Domain of Hecate

NEW DELHI
AIDS COULD be a good thing for India!That's one message sent by health planners and clinic workers watching the epidemic's impact on this country's politics, economy and social customs. As revolutionary as Mohandas K. Gandhi's insurrection against British rule, AIDS has the potential to rework India even as it infects millions.

The notion of AIDS as a change agent isn't a flip remark. For India, and other countries slowly waking to the disease, the stakes are major. In India, there are 5 million infected with the virus that causes AIDS. Only South Africa has more cases.

This devastation has brought on a frank brand of reverse thinking. The epidemic is so dire, India has to try something brand new. The threat should yank social thinking and institutions forward in ways that other changes such as politics, the Internet, religious fervor or popular culture could only dream about.

Is it callous to think that AIDS can produce positive changes? To several Indians, it's the only way.

Consider a list of nearly taboo subjects that go along with any serious effort to curb AIDS: women's rights, domestic violence, sex education, political leadership and government responsiveness.

"This epidemic allows us to talk about all these things. It's an opportunity we never had before,'' said Dr. Revathi Narayanan, a United Nations AIDS planner.

With AIDS creeping into Indian society from all sides, what can be done? This is where the revolution begins.

First the disease needs to be understood. In a tiny schoolroom in Mombai, former street children are taught the basics: AIDS comes from drug use, tainted blood and failure to use a condom. Just as important, the young audience is taught about AIDS myths: You don't get it from a handshake, a hug or a shared glass of water. It's tentative and dumbed-down, but it's a start in a country skittish about sex ed.

Next comes prevention. Handing out condoms is one heavily promoted concept because it's cheap and simple-sounding. Condoms work fine for men who patronize prostitutes. But many males don't like using them, contract AIDS during paid-for sex, and then return home to infect wives.

In India, this infection-spreading dynamic is enormous. The country has a huge military and migrant population of truckers, railway workers and factory hands who patronize brothels or street prostitutes during months away from home.

Here comes the challenge. Wives need the social support to ask husbands to drop outside partners or use a condom at home. Right now, a questioning wife risks a beating or divorce. A simple condom becomes a powerful symbol of male responsibility and women's rights.

Government can't escape the blame either. Former President Ronald Reagan famously looked away from the brewing AIDS scourge in the 1980s. This failure can't be repeated in even bigger countries such as India and China.

What worked in the United States with its population of gays under siege from AIDS can't be transplanted overseas. The anti-AIDS message, safeguards and target audience need to be tailored for maximum impact. Said U.N. official Dr. Maxine Olson, "What India needs is a Magic Johnson,'' a national celebrity who admits carrying the AIDS virus. India's pop culture hasn't produced such a figure.

So far the fresh thinking comes from outside Indian government. For example, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has launched a five-year, $200 million effort targeting truck drivers and roadside prostitutes on the country's heavily used highways. But the work taps private health groups and gas-station chains, not the country's notoriously obstructive bureaucrats.

A terrorist couldn't design a more dangerous challenge than AIDS. Nearly every social institution is under assault, from the central government to the intimacy of husband and wife. But if a country like India can find a response, it will be a huge victory over AIDS and the injustices that allowed it to spread.

Marshall Kilduff, San Francisco Chronicle, 27 July 2004

As the curtain falls on the IAC 2004 in Bangkok, and we move towards the International Conference on AIDS and Sexually transmitted infections in Africa (ICASA) 2005 in Abuja, Nigeria’s sprawling capital city – a very beautiful one and arguably one of the fastest growing cities in today’s world- it is imperative that all hands must be on deck so that the lessons of Bangkok are built upon to ensure a very successful conference.

Already, with the theme as "HIV/AIDS and the Family", and coming on the heels of previous and similar conferences held in the same city such as the year 2001 African summit on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and other infectious diseases and the 4th National Conference on HIV/AIDS in Nigeria held in 2004, the elements of ‘access to all’ would still echo at Abuja.

