Wednesday, 14 December 2011

Mother Tongue

          A first language (also native language, mother tongue, arterial language, or L1) is the language(s) a person has learned from birth or within the critical period, or that a person speaks the best and so is often the basis for sociolinguistic identity. In some countries, the terms native language or mother tongue refer to the language of one's ethnic group rather than one's first language. Sometimes, there can be more than one mother tongue, when the child's parents speak different languages. Those children are usually called bilingual. Sometimes the term native language is used to indicate a language that a person is as proficient in as a native individual of that language's "base country", or as proficient as the average person who speaks no other language but that language.The first language of a child is part of their personal, social and cultural identity. Another impact of the first language is that it brings about the reflection and learning of successful social patterns of acting and speaking. It is basically responsible for differentiating the linguistic competence of acting. To a person his mother tongue is a “blessing in disguise”. It is not merely a time-table subject in his education but is forced upon him from all sides.

Equal Rights, Equal Opportunities

          "Equal rights, equal opportunities: Progress for all" re-emphasizes that equal rights and opportunities lead to improved health outcomes for women and girls.
Discrimination towards women and girls, or what is known as gender-based discrimination, is one of the most pervasive human rights violations. It severely limits the ability of women, girls and the communities they live in to protect and promote their health. Gender-based discrimination is irrevocably connected to negative health outcomes for women and girls. Its associated poor health outcomes are often compounded by other forms of inequality related to socioeconomic status, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religious affiliation or geographical location. While these challenges are imposing, and often encoded in "normalized" ways of living, International Women's Day renews our commitment to denounce violations in human rights and to challenge unequal systems, structures and practices that perpetuate health inequalities across the world.

Tuesday, 6 December 2011

Responding to Climate Change

      Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average. Climate change may be limited to a specific region or may occur across the whole Earth.
      Natural changes in the components of earth's climate system and their interactions are the cause of internal climate variability, or "internal forcings." Scientists generally define the five components of earth's climate system to include Atmosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere,lithosphere , and biosphere. The sun is the predominant source for energy input to the Earth. Both long- and short-term variations in solar intensity are known to affect global climate.