Sailesh Mishra felicitated with the prestigious ‘Karmaveer Puraskaar Maharatna’

• Three-day congregation celebrates inclusivity, egalitarianism and extraordinary in ordinary
• Awardees for this year represented 10 plus countries

November 26, 2019, New Delhi: Sailesh Mishra has been felicitated with the coveted ‘Karmaveer Puraskaar Maharatna’ National award for his commendable work in the field of social service at the annual “iCONGO’s  REX Conclave that was held from November 25 to 27 in New Delhi. 

The three-day congregation celebrated inclusivity, egalitarianism and extraordinary in ordinary as REX believes in POWER of ONE and “I Change to Change India, I change to change the World and I change to change everything”.

The coveted awards celebrate their belief in “Not just Talks but ideas for Action” to usher in change. The 3-day REX CONCLiVE is a must for all Karmaveeraward recipients and REX Karmaveer Global Fellows to attend because the 3 days is where a lot of collective-learning, knowledge-sharing and wisdom-transfer. Thus, the REX CONCLiVE is not just a school, college, institution or university of learning, but a TEMPLE OF LEARNING that celebrates and values LIFE, LEADERSHIP and Leaning2Learn lessons that each fellow and award recipient shares with each other. Here everyone is a learner and teacher and mentor and mentee. In the words of Jeroninio Almeida (founder of REX and Karmaveer mission) in his book series Karma Kurry “I believe that everyone is a hero, a leader, a volunteer, a teacher and a champion of change. All we need to do is acknowledge and understand this and then help others to also understand the same. That’s all it takes to be a hero, a leader, a volunteer, a teacher and a champion of change.”

At the REX Karmaveer Global Fellowship, we have created this shared, sacrosanct space for learning where everyone learns from each other and draws inspiration from each other. Earlier this year we had launched the REX Karmaveer Global Young Leaders Fellowship where several students from schools/colleges were awarded the Karmaveer Chakra (instituted in partnership with the UN) Blue Medallion of Honour for their cutting-edge work to be the change and make a difference. This year on 26th November 2019 several Karmaveer Puraskaar award recipients and Noble Laureates, from the past 15 years were awarded the highest Honour, the Karmaveer Puraskaar Maharatna for their sustained efforts to keep doing good and continuing with their noble work.  These 45 award recipients were also given the Karmaveer Chakra blue medallion of honour, which was created for students, for being lifelong learners and keeping an open mind to learning in every moment. We must remember Leadership and Learning are co-related and indispensable to each other.

The awardees for this year represented several countries from across the globe and were finalised after a rigorous selection process. These awards seek to celebrate and inspire individual citizen social responsibility, justice and action, and are held every year on the day the Indian Constitutional Pledge was signed.

Sailesh Mishra has been conferred with this award for his constant work in the field of Elder care and Dementia.

Commenting on the award, REX founder Jeroninio Almeida said, "The  Rex Karamveer  Global Fellowship, Karamveer Puraskaar and Karmaveer Chakra awards  recognise and applaud the social commitment of concerned, socially responsible individuals, who have proactively and voluntarily worked for bringing a positive transformation in the society and the world we live in. In today’s world where there is huge apathy & indifference, we feel a paramount need for being not just a good person but also a good citizen who exercises her/ his rights, duties & responsibilities as a concerned, just and humane citizen.”

“We congratulate Sailesh Mishra for possessing the conviction and compassion to stand up, speak out and lead the change with her positive as well as Inspirational attitude! The management of iCONGO has selected his/ her nomination after thorough due diligence. We are glad to have found a true champion of social justice issues in Sailesh Mishra and wish that more and more citizens gave their time, involvement and humane feelings towards addressing social justice issues and being the change and role models for other citizens to follow,” Almeida added.

The CtrlS - iCONGO promoted “KARMAVEER PURASKAAR (KVP)” are the Global Awards for Social Justice and Citizen Action instituted by the people sector & civil society with various partner organisations, citizens at large and media supporters. Be the change you want to see in this world is what every KARMAVEER inherently believes and practices.

The awards are given every year on the 26th day of November, our National Social Justice and Citizen Action Day, the day we adopted our constitutional pledge as a REPUBLIC and Indian Citizens in 1949.

The “KARMAVEER PURASKAAR” awards ceremony has over the years become a “MELTING POT” where People from India & Global Citizens that comprise individuals ranging from princes and princesses to global bestselling authors, young politicians, statesmen, bureaucrats, ambassadors, actors, singers, captains of industry, media professionals, development workers, young adults, students, school children, homemakers, academicians, slum workers and others who come “TOGETHER as ONE to RIGHT every WRONG”. 


About Karmaveer Puraskaar:

The Karmaveer Puraskaar is the global civilian honours given by the international confederation of NGO (iCONGO) in partnership with United Nations to the people across the globe for relentless courage. The award is tribute to the A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, 11th President of India, who had offered to be the ambassador for the awards and international volunteering olympiad.
The award is presented annually in mid of November to individuals and organisations in broad categories like activism, education, volunteering and healthcare. Some of the recipients are Joyanto Mukherjee, Deepika Narayan Bhardwaj, Harish Iyer, Hariharan Iyer, Dr. Shruti Kapoor, Manju LathaKalanidhi, RtnSayantan Sinha, Dr.RenuAgrawal,BinayakDewan,JyotiDhawale, Kajol, GeetaSankar, Sudha Menon among many others.

Verghese Kurien known as father of the white revolution of India is the first recipient of Karmaveer lifetime achievement award.




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CHINA: Physicist, 92 and architect, 89, win top national award

BEIJING / People's Daily / China Politics / February 15, 2012

Chinese President Hu Jintao (C) poses for a photo with physicist Xie Jialin (R) and architect
Wu Liangyong (L) after presenting to them the 2011 State Top Scientific and Technological
Award at a ceremony held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. (Xinhua/Ju Peng)

Two Chinese scientists, physicist Xie Jialin and architectWu Liangyong, were both given China's top science and technology award Tuesday morning at a high-profile annual ceremony held to honor excellent scientists andresearch achievements.

Attended by President Hu Jintao, Premier Wen Jiabao and senior leaders LiChangchun and Li Keqiang, the event, staged in the Great Hall of the People, saw thetwo each conferred the State Top Scientific and Technological Award and awarded 5million yuan (794,900 U.S.dollars).

