Category Archives: Post Human

The India Post launches same day delivery service in Hyderabad on Wednesday. - Kurmanath

DoP to invest Rs 4,909 crore for technology deployment

Hyderabad, Oct. 29:

As online retail has come of age in the country, e-commerce firms have begun to knock on the India Post doors for quick delivery of parcels. Though they have been using its services for some time in a small way, the Diwali sale saw a huge shift, with almost all e-com firms used our network to deliver the voluminous orders they got.

Seeing the spurt in demand, India Post has launched the Same Day parcel delivery service here on Wednesday and promises to expand the service to other cities and next day delivery service to customers in the hinterland.

The company has earmarked about Rs 4,909 crore to deploy technologies in the next three years in order to digitise the services. This is India Post 2.0. We are going to introduce technology in a big way in order to get connected with the corporates and the digital generation, John Samuel, Member of Postal Services Board (Department of Posts), told Business Line here on Wednesday.

Waking up to the needs of this new retail players, the Department of Posts would further spread the same day parcel service to other parts as well. You are used to see our postmen come to your places in the day time. As we launch the new service, you will see them coming in vans during 5 p.m.-9 p.m. in order to deliver the parcels, he said.

We are going to launch digital post offices that let you book the parcels and Speed Post consignments much easier. You can use smart phones to complete some tasks, reducing human intervention, he said.

Samuel, who was here to formally launch the Same Day parcel delivery service, said the service would initially be available in a few post offices and would be expanded to other areas. In a later stage, vans would ply to other parts of the State too to offer next day delivery service.

(This article was published on October 29, 2014)

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e-com firms knock on India Post for last mile connectivity

A torrent of words has spilled over the information dam of the just-concluded synod on the family. Nowhere, however, do we find explicitly reported the factor that threads through its documents as electricity does through a power line. I refer to that sacramental element of ordinary life and ordinary time, the critical baseline for the reception of belief: human experience.

"Experience" derives from the Latin experiri -- "to put to the test," something that we do every time we compare what others, including supposed "authorities," tell us is happening to us or in us as we run the gauntlet of every day's embraces and blows, some great and some slight, that rain down on us as we make passage through our own portion of ordinary time.

Our human experience, like the World War II Ultra code-breaking machine, catches the heavy traffic of messages about what we really do and what is done to us every day. Our experience sifts the true interpretations of what others do to us, and we to them, breaking the misleading code in which authoritarian forces press them on us as moral absolutes.

Most of the synod fathers realized that they could not issue a document that men and women would accept unless its words were true to everyday human experience -- unless, we might say, they were sacramental, reflecting back the truth of our humanity to us. The power in many of the synodal statements as well as in most of the pope's actions and statements issues not from their getting good grades in abstract theological theses, but from what we might term their confessor's grasp of gritty human experience.

Recalling the meaning of the word "experience," the pope and the synodal bishops invited lay Catholics to test the way the church teaches about our lives against the truths they have learned as they passed through the valley of the shadows of existence.

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The latter included Ron and Mavis Pirola, an Australian couple whose question is shared by many Catholics. The Pirolas told the Synod of Bishops of parents who welcomed the male partner of a gay son to Christmas dinner with their grandchildren. Here is an expression of real rather than abstract human experience, of what one Catholic couple feels is the Christian way to deal with their own family.

Archbishop of Melbourne Denis Hart expressed the reaction of many of the bishops present by urging a rethinking of the way the church communicates about homosexuality. He referred to the catechism's categorizing homosexual people as "disordered" and of homosexual acts being "intrinsically evil." Hart responded as a good pastor would: "You say that to a parent who has a gay son or daughter and they just cannot understand that this child whom they love and who they have nurtured -- might have chosen a thing that they don't approve of -- but is to be totally rejected because of that." He says "teaching and practice must go hand in hand, but we can do so with mercy and love and help people to realize that whatever may be the challenges that [occur] in their life, they are respected and loved by the Church."

Not so fast, cried Cardinal Raymond Burke, the controversial conservative who is on the verge of being removed from the powerful post of prefect of the Apostolic Signatura and sent to Malta as, so to speak, head cheerleader for the Knights of Malta. The new Maltese falcon's talons, however, were unsheathed in an interview with LifeSite News in which he asserted, "If homosexual relations are intrinsically disordered, which indeed they are -- reason teaches us that and also our faith -- then, what would it mean to grandchildren to have present at a family gathering a family member who is living [in] a disordered relationship with another person?"

Grandparents who do this could mislead their grandchildren and do them a disservice "by seeming to condone gravely sinful acts on the part of a family member."

