order to stay clean and live a honest life through recovery. Those of us that belong to religious sanctuaries can confide in the proper person of that faith . Others that are not religious may find someone they can confide in such as a doctor or therapist. Someone that we can trust to keep what has been said in confidence. We cannot disclose anything to our family because we are not allowed to say things to them that will make them unhappy. We cannot save our own skins by making someone else unhappy. By doing so our fears come closer and we begin to realize that our life is opening up and showing what our life was really about . This is the scariest thing we will do. And the hardest step to complete out of all 12 of them. The sixth step is when we ask God to remove these defects of character. Which in turn means we surrender our whole self to God? When we are ready, we say to him something like this: â€Å"My Creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Grant me strength, as I go out from here, to do your bidding. Amen† The seventh step we become willing to ask God to help us to remove all of our shortcomings. This is not a long step and like I said previously it’s not one of the hardest steps to do during recovery.

Communal Riot In India Media Communications Essay

Communal Riot In India Media Communications Essay Communalism is a pervasive phenomenon in the public life of India and communal riots are the ugliest expression (Gopal Krishna, Communal Violence in India1985). Communal riots have become an integral part of communalism in India. An event can be classified as a communal riot on two grounds. Firstly, if there is violence. Secondly, if two or more communally identified groups confront each other or the members of the other group, at some point during the violence (Varshney, 2002). The reason behind such communal riots can be superficial and trivial; though deep within there are political reasons behind such events (Varshney, 2002). India is not new to communal riots; the first recorded riots were in the year 1714, 1715, 1716 and 1750 in Ahmedabad (Rajeshwari, 2004). Bipin Chandra in his book â€Å"Communalism in Modern India† writes that the maximum communal riots in India took place during 1923-26. Communal riots in India are not spontaneous and are rarely due to any religious animosity. They usually arise due to conflicting political interests, which are often linked to economic interests (Rajeshwari, 2004). During the 1960s till the late 1980s, the local political and economic factors played a significant role in instigating the riots in major parts of India (Engineer, 2002). However, since then the emergence of Hindtuva politics, it has been the major cause of communal riots (Engineer, 2002). The role of news media in reportage of communal riots in India is a major area of concern. Everything is reported in the media, so are communal riots. The role of the news media has grown in recent years, perhaps because of the centrality of the news media in communal violence and conflicts (Wolfsfeld, 2007). Even the most casual of observers wont deny the increasing significance of news media under such crisis situations. The influence of the news media in peace processes is more subtle, in part because what is not reported in the media is in some ways more important than what is reported. This paper would look at the way Indian media covered and reported the two most horrific incidents of communal violence in India the 1984 Sikh riots in New Delhi and the 2002 Gujarat (Godhra) riots. On both occasions the media drew criticisms. The paper would discuss if the media has been objective in covering both riots and also as to what should be medias role in coverage of such future communal riots in India, if any. 2.The Changing Face of News Media The global media sphere is changing with each passing second. New communications technologies such as camera enabled mobile phones and laptop computers are giving journalists an opportunity to gather and disseminate information with normal ease. This digitization of the news industry has led to compression of time and space and thus enabled us to see news and images of conflicts as and when they happen. The images broadcasted in our living rooms are not only informing the global audience of the horrific happenings but might also instigate further violence in an existing violent situation. As a result, the medias reporting of a conflict situation has become as central to the unfolding of the conflict itself. With the evolution in technology the tyranny of distance might have reduced but various hidden realities and factors still affect the reporting of conflicts. This is proved by a study done by Virgil Hawkings, who explains that the conflict in Africa which has been in the post-Cold war world responsible for nearly 90% of the worlds war deaths suffered a complete media blackout. Similarly, the coverage of the massive war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which resulted in over one million deaths in the year 2000, was almost insignificant (Hawkins, 2008). Since the media has a powerful ability to reach large number of people. It ignites the opinion building process and impacts the political decisions and audience reactions in the society. This eventually shapes the course of prevalent crises and conflicts (Ballantine, 2003). 