President Hu Jintao delivered certificates to the two top scientists, shook their handsand congratulated them on their achievements. Read more

Copyright by People's Daily
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USA: The New Yorker 2012 Anniversary Cover By 99 Year Old

NEW YORK, NY / The New Yorker / February 13, 2012

Alma Mitchell, 99, of Tumwater, Washington, has been declared as one of the 12 winners of The New Yorker Magazine's 2012 Anniversary Issue cover. The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism. Its first issue's cover in 1925 with dandy Eustace Tilley, was created by Rea Irvin. 

Read more about Alma Mitchell and her remarkable accomplishment in The Olympian
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Seniors World Chronicle's Fascinating Face of Aging for January 21, 2012

Swedish Poet Tomas Transtromer, 80, winner of 2011 Nobel for Literature, who
"gives us fresh access to reality through his condensed, translucent images." 
Two of his works - The Half-Finished Heaven and New and Collected Poems - 
were recommended by the Nobel Prize Committee. Reuters / The AtlanticWire
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USA: Meryl Streep thanks the English

LONDON, England / The Telegraph / Culture / Films / January 16, 2012


Golden Globes 2012: Meryl Streep thanked England for letting her “trample all over history” with her Golden Globe-winning performance in The Iron Lady.

Meryl Streep with her Golden Globe award for Best Performance by an Actress in The Iron Lady Photo: EPA/PAUL BUCK

By Anita Singh, Showbusiness Editor


In a widely predicted win, Meryl Streep picked up the best actress in a drama award for her role as Baroness Thatcher. But she faced accusations of ungracious behaviour when she failed to mention the former Prime Minister in her lengthy acceptance speech at the Los Angeles ceremony. The 62-year-old actress thanked many others including her fellow nominees, the cast and crew of the film, and Harvey Weinstein, the Hollywood mogul who distributed The Iron Lady and to whom she jokingly referred as “God”.    

Continue reading 

The Iron Lady and Margaret Thatcher's dementia: 

Why this despicable film makes voyeurs of us all

Society’s insensitive attitude towards dementia sufferers

By Max Pemberton in London

The film ended and I sat motionless while the credits rolled. Slowly I got up and walked out into the cold January air, sickened by what I’d been party to, so acutely aware that the scenes presented as entertainment and edification – scenes I’d paid to see – were, at that very moment, possibly taking place in a grand house somewhere in central London. I had partaken of cruel, thoughtless voyeurism, the subject of which was powerless to protest at her exploitation.

There was never any doubt that The Iron Lady would be a controversial film. The mere mention of Margaret Thatcher, despite her leaving office over two decades ago, still divides the nation as it did when she was Prime Minister. Since its release last Friday, the movie has played to packed audiences, taking £2.2 million in its opening weekend and reaching number 1 at the UK box office.

Yet it has also attracted protests and pickets, as well as accusations from those who remain hostile to her premiership that it portrays Lady Thatcher in a forgiving light.

My anger at the film has nothing to do with politics. I don’t object to the artistic licence exercised over certain events or the way Lady Thatcher’s political life is portrayed. My issue is with the portrayal of how she is now. And I suspect that those who have seen the film will feel the same.

While Meryl Streep’s performance is mesmerising, it is impossible not to be disturbed by her depiction of Lady Thatcher’s decline into dementia. Columnists and commentators such as Charles Moore, Norman Tebbit and Douglas Hurd have opined in this newspaper and elsewhere about this distasteful approach. And David Cameron has similarly questioned the morality of making the film while she is still alive. I did not expect to agree with them. But now I am even more vehement in my condemnation, because, as a doctor, I have direct experience of the reality of dementia for the sufferer and their family.

The film is based in the present day and features flashbacks to Lady Thatcher’s early life, her rise to power and the defining events of her premiership and downfall. But from the opening scene, where a confused and befuddled Lady Thatcher wanders into a corner shop to buy a pint of milk, I began to feel uncomfortable. As I watched scene after scene showing this once all-powerful woman as old, bewildered and scared, my discomfort turned to rage.

Outstanding: Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady Photo: FILM STILLS

In one vignette, she is hosting a dinner party at her Belgravia home, clearly confused as to who is present, muddled in her thinking and humiliated as she struggles with names and battles to keep up with the conversation. There is a flash of the old Mrs Thatcher and her mastery of argument – then it is gone. In another poignant scene, she scuttles around her flat, turning on electrical appliances in an attempt to drown out the sound of the “voice” of her long-dead husband Denis, which torments her constantly. She peers furtively around doors to overhear people discussing her deterioration.

In my work in caring for the elderly, I have treated many older people with dementia. The way Streep captures this is outstandingly accurate. Anyone who has cared for someone with Alzheimer’s, for example, will recognise the waxing and waning confusion; the way in which sufferers appear to slip into another world, their loss of a sense of time, the way they look at you utterly perplexed in stark contrast to rare moments of startling clarity and insight – all the things that make this disease so cruel and tragic. The film is faultless in its depiction of dementia.

But to show someone in the throes of an illness while they are actually experiencing it and in terminal decline is chillingly insensitive. Can you imagine an unauthorised film being made about the life of a public figure who was dying of cancer, for example – Christopher Hitchens, say – before his death? Can you imagine watching scenes that his family opposed – showing him writhing in agony, weak and vulnerable? Of course not. There would be a furious outcry. It would rightly be considered a terrible violation of that person’s privacy, and in appalling poor taste.

So how are the scenes that show Lady Thatcher battling with dementia any different? Whether the portrayal of her as an old lady is sympathetic and kindly or not is irrelevant. It dramatises highly personal and deeply tragic aspects of someone’s life while they are still experiencing it.

I never imagined I would ever leap to the defence of Margaret Thatcher. I am a child of the Thatcher era but no Thatcherite. In the Eighties, my father lost his job as a milkman and joined the ranks of the unemployed. Times were hard and I remember vividly the loathing my parents felt towards her and her government. They actively supported the miners’ strikes and I have fond memories of visiting Barnsley and sitting on a miner’s knee while my parents were taken on an informal tour of the pits.

I remember the graffiti daubed on walls near our home after the poll tax riots. I remember going on marches and protests with my mother and chanting the old soubriquet “Thatcher, Thatcher milk-snatcher”. I also remember the day in 1990 when Lady Thatcher left office and a music teacher burst into our classroom, unable to conceal her delight.

Margaret Thatcher was a pantomime-ish villain of my childhood. Since then, I have developed a more circumspect view of her time in power, and a grudging respect.

