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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Credit: Reports and photographs are property of owners of intellectual rights. Seniors World Chronicle, a not-for-profit, serves to chronicle and widen their reach.

INDIA : Senior Citizens to benefit from 'Celebrating Age' EXPO

Countdown begins for India’s biggest ever active-ageing carnival, the ultimate Retirement Lifestyle Expo 'Celebrating Age' is presented by MetLife India Insurance Company Limited, Associate Sponsor: State Bank Of India (Reverse Mortgage), in association with  International Longevity Centre India ILC-I India’s premier Institute in ageing as Patrons and produced by Vision India, a niche consulting and market analytic firm specializing in show management.  The event will be staged across 8 cites in India for two days each to propagate products, services   opportunities and activities that the elderly can participate to enrich their retirement lives.

“Celebrating Age”! Retirement Expo an active ageing series is being organized from Sept 1 to 21 Oct 2012 (two days in each city) at Bangalore ,Pune, Mumbai, Ahemedabad,  Goa, Chennai, Hyderabad , Delhi. It will be perfect platform for the industry to flourish, to enhance the retirement lifestyle of senior citizens. The challenge is to ensure that the elderly are able to lead a healthy & dignified life ahead. They should have every opportunity to pursue the activities of their choice and be treated with respect and dignity. The elderly form a rich repository of knowledge and experience. 

'Celebrating Age', an active ageing retirement expo is being organised by Vision India in association with the International Longevity Centre India Chapter and supported by the International Federation on Ageing (IFA), the Silver Inning Foundation (SIF) and the Association of Senior Living India (ASLI).

Event Composition includes Grand Inauguration followed by workshop on Qualitative and Healthy Ageing by panel of experts. Two day Exhibition featuring Banking, Insurance and Housing companies. Recruitment Desks. Health & Wellness Counters. Activity Zone, fun and frolic like Tambola, musical chair, live performances, Jaaz Band, Magic, Yoga, and Aerobics. Closing Celebrations on second day.

“Celebrating Age”! India Expo 2012, an active ageing series on Retirement is crafted with an objective of setting the tone where the 21st century ageing populations make useful networks. Profile includes assemblage of lifestyle products and services for those who are looking forward to enjoy the years of retirement in full style and grandeur. The newest products and services will be on showcase for discerning buyers.2012 Retirement expo will be perfect platform for the industry to flourish, to enhance the retirement lifestyle of senior citizens.

Focus: Worldwide ageing populations are recognizing that active ageing marks the emergence of new markets, requires adherence to innovation and inclusive practices. It is expected that the Private sectors and Governments would play an increasingly specific and supportive role to encourage qualitative ageing & productive human talent.

An opportunity exists to tap into the imagination of this potentially significant market given that the 55 + aged may spend 25 to 30 years in retirement. A burst of innovation is expected. Serving this market profitably may require fresh ideas, inclusive approach and new ways of doing business.

The senior community in India presents a tremendous opportunity to service providers and entrepreneurs to innovate on their housing needs and addressing their various lifestyle service and product needs. Seniors are evolving as a mature and serious consumer segment that have needs and wants, which are specific. A significant section of seniors today are independent, financially stable, well-travelled, socially connected, and as a result have well developed thoughts of how they want to spend time after retirement. There is, today, a larger percentage of educated seniors than ever before in India. This demographic, dubbed the active ageing 50+ generation has more wealth to spend and a greater desire for new experiences. 

The challenge is to ensure that the elderly are able to lead a healthy & dignified life ahead. They should have every opportunity to pursue the activities of their choice and be treated with respect and dignity. The elderly form a rich repository of knowledge and experience. 

Unique showcase of an unexplored market poised for growth, addressing trends and tipping points that are accelerating change in consumer attitudes of those aged 50 Plus. This market segment has only touched the tip of the iceberg. 

This Mega event is a pioneering initiative on qualitative ageing and productive human talent. This joint initiative aims to unfold the way forward and take retirement to the next level, thereby setting the tone for the forum, where emerging trends and challenges of the 21st century could reach out through an international network of exhibitions, conferences & entertainment .