3.The Media, Religion and Politics With the planes hitting the Twin Towers on 11 September, 2001 the relationship between media and religion changed forever. Karim (2003) suggested that religion would become an important topic for the media and the way media covers events would be influenced by the religious undertones. It is arguable if the world and its religions have changed or not, but the media coverage of the same surely has. Within India, religion has a large impact on the personal lives of millions of people. The country practices almost every other religion known to the world and this is one of the most important facets of the country, so is politics. The politicians play on the religious issues every now and then, and media is used as the platform. The politicians communicate with the common mass through the mass media. The way in which we know and find about our politicians is through the media. It is the media that serves as the main channel of communication between the politicians and the public. Religion is one of the subjects in India which the politicians intelligently use to their advantage. Academic literature has covered the representation of conflict in religion as well as media and religion but not much has been researched on media, religion and conflict situations in context with each other, especially within an environment like India. It would be difficult to understand the relationship between religion, its construction, presentation and conflict situations covered in the media, without some reference to the broader political context within which it takes place, because in a nation like India, religion is certainly driven by political motives. In order to understand the role media plays and should play during communal clashes in India, let us analyze the two worst communal riots India has ever seen the 1984 Sikh riots and the 2002 Gujarat riots. 4.The 1984 Sikh Riots in New Delhi 4.1 The Events On 31st of October 1984, the Indian Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi was assassinated by two of her Sikh bodyguards. What followed was a complete mayhem and it led to a lethal anti-Sikh riots in India. Sikh homes were systematically singled out in the capital and brutally destroyed (Tatla, 2006). The Sikhs were hounded, tyres were put around their neck, and petrol doused on their faces and bodies set ablaze to brutal death (Mohanka, 2005). More than 3,000 Sikhs were killed in New Delhi itself. Two hundred Gurudwaras, the place where Sikhs worship, were burnt down and many Sikh owned shops were looted. 1 The situation worsened when the newly elected Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, the son of Indira Gandhi was quoted, â€Å"When a big tree falls, the ground beneath is sure to rumble†. This gave a sense as if Rajiv Gandhi was giving a boost to the killers who were assassinating hundreds of Sikhs in the streets of New Delhi (Mohanka, 2005). Mrs. Gandhis assassinators were avenging Operation Bluestar. In the June of 1984, Mrs. Gandhi, wanted to flush out few terrorists, led by Jamail Singh Bhindranwale, who were hiding in the precincts of the Golden Temple, the holiest shrine for Sikhs in India. On the 3rd of June, 1984 a 36 hour curfew was imposed in the Sikh dominated state of Punjab. All methods of communication and travel were suspended. Electricity supplies were interrupted, a total black out was created and Punjab was cut off from India and rest of the world (Brar, 1992). On the night of 5th of June, the Indian Army under the command of Major Gen. Kuldeep Singh Brar stormed into the Golden Temple. By the morning of the 7th of June the Indian Army had full control of the temple. The militant leaders were killed in the two day battle but along with it a large number of pilgrims, civilians and children were also killed (Ahmed, 1996). The Sikh community were agitated. Their holiest shrine was turned into a bloody battlefield and innocent lives were lost. Saran Singh, a retired bureaucrat and a famous member of the Sikh community in India quotes â€Å"It was sacrilege to send troops inside, open fire and in the process kill innocent devotees gathered to observe the martyrdom (Mohanka, 2005). From June to September 1984 most members of the Sikh community nursed a festering wound only to blurt out in Indira Gandhis assassination. 