I still loathe the insidious selfishness that crept into the collective consciousness under her premiership and that is so pervasive now. But I also think it’s all too easy to vilify a powerful, determined, forthright and ambitious woman as an ogre, blaming her for society’s ills in a way that would never happen to a man in public office. She was dedicated to public service, with a strong sense of social responsibility and duty. While I might not agree with her solutions to the serious problems this country faced in the early Eighties, at least she believed passionately that what she was doing was for the greater good. Surely her astonishing political journey from grocer’s daughter to Downing Street is worthy enough of the Hollywood treatment, without focusing on her descent into dementia?

Whatever one’s feelings about Lady Thatcher’s legacy, The Iron Lady is a disgraceful film. You do not have to support her politics to defend her right to privacy in old age. She deserves to be treated with as much dignity as anyone else. This is precisely what the film, in depicting her in the grip of dementia while she is still alive, fails to do.

I do not know how impaired Lady Thatcher is, if she really hallucinates and sees her dead husband or has ever slipped past her minders to wander aimlessly to the shops, confused and alone. But I do hope she never sees this film or reads the reviews. No wonder her children, Mark and Carol, refused to attend private screenings.

Watch this film without knowledge of the background and you’d assume Margaret Thatcher had already died. This is what angered me most about The Iron Lady. It is representative of how society largely views elderly people, particularly those with dementia. They are ignored. They are considered to be dead long before they actually are. Those with dementia experience a loss, not just of their memory and cognition, but of respect and dignity.

Sociologists talk of “social death” and “biological death”. Ideally, the two coincide, but in dementia, there is discordance. As people with dementia decline, they are no longer deemed worthy of attention or thought. As far as society is concerned, they are already history. This film gets away with treating Lady Thatcher as though she were already dead, because that’s precisely how society behaves towards the old and infirm. This is lamentable, vile and shameful – and it should anger every one of us. 


© Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2012

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USA: Volunteer of the Year is a retiree who never stops moving

AUSTIN, Texas / Austin American-Statesman / December 30, 2011

Janelle Hebbe, the American-Statesman's Volunteer of the Year, said she loves getting to know people and helping those in need.  Laura Skelding/ AMERICAN-STATESMAN


By Andrea Ball

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

To Janelle Hebbe, volunteering is a way of life.

The 67-year-old Pflugerville native makes quilts for children in Africa, takes frail seniors to the doctor, supports breast cancer fundraisers, spearheads multiple programs at Immanuel Lutheran Church, hosts meetings for senior citizens and ushers at the Austin Symphony. To her, it's not work, she said. It's routine.

"It keeps you going, keeps you alive," Hebbe said. "It gets you outside of yourself. It reminds you it's a big world out there and you're a part of that."

Hebbe is the winner of the American-Statesman's annual Volunteer of the Year contest, which honors Central Texans who spend time helping charities, churches and neighborhoods. This year's contest drew more than 70 nominations in six categories: faith, youth, social services, education, senior and neighborhood.

Hebbe, who was nominated in the faith category, was chosen as the overall winner because of the breadth, frequency and longevity of her volunteer work in the community.

"She certainly deserves it," said Beverly Wolff, a financial secretary at Immanuel Lutheran Church. "She's very dedicated and has an extreme amount of faith and is the most interesting person I've ever been around. She'll do anything."

Hebbe was raised on a Pflugerville farm, on which her father grew cotton, corn and other crops. Her mother was a registered nurse. Volunteer work wasn't an option, as both parents worked hard to support Hebbe and her sister.

Hebbe said she has more time to volunteer than some people because she is not married and has no children, so she's always tried to pitch in where it's needed. While working at the Travis County sheriff's office as a records supervisor, for example, she helped with the department's Brown Santa program.

When she retired in 1997, volunteering became an even bigger part of Hebbe's life. Today, her volunteer résumé is packed full of faith-related and secular projects.

Hebbe works with Women of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, whose efforts include putting together care packages for infants in developing countries. She coordinates Immanuel Lutheran Church's Tired and Retired group, which provides meals and activities for people in assisted living homes; helps assemble the church newsletter; and assists with vacation Bible school.

She volunteers as a secretary for the Heritage House Museum Partners and works with Faith in Action, which takes seniors to the doctor, grocery store or pharmacy.

The list goes on and on.

"She's very conscientious, a very nice lady," said Sherri Hoefling, office secretary at Immanuel Lutheran Church. "She does a lot."

But Hebbe, who spends her few spare moments square dancing or watching "The Young and the Restless," said she gets as much out of volunteering as she gives. She loves getting to know people and helping those in need, she said. And there's never a shortage of work to be done.

"I just can't understand when people say, 'I'm not going to retire because I don't know what do,'" she said. "I say, 'Come to me. I'll tell you what to do.'"

aball@statesman.com

Copyright © 2012 Statesman.com
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Seniors World Chronicle Fascinating Face of Aging: Dec 28, 2011

FASHION DESIGNER Sir Paul Smith, 65, was honoured at the 2011 British Fashion Awards for Outstanding Achievement. Paul Smith was 15 when he left school, got on his bike, and pedalled off to his first job at a clothes warehouse in Nottingham. Now, some 50 years later, Sir Paul has been awarded British fashion's highest honour, London's Sunday Telegraph has learned. Photo: Clara Molden / The Telegraph
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Seniors World Chronicle's Fascinating Face of Aging: Dec 21, 2011

President John Evans Atta Mills of Ghana, born July 1944, has PhD in Law from the London School of Oriental and African Studies and was a Fulbright scholar at Stanford Law School in the USA. He was sworn in as the Third President of the Republic of Ghana in January 2009. He is a taxation expert, he has lectured on law, and is academician, sportsman and an astute politician. He is known in Ghana as "Asomdweehene" which literally means the "King of Peace". He is married to Ernestina Naadu Mills, an educationist. They have a son, Sam Kofi Atta Mills. Source: Ghanaweb

Copyright © 1994 - 2011 GhanaWeb
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SAUDI ARABIA: King Abdullah, 87, Honored with Parenthood Award

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia / Arab News / December 16, 2011

On behalf of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah, Saudi Ambassador to Egypt Ahmed Kattan, right, receives on Thursday the Arabian Parenthood Award from United Nations Ambassador for Humanitarian Services Elham Harasani in Cairo. (SPA)

CAIRO: The children of the Arab world have awarded Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah the Arabian Parenthood Award in appreciation of the king’s pioneering role in building a new generation that loves peace and virtue in the Arab world.