You can Join 'Celebrating Age' at  Facebook: 

https://www.facebook.com/CelebratingAge

You can Follow 'Celebrating Age' at Twitter :

https://twitter.com/CelebratingAge

About : Vision India

Vision India is a fifteen year old organization founded by Janaki Raman. A niche consulting and market analytic firm, with an excellent track record of  designing and developing many National and International projects of high impact to match the needs of technocrats and policy makers on socially relevant subjects. Vision India specializes in educationally focused Trade Fairs and Conferences and creating live forums.

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Credit: Reports and photographs are property of owners of intellectual rights.
Seniors World Chronicle, a not-for-profit, serves to chronicle and widen their reach.

INDIA: Young Aging Expert Is Editor of Seniors World Chronicle

MUMBAI, India / Seniors World Chronicle / MAY 2, 2012 

Mumbai-based Ravi Chawla, Founder Editor and Owner of Seniors World Chronicle, announced today that he is handing over complete charge and ownership of the Internet daily digest of international news and reports on Aging, to Sailesh Mishra of Silver Innings.  

Seniors World Chronicle.com was launched in 2005 by Ravi Chawla, who has worked all his life as reporter, editor and publisher of specialist journals. This journal has already published nearly 12,000 reports from 250 countries and attracted an estimated 500,000 visitors up to end March 2012.

Chawla is completing 75 years of age in a few weeks and has opted out in favour of the dynamic young Sailesh Mishra to continue operations of Seniors World Chronicle. 

Mishra has 15 years of hard core marketing experience and since the year 2006, has dedicated himself to work with Senior Citizens. 

Says Mishra: "I am Social Gerontologist by Experience and Founder President of Silver Inning Foundation, Not for Profit and 'Silver Innings,' a Social Enterprise working with Senior Citizens."

For increasingly internet savvy senior citizens everywhere,Seniors World Chronicle serves as a single source of international coverage of all issues concerning older persons. Access is free to all internet users and no registration is required.

URL: http://www.seniorsworldchronicle.com

More information from:

Ravi Chawla 91-9322 633 718

Sailesh Mishra 91-9987 104 233

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Credit: Reports and photographs are property of owners of intellectual rights.
Seniors World Chronicle, a not-for-profit, serves to chronicle and widen their reach.

USA: Seniors simulating sexual acts sparks shock from consumers

LONDON, England / The Daily Mail / April 13, 2012

A shock tactic gone too far? New ad features senior citizens simulating sex positions to promote use of condoms

By Kristie Lau

Too much? An ad campaign showing senior citizens in a series of 
different sexual positions has sparked shock among consumers

An advertisement featuring senior citizens simulating sexual acts has sparked shock from consumers. The video campaign, released by U.S. organisation SaferSex4Seniors.org, is designed to promote safe sex through use of condoms following news that STDs among sexually-active seniors in Florida had risen by 71per cent over the past five years.

But many believe the group, while promoting a worthy cause, has taken shock tactics too far. The 30-second video, released on YouTube today, shows a group of elderly men and women mocking the performance of fellatio as well as other challenging sexual positions.

In one scene, a particularly strong man is holding a woman who is standing upside down on her elbows. Deadpan expressions are shown on their faces.

Read full report

Associated Newspapers Ltd

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Credit: Reports and photographs are property of owners of intellectual rights. 
Seniors World Chronicle, a not-for-profit, serves to chronicle and widen their reach.

IRELAND: It’s not real if it’s not online

DUBLIN, Ireland / Presseurop / March 6, 2012

INTERNET

Mass social movements only make waves when they have the internet in tow. This distorts our understanding of the world says Angela Nagle.

From the Arab Spring to the Occupy movement, revolutionary events and radical politics have certainly made headlines in the last year. Last week however, one of the largest strikes in human history took place and it barely registered as a newsworthy event in European media. With most of India’s major unions and thousands of smaller ones on board, the 24-hour general strike drew out an estimated 100 million-strong workforce, bringing banks, businesses and public transport in many parts of the country to a halt.

Back in the heady days of 2011, BBC journalist Paul Mason’s claim that “it’s all kicking off everywhere” (written in a blog – where else? – and now worked into a book published by radical press Verso) seemed to capture something of the spirit of a moment of popular revolt, where commentators who support the recent apparent radical turn have been keen to draw links between diverse movements happening around the world, from struggles against authoritarian regimes to those resisting austerity in Greece and Spain. But while opining over the Occupy movement continued unabated, both the press and bloggers remained relatively quiet about the Indian strike, with minimal coverage, such as the BBC’s report, which described it mainly in terms of inconvenience to commuters.

