I am always surprised at people talking a lot about Parenting.
I recall an instance when a leading school invited me for a Seminar as Faculty on Parenting organised for Schools and Parents in Chennai, around 2009.
Knowing my views and quirkiness in addressing a meet , I politely declined.
The Correspondent of the Institution where I was Management Consultant insisted I attend and confirmed me as a participant.
Being a good friend of the Correspondent I attended.
There was a lot of talk and discussions on parenting.
Dog as a Buddhist
When my turn came , I spoke thus,
‘Ladies and Gentlemen,
All of you are assembled here to listen to a talk on Parenting.
Animals, and even lowly Life, beget children and they bring their children up.
They do not attend a seminar.
That’s my talk.
Thank you”
I am always surprised at people trying to study parenting!
They leave children to baby sitters and attend seminars on parenting!
Now the story beats even this.
Digs are replacing children in Hong Kong and Singapore.And worse dogs are being declared as Buddhists.
Read On:
In Hong Kong and Singapore, it is not unusual to see couples pushing baby strollers that do not contain a baby, but rather a small dog. Sometimes the puppy prams are not wheeled by the dog owners, but by a Filipino or Indonesian domestic helper who has been hired just to look after the pooch.
This extreme level of anthropomorphic dog pampering is taking place, not surprisingly, in two cities where sky-high high real estate prices and poor parental benefits force many adults to forego what is increasingly viewed as the luxury of having children. The combination of low fertility and the worryingly high prices of homes large enough to raise actual kids —this modest 776 square foot 3-bed in a Hong Kong suburb popular with middle class families rents at $3864 a month—produces some eye-catching luxury businesses catering to canines.
In Singapore, pet owners can buy sailboat cruises and aromatherapy sessions for their companions, the Daily Telegraph reports. Hong Kong has a luxury dog hotel for animals whose owners—sorry, “parents”— cannot bear the thought of leaving them in a mere kennel. Allegedly designed in consultation with an animal psychologist, it has a beauty spa and a shop selling products with names such as “Ultrasonic Hydro Bath”. (Here is a photo gallery of its primped and coiffed guests.)
And let us not forget about the dogs’ religious and spiritual needs. At a recent pet products exhibition in Hong Kong, guests could have their animals proclaimed as Buddhists in what is known as a “gui yi” (皈依) ceremony. And in 2011, a South African yoga instructor in Hong Kong offered “dog yoga”; in Singapore they call it “doga.”
Singapore’s leaders would much rather have people fulfill their need to nurture by having more babies; the city state is facing a dangerous demographic time-bomb with a fertility rate of 1.2 births per woman. In Hong Kong, the figure is only 1.1.
One main reason: Real estate. Property prices have soared in both cities due to low global interest rates, open economies and high interest from wealthy mainland Chinese buyers. Hong Kong flats are nicknamed “shoebox homes“. And while Singapore offers its poorest citizens fantastic public housing, the government is also fighting a property bubble (paywall) that has put home ownership beyond the reach of much of the middle class. Hong Kong and Singapore policymakers also don’t do much to encourage parenthood by providing generous maternity or paternity leave, like France and Sweden.
Very mature and professional amidst mass hysteria.
Jyoti Singh Pandey, the Delhi gang rape victim
“Take, for example, the recent case, where the rape happened in a bus, the group of men was in a surrounding that was familiar to them, and hence had a sense of security. Rapists also attempt to take total control of the victim, physical and psychological, through physical violations or threats or both.
When I did the study initially, it was very difficult to get them to talk about the act. They would not acknowledge that they had committed the crime. There was a widespread belief among the offenders that they were going to get away; they thought they would be able to circumvent the system. It was usually their third or fourth crime, and their confidence level that they would be able to get away was very high. Any behavioral psychologist would tell you that this does not come with the first crime.
There was also almost no sense of guilt or remorse. The general feeling even among the convicted was that they would still manage to get away. Many of them told me that they had appealed to the higher courts, or said they had been framed, or said they had not been careful enough.
On the Influences for Rape.
I would say the instances of gang rape have increased in the past five to six years. When a group of men come together, say, for a celebration, their threshold would go down. A lot of these crimes were also committed under the influence of alcohol, which further reduces their discretionary powers. The sense of collective responsibility takes hold, which makes it possible for the individual to do things which he may not ever do alone.
