Social & cultural | CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon

16/01/2014

India Is Polio-Free for 3rd Year, but It Can’t Afford to Be Complacent | TIME.com

Good news does not always flow freely in India. Too many children still go hungry. Violence against women endures. Inflation is soaring, and gay sex was just criminalized, again.

But today India got a boost: Jan. 13 marks the country’s third year of being free of polio, the highly infectious disease that attacks the nervous system of children in particular and can paralyze within hours. The last child to be crippled by polio in India was a 2-year-old girl in West Bengal, whose case was confirmed on Jan. 13, 2011. The fact that none have been found since is a stunning turnaround from 2009, when India hosted nearly half the world’s cases. That polio has been wiped from this vast, crowded country is arguably one of the greatest achievements in modern public health — and a stirring reminder that sheer determination can, in fact, change lives.

People used to say that ridding India of polio simply couldn’t be done. The virus has used the subcontinent as an incubator for centuries, and some experts argued that the slow process of vaccinating every child could never outpace the rapid transmission of the disease. Happily, they were wrong. Teaming up with groups like Rotary International, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Health Organization (WHO), the Indian government launched yearly national vaccination drives carried out by millions of volunteers and, eventually, backed up by sophisticated disease-surveillance and population-monitoring systems. In 2002, there were 1,600 polio cases in India. By 2009, there were 741. Today, there are none.

via India Is Polio-Free for 3rd Year, but It Can’t Afford to Be Complacent | TIME.com.

Posted in Good news, Health, India alert | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Government of India, India, Infectious disease, polio cases, Poliomyelitis, Rotary International, Violence against women, West Bengal, World Health Organization

15/01/2014

Villagers in SW China share the wealth[1]- Chinadaily.com.cn

Jianshe village in Liangshan Yi autonomous prefecture, Sichuan province, shared about 13.11 million yuan ($2.17 million) in bonuses with the 340 households in the village, on Jan 14, 2013. The village became rich after piloting a land circulation project, which introduced a new farming company and an investment company. One household received 314,000 yuan.

via Villagers in SW China share the wealth[1]- Chinadaily.com.cn.

Posted in China alert, Economics, Good news, land transfer, Social & cultural | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Asia, China, Liangshan Yi autonomous prefecture, Sichuan, sichuan province, Southwest China, SW China share the wealth, Villagers

14/01/2014

Another ancient university’s remains found in Bihar – The Times of India

Remains of an ancient university have been discovered in Bihar, which is home to Nalanda and Vikramshila universities, officials said on Tuesday.

Main stupa of Sariputta in the ancient Nalanda University, Bihar, India. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

\”We have discovered remains of another ancient university at the Buddhist monastery site of Telhara in Nalanda district,\” Atul Kumar Verma, director of state archaeology, told IANS.

Telhara was visited by Chinese traveller Heuen Tsang in the 7th century AD, and it was mentioned as \”Teleadaka\” in his account, Verma said.

Describing it as a major discovery for Bihar\’s history, Verma told IANS over telephone that remains of \”Tiladhak\” ancient university are spread in a big area and will take more time for full excavation – just like Nalanda where the excavation took years.

\”It is a positive development in the field of excavation in Bihar. After discovery of remains of 4th century ancient Nalanda and 8th century Vikramshila university, this is the discovery of remains of third ancient university in the state,\” Verma said.

Verma said that Tiladhak ancient university was set up in 5th century during the Gupta period.

via Another ancient university’s remains found in Bihar – The Times of India.

Posted in Culture, India alert, religion | 2 Comments »

Tags: Bihar, Gupta Empire, Nalanda, Nalanda district, Telhara, Verma, Vihara

13/01/2014

* The Year Lokpal Comes of Age – India Real Time – WSJ

This post is a commentary.

In 1965, L.M. Singhvi addressed India’s lower house of parliament and told parliamentarians that the need for an anticorruption ombudsman was overdue.

“It is for the sake of securing justice and for cleansing the public life of the Augean stable of corruption, real and imaginary, that such an institution must be brought into existence,” he told lawmakers at the time.

Almost half a century later, on Jan. 1, the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, to create a corruption watchdog, became the first law made in 2014.

It gives Lokpal, or the “caretaker of the people”, jurisdiction to investigate allegations of corruption made against government officials up to the rank of prime minister. Even nongovernmental organizations with foreign donations above one million rupees ($16,252) annually will fall within its purview.

The new anti-corruption machinery involves the services of federal investigators — the Central Bureau of Investigation — and the Central Vigilance Commission, which have both been made more robust and independent for the purpose.

via Inside Law: The Year Lokpal Comes of Age – India Real Time – WSJ.