On behalf of King Abdullah, Saudi Ambassador to Egypt Ahmed Kattan received the award from United Nations Ambassador for Humanitarian Services Elham Harasani at a function organized by the Arab League in Cairo on Thursday.

Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby, former Egyptian President Essam Sharaf and former Premier Ali Lutfi were also present at the occasion, the Saudi Press Agency reported.

Elarabi commended Saudi Arabia’s role under the leadership of King Abdullah in spreading the ties of family affinity in the Arab world, which, in turn, has served as the basis for social awakening and progress.

“King Abdullah has been supporting comprehensive developmental plans covering family, education, culture and information, which resulted in higher levels of living and prosperity for the Arab and Saudi people,” Elarabi said.

The secretary-general also noted with appreciation the Saudi plan to host a Social, Economic and Developmental Summit in Riyadh in 2013.

Speaking after receiving the award, Ambassador Kattan said it was an honor for him to receive the award on behalf of the king from the children of the Arab countries.

“The award is an expression of the love and appreciation of all people in various parts of the world for King Abdullah’s kind and just deeds and policies stressing nonviolence and peace everywhere,” Kattan said in his speech.

The Saudi ambassador also highlighted the remarkable achievements of the king in spreading the spirit of peace including the launch of the interfaith dialogue on a global level.

The Kingdom under the leadership of King Abdullah donated $1 billion to support global efforts to root out illiteracy and provide compulsory primary education for all children by 2015, the ambassador said.

Saudi Arabia also allocated $500 million in loan assistance for educational projects in developing and less developed countries, Kattan said.

He added the king also allocated $500 million to lighten the burden of rising fuel prices in poor countries and $1 billion to support developmental projects in developing countries.

While the Kingdom allocated $500 million to the World Food Program, it waived debts worth $6 billion from poor countries, a move far ahead of international efforts to make similar concessions.

The ambassador also outlined the king’s efforts to achieve greater social progress with better school curricula and higher spending on general and higher education besides the development of hospitals and health care centers across the Kingdom.

© 2010 Arab News
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SAUDI ARABIA: 120 Elderly Feted At World Aged Day Celebrations

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia / Arab News / Law and You / December 9, 2011

Aramco honors elderly Saudis

Jeddah health director Dr. Sami Badawood and other health officials with an elderly man at Saudi Aramco's community center in Jeddah on Thursday on the occasion of World Aged Day. (SPA)
By Arab News

Saudi Aramco celebrated World Aged Day with the participation of 120 elderly people and officials at its community social center in Jeddah on Thursday, the Saudi Press Agency reported.

The Social Affairs Administration and Heath Directorate also participated in the celebration.

The amusement programs that were reminiscent of ancient times in Jeddah such as the Hakawati (folk-style story telling) and Hijazi Majas (songs on spiritual themes) also featured in the event. Games of basketball, foosball, and tug of war were also organized on the occasion. Lutes and folk music were also played.

Director of Aramco Affairs (Western Region) Nabil Baashan, Director of Health Affairs in Jeddah Dr. Sami Badwood and director of the Social Affairs Ministry’s Makkah province branch Abdullah Al-Tawi also attended the event, which carried the theme “Add life to years, not years to life.”

The activities of the day also included health workshops on blood pressure, diabetes, health awareness, family and psychological counseling.

“The World Aged Day is an opportunity to shed light on the issues of the aged and the need to take care of them by offering quality service in the sectors of health and social services. In fact, we should appreciate their service to the nation and society,” Badawood said.

He also commended Saudi Aramco’s social responsibility services. Al-Tawi said there are more than 200 elderly people under the care of the Social Affairs Ministry in Makkah province, which included Jeddah, Makkah and Taif.

Assistant Director of Primary Health Care and Preventive Medicine Dr. Sami Eid said World Aged Day this year focused on international agreements on the aged for health care, social services and rehabilitation if they were disabled.

He said the health department has been providing all required services for the care of the elderly through primary health care centers. He added that steps were being taken to train officials in health care centers to take special care of the aged in addition to opening clinics for them.

© 2010 Arab News
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BELIZE: Twenty Senior Citizens Get Golden Age Heroes Awards

The National Council on Ageing, an organization that works to advocate the rights of older persons today held “The Golden Age Heroes Awards 2011.”

Among those present at the Biltmore Hotel this morning for the event was Governor General, Sir Colville Young and Minister of Human Development and Social Transformation Peter Eden Martinez.

Lindy Jeffery is the Executive Director for the National Council on Ageing.

“The Golden Heroes was started two years ago when we decided it was very important to acknowledge the contributions that older persons have made to society. So often they are forgotten, we don’t value them so much when they have gotten older so we felt that there so many older people around the country that are still volunteering in organizations, still contributing and we wanted to honor them so we started the process two years ago and this is the second one that we are holding today. We have people here that are in their 70s and 80s but you can see they have contributed to their communities for so many years.”

Among those present at the Biltmore Hotel this morning for the event was Governor General, Sir Colville Young and Minister of Human Development and Social Transformation Peter Eden Martinez who shared some inspiring words when he gave the opening remarks.

Peter Eden Martinez - Minister of Human Development and Social Transformation 

“This is a time where we recognize the efforts and the work that our senior citizens have been engaged in and of course several times the work they have contributed to the advancement and the development of this country go unhonored but this gives us a time in order for us in order for us to recognize their efforts and their work. I believe the timing; I think it was divine intervention because Christmas is a time when we recognize and we share and we bid each other good cheer so I believe the delay in fact has assisted us to do it at this time.” 

A total of twenty nominees were cited for the Golden Age Heroes Awards this year. A presentation of the recipients was made by the person who nominated them and the awards were then presented by Minister Martinez. Although it was an event for Senior Citizens, you could see that most remained young at heart especially the Senior Steps Dance Group that delighted the crowd with their energetic dance. 

The ceremony was followed by lunch and a dance. A total of twenty nominees were cited for the Golden Age Heroes Awards this year.

National Council on Ageing 

E-Mail: ncabze@yahoo.com
BELMOPAN CITY, Belize / December 7, 2011

Courtesy: LoveFM News & Music
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FRANCE: 2011 Nobel Prize winner says: 'I thought it was a joke'

SHANGHAI, China / The Shanghai Daily / Science / October 5, 2011

IN Shanghai yesterday, Jules Hoffmann, one of the three scientists who shared the 2011 Nobel Prize for Medicine, said he thought at first it was a joke when he was told he had won the award.