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The biggest unreported synod influence: human experience

The race for the seat on the DuPage County Board from District 5 features challenger Regina D. Brent going against incumbent Tonia Khouri.

The district includes parts of Naperville and Aurora.

Regina D. Brent

Brent has spent her entire professional career in public service, and she has a pretty good idea of what works and what doesnt, she said.

I will strive to build a platform for the people, including the middle class and disadvantaged, she said.

Brent was one of 16 children, born and raised on Chicagos South Side, graduating from DuSable High School before going on to be the first in her family to earn a college degree.

Brent, a Democrat, began her career working for the city of Chicago, first in the Department of Health, later in the Department of Human Resources, and finally in the office of 17th Ward Alderman Allan Streeter.

After 14 years with the city, she moved to the Illinois Attorney Generals Office, from where she retired recently.

After years of observing various politicians, she thought she could do a better job serving the public.

As an employee, my hands were tied, but I thought that if I was ever afforded the opportunity to run for office, I would take it, she said.

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Race for District 5 post on DuPage County Board

The fire ignited when the small airplane smashed into a parking lot and empty building in central Anchorage on a failed takeoff. Passersby ran to pull four burning people from the Cessna Skywagon.

But when they tried to rescue 4-year-old Miles Cavner, the airplane cabin was engulfed in fire.

As Stacie Cavner screamed that her son was burning, police officer Will Cameron spotted Miles on the cabin floor. Fire was scorching the boy's body and keeping Cameron from saving him.

"We tried to go back in for the young boy," Cameron reflected recently on the June 1, 2010, crash, "but at that point it was too much, so we couldn't get to him."

Small-airplane fires have killed at least 600 people since 1993, burning them alive or suffocating them after crashes and hard landings that the passengers and pilots had initially survived, a USA TODAY investigation shows. The victims who died from fatal burns or smoke inhalation often had few if any broken bones or other injuries, according to hundreds of autopsy reports obtained by USA TODAY.

Fires have erupted after incidents as minor as an airplane veering off a runway and into brush or hitting a chain-link fence, government records show. The impact ruptures fuel tanks or fuel lines, or both, causing leaks and airplane-engulfing blazes.

Fires also contributed to the death of at least 308 more people who suffered burns or smoke inhalation as well as traumatic injuries, USA TODAY found. And the fires seriously burned at least 309 people who survived, often with permanent scars after painful surgery.

Anchorage Police Officer Will Cameron assisted in a rescue effort after a plane crashed and burst into flames near downtown Anchorage in 2010. One person died and four people were rescued from the plane.

Fires have been killing and maiming pilots and passengers since the 1920s but, after triggering some attention in the 1980s and early 1990s, have been largely ignored by federal regulators and crash investigators.

In 1990, the Federal Aviation Administration proposed requiring new small airplanes to have equipment and designs that would prevent such fires and save up to 20 lives a year.

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Investigation: Post-crash fires in small planes cost 600 lives

Yuliasri Perdani and Margareth S. Aritonang

The Jakarta Post

Publication Date : 27-10-2014

The appointment of figures with dark human rights records and political affiliations to security, defence and legal ministerial posts has left the countrys legal and security reforms hanging in the balance.

National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) and rights campaigners have decried the decision of President Joko Jokowi Widodo to install 64-year-old former Army chief Gen. (ret) Ryamizard Ryacudu as defence minister, due to the latters alleged role in gross human rights violations that took place during the military operation in Aceh.

As then army chief of staff, he [Ryamizard] was responsible for all operations in Aceh. His appointment thus will protect the culture of impunity within the military, Komnas HAM Commissioner Otto Syamsuddin Ishak said on Sunday.

Komnas HAM had declared the military operation in Aceh, which lasted from 1989 until a peace deal was signed in 2005, a gross violation of human rights in August last year, based on an investigation that focused on five particular cases.

Among them are the 2001 Bumi Flora massacre in eastern Aceh; the finding of the remains of victims of the conflict in a mass grave in Bener Meriah regency in 2002; and the 2003 massacre in Jambo Keupok village in southern Aceh.

Ryamizard led the Army between 2002 and 2004 under the administration of then president Megawati Soekarnoputri, now the Indonesia Democratic Party of Struggles (PDI-P) chairwoman.

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Jokowi Cabinet may put security, law reforms in limbo

Islamic State militants tried to seize a border post in the Syrian town of Kobani on the Turkish frontier but were repulsed by Kurdish fighters.

