Alliance for a New Humanity

The world is coming together to make tremendous changes and help mankind overcome severe obstacles facing them .One of the  powerful Alliances is ANH . UN and ANH have joined hands to train 100 million young people in new leaderships skills within the next few years.

Alliance for a New Humanity

Our mission is to connect people, who, through personal and social transformation, aim to build a just, peaceful, and sustainable world, reflecting the unity of all humanity.

CONNECT

We are people from all regions of the world and all walks of life who are joined by a common vision; to strengthen and sustain an actively compassionate humanity. Our movement is open to anyone who believes that creating a better world is possible – a world where all beings are valued equally, where the Earth is revered and protected and where the awesome potential of humanity can unite to bring about true peace and harmony.

Are you inspired by this vision? We call upon all people who are tired of passively waiting for things to change – to join us and Be The Change!

COMMUNICATE

We live in a time of great insecurity where humanity is faced with many grave threats. From climate change to political instability, from species extinction to poverty and warfare, it seems humanity is in great crisis. But crisis means not only danger, but also opportunity. Humanity is at a crossroads; our future depends on how we deal with four trends, each enmeshed and interconnected with the others: do we choose war or nonviolence, poverty or equity, environmental degradation or sustainability, discrimination or human rights? The choice is ours.

These problems are all interrelated, but so are the solutions!

INSPIRE

We envision a future illuminated by the truth of unity, a future where any boundary can be taken down because it only has to first come down in our hearts. This vision is a cause for celebration because many millions of people are following it already; soon this alliance of people working for a new humanity will guide a great evolutionary leap for all and provide the basis for sustainable solutions to humanity's greatest threats.

SUPPORT

Our pledge to you is that we will help to support all those initiatives worldwide that are really making a difference. Through our website, our newsletter and our Human Forums, we will provide the space for real change to happen, for people to come together to make a difference, and to share their passion about creating a better world.

Visit their site at : http://www.anhglobal.org and register

You may also visit my site to read principles of enriched thinking and watch a brief video: http://www.madure.org/enrichedthinking

General Blog

Top 10 Tips For Handling Redundancies

The “credit crunch” is being felt across the country. In the City of London workers are facing unprecedented lay-offs as banks and other employers react to the slow-down by making redundancies in swathes.

Redundancies are a way of life in the City. As one employer is firing, it is not uncommon to find another one hiring, so people can often move from job to job. However, unlike past lay-off situations, few organisations are recruiting at the moment and so employees are more willing to fight for their jobs. They are equally determined to fight for compensation if they are unsuccessful.

Employers need to take care to manage the dismissal process correctly to protect against the inevitable legal claims to come. Here are some tips for getting it right.

1. Document ‘fair’ reason
In any dismissal, the employer must show there was a “fair” reason for it – redundancy is, of course, a fair reason. Make sure that you have evidence to prove to a tribunal that a redundancy situation really did exist, and that the employee in question’s job really disappeared as a result.

2. Justify selection criteria
One of the key battlegrounds in any redundancy situation is selection. Make sure your selection criteria are capable of being objectively justified. Reasons such as being a “good team player” and “popular with clients” are too subjective to stand up in a tribunal as they are often based simply on the personal views of line managers.

3. Don’t discriminate
Ensure that redundancy selection criteria are non-discriminatory – in other words, they don’t make it harder for any particular groups of employees to score highly. For example, if attendance is a criterion, make sure you exclude maternity-related absence.

4. Consult employees
A fair procedure is all about consultation. Make sure you build in sufficient opportunities to consult employees in one-to-one meetings so that you can explore reasons for their selection and the possibilities for avoiding dismissals properly.

5. Build a flexible timetable
A sensible timetable is an important part of a redundancy process – but make sure you build in enough flexibility to allow employees to come back for more meetings where there are issues to discuss, or where extra information is needed. These are bound to make the process longer. Failure to allow enough time can lead to allegations that the process was a sham, and that decisions had been made in advance.

6. Gather ideas
Discuss selection not only with the employees selected for redundancy but also with their colleagues who have survived that particular round. These employees may have ideas of their own that could help reduce the need for dismissals. For example, someone not selected for redundancy may wish to take voluntary redundancy or opt for a job share – this could save someone else’s job.

7. Adhere to procedures
A fundamental part of any dismissal is adherence to the statutory dispute resolution procedures. These require employers to invite employees to a meeting to discuss the proposed redundancy, allowing them to bring a colleague or trade union representative in with them. Employers must listen to employees’ concerns, tell them the outcome of the meeting in writing, and allow them to appeal. If the employees do appeal, they must be invited to a new meeting with a manager not involved in the hearing. Again, employees have the right to be accompanied, and employers must confirm the outcome in writing. Failure to do so will make the dismissal automatically unfair.

