Blog@GraceJunction

Hey Freddy,

I reached Mumbai a week back in search of a better job and opportunities. But I have been missing those beaches and the time that we used to spend watching those beautiful waves, sipping lemonade, our hangouts near D’Souza restaurant and those football fields.

Here you get the real taste of city life. The huge population, the busy streets and stations, rush hour, the confluence of the rich and poor, skyscrapers overlooking hutments and slums, brightly lit buildings hosting glitzy and glamorous events and the hungry man who begs on the roads and sleeps on the streets. (more…)

Barack Hussein Obama II, born on August 4, 1961 to a Kenyan father and White American mother has become the President of the United States of America, the first African American to do so. This news flashed on every news screen in the first week of this month. The President elect of the United States is all set to officially take over from George Bush on the 20th of January, 2009. (more…)

The news that I read today was the second of its kind coming out of the U.S as a result of the Global economic crisis. Another one of the non resident Indian brutally killing his family, this time it is Lakshminivasa Rao Nerusu. Originally from Andhra Pradesh, Lakshminivasa had lost his job a few days ago and was in a state of depression. He brutally killed his 37 year old wife, 14 year old daughter and 12 year old son. He had inflicted grievous injuries to the head and neck areas of his victims, sadly they were also his loved ones.

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This is how the 63rd session of the General Assembly began this year. The Secretary General, as usual, addresses the gathering.

“Mr. President, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen: Welcome to the opening of the general debate of the 63rd session of the General Assembly. It is customary for the Secretary-General, on this occasion, to assess the state of the world and to present our vision for the coming year. We all recognize the perils of our current passage. We face a global financial crisis. A global energy crisis. A global food crisis. Trade talks have collapsed, yet again. We have seen new outbreaks of war and violence, new rhetoric of confrontation. Climate change ever more clearly threatens our planet. We often say that global problems demand global solutions. And yet … Today, we also face a crisis of a different sort. Like these others, it knows no borders. It affects all nations. It complicates all other problems. I refer, here, to a challenge of global leadership.”

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Mumbai police swooped down on a bunch of party goers and detained 231 people for possession or consumption of Drugs under the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act on Sunday night. This included some drug peddlers who were in possession of narcotic substances like LSD drops, ecstasy tablets and cannabis. They all were part of what many call as ‘rave parties’.

Most of them who were arrested were young boys and girls between the age of 18-25 and some sources say that some were minors. This is something that we don’t find very common in India and definitely not widely reported in the media. But many parts of the world such parties are routine and often closely surveyed by police, paramedics and sometimes even counselors. (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…)