Posted in corruption, Good news, India alert, Politics | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Asia, Central Bureau of Investigation, Central Vigilance Commission, corruption, India, Lok Sabha, Lokayukta, Lokpal, Lower house

11/01/2014

China parents count cost of sending children to overseas universities – FT.com

Jack Ma, one of China’s best-known entrepreneurs, thinks business success in China has nothing to do with prestigious foreign degrees: “When you want to judge whether a person . . . is excellent or not don’t look at whether they went to Harvard or Stanford,” he is famous for saying.

More and more Chinese parents apparently disagree with the co-founder of internet company Alibaba: they are increasingly spending three or four years’ annual family income to send their only child for foreign study. Some are now asking whether it is worth the investment.

The number of Chinese studying overseas has more than tripled in the past decade and continues to shoot up. The rise has been particularly dramatic among lower-middle-class families: according to a report from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, up to the end of 2009 students from such families made up only 2 per cent of all those who studied overseas, but by the end of 2010 the proportion had risen to 34 per cent.

For many Chinese families with children overseas, money is no object. But many lower middle-class and working-class families are counting on their only child to support them in their old age.

Foreign universities also increasingly rely on fees from Chinese students to boost their income. But is it worth spending Rmb1m-2m ($165,000-$330,00) on preparing for and completing an overseas degree, only to return to a job market where seven million graduates cannot find jobs?

According to Chinese recruitment agencies and human resources professionals, people who have studied overseas – known as “haigui”, or sea turtles, because they have one foot on land and one in the sea – command little if any salary premium when they start entry-level jobs back in China.

via China parents count cost of sending children to overseas universities – FT.com.

Posted in Affluence, China alert, Economics, education, overseas university, Social & cultural | 1 Comment »

Tags: Alibaba, Asia, China, Chinese, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Chinese students, Jack Ma, Overseas Chinese, United States

11/01/2014

BBC News – Blaze ravages ancient Tibetan town in Shangri-La county

Fire has severely damaged an ancient Tibetan town in south-western China.

More than 100 mostly wooden houses were destroyed in the blaze in Dukezong in Shangri-La county, in the province of Yunnan.

The picturesque town with cobbled streets dates back 1,300 years and is popular with tourists.

Casualties have not so far been reported. The blaze was put out by 2,000 firefighters, police and volunteers, according to local media.

Many residents had to be evacuated and the damage was estimated to be worth 100m yuan ($16m, £10m), state TV reports.

via BBC News – Blaze ravages ancient Tibetan town.

Posted in China alert, Social & cultural | 1 Comment »

Tags: China, Dêqên Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Dukezong, James Hilton, picturesque town, Shangri-La County, Tibetan culture, wooden houses, Yunnan

09/01/2014

Chinese Director Zhang Yimou Fined $1.2 Million for Violating One-Child Policy – China Real Time Report – WSJ

Chinese Internet users often bemoan the fact that China’s wealthy are able to easily skirt the country’s one-child policy by simply paying the fines. But local officials appear to be making a point when it comes to one high-profile offender.

Chinese film director Zhang Yimou and his wife , Chen Ting, were fined 7.48 million yuan ($1.2 million) by the family planning bureau of Binhu district in the eastern city of Wuxi for having three children, the district government said on its verified account on Sina Weibo, China’s version of Twitter.

The district government said the fine was based on Ms. Chen and Mr. Zhang’s personal income in each of the three years before their children were born (2000, 2003 and 2005)—a total of 3.58 million yuan ($591,000). Aside from exceeding family planning limits, the couple wasn’t married at the time of the births, according to the family-planning bureau.

via Chinese Director Zhang Yimou Fined $1.2 Million for Violating One-Child Policy – China Real Time Report – WSJ.

Posted in China alert, Economics, One-child policy, Politics, Social & cultural | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Binhu District, Chen Ting, China, Chinese film director Zhang Yimou, Chinese Internet users, Director Zhang Yimou, district government, family planning bureau, one-child policy, Sina Weibo, Wuxi, Zhang Yimou

08/01/2014

China aims to ban smoking in public places by end of the year | Reuters

China aims to impose a nationwide ban on smoking in public places this year, as authorities move to stamp out a widespread practice that has taken a severe toll on citizens\’ health.

China, home to some 300 million smokers, is the world\’s largest consumer of tobacco, and smoking is a ubiquitous part of social life, particularly for men.

Tougher regulation of smoking is a priority this year, officials from the National Health and Family Planning Commission said this week, adding that the agency was pushing lawmakers to toughen laws on tobacco use.

\”Compared to the damage to health that smoking causes, tobacco\’s economic benefits are trivial,\” Mao Qun\’an, a spokesman for the commission, told a news conference on Tuesday.

The drumbeat to reduce tobacco use has grown steadily louder in the past few years, but experts say China\’s powerful tobacco industry, which has resisted raising cigarette prices and use of health warnings on cigarette packs, has been a tough opponent.