8. Look at employment options
Employers are obliged to consider the availability of suitable alternative work. You should provide full details of any vacancies so that employees can evaluate the opportunity properly.

9. Air any grievances early
For many higher-paid workers the prospect of an unfair dismissal claim is not going to appeal since compensation is capped at £63,000. To claim worthwhile compensation, these employees need to include a claim for which compensation is uncapped, such as discrimination. Make sure that as part of the consultation process, all employees are given a chance to air their grievances before being selected for redundancy. If an employee does raise one of these issues, ensure you investigate fully before making the dismissal.

10. Check contracts
Likewise, there may be disputes over unpaid bonuses or future loss of bonus or stock options. Check employees’ contracts, and bonus and stock option scheme rules, to see if the termination plans and timing trigger financial entitlements. Keep a grip on the timetable to make sure, for example, that employment doesn’t continue longer than originally intended so that the employee is inadvertently still employed on the date a bonus is due.

From CIPD sources

General Blog

Inspiration !!

Norman Rockwell was one of the most prolific and well-known of American artists. During his 47-year career as a painter and illustrator, he depicted people and situations from everyday life. By his death in 1978, his work was familiar to millions of people, and remains iconic today.

Some of Rockwell's most recognized works include his cover art for the Saturday Evening Post, the Four Freedoms series (Freedom from Want, Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Worship and Freedom from Fear), A Problem We All Live With, showing school integration during the 1960s, and Triple Self-Portrait, which is featured on The Foundation for a Better Life's "Inspiration" billboard.

Rockwell was born in 1894 and died in 1978. The Great Depression, World War II, The Civil Rights movement, the Space Age – Rockwell lived, and painted, through most of the turbulent 20th century. Even during the most frightening and uncertain moments of that century, Rockwell's work never turned grim or despairing, retaining a fascination with the human drama he saw unfolding around him.

Rockwell's work conveyed a belief in the goodness of humanity. One example is Triple Self-Portrait, where we see the artist (in his 60s at the time of painting) from the back, reflected in a mirror, and in the larger-than-life portrait on the easel. In the mirror we see a man with an aging face, a grizzled moustache, and thick glasses – but he is painting himself as a young, handsome man, ready to take on the world. The viewer gets the sense that this depiction isn't a false one, but that the artist is looking in the mirror and seeing his own best self.

In the same way, Rockwell saw the best in those around him. The Four Freedoms, painted during World War II, made it evident that Rockwell also strove to showcase what he saw as the best of American values and ideals. In the midst of a grim conflict, these illustrations were a reminder of what kind of world Americans were working for through their sacrifice and hardship. Deeply concerned with civil rights, equality, and the war on poverty, Rockwell incorporated these themes into his later work. Even his paintings that deal with troubling subjects show a resistance to despair and pessimism.

Critics have dubbed Rockwell's work as sentimental, overly sweet, and idealized. This may be because his work seemed to say that the ordinary people he was painting were extraordinary at the core. If what Rockwell painted was idealized, he also believed that we, individually and collectively, have the potential to reach that ideal.

"I showed the America I knew and observed to others who might not have noticed," Rockwell said. He later received the Presidential Medal of Freedom for "vivid and affectionate portraits of our country." Norman Rockwell saw the best in us – and so he has given us occasion to see the good in ourselves and each other, and that even an honest look in the mirror can be cause for hope.

General Blog

Ambition !!

Liz Murray grew up in the Bronx, New York City. Addicted to drugs, her parents sometimes sold household items in order to get their fix. As a child, Liz hated school because when she did go, she was teased: there was no one to make sure that she showered or got up on time. As Liz grew older, her parents lost their apartment, and her father ended up in shelters. For a time Liz was placed in a group home. Her mother, who suffered from AIDS, became increasingly ill and was hospitalized. Rather than submit to the dehumanization and sadness that had characterized her experience in foster care, Liz chose to fend for herself. Liz slept on friends' couches or floors at odd hours, camped outside or rode the subway all night.

After her mother's death, Liz, then 16, felt that event as "a slap in the face" that caused her to question where her life was going. With an eighth-grade education, Liz decided that, as she said, "Life rewards action. I was going to go out there and… have action in my life every day instead of this stagnant behavior that I had been partaking in for so long."