The scientist was on a visit to the city when he was told of the Nobel Committee's decision by a Chinese friend and fellow researcher on Monday night.

"I was enjoying the firework shows at Century Park in Pudong with my wife when my Chinese friend, Professor Cao Meixun, told me about the Nobel Prize," Hoffmann told Shanghai Daily. "I then thought it was a joke, just a mistake, and I couldn't believe it."

The award meant that the Luxembourg-born French national had to cut short his trip to China and he flew back to France last night. A lecture he planned to give at the Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences on Saturday was canceled. But he promised he would return and said he was hoping for more collaboration with Chinese scientists.

Jules Hoffmann, one of the three scientists to share the 2011 Nobel Prize for medicine, and his wife Daniele pose for photographs at the Ruijin Hotel in Shanghai yesterday. The Nobel laureate was traveling in China and he learned of his award while watching a fireworks display in Shanghai on Monday night. Photo by Zhang Suoqing

"I am already impressed by the increase of research in quality and quantity in China," he said. "I see it as a positive trend."

Hoffmann first visited China in 1980 to carry out insect research at a Shanghai institute under the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He has since visited the city half a dozen times. One of the Chinese researchers he has worked with is Professor Cao and the two have remained firm friends.

Hoffmann said his decades of research into the immunity of insects could enable scientists to find a cure for human disorders. He shares the Nobel Prize for medicine with fellow scientists American Bruce Beutler and Canadian Ralph Steinman, who died last week. The trio's work "opened up new avenues for the development of prevention and therapy against infections, cancer and inflammatory diseases," the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm said. Their research helps open the door to new drugs and tackling human immune disorders, in which the body attacks itself, it said.

Hoffmann has won a number of awards this year, including Hong Kong's Shaw Prize, also shared with Beutler and Ruslan Medzhitov, Canada's Gairdner Award and France's highest scientific decoration - the CNRS Gold Medal, which is awarded by the National Center for Scientific Research.

A modest Hoffmann said that the Nobel Prize, science's ultimate accolade, is in recognition of all the people working in the field of immunology.  He said he hadn't yet thought how he would use his share of the 10 million Swedish kronor (US$1.5 million) he is set to receive.

Hoffmann's links with China are not purely scientific.  He said he has a deep interest in Chinese culture, including Chinese painting and history, and has paid visits to Xi'an in Shaanxi Province, Yunnan Province, Guilin in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and the Yellow Mountain.

Copyright © 2001-2011 Shanghai Daily Publishing House.
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KENYA: 'African heroine' Maathai dies at 71

LONDON, England / The Guardian / World News / September 26, 2011

Wangari Maathai, Kenyan social activist, environmental crusader who founded the Green Belt Movement, and Nobel peace prize winner, has died of cancer at 71.

By Xan Rice in Nairobi

Wangari Maathai, Nobel peace laureate at the Hay festival in 2007.

Photograph: Martin Godwin for the Guardian

Wangari Maathai, the first African woman to win the Nobel peace prize, died on Sunday night of cancer. She was 71.

A towering figure in Kenya, Maathai was renowned as a fearless social activist and an environmental crusader. Her Green Belt Movement, which she founded in 1977, planted tens of millions of trees.

Maathai's death was confirmed in a statement on the movement's website.

"It is with great sadness that the family of Professor Wangari Maathai announces her passing away on 25 September 2011, at the Nairobi hospital, after a prolonged and bravely borne struggle with cancer. Her loved ones were with her at the time."

Maathai was a pioneer from an early age and in many spheres. After winning a scholarship to study in the US, she returned to a newly independent Kenya, becoming the first woman in east and central Africa to obtain a PhD. Maathai was also the first woman professor the University of Nairobi, where she taught veterinary medicine.

Her work with voluntary groups alerted her to the struggles of women in rural Kenya, and it quickly became her life's cause. Noticing how the rapid environmental degradation was affecting women's lives, she encouraged them to plant trees to ensure future supplies of firewood and to protect water sources and crops.

Maathai's agenda quickly widened as she joined the struggle against the repressive and corrupt regime of Daniel arap Moi. Her efforts to stop powerful politicians grabbing land, especially forests, brought her into conflict with the authorities, and she was beaten and arrested numerous times. Her bravery and defiance made her a hero in Kenya.

In awarding Maathai the Nobel peace prize in 2004, the Nobel committee said that her "unique forms of action have contributed to drawing attention to political oppression – nationally and internationally".

Maathai served as an assistant minister in President Mwai Kibaki's government from 2003 to 2005, but her refusal to keep silent on some issues saw her politically sidelined, and she lost her seat after a single term. Her work schedule remained hectic however, and she wrote several books and travelled widely.

Maathai had been in and out of hospital this year, though most Kenyans were unaware of her illness until it was reported in the local media late last week.

"Professor Maathai's departure is untimely and a very great loss to all who knew her – as a mother, relative, co-worker, colleague, role model, and heroine; or who admired her determination to make the world a more peaceful, healthier, and better place," the statement from her organisation said.

Maathai is survived by her three children and a granddaughter.

© 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited
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USA: ‘Genius’ Grant goes to Washington activist who fights elder abuse

WASHINGTON, DC / The Washington Post / Lifestyle / September 20, 2011

Marie-Therese Connolly will be awarded the MacArthur genius grant for her work to prevent elder abuse. Marvin Joseph/Washington Post

By Christian Davenport, The Washington Post

As she crafted her closing argument in a case against a Seattle area man who was charged with allowing his elderly mother to literally rot to death, prosecutor Page Ulrey struggled to find the right words. So she called Marie-Therese Connolly, a former Department of Justice lawyer who knew just what to say:

The role of caregiver comes with a legal and moral obligation. And even though the son had said his 84-year-old mother, Ruby Wise, had wanted to die at home with dignity, not in a nursing home, there was nothing dignified about the way she spent her final days — emaciated at 72 pounds, covered in sores so deep that bone was visible through rotted tissue, in a bed stained with urine, feces and blood. Last year, Chris Wise was convicted and sentenced to three years in prison.

On September 20, Connolly, who for years has been trying to place elder abuse in the national spotlight, is being awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, the $500,000, “no strings attached,” so-called “genius” grant given annually to a couple dozen artists, thinkers, social advocates and historians.