One explanation that leaps out is that Western audiences may just prefer to read about Western issues. This doesn’t quite explain things, though. The Arab Spring was, rightly, afforded significant coverage in the West, so much so that it defined the tone of the protests in Spain and later at Occupy Wall Street. It has been the subject of countless opinion pieces, blogs, essays – and no doubt spawned more academic papers than will ever be read. It's not surprising that we Europeans tend to view the world through a Europeanised prism, but it is interesting that the Indian strike failed to pique our interest given the country's role in the global economy. Perhaps the strikers reminded us of our European selves after all – just ourselves four decades ago.

The key ingredient that the heavily reported and blogged movements like the Arab Spring, Wikileaks, Anonymous and Occupy had that the Indian strike didn’t was the internet. It appears that if Western commentators can’t frame extra-parliament politics in terms of the internet, if struggles don’t come with a live stream and a form of organisation that sits comfortably with our contemporary internet-centric network sensibility, it will simply be ignored.

While commentators celebrating this new internet-centric radicalism have praised it for moving beyond cold war politics, the narrative being imposed, one of the internet as a technology of liberation, is not as removed from power or the cold war as its advocates would like to think. When US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton came out in support of the Arab Spring in her now famous internet freedom speech, she was continuing a tradition that began during the Cold War of casting the civilian internet, a byproduct of military spending, as a means by which to bring American democracy and the free market to the world.

If this really is a pattern that shapes our understanding of the world – and it is one that has already penetrated academia and is in danger of further shaping foreign policy, as experts like Evgeney Morozov have warned – the implications are troubling. The promise and optimism of the cyber utopian wave of the moment is so intoxicating that commentators seem afraid to step-up and play the role of kill-joy. In this strange distortion of global politics, Congolese coltan miners are not 2.0 enough to be part of our global village, while strikes such as last week's in India are just a bit too twentieth century to be part of our ongoing celebration of “the power of organising without organisations” as Clay Shirky put it.

Internet boosters are quick to point to the deficiencies of the so-called "mainstream media" but whatever its problems, the internet has played a role in futher diminishing serious, commited coverage of foreign news. With news organisations cutting back on foreign reporters and adapting as best they can to the conditions of the internet and online audiences who never commit, this cyber utopian frame is likely to be self-perpetuating.

The Indian strikers had clear demands. They were calling for a national minimum wage, social security benefits and permanent jobs for 50 million contract labourers. If the labour movement in countries like India continue to grow and organise they will bring about huge shifts not just at home, but also in the global economy. 

Jean Baudrillard famously claimed that the 1991 Gulf War did not take place. This absurd claim was much debated at the time, with critics accusing Baudrillard of denying reality and supporters saying he was accusing the war of existing primarily as a mediated, television conflict. Regardless of one's views on that war, the hashtag revolution seems to confirm that if something doesn't happen on the internet we don't care about it the real world.

For the time being, it may well be “kicking off everywhere,” but if it doesn’t come with a hashtag attached you’re unlikely to hear much about it.

Image: Strike in 1912 by Cornel University. CC licenced. 

Angela Nagle is a writer and researcher, studying for a PhD in internet cultures as a government of Ireland IRCHSS scholar in the Department of Communications at Dublin City University. She has contributed to publications including the Irish Times.

© 2012 Presseurop.eu
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Credit: Reports and photographs are property of owners of intellectual rights. 
Seniors World Chronicle, a not-for-profit, serves to chronicle and widen their reach.

UK: Older women have no place on TV, says BBC presenter

LONDON, England / The Telegraph / Culture / TV & Video / February 28, 2012

Ageism is fact of live on TV

Kate Humble is resigned to losing her job: “Old women don’t get on the telly”

Humble said she would be happy to run her farm when her television career is up Photo: CHRISTOPHER JONES

By Anita Singh, Showbusiness Editor

Humble, 43, hosted Springwatch and a recent spin-off, Winterwatch, for BBC Two. Her latest programme, Orbit: Earth’s Extraordinary Journey, begins on the channel next week.

However, Humble said she will not be upset when the presenting jobs dry up.

“The reality is I’m either not going to want telly or telly is not going to want me. I’m not going to start sobbing into my beer because I’m getting older and old women don’t get on the telly. It’s just a fact,” she told the Radio Times.

