Blog@GraceJunction

Saturday night drive back home almost became a horror. I was driving home on an unusually busy stretch as people were rushing to celebrate the yearly Navratras. The traditional dresses and well lit buildings were trying to remove the otherwise gloomy situation in the stock markets and the peoples psyche.

Well, it does not matter much though for youngsters who were just out to have a good time and they want to make it a memorable moment of their lives. Boys and girls, in the most happening years of their lives, do not know what struggling in life means, their pocket money and trendy gadgets and accessories is all they want to have and desire for. (more…)

Lehmann Brothers is not the only people to be facing the brunt of the economic slowdown but rather it’s also the layman on the streets who is equally suffering. One of the major reasons of this worldwide financial crisis is the piling delinquencies and defaults on loans which have left all major financial institutions reeling under the pressure of mounting losses and the increasing pressure from the investors and management to salvage all that is slipping out of their hands.

The effect of the monster sub prime crisis has lifted its ugly face in India as well. Most of the financial institutions are going through a tough face, cost cutting at its peak, hiring freezed and firing and laying off employees seem to be the way forward. The only people who seem to be keeping their jobs are the Collection and recovery agents, the nightmare for any defaulting customer. (more…)

The pictures of half burnt bodies, torched houses, damaged churches in Orissa, is bound to send horrifying chills in anyone irrespective of what religion we follow. These acts makes one question, are we living in the most modern of centuries? Or are we in some savage land, where there are no morals, no humanity, no law and order. Eventually all our beliefs result in acts, we ultimately are transformed to the likeness of what we believe as truth, be it Jihad, Religious terrorism or any kind of evil. Clearly evident from the convictions and faith of the religious groups that participated in the recent riots, one can easily trace the roots of these actions/riots to the beliefs and faith of the people in the act – beliefs which state that there exists no absolutes, every one can be true in their own terms, ultimately there is nothing called reality and its all an illusion. (more…)

Three boys aged six ran a “sex club” at a Brisbane state school demanding and receiving sexual favours from girls one year their seniors! The Brisbane father said his son was one of a trio seen performing various sex acts in a toilet block.

His revelations came as uproar was sparked by another story, which told how the sexual assault of a seven-year-old girl by a young classmate was dismissed as a “childhood experiment” by a country school principal. The young victim was forced to perform oral sex on the boy who had threatened her with violence.

Meanwhile, on the Sunshine Coast, a gang of nine-year-old boys has been accused of “grooming” children as young as five to engage in sex acts. Investigators were told victims were rewarded with candies. (more…)

Ten thousand years ago the agricultural revolution launched a slow wave of change. The industrial revolution, starting roughly 350 years ago, triggered a second – faster – wave of change. In the mid-1950s the United States started on the path to a completely new kind of economy – one based on knowledge rather than muscle power. This is part of a gigantic wave of technological, social and cultural change. What we’re living through now is history’s third great wave of change – one that is arriving at hyper-speed and is global in extent.

This new way of life – it’s really a new civilization or, for that matter, a “super-civilization” – is spreading out from the United States and has cells in many other parts of the world, from Japan and Singapore and China to India and Brazil.

The first phase of this current upheaval is the digital revolution and its social and cultural effects. The next phase is the fusion of the digital revolution with the genetic and biological revolution. (more…)

Some of Antonio James’ classmates laugh when they learn the 15-year-old has pledged not to have sex until he marries. It’s not just male bravado that puts pressure on the 6-foot-1, 219-pound football player to be sexually active. “There’s so much temptation around here with girls,” he said.

It is just after 5 p.m. in what was once one of Latin America’s most sexually conservative countries, and the youth of Chile are bumping and grinding to a reggaeton beat. At the Bar Urbano disco, boys and girls ages 14 to 18 are stripping off their shirts, revealing bras, tattoos and nipple rings. (more…)

Last week I happened to visit a nationalized bank after a long time. Frankly speaking I expected to see some changes in the office premises and the attitude of the employees. Not that all of them were the same always, but there were some branches whose employees were extremely helpful and courteous but I was talking about the approach adopted in these competitive times.

When I went to the counter to enquire, the officer just pointed me to another desk without even looking up at me. When I confirmed the direction, he just nodded and seemed to not care. The next experience was not too good either, a middle aged lady was handling some customers and wore a frustrated look, probably because of handling a continuous flow of customers from the morning. My problem seemed to evoke some interest on her face when she realized that she can get some easy deposits but that too disappeared when she came to know that I wanted to continue it at another branch of theirs. What followed were the same old pointers with fingers without much human touch. (more…)

Every morning I approach the news papers with the fear of getting de-sensitized. Today for instance, The Times of India, Ahmedabad Edition carried news about an act of unnatural proportions – Man having sex with a calf! The matter was brought in to light due to the animal protection activists you may read the entire article here.

Thank God, there are at least some people in the society (People for Animal) who think that there is something called as evil / wrong and the matter was brought to light. A voiceless animal found some one who could fight for its cause; unfortunately our big mouthed society has none! (more…)

Is TRUTH Relative

I got on a airplane to travel up to a well known city. After a long wait the aircraft’s engines started to roar and the aircraft hit the runway, however I was startled at the unusual slow speed of the aircraft and guessed something was wrong. Then all of a sudden I saw that the aircraft was moving out of the airport gates and it hit the roads. I got up, the air hostess waved her hands and signed me, as if asking me to jump up, but then I realized that she was infact asking me to sit down. She said we are taking off in a short while, please be seated till the flight is stable and the seat belt signed is switched on.

While I was still trying to understand what was happening. The flight started to bend forwards and make a nose dive, that’s when I noticed, to my utter horror instead of flying up it was trying to dig itself in to the ground! I yelled “Hey what’s this! It was supposed to be a flight to this particular city, but you are hitting the roads and taking us in to the ground!!” (more…)

There is a magnificent story in Marie Chapian’s book “Of Whom the World Was Not Worthy”. The book told of the sufferings of the true church in Yugoslavia, where so much wrong has been perpetrated by the politicized ecclesiastical hierarchy. That which has gone on in the name of Christ for the enriching and empowering of corrupt church officials has been a terrible affront to decency.

One day an evangelist by the name of Jakov arrived in a certain village. He commiserated with an elderly man named Cimmerman on the tragedies he had experienced and talked to him of the love of Christ. Cimmerman abruptly interrupted Jakov and told him that he wished to have nothing to do with Christianity. He reminded Jakov of the dreadful history of the church in his town, a history replete with plundering, exploiting, and indeed with killing innocent people. (more…)