As a biennial event that brings together all stakeholders on HIV/AIDS from within and outside Africa, ICASA 2005 would afford another opportunity for countries, companies, communities, groups and individuals to present updates and take stock of the various responses to the epidemic and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) especially in the continent. It would be time once more to showcase achievements, constraints and best practices recorded in providing ‘access to all’ through effective implementation of preventive, care, supportive and other control programmes undertaken and or envisaged to be undertaken.

It is imperative to initiate and or strengthen without further delays, actions for clear, affordable, applicable and adaptable policies and programmes which seek to provide universal access to HIV/AIDS education and information, ensure the availability and affordability of HIV/AIDS-related medicines including life-extending treatments, enhance overall nutrition and food security, out rightly condemn and abhour all forms of HIV/AIDS-related stigma and discrimination regardless of race, creed or reasons, mobilize enough resources and funding for HIV/AIDS control activities whether in the high-rises of New York or the

In doing so, all measures which have even the slightest chances of reducing the spread and impact of the disease must not be ignored. These include measures which address post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) for all those at risk for the disease resulting from their occupation or accidents, provision and distribution of male and female condoms, investments in microbicides and vaccines initiatives, massive provision of medicines for tuberculosis (TB), Kaposi's Sarcoma, STIs, thrush, meningitis and other HIV/AIDS opportunistic and or co-infections. Others measures include generating/updating protocols for diagnosis, research, drugs availability and clinical/home-based care and
carers, including the avowed commitment of 15% of annual national budgets to improve health, particularly HIV/AIDS, TB, and malaria provision of good governance at all levels for practical self-evident and visible improvement in the welfare and living standards of our people in order to check the so-called brain drain, devising local ways to access/take all the benefits of the Doha declarations, etc.

The time has indeed come, for our countries and communities to provide enhanced ‘access to all’ our people who are infected and or affected by HIV/AIDS, with or without the almighty donor support.

Most ancient cultures saw pictures in the stars of the night sky. The earliest known efforts to catalogue the stars date to cuneiform texts and artifacts dating back roughly 6000 years. These remnants, found in the valley of the Euphrates River, suggest that the ancients observing the heavens saw the lion, the bull, and the scorpion in the stars. The constellations as we know them today are undoubtedly very different from those first few--our night sky is a compendium of images from a number of different societies, both ancient and modern. By far, though, we owe the greatest debt to the mythology of the ancient Greeks and Romans.

The earliest references to the mythological significance of the Greek constellations may be found in the works of Homer, which probably date to the 7th century B.C. In the Iliad, for instance, Homer describes the creation of Achilleus's shield by the craftsman god Hephaistos: On it he made the earth, and sky, and sea, the weariless sun and the moon waxing full, and all the constellations that crown the heavens, Pleiades and Hyades, the mighty Orion and the Bear, which men also call by the name of Wain: she wheels round in the same place and watches for Orion, and is the only one not to bathe in Ocean (Iliad XVIII 486-490).

At the time of Homer, however, most of the constellations were not associated with any particular myth, hero, or god. They were instead known simply as the objects or animals which they represented--the Lyre, for instance, or the Ram. By the 5th century B.C., however, most of the constellations had come to be associated with myths, and the Catasterismi of Eratosthenes completed the mythologization of the stars. "At this stage, the fusion between astronomy and mythology is so complete that no further distinction is made between them"--the stars were no longer merely identified with certain gods or heroes, but actually were perceived as divine (Seznec, 37-40).
Despite the many mentions of the stars in Greek and early Roman texts, by far the most thorough star catalogue from ancient times belongs to the Roman Ptolemy of Alexandria, who grouped 1022 stars into 48 constellations during the 2nd century A.D. Although Ptolemy's Almagest does not include the constellations which may only be seen from the southern hemisphere, it forms the basis for the modern list of 88 constellations officially designated by the International Astronomical Union (Pasachoff, 134-135). The influence of both the Greek and Roman cultures may be plainly seen; the myths behind the constellations date back to ancient Greece, but we use their Latin names.

Mythology, of course, had influence on a great many aspects of astronomy other than the naming of the constellations. The planets all bear mythological names which reflect their characteristics--Mars, for instance, is blood-red, while Jupiter is the largest planet in the Solar System. On a particularly amusing note, the names of the Galilean moons of Jupiter (the four largest, which may be seen with even a small telescope) are Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. It is ironic that the mythological characters the king of the gods so ardently pursued now revolve around him.