Humble, a Telegraph columnist, claimed she would be content to retire and run her farm in Monmouthshire when she can no longer get decent television work.

“TV is a fantastic job but I have never wanted it to be my life,” she said.

Mark Thompson, the BBC director-general, admitted recently that there are “manifestly too few older women” in high-profile presenting roles.

Miriam O’Reilly, a BBC presenter, won a landmark age discrimination tribunal against the corporation after she was sacked from Countryfile.

Rowan Atkinson last week defended the right to sack presenters on the basis of age, saying O’Reilly’s case was an “attack on creative free expression”.

© Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2012

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Credit: Reports and photographs are property of owners of intellectual rights. 
Seniors World Chronicle, a not-for-profit, serves to chronicle and widen their reach.

IRELAND: Aengus Fanning, editor of Ireland's Sunday Independent, dies aged 69

LONDON, England / The Guardian / Media / January 17, 2012

Journalist who headed Ireland's most successful newspaper 
passes away in Dublin after long battle with cancer


By Henry McDonald

Aengus Fanning, the long-serving Sunday Independent editor, who has died aged 69.
Photograph: Sunday Independent/PA

The editor of Ireland's most successful weekend newspaper, the Sunday Independent, has died.

Aengus Fanning passed away on Tuesday in Dublin after a long battle with cancer. He was 69.

The Kerry-born journalist had steered the Sunday Independent to become the leading paper in the Irish Sunday market.

With its mixture of showbiz, politics and well-known opinion writers, the paper maintained a readership close to one million even during recession, making it the country's most successful paper over a generation.

Fanning had worked for Sir Tony O'Reilly's newspaper group,Independent News & Media, for more than 40 years. He edited the Sunday Independent for 28 of them, making him Ireland's longest-serving newspaper editor.

Among the journalists who worked for him was Veronica Guerin, the campaigning journalist shot dead by Dublin gangsters in 1996. Fanning became an adviser to the movie company that made a film about Guerin's life and death which starred Cate Blanchett.

Fanning had played for the Kerry Gaelic football minor team in his teens but was also a keen cricket fan and a regular at Lord's. He played the clarinet with a Dublin-based jazz band.

Under his editorship the Sunday Independent took an uncompromising stance against the IRA and Sinn Fein, and was unapologetically pro-business/free market in its outlook. Born in Tralee, his mother was a Presbyterian schoolteacher – an unusual background for someone from Kerry.

Fanning was on first name terms with successive Irish prime ministers such as John Bruton and Bertie Ahern, who often wrote for the newspaper.

• © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited 

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Credit: Reports and photographs are property of owners of intellectual rights.
Seniors World Chronicle, a not-for-profit, serves to chronicle and widen their reach.

USA: Twitter - The Hashtag Revolution

LONDON, England / Reuters Magazine / Egypt / January 17, 2012

Twitter is Google and Facebook's tabloid cousin: loud and freewheeling, light on rules, heavy on sensational hard news

By Jonathan Weber

In just five years , Twitter has evolved from a 140-character punch line into a universal, all-purpose newswire, free and open to almost anyone, throbbing with the pulse of the planet in real time. It's where Newt Gingrich announced his presidential run, Prince William announced his engagement, and where the killing of Osama bin Laden was old news by the time President Obama announced it on television. If you're watching or taking part in a political protest - be it in Tahrir Square or downtown Manhattan - Twitter is where you have to be: faster than CNN, more credible than Fox News, and uniquely able to invite you to both follow the news and report it too.

Twitter is, of course, much more than a headline news wire. For many of its 100 million users around the world, it is primarily a source of diversion and occasional amusement. Nor is it alone as the creator of a new kind of global electronic conversation: Google and Facebook, Tumblr and Wordpress, and much of the rest of the global communications industry are among those reinventing the way the world communicates about its daily intrigues, be they prosaic or horrific.

But if the basic purpose (or "use case," as techies like to say) for Facebook is sharing a picture of your kid or "friending" the cute girl in your chemistry class, the use case for Twitter is to get the word out: I have a new job! The police are pepper-spraying us! The big rally is happening downtown at 10:00! Beyonce is pregnant! Steve Jobs is dead!

And you don't even need a computer; just about any cell phone will do.

Like many Internet media companies, Twitter positions itself as a platform - a utility-like entity that provides a set of tools for people to use as they see fit.