4.2 The Indian Medias Coverage of Operation Bluestar and the Sikh Riots Media by its nature plays an extremely important role for any socio-political situation irrespective of the boundary it holds (Mohanka, 2005). The medias role in the riots of 1984 is an interesting case. Scholars believe that media can play a role in focussing on a cause much before it takes an ugly turn. In the case of Punjab in 1984, the local media was not supportive of the Sikh causes. Moreover, since of beginning of the problems in Punjab, the government had a strict control on the media and imposed a heavy censorship. Since independence until the invasion of cable television in India, the electronic media has served as the mouthpiece of the government (Das, 2009). Similar was the role of the electronic media in Punjab during the riots. The Government had such tight control over the media that the foreign correspondents trying to capture the horrific events were not even allowed in the local land. The Indian Government acted as a strict visible gatekeeper and made it impossible to approve journalist visas for foreign correspondents. The events of the 1984 riots thus suffered not only from biased media coverage but also selective coverage which projected one sided selected perspective (Das, 2009). The media blackout during the Operation Bluestar is a prime example of the same. The day before the actual invasion by the Indian Army, the Government ordered all press out of the state and restricted press coverage in Punjab. The press was allowed only a week later on special organised guided tours. The aftermath was later described by the press, as involving a small gang of criminals disliked by the majority of Sikhs and Indians. The press described the militants as petty political agitators, rather than leaders of a movement for a greater Punjab autonomy, as believed by a majority of Sikhs. Similarly, during the reportage of the 1984 riots there were discrepancy between the press release of data and images and the actual severity of the violent situation that prevailed in the streets of New Delhi (Das, 2009). This usage of selective information in the Indian media only contributed to the ambiguous image of Sikhs throughout the nation and failed to bring out their plight in the light. During the Sikh Movement the Government of India had passed the National Secu rity Act (1980), the Punjab Disturbed Areas Ordinance (1983), The Armed Forces Special Powers Act (1983) and the Terrorists Affected Areas (Special Courts Act of 1984). These acts provided the police and army with sweeping powers. They could charge and curtail to the right to life under specific situations. The approach of the media during the crisis had been partisan to take into account all types of multidimensional problem, historical, political, socio-economic and ideological. The media only focussed on special restricted information and ignored a careful examination of all the issues and processes that had led to the mayhem, the riots. During 1984, Indian leaders were free to make up non-existent stories and broadcast through Government controlled radio and television channels. Since there was a major restriction on the foreign press, all foreign news correspondents were left with no choice but to take the twister news of the local government controlled media. The United States of America, The House of Representatives had a view point on the same. It said: â€Å"As a result the outside world receives a biased one side view of what goes on in Punjab because the Indian Government has control over most of the domestic media. This contributes to the stereotype that all Sikhs are extremist radicals who are terrorising the predominantly Hindu nation and that is just not the fact. If the Indian Government has nothing to hide it should remove the news blackout and permit outsiders into Punjab. The free flow of information is essential to the prevention of rights and liberties in a democratic society and India claims to be the worlds largest democracy. So, they should act as the worlds largest democracy. This is the foundation for a democratic nation and is not too much to ask of India to respect the rights of all its people and not just the Hindu majority. It is not right for any government to deny 16 million of its own people the basic political and civil rights. India has a moral obligation to protect the Sikh community† The national newspapers reporting on the Sikhs made no distinction between a regional political party, a handful of militants, and the entire Sikh community. Even the senior editors and columnists of the national newspapers considered all Sikhs accountable for the assassination of Indira Gandhi and provided no sympathy to the community during the riots. Through the critical years of political crisis in Punjab before the horrific riots, the national dailies had not help resolve the issue. The Times of India, one of the leading national dailies and The Hindustan Times did more to incite hostility between Hindus and Sikhs than perhaps any other national English language newspaper (Das, 2009). The media was a part of the misinformation carried out in the public. The best example of the same would be when a national newspaper carried out an article reporting that huge quantities of heroin and drugs had been recovered within the Golden Temple complex and the same had been used by the militants to illegally fund their operations. Since, the foreign press was banned in Punjab; they picked up the story based on the 14th June Press Trust of India (PTI) news report from the government sources. This news was carried out in the major international newspapers. One week into the incident, the government