When they are in a group, they feel a sense of security. For example, if they get caught on the way, let’s say by a policeman, they think they can always pay a bribe and get away. This is possible when the system is corrupt and there is no fear of the rule of law in the criminal mind.
The decision-making mechanism is also different in a group. There is always someone taking the leadership role and others following. There is usually someone in the group who resists the course of action suggested by the leader, but whose voice is suppressed. Again in the recent case, the reports suggest that the driver of the bus was the one who made the decision and the rest followed.
Unfortunately, there is very little awareness among the police force in India about the functioning and control of such elements. For example, in a city like Hong Kong, if a group of men are seen driving around in an inebriated state, or are seen on the road behaving in an inappropriate manner, a police vehicle would immediately start trailing them, and they would be made to take an alcohol test and be booked if they had already committed any minor offenses, which could be a step towards preventing a bigger crime. The police are on an active lookout to prevent such situations before they occur.
Q.
One of the reasons cited in the rise in the occurrence of these crimes is the empowerment of women, which leads to a backlash from the men. Would you agree?
A.
I don’t agree with people who say revenge against women, who are seen as more empowered, now can be seen as a valid reason. It is based on a very patriarchal reasoning which absolves men of any responsibility.
It is also a subtle way of influencing the criminal justice system, by portraying the women to be somewhat responsible for the crime.
Q.
News reports also suggest that most rape victims know their attackers.
A.
This understanding of the relationship between the victim and the perpetrator is misleading. How would you say that the woman knows the man? For example, if a man lives in the neighborhood and the women is aware that he lives there, or if they have interacted on some occasions, would you say that they know each other? This is another way of making the crime seem to be of a social-familial nature, or to confine it to the limits of the community and not see a role for the criminal justice system in its redressal.Do you support calls for the death penalty for rapists?
A.
I am a bit worried about the protests and the direction they are taking right now. Though I support them, I feel that asking for more severe punishment would not help if we are not ensuring the certainty of punishment. By doing this, on the contrary, we would be loading a criminal justice system which is already falling apart.
I have testified in nearly 150 such cases in Delhi. I find that there is great impunity and very little fear of rule of law. Most of these types of crimes are preventable.
I think that maintaining a database is a good idea, but the whole “name and shame” campaign may not work. It is an antiquated medieval belief, which leads to loss of objectivity. In fact, shaming may not work as a deterrent. It may do exactly the opposite.
I distinctly remember when the police superintendents attended the group meetings I conducted with the sex offenders in the jail. They would adopt a very moralizing approach to them, and pass statements which are often heard in India, like: Sharam nahi aati? Ghar pe maa behen nahi hai kya? (Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? Do you not have mothers and sisters at your home?) And I remember looking at the offenders themselves, and there would be a gleam in their eyes.
Which is why this demand for shaming scares me. It has not worked in any part of the world. What we really need is an overhauling of the criminal justice system.
Bon voyage, billions! The wealth of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s family includes lucrative cross-border investment.AP Photo/Andy Wong
‘ The bulk of its estimate, 86.2%, comes from alleged trade mispricing, as Chinese exporters massage reported sales figures with help from their foreign partners to hide profits abroad. But there are many ways for funds to find their way overseas, from art to gambling. Over the last six years, GFI believes some $596 billion in Chinese funds have been moved to tax havens.
While GFI’s estimates are large, it’s clear this is a very real phenomenon: A more conservative figure for outflows from a Standard Chartered bank economist relying only on public data suggests that at least $71 billion left China just this past summer. Another recent estimate suggests some $225 billion left in the year leading up to September 2012(http://qz.com)
Global Financial Integrity (GFI), an American research group that campaigns against illicit financial flows, believes this mis-invoicing is rampant. In a new study Dev Kar and Sarah Freitas of GFI compared China’s reported exports to the world with the world’s stated imports from China. They also juxtaposed China’s purchases from the world, with the world’s exports to China. In principle the figures should match. But the two economists found huge discrepancies between them (see chart). If, as Mr Kar and Ms Freitas recommend, China’s trade with Hong Kong and Macau is excluded, the country appears to have understated its exports and overstated its imports by a combined $430 billion in 2011.
These estimates are hard to take at face value. They imply that China’s true current-account surplus (which includes its trade surplus plus one or two other things) was almost 20% of GDP at its peak in 2007 (officially it was about 10%). But even if the figures are illustrative, rather than definitive, they highlight the difficulty of curbing the cross-border flow of capital in a country with such a heavy cross-border flow of goods.”(economist.com).