Unlike Time Warner or The New York Times or Reuters, Twitter is not a "content creator," to use the vernacular. Rather it is a proud democratizer of content creation, neutral as to the substance of digital bits of information but open to anyone who has something to say. Twitter doesn't report the news; rather, people report or retransmit the news on it.

As the reach of Twitter and the other Internet media companies extends across the globe, though, it's becoming apparent that they are not just enablers of communication, they are publishers, wrestling with classic publishing problems. They make decisions about what types of words and pictures are suitable, they determine how to respond to would-be government censors, they struggle with how to organize information in a useful fashion, and they even worry about how to handle advertising in a way that doesn't alienate customers.

While Google seems a bit New York Times-ian (smart, thorough, reliable, and a little arrogant) and Facebook tends toward People magazine or USA Today (something for everyone, clean and generic, more concerned with the softer side of life), Twitter is their tabloid cousin: loud and freewheeling, light on rules, heavy on sensational hard news, encouraging risk and experimentation.

In spite of that - or perhaps because of it - Twitter has become one of the most important news purveyors of the 21st century.

Continue reading here

© Thomson Reuters 2012

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Credit: Reports and photographs are property of owners of intellectual rights. 
Seniors World Chronicle, a not-for-profit, serves to chronicle and widen their reach.

AUSTRALIA: "Distressing images reveal the truth in a way words alone cannot"

SYDNEY, NSW / The Sydney Morning Herald / National / November 23, 2011

By Judy Prisk
Readers Editor
The Sydney Morning Herald




  READERS' EDITOR

Controversial ... the photograph that raised many a reader's ire. 

Photo: Dallas Kilpone

Nine elderly people are dead, killed by a fire at the Quakers Hill Nursing Home on Friday morning. Several others are fighting for their lives. The horror was described as ''a firefighter's worst nightmare''.

There were heroes: a couple of young policemen entered the burning building with little protection; a neighbour jumped the fence and began hosing people down; firefighters were crawling through the flames and smoke to drag frail people from their beds. There was a dark side: police suspected arson.

This was a shocking, heart-chilling story involving the most vulnerable people and their families. Anyone who has had a mother, father, husband, wife or sibling in a nursing home would have felt a shiver of cold fear. Newspapers, radio and TV gave the public as much information as quickly as possible, and pictures and stories were read by hundreds of thousands on websites, including smh.com.au.
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Related report by Chi Tranter

A walking frame. A wheelchair. A blanket that once warmed a frail body. A charred cross crafted from debris from the Quakers Hill nursing home.

They were all grim mementos.

The rain poured down as hundreds of mourners gathered in the Quakers Hill Anglican church on Wednesday to remember the nine elderly victims of last week's blaze.
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The front page of Saturday's Herald carried the story that arson was suspected (a nurse at the home, Roger Dean, was charged with murder on Saturday morning) and that the owners of the home had breached accreditation standards. But the six-column photo of elderly residents waiting to be evacuated had many readers apoplectic.

Some examples: ''I think it showed gross insensitivity having such a photo splashed over the front page … As if it hadn't been enough trauma for those patients without exposing them in such an undignified manner … Shame on the photographer and the Herald.''

And, ''How was it 'in the public interest' to publish photographs of distressed folk being evacuated from the Quakers Hill nursing home fire?'' And, ''While the circumstances of the story regarding the fire and death of several people in the aged care facility are extremely distressing I am equally appalled at your decision to publish photographs that clearly identify the people on the beds. The people concerned are clearly not in a position to express consent and I strongly believe their rights have been breached by showing very private material so publicly.''

Once again I face the ire of readers about a page one image. Although I agree the picture was heartbreaking,

I disagree that publishing it was ''a gratuitous and unseemly exposure of elderly people in distress'', as another reader wrote.

I salute those among you who do not need photographs to comprehend the unutterable misery caused by the fire, but the vulnerability and frailty of the victims so graphically exposed in Dallas Kilponen's work first brought me to tears and then to anger. I believe, and hope, many readers shared those emotions.

It is information - unsanitised, real and often uncomfortable - that effects change. Running an image of firefighters and emergency workers and not the elderly victims, as a reader suggested, would not have told the story, the story that those brave men and women had to deal with.

As one editor said, the selected image brought home to her the violation of trust perpetrated upon the elderly residents. It also showed real life, as wretched as it was.