Islamic State fighters have been trying to capture Kobani, known as Ayn al-Arab in Arabic, for over a month, pressing their assault despite US-led air strikes on their positions and the deaths of hundreds of their fighters.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors violence in Syria's three-and-a-half-year-old conflict, said it had confirmed that 815 people had been killed in the fighting for the town over the last 40 days, more than half of them Islamic State fighters.

Idris Nassan, a local Kurdish official, said Islamic State fighters had shelled Kobani's border gate on the weekend but Kurdish fighters had pushed them back in the south and west.

"Of course they will try again tonight. Last night they brought new reinforcements, new supplies, and they are pushing hard," he said.

To lose the border gate, the only official way for the Kurdish fighters in Kobani to cross into Turkey, would be a major blow to the fighters defending the town as well as the civilians who still remain.

On the weekend, Turkish police dispersed media and other observers from two hills overlooking Kobani, a Reuters witness said.

There were two air strikes in the early afternoon and dark grey smoke hung in plumes over the city, which has been largely destroyed by the war.

Iraqi Kurdish "peshmerga" fighters are expected to arrive to reinforce the fighters in Kobani, who are mostly members of the Syrian Kurdish YPG armed group, after Turkey last week said it would allow them to pass through its territory.

The chief of staff to the president of Iraqi Kurdistan said on Sunday that the timetable for their departure was still being finalised.

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Syrian Kurds repulse Islamic State attack on border gate

Osamu Dazais No Longer Human comprises a series of three fictionalized notebooks, with each increasingly darker than the last. The character writing these books, Yozo, is detached from the beginning and is afraid of human interactions, but he learns how to socialize with people by playing the clown and entertaining his way into favor from a young age. Yet his alienation remains, despite how he may appear from the outside.

No Longer Human, by Osamu Dazai, Translated by Donald Keene. New Directons, Fiction.

People talk of social outcasts, Dazai writes through Yozo. The words apparently denote the miserable losers of the world, the vicious ones, but I feel as though I have been a social outcast from the moment I was born.

After Yozo moves to Tokyo, he is captivated by the combination of the allure of women and alcoholic mirth, yet his enjoyment of life soon dissipates as he develops an alcohol addiction, and even the love of women does little to alleviate his internal suffering. The work recalls Fyodor Dostoyevskys Notes From the Underground, another novel about a misanthropic young man alienated from society and sickened by humanity in general.

Although the events of No Longer Human bare similarity to Dazais own personal life, the blunt style without sentiment or nostalgia distances it from the tone of an actual autobiography. The novel has a timeless quality: The struggle of the individual to fit into a normalizing society remains just as relevant today as it was at the time of writing.

Read archived reviews of Japanese classics at jtimes.jp/essential.

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No Longer Human

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN: Brunei Civil Society Organisations attended a dialogue which was held recently between the Asean Secretary-General, Asean Secretariat, Asean Committee of Permanent Representatives (CPRs) and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) from October 22-24 in Jakarta, based on the theme of a "Human Rights Roadmap", which was raised by the CSOs for the purpose of providing input for the new Asean Community 2016-2030 blueprint.

The blueprint is to focus mostly on human rights as well as effective and meaningful ways for civil society to engage with the regional bloc. CSO participants came from non-governmental organisations and think-tanks representing member states.

Asean Secretary-General, Le Loung Minh, welcomed the CSO representatives alongside Deputy Secretary General for Community and Corporate Affairs, AKP Mochtan.

The CSOs inputs were in the form of a summary statement regarding the human rights roadmap after 2015 and was presented to officials at the gathering.

The CSOs took note that the Asean Charter and the Post-2015 Asean Community Blueprint are reflections of the bloc's commitment to the protection and promotion of human rights in the region, however, not all the actions in the blueprints are consistent with the principle of human rights.

Human rights are virtually ignored on provisions related to free trade, labour mobility, traditional security, trafficking in persons and the issue of identity. "All human rights are cross-cutting, inherent, interrelated, indivisible and should concern everyone," was the message reiterated by the CSO statement.

It is important that the Post-2015 Asean Community Blueprint not only focuses on building an integrated society but also develop a roadmap towards achieving human rights and equality. A roadmap in which people are treated as the rights holders and key actors in the decisions that affect them making the aspiration of Asean to be people-centred a reality.

Brunei CSOs were represented by Vice President 1 of the Brunei Council on Social Welfare, Nur Judy Abdullah, and Head of the Youth Entrepreneurship Programme and International Relations Unit at the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports, Ak Kamal Ghadafi Pg Hj Suhaimi.

Brunei's CSO representatives had the opportunity to meet Permanent Representative of Brunei Darussalam to Asean, Emaleen Abdul Rahman Teo, during the third Asean Community dialogue between the CSOs and the CPRs.

