Author: Priya Saha

The Sadhguru environment initiative says that global warming is increasing, Wildlife is going extinct, Water scarcity is spreading, But there’s a bigger underlying problem… Soil itself is going extinct. 52% of World’s Agricultural Soils Already Degraded– UN Food & Agriculture Organisation 23 Hectares of Cropland Desertified Every Minute30 Football Fields Every Minute!– UN Environment Loss of organic content and carbon turns rich soil into sand.To sustain agriculture, minimum organic carbon in soil should be 3%. 62% of India has less than 0.5% organic carbon.United States has lost 50% of its topsoil. In major European agricultural nations, 75-85% of soil has…

According to a recent study of the University of Agder in Norway, young Norwegian Muslims and Christians “carefully consider what type of religious content they share in social media, to avoid social exclusion and conflict” and not to miss job opportunities. Associate professors at Department of Sociology and Social Work of the University of Agder, Ronald Mayora Synnes and Irene Trysnes, interviewed 25 young people (13 female and 12 male), aged between 16 and 35, who are active in two Muslim and two Christian minority congregations in Oslo: an Eritrean and a Chinese church and two Muslim mosques. The research…

The overall death toll from COVID-19 reached 484,655.In a bid to combat the spread of the coronavirus, India began administering COVID-19 vaccine boosters to front-line workers and vulnerable elderly people on Monday, with the omicron variant fuelling a rise in daily infections.It reported 168,063 new COVID-19 infections on Tuesday, a 20-fold rise in a month.The health ministry said only 5% to 10% of the infected have sought hospitalisation, compared with 20% to 23% during the delta-driven last wave that peaked in May. Authorities in the cities of Delhi and Mumbai say most people have shown no or only minor symptoms…

Bangladesh (MNN) — Local authorities in Bangladesh attacked and beat eight Christians on their way to a baptism class, led by an FMI church planter. Four of them had to be taken to the hospital. The others recovered at home. Bruce Allen says these eight believers recently converted from Buddhism to Christianity. “In this community, even though Bangladesh is the third-largest Muslim majority nation, [the attackers] were an enclave of Buddhists, actually. They are a minority in Bangladesh, but they can get pretty militant. When these former Buddhists were making a declaration of faith in Jesus Christ, that really riled up…

This article was first published in the State of Faith newsletter. Sign up to receive the newsletter in your inbox each Monday night. Hours after securing a spot at next month’s Winter Olympics, American skater Timothy LeDuc reflected on the dark cloud hanging over the 2022 Games. “These are horrifying human rights abuses that we’re seeing happening. And it can feel very powerless when you read those things, because you think, ‘What can I do?’” said LeDuc on Sunday, referring to China’s alleged mistreatment of Muslim citizens. LeDuc’s statement is notable not because of its content but because it happened…

Abstract Background National dementia guidelines provide recommendations about the most effective approaches to diagnosis and interventions. Guidelines can improve care, but some groups such as people with minority characteristics may be disadvantaged if recommended approaches are the same for everyone. It is not known if dementia guidelines address specific needs related to patient characteristics. The objectives of this review are to identify which countries have national guidelines for dementia and synthesise recommendations relating to protected characteristics, as defined in the UK Equality Act 2010: age, disability, gender identity, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex,…

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is so confident that he’ll be Speaker of the House next year that he’s already making plans for how to wield power in 2023. As NBC News reported, one of the California Republican’s top priorities is using committee assignments to retaliate against Democrats.House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Monday that if Republicans win control of House in the midterm elections and put him in charge, he would remove some high-profile Democratic members from their committee roles…. McCarthy named Reps. Eric Swalwell California; Ilhan Omar of Minnesota; and Adam Schiff of California as Democrats he’d remove…

It is one of the fundamental principles of political redistricting in the United States: maps should be drawn so as not to deny, dilute or abridge the the voting rights of any group based on race or ethnicity.  The U.S. Supreme Court and federal laws like the Voting Right Act have long demanded that new political maps not harm minority voting strength, and the special five-judge panel appointed by Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice Lorie Gildea to step in if the Minnesota Legislature can’t agree on new political boundaries — something it has been unable to do in five decades…

Bangladesh (MNN) — Life gets tougher for the Rohingya. A fire ripped through a Bangladesh refugee camp on Sunday, destroying hundreds of homes. Officials have reported no casualties, nor could they discover the cause of the fire. Last week, a COVID-19 treatment center in the camps burned down as well. The Rohingya people fled from Myanmar to avoid genocide in 2017. A Christian ministry worker we will call Robert works in Bangladesh with The Voice of the Martyrs Canada. He says, “They don’t have a written language. They don’t have citizenship, they don’t have hope to get out unless they…

Youth Policy Forum (YPF) and TikTok hosted their inaugural dialogue on 6 January to facilitate a safer virtual ecosystem for Bangladeshis alongside every Internet user. The web dialogue “Towards a Digital Space” was held as a part of the official launching of the campaign “Safe Internet, Safe You”, reads a press release.  In a joint effort to discuss ways to maximise collective wellbeing in the digital era, valuable insights were found from differing perspectives as a diverse panel, including Bangladesh Child Health Research Foundation Director and Scientist Dr Senjuti Saha, Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto Assistant Professor…

Islamabad: Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on Monday alleged that minorities in India were being targeted by extremist groups and warned that such an agenda “is a real and present threat” to regional peace. Khan took to Twitter to make the allegations in the wake of alleged inflammatory and provocative speeches against Muslims at an event in Haridwar in Uttarakhand held in December. ADVERTISEMENT CONTINUE READING BELOW On his Twitter handle, Khan also questioned whether the BJP government supports the call for genocide of minorities in India, especially the 200 million Muslim community. It is high time international community took note…

The Cabinet Division has announced a set of restrictions to curb the spread of Covid-19 effective from 13 January. The restrictions include limiting passengers in public transports, banning all kinds of social, political, and religious gatherings in open places, and mandatory wearing of face masks.  Public transport, including buses, trains and launches will have to carry passengers half of their capacity while inoculation is a must for transport drivers and helpers. The authorities concern will issue seperate guidelines in this regard.   People have to wear masks in all public places including shopping malls, markets, hotels, and restaurants, Otherwise, they have to…