Vote of Thanks

Vote of thanks by Dr. Ashima Goyal, IGIDR Silver Jubilee International Conference

Malala Yousafzai's Nobel Peace Prize Speech

Bismillah hir rahman ir rahim. In the name of God, the most merciful, the most beneficent.

Your Majesties, distinguished members of the Norweigan Nobel Committee, dear sisters and brothers, today is a day of great happiness for me. I am humbled that the Nobel Committee has selected me for this precious award.

Thank you to everyone for your continued support and love. I am grateful for the letters and cards that I still receive from all around the world. Reading your kind and encouraging words strengthens and inspires me.

I would like to thank my parents for their unconditional love. Thank you to my father for not clipping my wings and for letting me fly. Thank you to my mother for inspiring me to be patient and to always speak the truth- which we strongly believe is the real message of Islam.

I am very proud to be the first Pashtun, the first Pakistani, and the first young person to receive this award.  I am pretty certain that I am also the first recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize who still fights with her younger brothers. I want there to be peace everywhere, but my brothers and I are still working on that.

I am also honoured to receive this award together with Kailash Satyarti, who has been a champion of children's rights for a long time. Twice as long, in fact, than I have been alive. I am also glad that we can stand together and show the world that an Indian and a Pakistani can be united in peace and together  work for children's rights.

Dear brothers and sisters, I was named after the inspirational Pashtun Joan of Arc, Malalai of Maiwand. The word Malala means "grief stricken", "sad", but in order to lend some happiness to it, my grandfather would always call me Malala - The happiest girl in this world and today I am very happy that we are standing together for an important cause.

This award is not just for me. It is for those forgotten children who want education. It is for those frightened children who want peace. It is for those voiceless children who want change.

I am here to stand up for their rights, raise their voice ... it is not time to pity them. It is time to take action so it becomes the last time that we see a child deprived of education.

I have found that people describe me in many different ways.

Some people call me the girl who was shot by the Taliban.

And some, the girl who fought for her rights.

Some people, call me a "Nobel Laureate" now.

As far as I know, I am just a committed and stubborn person who wants to see every child getting quality education, who wants equal rights for women and who wants peace in every corner of the world.

Education is one of the blessings of life-and one of its necessities. That has been my experience during the 17 years life. In my home in Swat Valley, in the north of Pakistan, I always loved school and learning new things. I remember when my friends and I would decorate our hands with henna for special occasions. Instead of drawing flowers and patterns we would paint our hands with mathematical formulas and equations.

We had a thirst for education because our future was right there in that classroom. We would sit and read and learn together. We loved to wear neat and tidy school uniforms and we would sit there with big dreams in our eyes. We wanted to make our parents proud and prove that we could excel in our studies and achieve things, which some people think only boys can.

Things did not remain the same. When I was ten, Swat, which was a place of beauty and tourism, suddenly changed into a place of terrorism. More than 400 schools were destroyed.  Girls were stopped from going to school. Women were flogged. Innocent people were killed. We all suffered. And our beautiful dreams turned into nightmares.

Education went from being a right to being a crime.

But when my world suddenly changed, my priorities changed too.

I had two options, one was to remain silent and wait to be killed. And the second was to speak up and then be killed. I chose the second one. I decided to speak up.

The terrorists tried to stop us and attacked me and my friends on 9th October 2012, but their bullets could not win.

We survived. And since that day, our voices have only grown louder.

I tell my story, not because it is unique, but because it is not.

It is the story of many girls.

Today, I tell their stories too. I have brought with me to Oslo, some of my sisters, who share this story, friends from Pakistan, Nigeria and Syria. My brave sisters Shazia and Kainat Riaz who were also shot that day in Swat with me. They went through a tragic trauma too. Also my sister Kainat Somro from Pakistan who suffered extreme violence and abuse, even her brother was killed, but she did not succumb.

And there are girls with me, who I have met during my Malala Fund campaign, who are now like my sisters, my courageous 16 year old sister Mezon from Syria, who now lives in Jordan in a refugee camp and goes from tent to tent helping girls and boys to learn. And my sister Amina, from the North of Nigeria, where Boko Haram threatens and kidnaps girls, simply for wanting to go to school.

Though I appear as one girl, one person, who is 5 foot 2 inches tall, if you include my high heels. I am not a lone voice, I am many.

I am Shazia.

I am Kainat Riaz.

I am Kainat Somro.

I am Mezon.

I am Amina. I am those 66 million girls who are out of school.

People like to ask me why education is important especially for girls. My answer is always the same.

What I have learnt from the first two chapters of the Holy Quran, is the word Iqra, which means "read", and the word, nun wal-qalam which means "by the pen"?