“I was shocked that the problem is so invisible,” she said in an interview Monday. “There is so much opportunity for change, and I can’t think of another issue that affects so many people and where less is being done.”

In issuing the award, the foundation said Connolly, a 54-year-old District resident and a senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center, has “devoted her career to laying bare the many forms of elder abuse: physical and psychological, as well as financial exploitation and wrongful deprivation of rights.”

She has done so behind the scenes and in public: writing, lecturing and testifying before Congress. Through her work — described as passionate and tireless by those who know her — she has become more than an advocate, they said, something more akin to a conscience for a society that has not afforded elderly victims the same legal protections that victims of child abuse and domestic violence have had for years.

“I see her as one of the major leading figures in the development of a broader social movement to address elder abuse,” said Kathy Greenlee, the assistant secretary for aging at the Department of Health and Human Services. “People who work in the field of elder abuse feel like we’re two or three decades behind the work we did in this country to address domestic violence, sexual assault and child abuse.”

Five million older citizens are said to be victimized annually, but as many as 96 percent of these cases go unreported. Advocates fear that as the baby boom generation ages and stretches resources, the problem will grow more severe and widespread.

Perhaps no one has done more to combat it than Connolly. A lawyer, she had worked at the Department of Justice prosecuting civil fraud cases. In the late 1990s, a Government Accountability Office investigation found many abuses at California nursing homes, which prompted the Clinton administration to create what became known as the Elder Justice and Nursing Home Initiative. Connolly was put in charge.

“I commend the MacArthur Foundation for recognizing the critical importance of the work Marie-Therese helped launch several years ago at the Justice Department, and the need for our continued vigilance in combating elder abuse, fraud and neglect,” U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said in a statement Monday.

Connolly was the architect of the Elder Justice Act, which was passed by Congress last year, the first piece of federal legislation to address the issue. In 2007, she left the Justice Department to “start writing and talking about these issues in ways that wouldn’t have been appropriate if I was a federal employee,” she said.

She founded a nonprofit organization called Life Long Justice, dedicated to helping fight elder abuse, and is writing a book about the subject.

“It should be a part of the national conversation like health care, justice and jobs,” Connolly said.“I’m just hoping that the foundation’s recognition of what’s really a growing epidemic is the beginning and will be a game-changer in the whole field.”

In testimony this year before a special Senate committee on aging, she cited the case of Ruby Wise and noted that neighbors closed their windows and that Wise’s son had worn earplugs to mute his mother’s cries.

“We as a nation also have been wearing earplugs,” she said. “It’s time that we remove them.”

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AUSTRALIA: The world takes note

SYDNEY, NSW / Australian Aging Agenda / News / September 20, 2011

By Yasmin Noone

One of the Australia’s most renowned and respected providers of aged care services for the homeless, Wintringham, is now in receipt of widespread international recognition having just been awarded the 2011 United Nations Scroll of Honour.

The unanimous decision by UN Habitat to honour Wintringham with one of the six awards for its efforts in housing and serving the needs of older disadvantaged adults marks a double first – not only is it the first time an Australian organisation has ever taken out the top title but no aged care provider anywhere in the world has ever won the crown.

The Habitat awards, launched by the UN Human Settlements Programme in 1989, are said to be the most prestigious human settlements awards in the world.

They aim to acknowledge initiatives which have made outstanding contributions in various fields such as shelter provision, highlighting the plight of the homeless, leadership in post conflict reconstruction, and developing and improving the human settlements and the quality of urban life.

Wintringham CEO, Bryan Lippman AM, said he, his staff and everyone involved with the organisation – government ministers and bureaucrats alike – feel incredibly privileged to have received the honour and the international attention that goes with it.

“It’s pretty hard to get that [type of international recognition],” he commented.

“It’s thrilling and great for so many of us. It’s not like we have been going out looking to get this award…The real success is getting these guys off the street.”

A plaque with details of the honour will be presented to Wintringham CEO, Bryan Lipmann AM, during an official presentation ceremony in Mexico on Global Observance of World Habitat Day, October 3, 2011.

Despite winning the award by way of a unanimous decision, Mr Lippman explained that it did in fact come “out of the blue”.

“The [award organisers] contacted me about three or four months ago and told me about the Scroll of Honour and asked if we’d like to apply for it,” he said.

“We didn’t [for a while] as we were busy. At the last minute, we suddenly remembered and shot something off. It wasn’t that we were trawling through [a list of awards to enter]…We didn’t think we had a hope in the world. The elderly homeless don’t get much of a run anywhere.”

In fact, Mr Lippman said he was so “stunned” to win the award that when he received the email containing the good news he “thought it was a hoax”. “I get a lot of dodgy emails…So I actually rang them up [to ask about the email] and they said no no, ‘It’s real’.”

He then went of to describe the moment that he told his wife about the award: “I told her to sit down and I read the letter to her. She just burst into tears.”

Although the news was not enough to make Mr Lippman well up, he admitted to shedding a tear or two when it comes to the work his staff do to transform the lives of the Wintringham residents.

“This award is a wonderful thing but the [moments] that really get me are to do with some the personal stories of the residents.”

Most importantly to Mr Lippman, the win provides further validation that, with a bit of passion, determination and hard work, it is possible to establish a sustainable and financially viable organisation for older, vulnerable people.

“What the [judges] were interested in was that we have redefined elderly homelessness as being about the elderly and accessing aged care, not homelessness dollars.

“We have moved the issue [of homeless older adults] out of the homeless field and into aged care, and in the process have validated the right of the homeless to receive aged care services.

“I think it is just now well and truly accepted by the government that the homeless have a right to aged care services and to the finest quality aged care services.”

© The Intermedia Group.
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INDIA: Anna Hazare, 74, Ends 12-day Hunger Strike as Parliament Agrees to His Demands

NEW YORK, NY / The New York Times / Asia Pacific / August 28, 2011

By Jim Yardley

NEW DELHI — India’s Parliament capitulated on Saturday to the anticorruption campaigner Anna Hazare and the hundreds of thousands of people who took to the streets to support his cause in a standoff that lasted nearly two weeks.

After a day of wrangling and speechifying, Parliament adopted a resolution endorsing Mr. Hazare’s central demands for shaping legislation to create an independent anticorruption agency empowered to scrutinize public officials and bureaucrats in India.