Yes, the victims were identifiable. No, they did not give consent - they were certainly not in a position to do that. News photographers do not need permission to take news shots in a public place. Consider the picture of Phan Thi Kim Phuc, the Vietnamese girl whose naked image running away from napalm clouds is an iconic symbol of the Vietnam War. Its publication, shocking, identifiable and taken without consent, became a defining indictment against the war.

The ghastly photos taken at Abu Ghraib prison and published around the world were taken without consent and identified the victims of extraordinary abuse. The searing images taken by Fairfax photographers after the Bali bombings in 2002, photos taken without permission and with identifiable people, burnt that travesty on to Australia's soul. The Indian Ocean tsunami photos, a boggle-your-brain vision of a hell on earth … I could go on.

There was much discussion in news conference about which images of the nursing home fire would be used. The choice was wide and left little to the imagination. There have been editors who would not use pictures of elderly people ''because they don't sell papers''. I know not whether that front-page image sold papers, but I do know readers needed to see it and the others, if only to have their emotions pierced so that calls for increased supervision of nursing homes are loud and strong. We never want to see a story like this again.

Several readers asked why The Sun-Herald and the Herald published unpixellated images of the man accused of setting the fire. Our lawyers advised that there was no legal reason to pixellate, so publishing Dean's photograph did not constitute the miscarriage of justice some readers were fearful of.


Copyright © 2011 Fairfax Media
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Credit: Reports and photographs are property of owners of intellectual rights. 
Seniors World Chronicle, a not-for-profit, serves to chronicle and widen their reach.

EMIRATES: UAE curbs on social media evoke outcry

DOHA, Qatar / The Peninsula / News / August 13, 2011

Media reports of the UAE enforcing a law that prescribes three to 10 years imprisonment for people spreading rumours through social media have come in as a shock for many people in the region.


The reports have triggered a heated debate on Qatari social networking sites with people arguing if such a law was needed at all and whether Qatar should follow suit.

However, most commentators, though strongly opposed to rumour-mongering, said they favoured free expression through the Internet.

The UAE has banned the use of the Internet, Twitter and Facebook and technological innovations such as BlackBerry to use such media for spreading rumors and propaganda.

The director of organised crime-combating unit of Dubai Police, Abdul Rahim Shafei, told Arabian Business that the law-enforcement agencies will deal strictly with people who use the above media forums or technologies to spread baseless rumours and hurl insults at the members of the royal family or senior bureaucrats.

The move assumes immense significance as the UAE has put on trial five bloggers who called for democratic reforms in the Emirates last April.

As the online population has been increasing in the GCC, the UAE becomes the first member-state to implement a law to curb what analysts describe is Internet activism

China has been among the first countries in the world to have smelled the threat of Internet activism since the Web population in the country had crossed the 400 million-mark, and enforced an anti-rumour mongering law.

Media reports about the UAE law have, though, evoked mixed reactions in Qatar with many commentators writing on social networking sites that rumour-mongering must be dealt with strictly. But there were others who said that although spreading rumors should be discouraged, it is important to have free expression on social media.

Another commentator said that Qatar already has two articles in its penal code that deal with crimes like spreading false information and rumours.

But analysts this newspaper spoke to on the issue say the problem is to first define what a rumour is and then enact relevant laws to curb their spread.

“There already are laws in place whereby one defaming an individual can be taken to task,” said the analyst.

He said he wondered why only developing countries, and not advanced nations, have laws to deal with rumour-mongering.

“So the problem of rumour-mongering seems to be systemic,” he said not wanting his name in print.

Sometimes people at lower levels in the government itself spread rumours about some decisions that are proposed to be taken to get a feedback from the public, but when the feedback is negative the proposed decision is shelved.

“So the earlier talk of the proposal becomes rumour-mongering, said another analyst.

“If we have an anti-rumour mongering law, how are we going to deal with such situations,” asked the analyst.

Companies also resort to such tactics. Take the example of cold drink prices. It was announced many years ago that the prices would be raised to QR1.5 a can.

There was a lot of hue and cry in the public and the decision was withdrawn, but it was implemented later. “What do you call such a tactic? Isn’t it rumour-mongering,” asked the analyst.

“The source of such rumours would also need to be zeroed in on and brought to book if we have a law that prescribes strict punishment for rumour-mongering,” asked the analyst.