UN Report released today: "Women and HIV/AIDS: Confronting the Crisis"
PRESS RELEASE, 14 July 2004

ACTION AGAINST AIDS MUST ADDRESS EPIDEMIC'S INCREASING IMPACT ON WOMEN

BANGKOK, 14 July 2004 - Action against HIV/AIDS that does not confront gender inequality is doomed to failure, according to a report released today by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) and UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund.

Noting that women are now nearly half of all people infected with HIV, the report documents the devastating and often invisible impact of AIDS on women and girls and highlights the ways discrimination, poverty and gender-based violence help fuel the epidemic.

The report, Women and HIV/AIDS: Confronting the Crisis , reveals that 48% of all adults living with HIV are women, up from 35% in 1985. Today, 37.8 million people are infected worldwide: 17 million of them are female. The situation is even more alarming in sub-Saharan Africa, where women make up 57% of those living with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Young African women aged 15-24 are three times more likely to be infected than are their male counterparts.

Without AIDS strategies that specifically focus on women, there can be no global progress in fighting the disease. Women know less than men about how to prevent infection, and what they do know is often rendered useless by the discrimination and violence they face, according to the report.

"Promoting concrete actions that address the reality of women's lives and help decrease their vulnerability to HIV is the only way forward," said Dr Kathleen Cravero, Deputy Executive Director of UNAIDS. "We must reduce violence against women, ensure greater access to HIV prevention and treatment services and protect their property rights."

Confronting the Crisis focuses on key areas identified by the Global Coalition on Women and AIDS - an international pressure group - as critical to an effective AIDS response. The Coalition is a broad-based initiative launched in 2004 to stimulate concrete action to improve the daily lives of women and girls infected and affected by HIV and AIDS.

These critical areas include HIV prevention, treatment, care-giving, education, gender-based violence and women's rights. Women have the right to education and information needed to protect themselves, and to female-controlled protection methods. They have the right to own or inherit land and property and to pursue independent livelihoods. They have the right to be free from harmful traditional practices and violence. They have the right to exercise control over their own bodies and lives.

"The ABC approach - Abstain, Be faithful, use Condoms - is not a sufficient means of prevention for women and adolescent girls," said UNFPA Executive Director Thoraya Obaid. "Abstinence is meaningless to women who are coerced into sex. Faithfulness offers little protection to wives whose husbands have several partners or were infected before marriage. And condoms require the cooperation of men."

"The social and economic empowerment of women is key. The epidemic won't be reversed unless governments provide the resources needed to ensure women's right to sexual and reproductive health," she added.

Despite the odds stacked against them, many women have become leaders in the battle against HIV/AIDS. Confronting the Crisis offers a number of stories of women from across the globe who are taking innovative action to face the epidemic. These women are battling to change AIDS policies and strategies, and calling for funding to be directed to meeting women's needs and circumstances.

Noeleen Heyzer, Executive Director of UNIFEM, said that "gender inequality has turned a devastating disease - AIDS - into an economic and social crisis."

"The crisis requires the infusion of serious resources into programmes and policies that promote gender equality and women's empowerment," she added. "These must be grounded in the knowledge and experiences of women living and working in communities affected by HIV/AIDS. Women are not just victims, they are agents of change. Infected and affected women's voices must be heard and their leadership invested in. To end this triple threat of HIV/AIDS, gender inequality and poverty, women must have the right to economic independence and equal access to land, property and employment, and to a life free of stigma, violence and discrimination."

Note to editors:

Some of the women whose stories are featured in Confronting the Crisis include:

Kousalya Periaswamy, living in India, was widowed and left HIV-positive at 19 by a husband who only told her he was infected a few weeks after their marriage. She braved social disapproval and began speaking out to encourage positive women like herself to come forward. The group she helped to start, the Positive Women's Network of South India, now has thousands of members, providing counselling, social services and hope for many women and girls. (Ms Periaswamy is attending the IAS conference and may be available for interview.)