retracted the official report on the grounds that the drugs had been recovered from the India-Pakistan border and not the Golden Temple complex. This retraction by the government was not picked up by most international news agencies and the damage done by the initial report falsely remained amongst the mass. 3 Many scholars believed that the Indian media forgot to prioritize issues and failed to act upon them. Senior Indian journalist, Manoj Mitta along with H. S. Phoolka in the book â€Å"When a Tree Shook Delhi† writes that the media focussed on the assassination of Indira Gandhi and did not care enough about the Sikh murders during the riots. Mitta says: â€Å"The media by and large went by the official line on the carnage. It focused on the happenings at Teen Murti Bhawan, where Indira Gandhis body lay in state and where from people around the world had come to pay respect. So photographers were flocking to that place and the killings that were simultaneously going on in the capital did not get recorded at all. Its bizarre but true.† Not all were pleased by the Indian medias coverage of the riots. 5.The 2002 Gujarat Riots 5.1The Events On the 27th of February 2002, the Ahmedabad bound Sabarmati Express train reached a small town in Gujarat named Godhra (Yeolekar, 2002). Instead of the usual stoppage for 5 minutes the train stopped for 25 minutes and then moved out of the platform. Before the train could run at its normal speed, the alarm chain was pulled to stop the train at Signal Falia, a Muslim inhabited locality. No one clearly knows what really happened but after few minutes the compartment S-6 was on flames. 58 passengers including 26 women and 12 children were burnt to death (Yeolekar, 2002). Among the passengers were the Kar Sevaks travelling from Ayodhya. There have been different theories believing that Muslims were behind this barbaric act. If this wasnt barbaric enough, what followed in the days to come shook the entire secular nation of India. During the next three days, from the 28th of February to 2nd of March, 2002 Muslims were butchered, massacred and burnt alive. Out of the 24 districts in Gujarat, 16 were entangled by organized mob attacks in which over 2,000 Muslims were killed, 200 mosques and religious and cultural monuments were sent to rumbles (Sawant et al, 2002). The Muslim community of Gujarat suffered an enormous economic blow with an overall loss of Rs 35 billion. 5.2 The Indian Medias Coverage of the Riots 5.2.1 The Television Coverage For the first time in the history of communal clashes in India, ‘violence was carried live on television (Ninan 2002) as the television cameras brought across the horrific images to viewers home in Gujarat and elsewhere. There was no live coverage of the attacks against the Sikhs back in 1984 or the Babri Masjid fiasco in 1992. Those were the era of print media and television was limited to Doordarshan, a state owned channel. It was only in 1996 when, Rupert Murdoch ventured into India with the STAR network and STAR News happened Indias first 24 hour news channel 4. This addition to the television spectrum of India added a new visual dimension to politics, violence and public sphere in India. In 2005, the television newscape had turned dense with a large number of players entering the market; several 24 hour news channels were launched. This led to intense competitive brand of journalism, which was evident during the Gujarat riots. There were a large consortium of journalists and television crews from various channels on the streets in Gujarat, each trying to outdo each other. When the Gujarat violence happened, the private television in India had been broadcasting for about 8 years and was easily accessible by 40 million amongst the 81.6 million Indians who owned television sets (5 notes). This option offered by the private television gave the Indian viewers unprecedented access to independent broadcasting. When the first pictures of Gujarat riots were telecast on Indian screens on 27 February, the three major news networks in India Star News, Aaj Tak and Zee News did not follow the guidelines formulated by the Press Council of India, a quasi-judicial watchdog organization (Mehta, 2006). The guidelines mentioned not to reveal the identity of victims or attackers in the news reports but all the news networks carried blaring headlines about the killing of the Kar Sevaks 6. The guidelines were against the mentioning of victims or attackers as Hindus or Muslims because they feared it could inflame passions and lead to revenge attacks. The television news networks with its striking visual images made this guideline redundant. While covering the riots in Gujarat, the television journalists openly identified the victims and the attackers. Varadarajan argues for the naming of communities. He states that not naming the communities increases a sense of suspicion and anxiety amongst the ordinary citizens not only in the riot affected area but throughout the nation. Then people tend to assume that the victims are their own while attackers are the other (Varadarajan, 1999). Famous Indian journalists, Rajdeep Sardesai and Barkha Dutt of STAR News justified their stand of naming the communities. Barkha Dutt stated, â€Å"Naming the community under siege in Gujarat was moot of the story. In fact it was the story, revealing as it did a prejudice administrative and political system that was happy to just stand by and watch.