Saturday, October 27, 2007

UN Millennium Development Goals

...Why arent more people talking about these?? Especially in countries like ours...all governments whether at the centre or the states should be measured against these...

In September 2000, at the Millenium Summit of the UN, 189 leaders of their respective countries came together and adopted a set of 8 goals to make Earth a more welcoming place for the future generations...Of the 8 goals, 7 are time bound and measurable and the 8th is an ideal goal for our society.

The goals are -


  1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. The targets under this are -
    • Reduce by half the proportion of people living on less than one U.S. dollar a day.
    • Reduce by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger.

  2. Achieve universal primary education. The targets under this are -
    • Ensure that all boys and girls complete a full course of primary schooling.
    • Increased enrollment must be accompanied by efforts to ensure that all children remain in school and receive a high-quality education.

  3. Promote gender equality and empower women. The target under this is -
    • Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015.

  4. Reduce child mortality. The target under this is -
    • Reduce the mortality rate among children under five by two thirds.

  5. Improve maternal health. The target under this is -
    • Reduce by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio.

  6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases. The targets under this are -
    • Halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV AIDS.
    • Halt and begin to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases.

  7. Ensure environmental sustainability. The targets under this are -
    • Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes; reverse loss of environmental resources.
    • Reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water.
    • Achieve significant improvement in lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers, by 2020.

  8. Develop a global partnership for development. The targets under this are -
    • Develop further an open trading and financial system that is rule-based, predictable and non-discriminatory. Includes a commitment to good governance, development and poverty reduction—nationally and internationally.
    • Address the least developed countries’ special needs. This includes tariff-and quota-free access for their exports; enhanced debt relief for heavily indebted poor countries; cancellation of official bilateral debt; and more generous official development assistance for countries committed to poverty reduction.
    • Address the special needs of landlocked and small island developing States.
    • Deal comprehensively with developing countries' debt problems through national and international measures to make debt sustainable in the long term.
    • In cooperation with the developing countries, develop decent and productive work for youth.
    • In cooperation with pharmaceutical companies, provide access to affordable essential drugs in developing countries.
    • In cooperation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies - especially information and communications technologies.

Saturday, October 13, 2007

कोशिश करने वालों की हार नहीं होती

लहरों से डरकर नौका पार नहीं होती,
कोशिश करने वालों की हार नहीं होती

नन्ही चींटी जब दाना लेकर चलती है,
चढती दीवारों पर, सौ बार फिसलती है
मन का विश्वास रगों में साहस भरता है,
चढ़कर गिरना, गिरकर चढ़ना ना अखरता है
आख़िर उसकी महनत बेकार नहीं होती,
कोशिश करने वालों की हार नहीं होती

डूबकियां सिंधु में गोताखोर लगाता है,
जा जा कर खाली हाथ लौटकर आता है
मिलते नही सहज ही मोती गहरे पानी में ,
बढ़ता दुगना उत्साह इसी हैरानी में
मुठी उसकी खाली हर बार नहीं होती ,
कोशिश करने वालों की हार नही होती

असफलता एक चुनौती है, इसे स्वीकार करो,
क्या कमी रह गई, देखो और सुधार करो
जब तक न सफल हो, नींद चैन को त्यागो तुम,
संघर्ष का मैदान छोड़कर मत भागो तुम
कुछ किए बिना ही जय जय कार नहीं होती,
कोशिश करने वालों की हार नहीं होती

I heard this poem in school once and then in a movie...finally found it on the net. It is by Suryakant Tripathi 'Nirala'. Sad really that I know so little about our own literature - sadder still that I had to use http://www.google.com/transliterate/indicto get the spellings right!!

This will look all messed up in Firefox, you will need to install a plugin to see devanagari script properly in Firefox - one more tick against Firefox.

Going on a different tangent, I would really like to see more content in Indian languages with their English translation on the net.