Hindus have no aspiration of dominance; we don’t even kill pests: RSS chief at Chicago WHC

Agencies
September 8, 2018

Chicago, Sept 8: Hindus have no aspiration of dominance and the community will prosper only when it works as a society, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat has said and urged the community leaders to unite and work for the betterment of the mankind.

Addressing a gathering of some 2,500 delegates attending the second World Hindu Congress here, Bhagwat said one of the key values to bring the whole world into a team is to have controlled ego and learn to accept the consensus.

The second World Hindu Congress marks the commemoration of the 125th anniversary of Swami Vivekananda's historic speech at the Parliament of the World's Religions in 1893 in Chicago.

"If a lion is alone, wild dogs can invade and destroy the lion. We must not forget that. We want to make the world better. We have no aspiration of dominance. Our influence is not a result of conquest or colonisation,” he said.

Bhagwat said a sense of idealism is good and described himself not as "anti-modern", but as "pro-future". He sought to describe Hindu dharma as "ancient and post-modern".

"Hindu society will prosper only when it works as a society," he said at the conference inspired by the Hindu principle 'Sumantrite Suvikrante' or 'Think Collectively, Achieve Valiantly'.

"One of the key values to bring the whole world into a team is to have controlled ego and learn to accept the consensus. For example, Lord Krishna and Yudhishtra never contradicted each other," Bhagwat said.

In this context, he alluded to the war and politics in the Hindu epic Mahabharata and said politics cannot be conducted like a meditation session, and it should be politics.

"To work together, we have to accept the consensus. We are in a position to work together," Bhagwat said.

He urged the conference attendees to discuss and evolve a methodology to implement the idea of working collectively.

He said the Hindu society has the largest number of meritorious persons.

"But they never come together. Coming together of Hindus in itself is a difficult thing," he said.

He noted that Hindus had been suffering for thousands of years because they forgot to practice its basic principles and spiritualism.

"We have to come together," Bhagwat said, noting that all the people need not to register under one umbrella.

He noted that Hindus had been suffering for thousands of years because they forgot to practice its basic principles and spiritualism.

Addressing the congress on the theme drawn from the Mahabharat, 'Think Collectively, Act Valiantly,' Bhagwat highlighted the need for such an action, and how Hindus should work together.

He said in Hindu dharma, even a pest is not killed, but controlled.

"Hindus don’t live to oppose anybody. We even allow the pests to live. There are people who may oppose us. You have to tackle them without harming them," Bhagwat said.

SP Kothari, chair of WHC, said he and many speakers attending the conference received calls and petitions from organisations and individuals to withdraw from the Congress on the ground WHC or some of its organisers are "socially and religiously divisive."

"I categorically reject this supposition," Kothari said.

"I urge them to listen to my talk and reflect on whether it is tainted with hate. I have chosen to disregard those petitions as originating from a lack of complete understanding of the Word Hindu Congress," Kothari said.

"The three goals of WHC are: enlighten, reform and advance. WHC brings enlightenment throughout the world about Hindu community through spirituality, harmony and inclusiveness," he said.

"Hindus must reform and be in the forefront in eliminating social and economic inequality, fostering cooperation among those with ideas and resources, and view commerce as a means to furthering Hindu dharma for a better tomorrow," he said.

Vice-president of the Republic of Suriname, Ashwin Adhin, in his address said, “We as Hindus never forsake our mission. Hindus have always been the missionaries of renunciation and service.”

"Words like peace, harmony and spirituality do not appeal to ordinary people easily and they have to be framed in the right perspective terms so that they become established in people’s mind," Adhin said.

Addressing the “confluence of Hindu leadership who have come to connect, share ideas and inspire one another and impact the common good,” WHC coordinator Abhaya Asthana stated we have gathered to reaffirm the same message of diversity, cooperation and universal acceptance uttered by Swami Vivekananda 125 years ago.

WHC, he stated, is not an event, but rather a community movement. It seeks to encourage Hindus around the world to ascend to the highest levels of excellence.

Speaking at the confrence, actor Anupam Kher said Hinduism is a way of life and one becomes a Hindu by living like one.

"Tolerance was the centerpiece of Vivekananda’s message. Despite being refugees in their own country, Kashmiri Pandits have practiced tolerance for 28 years like nobody ever has," he said.

"As a Hindu, it pains me deeply to see how half knowledge and ignorance are trying to destroy one of the world’s oldest, most peaceful religions,” he said.

Comments

SATYA VISHWASI
 - 
Sunday, 16 Sep 2018

As the name itself indicates - (Rastriya Sullu Sangha )- RSS , Telling lies is in their blood,

Cow-Swami
 - 
Saturday, 8 Sep 2018

The nation wants to know why does RSS not kill pests? 

Bhaktasura
 - 
Saturday, 8 Sep 2018

World Hindu Congress? Next time please rename it as World Hindu BJP! Otherwise tomorrow onward PM Modi may raise slogan of Congress Mukt World instead of Congress Mukt Bhartat. 

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News Network
March 5,2020

Lucknow, Mar 5: Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath said last night that the role of teachers would come under the scanner when "anti-India" slogans are raised at universities and institutions of higher education.

"When anti-India slogans are raised at institutions of higher education, we should be prepared to ask why this type of distortion occurrs among our students?" he said at a programme organised by the Basic Shiksha Parishad in Lucknow.

"We begin our work with pledge for the country's unity and integrity and today slogans are raised for the division of the nation. In such a situation, questions are raised over the role of teachers who are considered equal to god in society," he said.

"Who all are involved in this sin and chaos? Governments can provide resources, but the one who has given them basic education, who has given them secondary education and who has led them to that place, all of them should evaluate their actions today," the chief minister said.