†(Mehta, 2006). The bold and independent media coverage by the television media during the riots invited flak from the political actors in powers who were shown in bad light. Criticizing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)and the Hindutva approach in the riots got STAR News and English newspapers like The Times of India and Indian Express bad press (Sonwalkar, 2006?). The BJPwas in power in the state of Gujarat and at the centre in New Delhi. After the initial violence, when the news coverage of the attacks against the Muslims in Gujarat started to reflect badly on the state and central government, the leaders came down heavily on the journalists and media personnel. The Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee addressed the nation a day after the attacks, regretting the ‘disgraceful violence. He later on added that the news media were presenting an ‘exaggerated account of the situation in Gujarat (The Times of India 2002a check book). The BJP and the state government under Narendra Modi singled out STAR News and banned cable operators from showing the channel in the state. The viewers in Ahmedabad, one of the worst affected regions in the riots, were left with blank television screens, unaware from the reality happening on the streets (Mehta, 2006). Cable operators received calls from local officials in Ahmedabad and other cities to completely black out STAR News, Zee News, CNN and Aaj Tak (The Times of India 2002a). Dossiers and ‘hitlists on journalists were reportedly prepared while the channels which dared to reveal the truth and were critical of the Chief Minister and his plan of actions were not invited to the press conferences and hence were denied the basic right to information by the state itself (Sardesai 2004). The main complaint of the BJP and its allies were that the news media did not cover and criticize those who were responsible for the Godhra train tragedy in which 58 Kar Sevaks were victims. This however remains untrue as the every news channels and major newspaper had covered the Godhra train tragedy exclusively, but the follow ups did not remain as ‘the story of the day because the Union Budget followed on 28 February. The budget coverage was pushed aside when the mass killings and large scale retaliation against Muslims started in various parts of the state (Sonwalkar, 2006?). Another criticism was that, the national media ‘inflamed communal passions by providing graphic television coverage of the dreadful events. The journalists and the news professional came out against the criticism and said that the level of violence would have been much worse if only the news media brought out the real picture by the graphic images. The BJP and its allies also christened the media as ‘Marxist-Mullah combine and the ‘Secular Taliban for criticising the attacks against the Muslims. Members of the Editors Guild of India visited the affected regions in Gujarat and were told by a group of Hindutva supporters that the Hindu community has been defamed with the coverage only being from the Muslim perspective: ‘They only listen to Muslims and ignore the Hindus (Patel et al, 2002). Sardesai explains the predicament faced by journalists in covering the riots: â€Å"(If ) any reporter, whether print of television, sees large-scale violence being committed, is the journalist to ignore the hard reality and merely present the facts as seen through the government binoculars? If the Chief Minister says that the situation is returning to normal even while reports are streaming in of continuing violence in several parts of the state, are not the lies to be exposed? And if the government insists that the army is out on the street when the fact is that the army has been kept on stand-by and is waiting for transport trucks, whose version is to be broadcast?† (Sardesai, 2002a) 5.2.21 The National Press Coverage If the graphic coverage by the television channels hit the headlines and created criticisms, the nature of the press coverage also came under the hammer. The coverage by the print media makes an interesting study. There were two different approaches followed by the local and the national media. The local section of the press, including the Gujarati dailies Sandesh and Gujarat Samachar, covered the events from a pro-Hindutva stand and justified the killings of hundreds of Muslims. While the national media, including The Times of India and the Indian Express, were overtly critical of the channelized attacks against the Muslims (Sonwalkar, 2006?). The team of Editors Guild of India met several journalists, correspondents, editors, Chief Minister Narendra Modi and others to conclude that the English-language national press played an exemplary role in coverage of the riots. BJPs allegations of media playing an aggravating role in coverage of