Anna Hazare, center, in New Delhi on Saturday. He sought the creation of an antigraft agency, and went on a hunger strike. Sajjad Hussain/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images


Mr. Hazare, 74, has been waging a hunger strike for 12 days, refusing to call it off unless Parliament adopted his proposed legislation to fight graft rather than a bill put forward by the government. Huge crowds of supporters have participated in peaceful protests and rallies across India in what became an outpouring of public disgust over corruption.

After Parliament accepted some of his demands in a nonbinding "sense of the house" vote, Mr. Hazare ended his fast on Sunday, accepting a glass of juice from a 5-year-old girl, according to The Associated Press.

On Saturday night at the public grounds in New Delhi where Mr. Hazare had been fasting, thousands of his supporters started rejoicing, even as lawmakers were finishing their speeches in Parliament.

“There is a need of a change in the system,” said Pranab Mukherjee, the powerful minister who introduced the resolution into the Lok Sabha, the lower house. “And we are doing so.”

Parliament must still take several steps before final passage of a law to create the anticorruption agency, known as the Lokpal, before the end of the session. Saturday’s resolution also was marked by a touch of legislative sleight-of-hand. Mr. Hazare’s team had wanted a public vote in order to identify lawmakers who opposed the measure. Instead, the measure was read aloud in both houses and given approval without a vote.

“It was unanimous,” said R. P. N. Singh, a lawmaker and government minister, when asked on NDTV, a news channel, about the lack of a vote. “Both the houses have stepped up their resolve to fight corruption.” Photo courtesy: The Guardian/Mustafa Quraishi/AP

Mr. Hazare’s hunger strike dominated public life in India and exposed a visceral public revulsion at the depth of corruption here, large and small. Hundreds of thousands of people had poured into the streets across the country to support his campaign for a tough anticorruption agency. Movie stars, gurus, politicians, singers and others flocked to his side at Ramlila Maidan, which served as his fasting site. Crowds filled the grounds despite heat and rain.
In recent days, the impasse has been centered on three demands by Mr. Hazare: that Parliament pass a Lokpal law during its current session; that similar agencies to fight corruption be established at the state level; and that a transparent process be established for public grievances. Those demands were endorsed in Saturday’s resolution, though the final details will be codified when the legislation moves to a special parliamentary committee.

“Parliament has spoken,” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told the Indian news media on Saturday. “The will of Parliament is the will of the people.”

If anything, though, the Hazare movement exposed the depth of disillusionment with India’s politics. Mr. Hazare’s hunger strike became a platform to articulate broader public frustrations.

He has lost more than 15 pounds, and refused medical advice to take glucose.

“You have done wonders,” Mr. Hazare told the crowd at Ramlila Maidan on Saturday morning, before Parliament approved the resolution. “Today the Parliament is discussing the issues you have raised. It is the people’s parliament that is supreme.”

P. J. Anthony and Hari Kumar contributed reporting.


© 2011 The New York Times Company
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Seniors World Chronicle, a not-for-profit, serves to chronicle and widen their reach.

USA: 98-year-old is first woman to earn judo black-belt

INDIANAPOLIS / Monsters and Critics / US News / August 25, 2011

By Elisabeth Gruender

San Francisco - She is 98 years old, not even five feet tall, weighs 100 pounds, and could bring most men to their knees with one simple movement of her hand.

Keiko Fukuda has now achieved in her old age what no other woman has achieved before her. The Japanese-born lady has been awarded the highest judo-title, the tenth master belt (Dan).

Fukuda says she couldn't have imagined it, 'not even once.'

Photo courtesy: The Daily Mail, UK
The distinction could be a step to more equality of the genders in a sport that has traditionally been characterized as a men's martial art.

Fukuda has not been competing for many years now, but that doesn't hold her from overseeing training three times a week at Dojo in San Francisco's Noe Valley.

Fukuda-shihan, a title indicating respect for a great master, enters the small training room with careful mini-steps and supported by two helpers. Judo students promptly interrupt their warm-up exercises to greet the master with a deep bow, a look of awe written on their faces.

The master takes a seat next to an oversized black-and-white photo of judo-founder Jigoro Kano, who gazes down at the panting women-in-training with a strict look.

Fukuda owes it to him that she started judo in 1935. Fukuda's grandfather was one of the last samurai of Japan's feudal period and Kano's first teacher of martial arts. Kano invited the young Fukuda to start training out of respect and gratitude for his teacher.

Fukuda, then 22 years old, was shocked, since till then she had been educated only in calligraphy and tea ceremonies.

'There I saw women throwing one another over their shoulders, while spreading their legs,' she recalls. 'I just thought, 'these women are not properly behaved'.'

But then she attended class herself.

'In the beginning I did it not out of personal joy, but out of a sense of duty towards my family and my grandfather.' Marriage was out of the question for her from then on.

Fukuda was invited by judo clubs in 1953 and again in 1966 to hold seminars at universities in California, teaching what at the time was a less well-known martial art.

After her second visit, she stayed in the US, where there were more opportunities to teach judo to women than in Japan, says Fukuda. Since then she teaches in San Francisco, as the only living student of Kano.

Her students appreciate her choice.

'After completing my engineering degree, I wanted to move away from San Francisco. But then I decided to stay here and learn from Fukuda-shihan. She is the final living link. It would be nonsense not to take this opportunity,' says 34-year-old Nav.

Two new students are thrilled after their first judo lesson with the master.

'She is an inspiring teacher full of knowledge, and nevertheless remains humble,' says Ema, who found out about Fukuda through a newspaper article.

© 2003 - 2010 by Monsters and Critics.com
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UK: After 50 years of acting Ian McKellen has 'ambition to get better as an actor'

LONDON, England / The Guardian / Culture / August 24, 2011

After 50 years playing everything from Gandalf to gangsters, the beloved 'national institution' explains why acting keeps him sane

By Emine Saner

Ian McKellen in Chichester. Photograph: Helen Maybanks

Next week, it will be 50 years since Sir Ian McKellen first walked out on stage, at the Belgrade theatre in Coventry. "I couldn't believe my luck," he says when I ask him what it felt like. "I had done a lot of theatre-going when I was a kid, which is how I got interested but I had never thought, really, that I would be an actor, it was the sort of thing I would say to adults to stop them asking what I wanted to be when I grew up." Getting a scholarship to Cambridge was what did it, he says. "There were all these people – Derek Jacobi, David Frost, Trevor Nunn – and they were going to go into the theatre. I thought, frankly if they are good enough, I am."

