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Pollution in India
Mar 27th, 2009 by Kaitlyn M.

India Failing to Control Open Defecation Blunts Nation’s Growth

There is a major pollution problem in India.  More than half of India’s population does not have a toilet, which causes them to go other places. There are about 100,000 tons of human excretment left by the Indians every day in potatoe fields, carrot fields, and spinach fields.  The waste is also left along river banks which are used for bathing and drinking, and also along roads. This has created a big problem and 75% of the country’s surface water is contaminated by human and industrial waste.  The people living here are in great danger of consuming human waste.  Every day 1,000 children younger than 5 die due to complications related to the pollution. Also, because of the lack of bathrooms, many girls drop out of school.

Damodar river pollution in India-blame it on coal.

The Damodar river is considered to be a sacred river in India, however, there are many problems with it.  It is filled with sewage and toxic metals.  This river has about 46% of the India’s coal in it. This can effect human health. The lead contained in the river causes many health concerns such as anorexia,  metallic taste in the mouth, headache, drowsiness, high blood pressure and anaemia.

Both of these articles are about how pollution to the rivers in India can cause many health problems for those living there.

Misinterpretations of the Hindu religion
Mar 24th, 2009 by Kalei S.

The Hindu

The Scientist in India are protesting against the  harnessing of one of the tributary of the Hindu’s sacred river.The scientist were protesting by fasting or their “hunger strike”. And one of the following scientist that was fasting came very close to dying on his 38th day of fasting, so the work on a electric dam in the Himalayas was stopped. As soon as the Indian government agreed to quicken the inquiry into how the electricity couldprocess with no water included because the free flowing of the Ganges river is an important to the sacredness of it. Because of this one of the people involved in protesting against the harnessing had stopped fasting since the government did this. Now the Pala  project which is one of the 100 major dams which is now going under constuction  by the countries India, Nepal, Pakistan and Bhutan. Together are going to make 150,000MW which would help support the countries in need of electric power. But many argue that these plans with the dams could affect the economy and move thousands of people out of their homes, it could also contribute to global warming effect in the Himalayas that are already heavily impacted by it. But still all those countries have been preparing for years for dam construction . Many Hindus are against this because this would affect the  natural route sacred river the Ganges.

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/wendy_doniger/2009/03/the_battle_over_hindu_history.html

The battle over Hindu History

Many people in India are being murdered for the mistakes of the Hinduism history for example when the Hindus had said there was a Hindutemple that was built over with the Babir Masjidand Hindus started saying “Death to the Muslims” because they had built over their temple and many went into riots about it and tried to destroy the mosque and many died. Now a Hindu priest does his rituals there. So many Hindus think it is so important for their children to the right stories of the Hindu religion and not what they are taught in school text books. In this article the author tries to make a better understanding of what they do in the religion of Hinduism.

Both of these articles have issues in where either the geography or the history of the Hindu religion is impacted by those that aren’t Hindu’s. And both of these articles show how many times Hinduism is misinterpreted.

Mother Ganges
Mar 24th, 2009 by Olivia C

motherganges. The Ganges River is the main river in India. The people of India use this river for many things. The Ganges River which is also known as “mother Ganges”. The Ganges River is extremely polluted. When Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was ruling he layed down an action plan to try to clean the river and make it less polluted. Cleaning the Ganges River would benifit everyone .But instead of the river being cleaned they have been spending money on plans that have not even been succsessful.  The administration has accepted the program trying to clean the Ganges River and now has delayed the plan to a later time. cleaning motherganges Prime minister manmohan singh was thanked by a social activist group for an athority to respond to the increasing pollution in the Ganges. The activists were in the save Ganga movement. The autority would innclude integrating activities relating to the use of water, solving pollution problems, and the maintenance of flowing water and river conservation.

Hindu extremists have gotten out of hand in India
Mar 24th, 2009 by Sean R

Many Hindu activists have been causing problems for many people and events in India.  The first being Valentines Day, where a Hindu extremist group known as Sri Ram Sene threatened to “marry-off” couples they saw together during the much western influenced holiday. The most recent event though, was when a recent Indian film director inquired to build a statue of Charlie Chaplin.  Hindu extremists were outraged, saying that Chaplin had made no influence towards India and was a Christian man.  The filmmakers of the region disagree though, saying it has nothing to do with religion, and is an expression of art. I agree with these filmakers, about the Chaplin subject and The Valentines subject, and think that these extremists are being unreasonable.  The statue has nothing to do with religion, its of Charlie Chaplin, for a movie. People should also be able to have a little free will, going out in public together.  It even said some women were mad about the Sri Ram Sene for attacking some women in a bar for smoking and drinking, which is their choice to do in the first place. I think that this group of Hindu extremists have gotten out of hand.

Hindu’s in India
Mar 19th, 2009 by kaitlin n

Hindu nationalists in India are taking aim at another target — the unlikely figure of Charlie Chaplin. They to0k d0wn a 67 foot statue of him. A reason why they they didn’t like Mr. Chaplin is because he was Christian and he didn’t make a single contribution to India. Because India started spreading that they didn’t like Chaplin, Christians in England thought that Chaplin was agnostic. Kannada-language filmmakers said that the taking down of Chaplin’s statue was banning artistic freedom. Appeals to the state government have been made and an online petition set up urging people to save Chaplin from “these great dictators” — a reference to his 1940 satire on Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.

Hindus have argued that the 16th century mosque called the Babri Masjid (after the Mughal emperor Babur) was built over a temple commemorating the birthplace of Rama

Both of these articles tell you that Hindu’s have had conflict with Christians over little stupid things

Child Marriage
Mar 19th, 2009 by Devan M

Not only is child marrage bad for the Women but also bad for the children that are produced. It is more likely for a young women of 13 to 15 years old to have complications during child birth; were the off spring would die or both would die.  Even thow the legal age of Marriage has been increased from 13 to 18.  Thier is still a lot of child hood marriages in ruel settings.  And most of the women reported not using birth control before starting to reproduce.  Thier is a HIGH rate of women having thier set number of children at very young age; which also leads to sterilization.  which would lead to less use of condoms among partners. Whic also leads to the transportation of HIV in sex partners. I think the ban of Child hood marriage until the age of 21 for women and 21 for men EQUAL.

Welcome to the NEW World Cultures Blog!
Mar 12th, 2009 by Mr. Neiffer

Welcome to the World Cultures Blog!

What is a blog?  A blog is a website, like a news site, that allow for people to share their opinion on subjects to start a discussion.

We will be using the blog to help discuss current topics in class.

Here is what we will be doing today:

  1. Signing up for an account.
  2. Reading the Rules for Blogging.
  3. Reading the World Cultures Blogging Expectations.
»  Substance: WordPress   »  Style: Ahren Ahimsa