The nationwide smoking ban has long been in the works. Several cities have banned smoking in public places, but enforcement has been lax.

Beijing pledged in 2008 to prohibit smoking in most public venues, including government offices, but no-smoking signs are frequently ignored.

Steps recommended by the commission range from beefing up education on the dangers of tobacco to banning smoking in schools and hospitals.

An official in the tobacco control office of the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention said in December that lawmakers would consider the nationwide ban on smoking in public places this year.

The commission\’s statement follows a government circular urging Communist Party cadres and government officials not to light up in schools, workplaces, stadiums, and on public transport, among other places, so as to set a positive example.

via China aims to ban smoking in public places by end of the year | Reuters.

Posted in China alert, Economics, Good news, Health, smoking, Social & cultural | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, China, communist party of china, Family planning, No Smoking, Public space, Tobacco, Tobacco smoking

07/01/2014

The Curious, and Continuing, Appeal of Mark Twain in China – NYTimes.com

There are few authors regarded as quintessentially American as Mark Twain. With his preternatural gift for capturing vernacular expression and his roguish wit, Twain is still widely seen as the founder of the American voice. More than a century after his death, “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” Twain’s most celebrated work, remains a mainstay of middle school and high school English classes. Ernest Hemingway famously declared it the book from which “all modern American literature comes.”

Twain’s writings have won him literary fame in China as well. Although “Huckleberry Finn,” with more than 90 different translations in Chinese, is a favorite, a large portion of Twain’s popularity in China derives in fact from another, much more obscure work: a short story called “Running for Governor.”

A humorous account of Twain’s fictional candidacy in the 1870 New York gubernatorial election, “Running for Governor” was taught alongside the writings by Mao Zedong and other prominent Chinese thinkers and literary figures in middle schools across China for more than 40 years. In this time, it was read by several generations and millions of Chinese, making Mark Twain one of the best-known foreign writers in China and “Running for Governor” one of his best-known works.

“Just about anyone who has had a middle-school education in China knows Mark Twain and ‘Running for Governor,’ ” Su Wenjing, a comparative literature professor at Fuzhou University, said in a telephone interview. “And everyone remembers the specific cultural moment and social critique represented in the story, this is certain.”

Published in the literary magazine Galaxy just after the New York gubernatorial election in 1870, “Running for Governor” is a satire that takes aim at what Twain saw as the hypocrisy of the American electoral process and the dog-eat-dog nature of party politics. In the brief yet imaginative sketch, Twain finds himself nominated to run for New York governor on an independent ticket, only to be overwhelmed by a slew of false ad hominem attacks from several unnamed accusers.

via The Curious, and Continuing, Appeal of Mark Twain in China – NYTimes.com.

Posted in China alert, education, Social & cultural | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Adventure of Huckleberry Finn, China, Ernest Hemingway, Huckleberry Finn, Mao Zedong, Mark Twain, marktwain, New York, Twain, United States

07/01/2014

U.S. Ambassador Renews Ties to His Ancestral Village – NYTimes.com

A light drizzle was falling on the village of Jilong on the afternoon of Dec. 17 when a large black sport utility vehicle pulled up to a parking area next to the pond. Out of it stepped Gary Locke, the American ambassador, who this month is expected to leave his post and return to his hometown of Seattle. This was Mr. Locke’s fifth visit to his ancestral village in the Taishan region of Guangdong Province, and his third and possibly final one as ambassador to China.

The rain tapered off as Mr. Locke and embassy colleagues walked around the pond to the front of the village. With the clearing weather, the crowd of 50 or 60 people began swelling to more than 100, all of whom wanted to greet Mr. Locke. On hand to document the event for Modern Weekly, a Chinese news magazine, was Alan Chin, an American photojournalist who lives in Brooklyn. Alan was spending one month in Taishan for a personal book project. His ancestral village is also in Taishan, and he can speak the local language, which has given him far greater access to the people there than most foreign journalists are able to get.

Taishan is better known to most of the world by its Cantonese name, Toishan. For decades, it was the main origin point of the Chinese diaspora. Immigrants from Taishan settled in Chinatowns in the United States and other countries, mostly taking low-wage jobs in restaurants, laundromats and convenience stores. Their goal in their new country was to move to the suburbs, where their children would in theory become better educated and move on to college and professional careers. While building their lives far from China, the first-generation immigrants would also send remittances to their home villages.

via U.S. Ambassador Renews Ties to His Ancestral Village – NYTimes.com.

Posted in China alert, Diplomacy, Politics, Social & cultural | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Alan Chin, ancestral village, China, Gary Locke, Guangdong, Locke, Taishan, the American ambassador, United States, United States Ambassador

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