And therefore as I said last year at the United Nations, "One child, one teacher, one pen and one book can change the world."

Today, in half of the world, we see rapid progress, modernisation and development. However, there are countries where millions still suffer from the very old problems of hunger, poverty, injustice and conflicts.

Indeed, we are reminded in 2014 that a century has passed since the beginning of the First World War, but we still have not learnt all of the lessons that arose from the loss of those millions of lives a hundred years ago.

There are still conflicts in which hundreds of thousands of innocent people have lost their lives. Many families have become refugees in Syria, Gaza and Iraq. There are still girls who have no freedom to go to school in the north of Nigeria. In Pakistan and Afghanistan we see innocent people being killed in suicide attacks and bomb blasts.

Many children in Africa do not have access to school because of poverty.

Many children in India and Pakistan are deprived of their right to education because of social taboos, or they have been forced into child labour and girls into child marriages.

One of my very good school friends, the same age as me,  had always been a bold and confident girl and dreamed of becoming a doctor. But her dream remained a dream. At age of 12, she was forced to get married and then soon had a son at an age when she herself was a child - only 14. I know that my friend would have been a very good doctor.

But she couldn't ... because she was a girl.

Her story is why I dedicate the Nobel Prize money to the Malala Fund, to help give girls everywhere a quality education and call on leaders to help girls like me, Mezun and Amina.  The first place this funding will go is where my heart is, to build schools in Pakistan-especially in my home of Swat and Shangla.

In my own village, there is still no secondary school for girls. I want to build one, so my friends can get an education-and the opportunity it brings to fulfil their dreams.

That is where I will begin, but it is not where I will stop. I will continue this fight until I see every child in school. I feel much stronger after the attack that I endured, because I know, no one can stop me, or stop us, because now we are millions, standing up together.

Dear brothers and sisters, great people,who brought change, like Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa and Aung San Suu Kyi, they once stood here on this stage. I hope the steps that Kailash Satyarti and I have taken so far and will take on this journey will also bring change - lasting change.

My great hope is that this will be the last time we must fight for the education of our children. We want everyone to unite to support us in our campaign so that we can solve this once and for all.

Like I said, we have already taken many steps in the right direction. Now is the time to take a leap.

It is not time to tell the leaders to realise how important education is - they already know it - their own children are in good schools. Now it is time to call them to take action.

We ask the world leaders to unite and make education their top priority.

Fifteen years ago, the world leaders decided on a set of global goals, the Millennium Development Goals.  In the years that have followed, we have seen some progress. The number of children out of school has been halved.  However, the world focused only on expanding primary education, and progress did not reach everyone.

Next year, in 2015, representatives from around the world will meet at the United Nations to decide on the next set of goals, the Sustainable Development Goals. This will set the world's ambition for generations to come. Leaders must seize this opportunity to guarantee a free, quality primary and secondary education for every child.

Some will say this is impractical, or too expensive, or too hard.  Or even impossible.  But it is time the world thinks bigger.

Dear brothers and sisters, the so-called world of adults may understand it, but we children don't. Why is it that countries which we call "strong" are so powerful in creating wars but so weak in bringing peace? Why is it that giving guns is so easy but giving books is so hard? Why is it that making tanks is so easy, but building schools is so difficult?

As we are living in the modern age, the 21st century and we all believe that nothing is impossible. We can reach the moon and maybe soon will land on Mars. Then, in this, the 21st century, we must be determined that our dream of quality education for all will also come true.

So let us bring equality, justice and peace for all. Not just the politicians and the world leaders, we all need to contribute.  Me. You. It is our duty.

So we must work ... and not wait.

I call upon my fellow children to stand up around the world.

Dear sisters and brothers, let us become the first generation to decide to be the last.

The empty classrooms, the lost childhoods, wasted potential-let these things end with us.

Let this be the last time that a boy or a girl spends their childhood in a factory.

Let this be the last time that a girl gets forced into early child marriage.

Let this be the last time that an innocent child loses their life in war.

Let this be the last time that a classroom remains empty.

Let this be the last time that a girl is told education is a crime and not a right.

Let this be the last time that a child remains out of school.

Let us begin this ending.

Let this end with us.

And let us build a better future right here, right now.

Thank you.

Usha Uthup: Skyfall in a sari

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ABOUT USHA UTHUP:
For over 45 years now, Usha Uthup has spread a message of love and unity, peace and harmony, tolerance and integrity, and happiness -- through music. From discotheques to concerts, across India and the World, she has addressed the youth about the values of music that makes us human. She lives as she believes, presenting even the most contemporary songs dressed in traditional attire projecting the fact that India is a true melting pot of cultures, with its own distinctive cultural identity.