In Sierra Leone, armed militiamen abducted Khadija Bah, 19, and made her their sexual slave after murdering her parents and husband. She escaped, made her way to the capital, Freetown, and like thousands of others with no means of support, she turned to sex work to survive. At a centre run by the Women in Crisis project, started by "Auntie Juliana" Konteh, Khadija found a safe place where she could talk about her trauma, learn to protect herself against HIV, and learn skills that would allow her to give up sex work.

The Road to Success is not straight. There is a curve called failure, a loop called confusion, speed bumps called friends, caution lights called family,and you will have flats called jobs.

But... if you have a spare called determination, an engine called perseverance, insurance called faith,and a driver called God you will make it to a place called success!

"If you're going to make every game a matter of life or death, you're going to have a lot of problems. For one thing, you'll be dead a lot." !

Comprising ten different political parties, Lesotho’s current parliament is the most inclusive and widely representative in the nation's history. This was made possible because, before its watershed 2002 general election, the country adopted a new electoral model in which two thirds of the 120 member National Assembly is chosen under a First-Past-The-Post model, and one third through Proportional Representation.

In May,2004 after consultations with the Assembly’s leadership, UNDP organized a three-day “Seven Habits of Most Effective People” workshop designed to inspire Parliamentarians' personal transformation as a first step towards empowering them to take on greater leadership roles and help the country “break out of the mould” in addressing its urgent problems.

The workshop emphasised the virtues of altruism in personal as in public life; uncompromising loyalty to principle and willingness to overcome one’s prejudice and predispositions to become a fuller person. It aimed to help parliamentarians hone their leadership skills, find new ways to transcend interpersonal differences and partisan divisions in pursuit of higher national goals, and more effectively articulate the needs and aspirations of their constituents.

A follow up session, where workshop participants will review the commitments they have made to bring about change in their lives, in their inter-personal and public relations, and in the manner in which they transact their public duty and obligations, is being planned for the latter part of the year.

Sourced from N S Bereng (UNDP News)

Was wondering with the new crop of young politicians in our parliament if some sane brain can introduce similar management concepts in lives of our parliamentarians too!

Monitoring is the regular observation and recording of activities taking place in a project or programme. It is a process of routinely gathering information on all aspects of the project. To monitor is to check on how project activities are progressing. It is
observation; systematic and purposeful observation.

Monitoring also involves giving feedback about the progress of the project to the donors, implementers and beneficiaries of the project. Reporting enables the gathered information to be used in making decisions for improving project performance.

Purpose of Monitoring:

Monitoring is very important in project planning and implementation. It is like watching where you are going while riding a bicycle; you can adjust as you go along and ensure that you are on the right track.

What is good governance?

One goal of good governance is to enable an organization to do its work and fulfill its mission. Good governance results in organizational effectiveness.

But good governance is about more than getting the job done. Especially in the voluntary sector, where values typically play an important role in determining both organizational purpose and style of operation, process is as important as product. Good governance becomes more than only a means to organizational effectiveness and becomes an end in itself.

Good governance is about both achieving desired results and achieving them in the right way.

Since the "right way" is largely shaped by the cultural norms and values of the organization, there can be no universal template for good governance. Each organization must tailor their own definition of good governance to suit their needs and values.

There is plenty of room for different traditions and values to be accommodated in the definition of good governance. At the same time, all is not relative. There are some universal norms and values that apply across cultural boundaries. The United Nations published a list of characteristics of good governance. They include:

• Participation: providing all men and women with a voice in decision-making
  
• Transparency: built on the free flow of information
  
• Responsiveness: of institutions and processes to stakeholders
  
• Consensus orientation: differing interests are mediated to reach
  a broad consensus on what is in the general interest
  
• Equity: all men and women have opportunities to become involved
  
• Effectiveness and efficiency: processes and institutions produce
  results that meet needs while making the best use of resources
  
• Accountability: of decision-makers to stakeholders
  
• Strategic vision: leaders and the public have a broad and long-term
  perspective on good governance and human development, along with
  a sense of what is needed for such development. There is also
  an understanding of the historical, cultural and social complexities
  in which that perspective is grounded.
  

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