‘EARTH’: Need of the ‘HOUR’

 When we step out of our urban homes on the streets of Mumbai, Delhi or Chennai or for that matter any metropolitan hub of India, all we can see is bustling crowd, widely lit streets and shininess. We spend crores on the glitz and gloss to portray urbanity. From streets to malls or even a local vegetable market, everything that we see seems to glitter. Apart from the immense illumination that strikes us, the number of switches that we turn on is innumerable. The gizmos and gadgets that we use to make our lives better somewhere seem to have adverse effect on us. Climate Change is an infamous global phenomenon that has taken its toll on planet earth.

World Tuberculosis Day 2011

World Tuberculosis (TB) Day, which falls on March 24 every year, aims to raise public awareness about tuberculosis, a preventable disease. Tuberculosis is still an epidemic in many regions of the world, annihilating the lives of many millions of people each year. Each year, over nine million people around the world get infected with TB and almost two million TB related deaths are recorded worldwide. The actual figures must be far larger than this.

International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination

	21March 2011 -- On this day in 1960, police opened fire and killed 69 people peacefully demonstrating against apartheid "pass laws" in the township of Sharpeville, South Africa. The notorious passbooks were a repressive tool to control the movements of black South Africans. The United Nations General Assembly subsequently declared 21 March to be the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and called on the international community not only to commemorate that tragedy, but also to work together to combat racism and discrimination wherever they exist.  Racial and ethnic discrimination occur on a daily basis, hindering progress for millions of people around the world. Racism and intolerance can take various forms − from denying individuals the basic principles of equality to fuelling ethnic hatred that may lead to genocide − all of which can destroy lives and fracture communities. Since the Sharpeville massacre, substantial progress has been made in the struggle against racism. The apartheid system in South Africa has been dismantled. Racist laws and practices have been abolished in many countries, and an international framework for fighting racism, guided by the International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, has been established. The Convention is now nearing universal ratification. Yet still, in all regions, too many individuals, communities and societies suffer from the injustice and stigma that racism brings. Source: United Nations