There are many other examples of such ‘sponsored’ rumour-mongering, so how a law can take care of such offences.

Actually, the receiver of false information should be equally held responsible since the onus of using his judgment to assess the authenticity of information lies with him, the analyst said.

Source: The Peninsula
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Credit: Reports and photographs are property of owners of intellectual rights.
Seniors World Chronicle, a not-for-profit, serves to chronicle and widen their reach.

AUSTRALIA: Older and wiser, a survivor returns

SYDNEY, NSW / The Sydney Morning Herald / Life & Style / People / July 31, 2011

Older and wiser, a survivor returns

By Jo Casamento

Women relate to me ... Nene King. Photo: Craig Sillitoe

AFTER years in the wilderness, the grand doyenne of Australian women's magazines, Nene King, is returning to the place where she began her career, New Idea.

The woman who went on to edit Women's Weekly and become Woman's Day's most successful editor - increasing its sales by 400,000 - has returned to New Idea as an agony aunt.

In the magazine, out tomorrow, King, 68, says she has finally found happiness and is more than qualified to give advice.

She tragically lost her husband Patrick Bowring in a mysterious diving accident in 1996 , which led to post traumatic stress disorder and years of addiction and depression. She also lost all her money.

''I've made so many mistakes, made such a fool of myself at different times,'' she tells the magazine.

''After all, I went from being the highest-paid woman in Australia to being on the pension.

''I am the happiest I have been for a long, long time. Now I feel I'm in a great position to warn what can happen and how to avoid it and, most importantly, how to come back if you've had any of this happen to you.''

King told the The Sun Herald, from her home in country Victoria, that she was surprised when New Idea approached her.

''I thought nobody cares about silly old me, it's come at a wonderful time in my life - I should be in a wheelchair, dribbling, but I'm not.''

King was one of the first magazine editors to pay for stories. ''Kerry Packer opened up his chequebook for me and it got everyone very snakey at the time, now it's commonplace,'' says King, who was the first woman to sit on Packer's Publishing and Broadcasting Board.

''I used to pay for stories, but I didn't hack into phones or anything. ''The worst thing I did was pay for a story. People used to try and sell me a story about an ingrown toe nail.''

She can sympathise, King says, with News Corporation's Rupert Murdoch during the present News of The World phone-hacking scandal.

''I find it hideous what's gone on. But I feel so sorry for Rupert Murdoch - he's just a pathetic old man now. But he has done some wonderful things and to see this is heartbreaking.''

But she said any investigation into our media practices would be a waste of time.

''The thought of spending millions to check into the Australian press is a load of garbage. Let's worry about important things like health and education. The press in Australia is pretty good - build a bridge and get over it.''

King hopes people will send letters because she feels she has a wealth of advice to give.

''I think women can relate to me … I've been through death, divorce, losing all your money, moving house, moving states, becoming very rich, becoming very poor … I like people and I work with suicide prevention,'' she said.

Copyright © 2011 Fairfax Media

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Credit: Reports and photographs are property of owners of intellectual rights.
Seniors World Chronicle, a not-for-profit, serves to chronicle and widen their reach.

QATAR: Diabetes - No longer the preserve of the rich?

DOHA, Qatar / Al Jazeera / Inside Story / June 29, 2011

A new study has revealed that diabetes is far more widespread than previously thought

A new study has revealed that diabetes is far more widespread than previously thought. Nearly 350 million adults around the world have the disease, doubling the rate of 30 years ago.


Researchers from Imperial College London and Harvard University analysed data from more than 2.5 million adults across the world. They found that the number of people with Type 2 diabetes, which is linked to obesity and lifestyle, is no longer limited to rich countries.

It is now a global problem, and fast becoming the biggest cost for many health care systems.

Why is diabetes on the rise? Can it be avoided?

Inside Story, with presenter Shiulie Ghosh, discusses with Dr Michael Hall, the former chairman and current vice-president of Diabetes UK; Lorenzo Piemonte, of the International Diabetes Federation in Rome and a diabetes patient; and Dr Khalid bin Jabor Al Thani, the former under-secretary of Qatar's ministry of health in Doha.

This episode of Inside Story aired from June 26, 2011.

Source: Al Jazeera

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Credit: Reports and photographs are property of owners of intellectual rights.
Seniors World Chronicle, a not-for-profit, serves to chronicle and widen their reach.