Please recollect whether this reminds you of an Indian Political Family, though there are many who have amassed wealth by dubious means, one Family fits the Bill .
‘
Wen Jiabao’s Family Wealth.
DALIAN, China — Just a few weeks before his dramatic fall from power, Bo Xilaiwrote an inscription in calligraphy, praising the Chongqing Water Assets Management Company, and urging support for its operations.
What he did not say was that a foundation controlled by his younger brother, Bo Xicheng, had acquired a stake in a subsidiary of the water company.
Mr. Bo had done something similar in 2003, while serving as governor here in Liaoning Province.
He said his province would make supporting the Dalian Daxian company, a conglomerate engaged primarily in electronics manufacturing, one of the most important tasks of the next five years.
A few years earlier, another company controlled by the same younger brother was listed as the owner of nearly a million shares in Dalian Daxian, worth about $1.2 million.
It is not clear whether Mr. Bo knew of the indirect stakes in the companies, or whether his brother profited from his pronouncements.
But now, in the aftermath of Mr. Bo’s dismissal, on suspicions of corruption and accusations that his wife arranged the killing of a British business associate, there are mounting questions about whether Mr. Bo, who was most recently the party chief in the city of Chongqing and a member of the Politburo, used his enormous political clout to enrich himself and his closest relatives.
For much of the last decade, while Bo Xilai was busy moving up the ranks of the Communist Party, and even striking populist themes aimed at improving the lot of the poor, his relatives were quietly amassing a fortune estimated at more than $160 million.
His elder brother accumulated millions of dollars’ worth of shares in one of the country’s biggest state-owned conglomerates.
His sister-in-law owns a significant stake in a printing company she started that was recently valued at $400 million.
And even Mr. Bo’s 24-year-old son, now studying at Harvard, got into business in 2010, registering a technology company with $320,000 in start-up capital.
Bo Xilai’s downfall this spring has also cast a sharper spotlight on the hidden wealth and power accumulated by the Communist Party’s revolutionary families, and by the sons, daughters, wives and close relatives of the nation’s high-ranking leaders.
“This could really open a can of worms,” says Bo Zhiyue, a senior fellow at the National University of Singapore’s East Asian Institute.
“The relatives of other party leaders are also doing lots of business deals, and people will begin to ask: What about them? Was the Bo family the only one doing this kind of thing?”
Mr. Bo was suspended from his Politburo position and his leadership of Chongqing, a large metropolis with province status, in recent weeks amid accusations that, among other things, he interfered with an investigation into the death of a Neil Heywood, a British businessman whose body was found in a Chongqing hotel room on Nov. 15.
His death was initially attributed to alcohol poisoning.
Mr. Bo’s wife, Gu Kailai, and Zhang Xiaojun, the family’s 32-year-old “orderly,” were named as the main suspects, with officials saying Ms. Gu and her son, Bo Guagua, had had a dispute with Mr. Heywood over “economic interests.”
The case has also raised questions about how the Bo family was able to afford to send their only son to study in England at Harrow and Oxford University, as well as now at Harvard, for graduate school.
State-run media reports have hinted at the possibility that the Bo family had been transferring illicit assets overseas.
And soon after Mr. Bo was dismissed from his posts, Xu Ming, one of China’s wealthiest businessmen, with close ties to Mr. Bo and his family, was detained, possibly here in the city of Dalian, where Mr. Bo had once served as mayor.
None of the extended family members have been accused of illegality.
But the circumstances surrounding Mr. Bo’s actions in support of companies where family members had an interest suggest that he may have used his influence to help increase their wealth.
Corporate records in Hong Kong and China show that the siblings of both Mr. Bo, who also served as commerce minister in the national government, and his wife have been exceptionally active for years in forming investment companies and setting up offshore entities.
Moreover, sometimes Mr. Bo’s family members have held their stakes using an alias.
Two of Ms. Gu’s sisters — Gu Wangjiang and Gu Wangning — have earned millions of dollars in publishing, real estate and other ventures.
Together they own about $120 million worth of shares in the TungKong Security Printing Company in eastern China.
The TungKong Web site says the company has contracts with some of China’s biggest state-owned enterprises and government agencies, including the tax authorities and the Central Bank.