We sit outside on the terrace of the cafe at the smaller Minerva theatre, part of the Chichester festival theatre complex, where McKellen is appearing in Eduardo de Felippo's 1960 play The Syndicate, directed by Sean Mathias, with whom he has worked many times (they also had a long relationship). He demolishes a slice of victoria sponge quicker than I have ever seen anyone do it before, before noticing my chocolate cake. "Are you going to finish that?" he asks. "I've got a waistline to develop." I slide it over to him. How can I say no?

Before I meet McKellen I fear I may love him. He is grand but doesn't take himself seriously, he continues to devote much of his life to campaigning for gay equality, he thinks people who don't live in London should have access to great plays and great actors – just as he did when he was a child, watching John Gielgud on stage in Manchester – which is why he loves going on tour. After Chichester, the company goes to Malvern, then Cambridge, Bath and Milton Keynes. After that, he is back in his wizard robes in New Zealand to film The Hobbit. He had some time off a while ago, thought he might slow down, but didn't really know what to do with himself. Far better to be working.

He plays Don Antonio, a mafia boss who at 75 is haunted by the memory of the person he killed when he was a teenager. "He was whisked off to New York to avoid the courts. He comes back to Naples with all his guns and cunning and ability to organise, and he puts all that at the service of sorting out people's lives in the hope he can stop people killing each other, behaving badly to each other. So he's a Godfather with a twist. I have great faith in it."

Don Antonio emerges in his dressing gown, shadowboxing in a way that is both impressive – he is clearly a man aware of his own power – and sad because the footsteps aren't as light, the punches not as potent. At one point his son says "Seventy-five? You don't look like an old man" – the same can be said for McKellen, three years younger, who today is wearing a fashionable tweed cap and a string of beads around his neck – but mortality is clearly something that weighs on him. Is McKellen aware of getting older? "Oh God," he says with a huge sigh. "If I'm with people of my own age, we talk about it all the time – 'How's your back? So and so's going blind.' You're constantly aware of it. If I have a fall at my age – aaagh!" He throws his hands up. "I did have a fall the other day. I was running for the river bus and it was a bit slippy. I went down, just the day before we started rehearsing. Does that mean I'm going to be in a sling? Have I broken a bone? Things like that. I have got prostate cancer and I have to keep monitoring that. It's no problem, it's under control and I'm very cool about it but other people are dying from it. And the memory – will the time come when I can't remember the lines? So yes, I'm always talking about age."

Is he angry about it? He seems to be. "No!" he almost shouts. "That would be very egotistical, thinking it wasn't appropriate for me to die. But of course, we all think we're immortal a little bit don't we. So working is a way of keeping mortality at bay."

Are there any parts left for McKellen to play? He has been Prospero, Macbeth and Lear. He has done Chekhov, Ibsen and Beckett. And Coronation Street. He has the best wizarding role of all, nominated for his second Oscar for his role as Gandalf in Lord of the Rings. "I would like to do a pantomime again, because I enjoyed that very much," he says when I ask if he has any more ambitions. "We're very lucky, men, that there are these fabulous parts. Women – once you've done all the parts in Shakespeare they start running out. So you can pick and choose and find something to energise you. My ambition is to get better as an actor. I still think there's room for improvement."

I wonder how he copes with the adoration. "Adored?" he says, sounding just surprised enough to make me think he means it. "Am I?" He's a national treasure! He laughs and looks pleased. "It's lovely when someone comes up and says: 'My husband and I saw you in a play, in fact it was our first date,' and I've been a part of their lives without knowing it and they've got a sentimental attachment [to me], as we all do to actors. But I'm only an actor. I'm not a writer. I'm not going to leave any legacy." He pauses. "All I've ever done is learn the lines and say them."

McKellen's campaign work, he says, is "the good stuff. It was the making of me. It gave my life a purpose. I used to comfort myself when I became an actor that it was a useful job, entertaining people. And it was important to do it as well as you possibly can. But being part of the movement that changed the laws in this country that disadvantaged gay people, that's going to affect people in the future."

He came out relatively late – he was 49 – though it was no secret in his immediate circle. And he is still one of very few officially out Hollywood stars. "I think they put up with me because I'm a foreigner. I'm not a danger. It's a bewilderment really – California is full of mavericks and free thinkers. It has the best lesbian and gay youth centres in the world. There are gay police on the streets of west Hollywood and yet the industry itself is nervous, and that's because it's looking over its shoulder at its audience and its audience doesn't come from Hollywood, it comes from the midwest where it's still not easy to be gay. The battle going on over gay marriage in America reveals an awful lot. The Bible belt – people hate gay people. Because the Bible tells them? No, the Bible tells them an awful lot of things that they ignore."

Over the past couple of years, McKellen has visited more than 50 secondary schools on behalf of Stonewall, the campaign group he co-founded. "It's wonderful," he says. "I've met kids who think they're anti-gay and you talk to them and it turns out they don't know much about it, it's not a subject that is talked about. But [to see] a young gay person who, at 14 knows, and comes out successfully to his parents and family, teachers and friends, it's astonishing. When you hear people saying, 'You shouldn't be talking about homosexuality in schools,' well, if you don't there is going to be another generation of people who are confused, bewildered, suspicious, threatened. These kids aren't threatened by it."

They listen because, well, who wouldn't listen to Gandalf? Did he never wish international fame had come to him earlier? Not at all, he says. "If I had become a well-known film actor and thought, now I must have a film career, that's a very difficult thing to organise. Theatre is relatively easy if you're British – you're living in the theatre capital of the world, London, there are so many places you can work, still. If I had begun to think of myself as a film actor I think I would have got distracted. I'm much happier … it has all worked out wonderfully well. I was way into my 60s so my head was not likely to get swollen. I was just glad to be recognised as being an actor who was succeeding. I liked that side of the acclaim, if that's what you call it. To be a star," he almost spits out the word, "that's never appealed to me really."

Later, in the theatre I wait for the play to start. The woman next to me says she came to see it because she always wanted to see Ian McKellen act, adding gravely: "I don't know how long we'll be able to do that for." But when McKellen takes his bow, he looks as if he couldn't feel more at home anywhere else. As far away from retirement as you can imagine.

The Syndicate is on at the Cambridge Arts Theatre from 29 August, then tours to Bath and Milton Keynes in September

© 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited ______________________________________________________
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Seniors World Chronicle, a not-for-profit, serves to chronicle and widen their reach.