Speaking about the condition of education in the state when his government came to power three years ago, he said there was an atmosphere of chaos and anarchy in the state and the condition of basic education was very bad.

"The worst problem was that of proxy teachers. Our government started the process of prohibiting proxy teachers in the first phase," he said.

Adityanath said that a teacher is not just a government servant, but the fate of the nation. He said teachers should learn from Chanakya.

Had Chanakya confined himself to Nalanda University, he would not have been able to make India a superpower of the world during that period. Teachers will have to prepare themselves according to the challenges and need of society, he added.

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News Network
March 20,2020

New Delhi, Mar 20: The coronavirus pandemic will leave behind a global recession with small businesses, self-employed and daily wagers taking the worst hit, Mahindra Group Chairman Anand Mahindra said on thursday.

"The virus will eventually be conquered, but it will have left behind a global recession. The costs of that are incalculably high at this time. The most fearsome toll will be on small businesses, the self-employed & those whose lives depend on meagre daily wages," Mahindra said in a tweet.

Apart from the toll on lives, the legacy of Covid-19 may well be deaths due to stress, loss of livelihoods, a rise in homelessness and in extreme situations, civil unrest, he added.

"The only global experience that has lessons for us in the current situation is the last world war. In the aftermath of WW2, the US came up with the Marshall plan to revive Europe, effectively a giant fiscal pump-priming," Mahindra said.

In the US, the government dramatically dismantled regulations and opened up the economy to trade and these actions led to a boom-cycle that stretched to 1975, he added.

"This time, there will be no victors, only the vanquished. So every country will have to create its own post ‘virus war” marshall plan & take care of those in society who are hit the hardest. Perhaps we too can build the foundations of a sustained global growth cycle," Mahindra said.

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News Network
February 24,2020

Beijing, Feb 24: The lockdown of Guo Jing's neighbourhood in Wuhan -- the city at the heart of China's new coronavirus epidemic -- came suddenly and without warning.

Unable to go out, the 29-year-old is now sealed inside her compound where she has to depend on online group-buying services to get food.

"Living for at least another month isn't an issue," Guo told news agency, explaining that she had her own stash of pickled vegetables and salted eggs.

But what scares her most is the lack of control -- first, the entire city was sealed off, and then residents were limited to exiting their compound once every three days.

Now even that has been taken away.

Guo is among some 11 million residents in Wuhan, a city in central Hubei province that has been under effective quarantine since January 23 as Chinese authorities race to contain the epidemic.

Since then, its people have faced a number of tightening controls over daily life as the death toll from the virus swelled to over 2,500 in China alone.

But the new rules this month barring residents from leaving their neighbourhoods are the most restrictive yet -- and for some, threaten their livelihoods.

"I still don't know where to buy things once we've finished eating what we have at home," said Pan Hongsheng, who lives with his wife and two children.

Some neighbourhoods have organised group-buying services, where supermarkets deliver orders in bulk.

But in Pan's community, "no one cares".

"The three-year-old doesn't even have any milk powder left," Pan told news agency, adding that he has been unable to send medicine to his in-laws -- both in their eighties -- as they live in a different area.

"I feel like a refugee."

The "closed management of neighbourhoods is bound to bring some inconvenience to the lives of the people", Qian Yuankun, vice secretary of Hubei's Communist Party committee, said at a press briefing last week.

Authorities on Monday allowed healthy non-residents of the city to leave if they never had contact with patients, but restrictions remained on those who live in Wuhan.

Demand for group-buying food delivery services has rocketed with the new restrictions, with supermarkets and neighbourhood committees scrambling to fill orders.

Most group-buying services operate through Chinese messaging app WeChat, which has ad-hoc chat groups for meat, vegetables, milk -- even "hot dry noodles", a famous Wuhan dish.

More sophisticated shops and compounds have their own mini-app inside WeChat, where residents can choose packages priced by weight before orders are sent in bulk to grocery stores.

In Guo's neighbourhood, for instance, a 6.5-kilogramme (14.3-pound) set of five vegetables, including potatoes and baby cabbage, costs 50 yuan ($7.11).

"You have no way to choose what you like to eat," Guo said. "You cannot have personal preferences anymore."

The group-buying model is also more difficult for smaller communities to adopt, as supermarkets have minimum order requirements for delivery.

"To be honest, there's nothing we can do," said Yang Nan, manager of Lao Cun Zhang supermarket, which requires a minimum of 30 orders.

"We only have four cars," she said, explaining that the store did not have the staff to handle smaller orders.

Another supermarket told AFP it capped its daily delivery load to 1,000 orders per day.

"Hiring staff is difficult," said Wang Xiuwen, who works at the store's logistics division, adding that they are wary about hiring too many outsiders for fear of infection.

Closing off communities has split the city into silos, with different neighbourhoods rolling out controls of varying intensity.

In some compounds, residents have easier access to food -- albeit a smaller selection than normal -- and one woman said her family pays delivery drivers to run grocery errands.

Her compound has not been sealed off either, the 24-year-old told AFP under condition of anonymity, though they are limited to one person leaving at a time.

Some districts have implemented their own rules, such as prohibiting supermarkets from selling to individuals, forcing neighbourhoods to buy in bulk or not at all.

"In the neighbourhood where I live, the reality is really terrible," said David Dai, who is based on the outskirts of Wuhan.

Though his apartment complex has organised group-buying, Dai said residents were unhappy with price and quality.

"A lot of tomatoes, a lot of onions -- they were already rotten," he told , estimating over a third of the food had to be thrown away.

His family must "totally depend" on themselves, added the 49-year-old, who has resorted to saving and drying turnip skins to add nutrients to future meals.

The uncertainty of not knowing when the controls will be lifted is also frustrating, said Ma Chen, a man in his 30s who lives alone.

"I have no way of knowing how much (food) I should buy."

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