Gu Wangning also helped Bo Guagua establish a technology company in Beijing in 2010.
The Guagua Technology Company’s supervisor is listed as Mr. Zhang, the Bo family aide accused along with Ms. Gu of being involved in Mr. Heywood’s death.
Two of Bo Xilai’s three brothers are well-established businessmen with close ties to state companies.
His elder brother, Bo Xiyong, 64, has invested over the years, according to Hong Kong records, in a series of offshore investment vehicles like Advanced Technology and Economic Development, partly owned by a British Virgin Islands entity, and Far Eastern Industries.
But little about the companies is publicly available.
Bo Xiyong is also vice chairman of China Everbright International, a division of the Everbright Group, a giant state-owned company.
His annual salary is about $200,000 and his stake in the company during the past decade is about $10 million, based on shares he has sold and the value of his current stock options, according to public filings.
In addition, Bo Xiyong is a deputy of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, a government advisory body, and until recently he served as deputy chairman of HKC Holdings, a Hong Kong company controlled by the family of an Indonesian billionaire.
In 2010, the big American private equity firm TPG invested about $25 million in HKC, which specializes in infrastructure and alternative energy projects in China and has won numerous state contracts.
Bo Xicheng, the younger brother with the foundation, has ties to several companies that operated in Dalian and Chongqing, the two cities where Bo Xilai served as a high-ranking official.
His charitable foundation, the Beijing Xingda Educational Foundation, has on its board of directors the heads of two real estate developers, the Dalian Huanan Group and Chongqing Tianyou, as well as Weng Zhenjie, the chief executive of the Chongqing International Trust Company.
Earlier this year, a Chongqing business tycoon, Zhang Mingyu, accused Bo Xilai’s police force of threatening him and protecting Mr. Weng, who Mr. Zhang said was a former business partner who had quarreled with him in Chongqing.
Among the advisers to the foundation, which has already raised more than $20 million, are two academics from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences who publicly supported Bo Xilai’s “Chongqing model” of development.
The foundation owns a $2 million stake in Chongqing Water Group, a company now valued at about $5 billion.
Bo Xicheng has served as a director of several big state-owned companies, including Citic Securities, one of China’s largest investment houses.
He is also the founder of a small company that makes fire extinguishers and other equipment, called Beijing Liuhean Firefighting Science and Technology, whose products are used in government agencies, luxury hotels, power plants and in Tiananmen Square in Beijing.
Less is known about Bo Xilai’s wife, Gu Kailai, except that she opened her own law firm, with offices in various countries, and also set up several consulting firms with foreign businessmen.
There is also a great deal of mystery about Mr. Bo’s son by his first marriage, Li Wangzhi.
Like the children of so many high-ranking Chinese leaders, Mr. Li, 34, has worked in private equity and held a job at Citigroup.
He invested in companies in Dalian, on his father’s turf, according to corporate filings.
He has been known alternatively as Brendan Li and Li Xiaobai.
In a news item in the Independent,it is revealed how a Hyderabad( India) Bank is involved in stashing a Fraudsters’ Money along with Swiss Bank.
Why don’t our people check on this bank for 2G,ISRO ,Mine Scam and Coalgate Money?
”
AN €11m money trail involving a Quinn family company and a bank in India, is revealed by the Irish Independent today.
We also reveal the involvement of a Swiss financier in the tangled arrangement surrounding a massive office block inHyderabad, India.
The Quinn family firm got the €11m secret loan in spite of court orders banning them from interference with their €500m property portfolio.
The collateral for the cash boost was future rental income at the office block, Q City, owned by the family in India.
The massive loan was created in India last January, five days before Sean Quinn snr was declared bankrupt in Dublin.
We’ve obtained new documents which reveal millions are still being extracted from the Quinn family’s International Property Group (IPG), despite the imminent threat of jail hanging over Sean Quinn snr.
The exact whereabouts of the borrowed cash is unknown.
But it is feared the €11m and the €4.8m annual rental income from Q City has been moved offshore from India to Hong Kong, via a bank in Singapore.
The latest machinations in the Quinn family saga are expected to be detailed shortly in the High Court when explosive new allegations of ongoing breaches of court orders, including the secret €11m loan, are expected to be revealed.
While the huge mortgage was created on January 11, details of the transaction were kept secret for more than six months.”
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