UK: Volunteers to live life of the isolated elderly

LONDON, England / BBC News / Health / June 19, 2011

By Dominic Hughes
Health correspondent, BBC News

Christie Vincett shows her friends the aging kit she will be wearing during Isolation Week.

A team of volunteers is about to begin an unusual experiment - for one week they will each be living a life cut off from the world around them.

There will be no conversations, no phones, no interactions with other people at all, with only the TV for company.

They're trying to reproduce the experience of more than a million elderly people who live lonely and isolated lives.

And for one of the 10 volunteers, 23-year-old drama student Christie Vincett, it could be a long week.

She has said goodbye to her boyfriend and flatmates and is preparing to do without all the paraphernalia that we take for granted.

So it's goodbye too to her mobile phone and to text messaging, and there will be no Facebook updates either.

One-way tweet

Christie and the other volunteers will be recording their experiences on a video diary and will be able to post one-way Tweets, but there will be no other contact with the outside world.

"I'm feeling a little bit apprehensive and a little bit scared", says Christie.

"We send birthday cards to some of our beneficiaries and often they say it's the only one they get and they keep it up all year"

Jenny Sykes, Friends of the Elderly

"It's an experience for me and I'll learn something and I'm doing it for a good cause. But actually it's a serious issue for so many people."

In her flat in Golders Green in north London, Christie has unpacked various bits of kit sent to her by the charity Friends of the Elderly, who are organising the Isolation Week experiment.

So there are socks to fill with dried peas, beans and popcorn kernels which will mimic the painful sensation of walking on arthritic feet.

Distorting, fuzzy glasses give an impression of what it is like to live with impaired vision like cataracts or glaucoma.

And diving gloves will make it hard to pick things up or to manipulate simple items like a knife and fork as though you had arthritis.

All the equipment is designed to reproduce the physical challenges of ageing as well as the mental toll that living an isolated life can bring.

It's not surprising then that Christie has mixed feelings.

"I've got to try on all these pieces of equipment and experience some of what an elderly person would experience.

"But it's only for a short amount of time and then I get to come out of it, whereas many elderly people are experiencing this for years and years and years."

"I can't imagine what that must feel like. You do take advantage of the people around you when you call or text or Facebook a friend.

* The 10 Isolation Week volunteers can't leave their homes, speak to anyone face-to-face, on the phone or over the internet
* Possible effects of isolation include loneliness, depression and a reduced likelihood of accessing support and services
* Isolation can mean living in a remote location but also 'emotional' isolation, having no-one to interact with.
* More than a million elderly people live isolated and lonely lives
* Another million elderly people feel trapped in their own homes

"That communication is so quick - and to have that cut away for a week will be quite hard. I think I'll find myself going to call or text and then realise that I can't."

Isolated and lonely
And research suggests that, while a million older people live isolated and lonely lives, another million more feel trapped in their own homes.

One in five older people see other people less than once a week.

Those statistics would be recognised by many of the residents at the Sir Thomas Lipton Memorial Home in Southgate.

It was originally set up as a retirement home for nurses and is now run by Friends of the Elderly.

One of the residents, Betty Judge, lived alone for most of her life.

She says she coped well most of the time, but there were occasions when it was tough.

"I did get the feeling of depression once. That was awful. I couldn't sort of ward it off. It would just come over you.

"I just left it and thought 'It'll pass', and I said a little prayer. That's how you get by.

"Then you think perhaps I should have had a family, but I wasn't the type for that."

Simple solutions
In fact elderly people who live a life of isolation are more prone to depression - and are less likely to try and get help and support.

But Jenny Sykes of Friends of the Elderly says overcoming loneliness doesn't have to be complicated.

"If you see an older person in the supermarket, you might be able to help them take that jar down off the shelf. And then don't run off - just smile at them and see if they want a little chat.

"So it can be something as small as that. It can be making sure your neighbour is OK, having a chat over the garden fence.

"And then don't let's forget our elderly relatives. Birthday cards can be so important to them.

"At Friends of the Elderly we send birthday cards to some of our beneficiaries and often they say it's the only one they get and they keep it up all year."

So while it could be a difficult week for Christie and her fellow volunteers, many more elderly people face a life of loneliness day in, day out.

"But I'm looking forward to it at the same time, it'll be quite interesting.

BBC © 2011