The Centre for Strategic and International Studies and Human Rights Working Group supported by the Embassy of Switzerland in Jakarta organised the dialogue which was based on 'The Future of Human Rights in Asean Community: Opportunities and Challenges'. BRUDIRECT.COM

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Human Rights Among Others Discussed At Asean Meeting In Jakarta

TIME Business Saving & Spending The 10 Most Livable Countries in the World Michael EchteldGetty Images/Flickr Select A surprising number one pick

This post is in partnership with 24/7 Wall Street. The article below was originally published on 247WallSt.com.

Based on the most recent release of the Human Development Index by the United Nations Development Programme, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the most and least livable countries. Data from the Human Development Index is based on three dimensions of human progress having a long and healthy life, being knowledgeable, and having a good standard of living. According to the index, Norway is the most livable country in the world, while Niger is the least livable.

One factor that influences a countrys development is its income. The U.N. used gross national income in its calculation of the Human Development Index to reflect the standard of living in a country. In the most developed countries, gross income per capita is generally quite high. All of the worlds 10 most livable countries had among the top 30 gross national incomes per person. The top-rated country, Norway, had the worlds sixth highest gross national income per capita of $63,909.

At the other end of the spectrum, the worlds least developed countries typically had very low incomes. Six of these 10 least livable nations were among the bottom 10 countries by gross national income per capita. The Democratic Republic of the Congo, which had the lowest gross national income per capita in the world, at just $444 last year, was the second least developed country worldwide.

Click here to see the 10 most livable countries

Similarly, these countries also generally had extremely high percentage of their populations living on just $1.25 a day or less, adjusted for purchasing power. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo and in Burundi, more than 80% of the population lived on less than $1.25 per day.

Life expectancies, another factor considered in the Human Development Index, were also far better in highly developed nations. Switzerland, Australia, and Singapore were all among the top rated countries with life expectancies greater than 82 years for individuals born in 2013. By this metric, the United States is a relative laggard. The median life expectancy at birth in the U.S. of 78.9 years was ranked just 38th worldwide.

For individuals born in the worlds least developed nations, the average life expectancy was far lower. In all but one of these nations, a person born in 2013 had a life expectancy of less than 60 years. Sierra Leone, the fifth-lowest ranked nation, had the worst life expectancy, at just 45.6 years.

Sadly, among the factors contributing to these low life expectancies are, almost certainly, high mortality rates for infants and young children. Sierra Leone, which had the lowest life expectancy, also had the highest mortality rates for infants and children under five, at 117 deaths and 182 deaths per 1,000 live births.

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The 10 Most Livable Countries in the World

COEUR d'ALENE - A Massachusetts woman filed a complaint with Coeur d'Alene city police Thursday claiming she called the Hitching Post that morning and was refused a same-sex wedding.

It was the first time the city's anti-discrimination ordinance was cited in a report to police. The ordinance makes denying employment, housing and other "public accommodations" based on sexual orientation a misdemeanor offense.

"After reviewing the allegations and investigation, the (city) prosecutor has declined to pursue criminal charges because the Hitching Post is a religious corporation that is exempt from the city's anti-discrimination ordinance," states a press release issued Friday afternoon by the city's communications coordinator.

The wedding chapel has been at the center of a national media frenzy since last week when attorneys for its owners, Don and Evelyn Knapp, filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city of Coeur d'Alene. The suit claims that under the city's anti-discrimination ordinance the couple is being forced to violate their religious beliefs and perform same-sex unions.

The city's determination that the Hitching Post is exempt because it is a religious corporation is a departure from the initial stance the city attorney's office took on the matter.

In a letter sent Monday to the Knapps' legal team, City Attorney Mike Gridley wrote: "If they are operating as a legitimate not-for-profit religious corporation, then they are exempt from the ordinance like any other church or religious association."

Because the wedding chapel is set up as a for-profit business, a registered limited liability company, it appeared, based on Gridley's letter, that the city would not exempt the Hitching Post from the ordinance.

However, 12 days before the lawsuit was filed, the Knapps created an LLC operating agreement that says the Hitching Post is a for-profit business and it is a religious corporation.

Gridley sent a letter to the Knapps' attorney Thursday with a "clarification" of his earlier letter.

He wrote that it is now his opinion and the city's position that "as currently represented, the conduct by Hitching Post Weddings LLC is exempt from the requirements of the ordinance and would not be subject to prosecution under the ordinance if a complaint was received by the city."

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Hitching Post exempt