the riots have been dismissed by many scholars. Patel argues that the allegation was ‘specious, self-serving and must be dismissed† (Patel et al. 2002). The Editors Guild of Indias team observed that: â€Å"Our finding is that the prompt and extensive portrayal by the national media of the untold horrors visited on innocent people in the wake of the Godhra carnage was a saving grace. The exposure of the supine is not complicit attitude of the State and manifest outpourings of communal hatred, stirred the conscience of the nation, compelled remedial action, howsoever defensively and belatedlyHowever, the role of the sections of the Gujarat media, specially the Gujarat Samachar and more notably Sandesh, was provocative, irresponsible and blatantly violative of all accepted norms of media ethics. This cannot be lightly passed over.† (Patel et al, 2002) 5.2.1 The Regional Press Coverage Gujarat Samachar is the largest selling daily in Gujarat with a circulation of nearly 810,000 followed by Sandesh with 705,000 (Sonwalkar, 2006?). These two newspapers have a large readership and dominate the print market in Gujarat. A study by PUCL in 2002 found that there were several instances of distorted and false reporting in these two newspapers and also the circulation of Sandesh rose by 150,000 due to its pro-Hindutva stand. The coverage analysis found that when Muslims were at fault, their names were clearly mentioned and the perpetrators identified. However, when the Muslims were the victims of murders, loots, arsons, and other heinous crimes the attackers were unnamed. The study concluded: â€Å"No sources were quoted for headlines, even when they were simply lifted from speeches by Vishwa Hindu Parishad (one of the Hindutva polical parties in the state). Headlines were also misleading, and often followed up by reports that did not substantiate, and even negated the headlines completelyThe anti-minority stand was obvious in the slant in news reporting.† (PUCL, 2002). Sandesh was extremely provocative in its reporting. PUCL states Sandeshs usage of headlines was to ‘provoke, communalize and terrorise people (PUCL 2002). On the 28th of Februrary, Sandesh carried a headline saying, â€Å"70 Hindus Burnt Alive in Godhra†. Another report on the front page read, â€Å"Avenge Blood with Blood†, which was a quote from a statement made by one of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad leaders, but the newspaper used the words as a headline without mentioning the leader (Sonwalkar, 2006?). On the 6th of March, the headline read, â€Å"Hindus Beware: Haj Pilgrims return with a Deadly Conspiracy†, when the fact remains that hundreds of Haj pilgrims were terrified by the happenings in the state and had retuned under police protection. PUCL emphasized in its study that most news in Sandesh post-Godhra violence began with the sentence, â€Å"In continuing spiral of communal rioting that broke out as a reaction to the ‘demonic/barbaric, etc Godhra incident.† The comminatory adjectives used in describing the Godhra incident were strikingly absent when covering the post Godhra Muslim annihilation (PUCL 2002). One of the reports mentioned that the breasts of two Hindu women had been chopped off by Muslim mobs during the crisis. This report turned out be false and the editor countered by saying that the information had been provided by the police. The papers editor told that it was against the policy of the newspaper to carry out corrections and clarifications for previously published articles (Patel et al, 2002). The Press Council of India later censured the newspaper for the fault (Prerna 2003). Gujarat Samachar also heightened the tension through its pro-Hindutva stand in coverage of the events. Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi openly praised Sandesh for its work, which was publishing false and rumoured reports with a pronounced pro-Hindutva and an anti-Muslim stance. In a letter to the newspapers editor, Modi writes: â€Å"The newspapers of the state played a decisive role as a link between the people and the government. You have served humanity in a big way. It is the state governments primary duty to restore peace and security.It is noteworthy that the newspapers of Gujarat gave their full support to the state government in undertaking this difficult task.I am grateful to you.† (Varadarajan, 2002: 286) The one regional newspaper that stood out amidst the Hindutva ideology was the Gujarat Today, notably started by few liberal Muslims in the state. The report suggested Gujarat Today regularly carried out positive news items highlighting interdependence of the communities involved (PUCL 2002). The two English-language national newspapers in India, The Times of India and the Indian Express were critical of the state government in their articles. However, these two newspapers also publish editions from Gujarat and a clear divide was evident between the two English-language dailies and the two regional editions (Sonwalkar, 2006?). While the English-language version was sharp in its criticisms of Chief Minister Narendra Modi and his policies, the two Gujarati dailies propagated the need of Hindutva. Desai, an Ahmedabad-based correspondent of the Indian Express writes: â€Å"Today, all the people who once used to look at me with respect question me and abuse me. They do this because I represented a publication whose medium is English and because I reported human misery in its right perspective.A friend said: ‘All of you from the English language media have tarnished the image of Gujarat. Today, the ‘common man in Gujarat hates the English language media. Even a section of the English language media hates the English language media.