Liz was admitted an alternative high school, the Humanities Preparatory Academy, where she doubled her course-load and completed high school in only two years. One of the top ten students in the school, Liz went on a school-sponsored trip to Boston and walked through Harvard Yard. "It's not as though I had some sort of epiphany at the moment … It was just more that I got jealous of how these students had so much opportunities, and I'd felt that I'd had very little. And so then I thought, `Well, what's the difference between me and anyone here?' And I filled in all the gaps."

Her grades qualified Liz for the New York Times College Scholarship, and she applied for and was admitted to Harvard. But far from resting on those considerable laurels, Liz continued to break new ground. A member of the Washington Speakers' Bureau, Liz has found she has "a knack for" sharing her story and insights with audiences across the country. Her story was adapted for film by Lifetime Television in the 2003 film "Homeless to Harvard: the Liz Murray Story." Liz is also an avid writer whose memoirs, "Breaking Night," were published in 2005. Liz returned to New York City to care for her ill father, and is currently pursuing a master's degree in psychology and sociology at Columbia University.

General Blog

CONFIDENCE- Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein was born in 1879 at Ulm in Württemberg, Germany. At age five, his father showed him a pocket compass, and Einstein realized that something in "empty" space acted upon the needle; he would later describe the experience as one of the most revelatory of his life. Though he built models and mechanical devices for fun, he was considered a slow learner, possibly due to dyslexia, simple shyness, or the significantly rare and unusual structure of his brain (as seen following his death). He later credited his development of the theory of relativity to this slowness, saying that by pondering space and time later than most children, he was able to apply a more developed intellect.

Einstein began to learn mathematics at about age twelve. There is a recurring rumor that he failed mathematics later in his education, but this is untrue; a change in the way grades were assigned caused confusion years later.

His failure of the liberal arts portion of the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (Federal Swiss Polytechnic University, in Zurich) entrance exam the following year was a setback; he was sent by his family to Aarau, Switzerland to finish secondary school, and received his diploma in 1896. In 1900, he earned a teaching diploma at the Swiss Polytechninc University and was accepted as a Swiss citizen in 1901. During this time Einstein discussed his scientific interests with a group of close friends.

Upon graduation, Einstein could not find a teaching post, and instead, started to work at the Swiss Patent office. He judged the worth of inventors' patent applications for devices that required a knowledge of physics to understand. He obtained his doctorate after submitting his thesis "On a new determination of molecular dimensions" in 1905.

That same year, he wrote four articles that provided the foundation of modern physics, without much scientific literature to refer to or many scientific colleagues to discuss the theories with. Most physicists agree that three of those papers (Brownian motion, the photoelectric effect, and special relativity) deserved Nobel prizes. Only the photoelectric effect would win in 1921.

Albert Einstein was much respected for his kind and friendly demeanor rooted in his pacifism. He occasionally had a playful sense of humour, and enjoyed playing the violin and sailing. He was also the stereotypical "absent-minded professor" he was often forgetful of everyday items, such as keys, and would focus so intently on solving physics problems that he would often become oblivious to his surroundings. He died on April 18, 1955 in Princeton, New Jersey.

 
General Blog

Human Rights Weekly Digest

Human Rights Watch Weekly Digest

        May 9th – 16th, 2008
© 2008 HRW Report Cover
Historic Decision Confers Equal Right to Marriage to Same-Sex Couples
(New York, May 15, 2008) – The California Supreme Court’s ruling today striking down state law that limits marriage to opposite-sex couples is a victory for equality that should set a national and international example, Human Rights Watch said today.

Read more   

States Should Resist Weakening Treaty in Any Way
(Dublin, May 16, 2008) – The more than 100 countries that will gather in Dublin, Ireland on May 19 to negotiate a new international treaty aimed at banning cluster munitions should reject attempts to weaken the treaty, Human Rights Watch said today. Participating countries are scheduled to adopt the final text of the treaty on May 30.

Read more   

Two Years After UN Ruling, No Action on Former Chad Dictator
(Geneva, May 16, 2008) – Two years after a United Nations committee requested that Senegal prosecute or extradite the former dictator of Chad, Hissène Habré, no action has been taken, six human rights organizations said today. Habré fled to Senegal after he was deposed in 1990.

Read more   

© 2008 HRW Report Cover
Overseas Integration Test Infringes on Rights of Migrants
(The Hague, May 15, 2008) – The Netherlands should abolish the overseas “integration test” that discriminatorily targets only migrants of certain nationalities trying to join their families, while citizens from other, “western” countries are exempt, Human Rights Watch said in a briefing paper released today.

Read more   

General Blog