† (Desai 2004: 228) (Need to conclude) 6.The Role of the Media During Communal Riots: An Analysis The result of multiple and complex interests of regions, states and/or various types of groups within them leads to economic, social and political crisesconflicts. Such crises conflicts are difficult to handle and requires negotiations between the parties involved and in this amorphous age of media the governments are finding extremely difficult to handle such situations (Terzis, 2008?). Despite the increased importance of communication, very few governments can speak about successful communication during conflicts and crises because they fail to take into consideration the perception of the conflict or the crises in the minds of the common mass, the scientific analysis of the causable factors, the agendas of the parties involved and the changing nature of the conflict itself (Ballantine, 2003). The role of mass media in covering and resolving conflicts, especially those involving religious differences that leads to frequent communal riots in India, is extre

American Imperialism Essay -- essays research papers

Since its inception, America as a nation has developed and progressed according to trends of change that collectively define an era. Like all other eras, the time period of 1875-1925 experienced growth, changes, movements, and new ideals. It is the way that these changes came about that defines this era. Americans started to push for changes in many arenas of life that were previously unchallenged. New experiences and opportunities were also presented to America that caused tributaries in the former American ideal. These pressures for change could not be ignored and thus America continued its maturity in a new and unique manner. The changes in the American sphere of life and the development of greater organization, the largest underlying theme of the time period, facilitated the surgence of new foreign and military policies, urban reform policies, economic reform policies, neo-federalism especially in dealing with business, social reform policies, and the quality of life. The period from 1875-1900 was considered the "Gilded Age". On come the no-name presidents. There is a reason though, why these presidents were no-name presidents. It is because all the power that the presidency gained from Lincoln, was lost during reconstruction. Most things in American life were considered to be things that the government, especially the president, should not touch. The laissez-faire philosophy was in full force. The lack of interference allowed the giants like John D. Rockefellar, Andrew Carnegie, and J. Pierpont Morgan to rise to almost divine status. This is where organization comes to play. Business began to realize that by organizing their power and joining together in bonds such as cartels, later pools, and finally trusts, that they could maximize the exploitation of the growing American population. With this fusion of power and the creation of megacorporations, abuses in the course of industrialization concerning labor and the environment devel oped. This reaction to the weak central government led to the opposition of these abuses. It is a natural pattern that opposition would occur, but the fact that organized opposition began to grow is what separates these resistences from the oppositions of the past. Immigration reaches its peak during the gilded age and shifts from the "old immigratio... ...an frontier for the first time in history, no longer existed. The frontier symbolized the freedom of a place to go when things got boring. The frontier was a safety valve for people to go settle new territories, and to find raw materials. Now with the frontier gone, the idea of taking foreign territories looked like the best way to replace that frontier. Increasingly, the Americans had started to flex their muscle in the affairs around the world. Finally, it became clear that an imperialistic stance for America would be necessary in order to keep up with all the other western powers. In conclusion, many changes in American life especially industrialization forced America to react to the new situations being presented to it. The people developed opinions on certain issues and actively pursued change. This forced America to experience things that it never had in the past. It marked the rise of America as a substantial world power, the removal from isolationism, and the changing of the quality of life. The organized responses of the era, are its stamp on American history, and are responsible for all the changes of the era.

Pupil

Concert Music Is one of the most Important art expressions, lots of feelings and values can be expressed, and of course lots of stories can be told too. I like many music styles, from classical music to rock and even folk music. One of my favorite musicians is Sting, he is a great singer, bass/doubles player, a great song writer and an actor too. His style is a mixture of many styles, such as pop, Jazz, blues, soul, reggae and much more. One of my favorite songs Is â€Å"Shape of my heart†, Sting Is a brilliant and clever clausal, a great song writer and one hell of a performer.I love the mood, emotion and passion of Sting's music, and there are so many songs you can really connect to. With incredible musicianship, Sting combines rock, jazz and blues like nobody else, and his distinctive, powerful voice never disappoints. My favorite album is the Nothing Like the Sun Sting was born on October 2, 1951 in Newcastle-upon-Tone, a large industrial city in Northumberland. His real n ame Is Gordon Mathematics Samara. HIS mother had a miscalculation. She taught her son to the wonderful world of music by teaching IM to play the pianoforte his childhood.An American drummer Stewart Copeland noticed him,and persuaded him to do rock. He got the nickname â€Å"Sting† because he loved to wear black sweaters in a gold stripe, which made him look like a bumblebee. In 1981, Sting left the group,and in 1985 he released his first solo album â€Å"The Dreamed The Blue Turtles†. The most popular songs 0 Russians 0 Roseanne C] Englishman In New-York CLC All For Love 0 When We Dance 0 Brand New Day CLC I'll Be Missing You Shape Of My Heart Favorite My favorite song Is â€Å"Englishman In New York†.Sting wrote this song about himself, about his life in the USA. Some lines from it don't drink coffee I take tea, my dear,l like my toast done on the sideband you can hear it in my accent when I talk an Englishman in New York Today, I listen to a lot of folk songs with my child who Is three years old. My son Is very fond of folk songs, especially Sultan Kodiak and Bell Bartok songs and choral works. When I was 7 years old, I went to the Sultan Kodiak elementary school, so I know a lot of folk songs. My son's favorite Hey Varying ©If you have time, I often listen to the radio, I like almost all genres. I like any kind of music and I have already been to deferent concerts with my friends The members of hooligans known each other since childhood and had even played together. In 1996, the band was founded Hooligans, The band consists of four members There are plenty of awards and recognition received in recent years. In the future, I will want to go to a concert hooligans. My husband and my child loves this band. We listen this music in the car when we travel somewhere.

HRM 592 Week 5 Mini Paper Essay

Walmart currently employees more that 2 million people worldwide in their more than 10,000 retail stores, strategically located in 27 different countries worldwide (Walmart Inc., 2013). In 2012 the company reported earning well over 400 billion dollars (Walmart Inc., 2013; â€Å"Walmart- Refocus,† 2006). Here in the third week of the needs assessment being conducted on behalf of our client Sams’s Club a division of Walmart Inc., the focus surrounds the collection and its analysis. Following the collection of data and a meeting was held with Sam’s Club management and a recommendation was made based on this analysis. The recommendations made was based on the findings generated from random customer satisfaction survey, selection process for focus groups, identifying and documenting key organizational objectives through questionnaires and surveys, collecting and tabulating responses from returned email questionnaires conducted over a two week period. As the world’s largest retailer, Walmart still faces the potential of not having the relative flexibility to act swiftly in response to changing global markets, fostering a universal company culture in all its locations, addressing the high rates of turnovers, or providing the same level of customer service and productivity globally. Realizing that there are several areas that need to be address using data collected from several source, random customer survey, employee surveys and questionnaire, small focus groups, the data determined the best approach to achieving improvement in alignment with the company’s goal is to address the issue of poor job satisfaction, which data indicates is a direct result of high turnover rates seen by Walmart. According to one finding although the retail giant has continued to grow and expand it US market shares an increase of 13 percent in the past five years, workforce in Walmart stores, and Sam’s Club has fallen by about 1.4 percent during that same time (Ungar, 2013). The growth of the organizations has continued, however, the workforce needed to effectively meet the needs of the customer has been overlook. Based on the employee surveys, workers feel overworked, undervalued, underpaid, unclear promotional pathway, especially females. The 2001 PeopleSoft employee data release by Walmart, shows that women are represented a disproportionately higher rate than males in positions that pay an hourly rate, while men are represented at the higher salaried management positions (Drogin, 2003). References Berr, J. (2013). Who’s right about Wal-Mart’s customer satisfaction? Retrieved from http://money.msn.com/now/post.aspx?post=32a76b45-56ae-48d4-999e-05d807af1ca8 Lifestyle Statistics > Walmart Stores > Number of SAM’S CLUBS (most recent) by state . (2013). Retrieved October 11, 2013, from http://www.statemaster.com/graph/lif_wal_sto_num_of_sam_clu-stores-number-sam-s-clubs Walmart Inc. (2013). Experience Walmart’s History. Retrieved from http://corporate.walmart.com/our-story/heritage/history-timeline