Born in 1947, or Didi as she is fondly called, comes from a traditional middle class South Indian family and her career began in 1969 at a Chennai nightclub called Nine Gems and she has recorded more than a hundred albums in sixteen Indian languages, sung un several thousand concerts, performed in all major countries and has been on television since its inception in India. Usha has served as a role model for generations of young Indians and has been an unwavering ambassador for traditional Indian values.

Usha Uthup's music has charmed generations of Indians, young and old. People smile, tap their feet, clap their hands, and forget their worries when she performs. Usha's melody speaks a universal language and transcends religion, race, nationality and caste. She has given people in far-flung cultures an unexpected image of an Indian woman: strong, independent, humorous, intelligent and loaded with talent.

Words difficult to Pronounce

Some Hard to Pronounce Words in English

Antidisestablishmentarianism

Bruschweiger

Conjones

Floccinaucinihilipilification

Huitzilopochtli

Hypopatomonstessesquipidaliaphobia

Monosaccharide

Otorhinolaryngologist

Parangaricutirimicuaro

Perimetishious

Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis

Semenarche

Shairamae

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

Worcestershire

Zygoccharomyces

Oscar Wilde’s Quotes

Quotes about Men

“No man is rich enough to buy back his past.”

“Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account.”

“Men become old, but they never become good.”
— “Lady Windermere’s Fan”

“I delight in men over seventy, they always offer one the devotion of a lifetime. ”
— “A Woman of No Importance”

“How many men there are in modern life who would like to see their past burning to white ashes before them!”
— “An Ideal Husband”

“A man who moralizes is usually a hypocrite, and a woman who moralizes is invariably plain.”
— “Lady Windermere’s Fan”

“Nowadays all the married men live like bachelors and all the bachelors live like married men.”
— “The Picture of Dorian Gray”

“I don’t like compliments, and I don’t see why a man should think he is pleasing a woman enormously when he says to her a whole heap of things that he doesn’t mean.”
— “Lady Windermere’s Fan”

Quotes about Women

“One should never trust a woman who tells one her real age. A woman who would tell one that, would tell one anything.”
— “A Woman of No Importance”

“Crying is the refuge of plain women but the ruin of pretty ones.”
— “Lady Windermere’s Fan”

“Men know life too early. Women know life too late. That is the difference between men and women.”
— “A Woman of No Importance”

“Women are meant to be loved, not to be understood.”
— “The Sphinx without a Secret”

“It takes a thoroughly good woman to do a thoroughly stupid thing.”
— “Lady Windermere’s Fan”

“I don’t know that women are always rewarded for being charming. I think they are usually punished for it!”
— “An Ideal Husband”

“I don’t think there is a woman in the world who would not be a little flattered if one made love to her. It is that which makes women so irresistibly adorable.”
— “A Woman of No Importance”

“My dear young lady, there was a great deal of truth, I dare say, in what you said, and you looked very pretty while you said it, which is much more important.”
— “A Woman of No Importance”

“Women give to men the very gold of their lives. But they invariably want it back in such very small change.”
— “The Picture of Dorian Gray”

“I am sick of women who love one. Women who hate one are much more interesting.”
— “The Picture of Dorian Gray”

“I prefer women with a past. They’re always so damned amusing to talk to.”
— “Lady Windermere’s Fan”

Quotes about People

“People who count their chickens before they are hatched, act very wisely, because chickens run about so absurdly that it is impossible to count them accurately.”
— Letter from Paris, dated May 1900

“The more one analyses people, the more all reasons for analysis disappear. Sooner of later one comes to that dreadful universal thing called human nature.”
— “The Decay of Lying”

“The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing.”
— “The Soul of Man under Socialism”

“Most men and women are forced to perform parts for which they have no qualification.”
— “Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime”

“It is perfectly monstrous the way people go about, nowadays, saying things against one behind one’s back that are absolutely and entirely true.”
— “The Picture of Dorian Gray”

Quotes about Life

“Life is much too important a thing ever to talk seriously about it.”
— Lady Windermere’s Fan, 1892, Act I

“The Book of Life begins with a man and woman in a garden. It ends with Revelations.”
— “A Woman of No Importance”

“Life is never fair…And perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.”
— “An Ideal Husband”

“You must not find symbols in everything you see. It makes life impossible.”
— “Salome”

“We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.”
— “The Duchess of Padua”

“The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast.”
— “Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime”

Quotes about Love

“Nothing spoils a romance so much as a sense of humor in the woman – or the want of it in the man.”
— “A Woman of No Importance”

“One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry.”
— “A Woman of No Importance”

“To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.”
— “An Ideal Husband”

“A kiss may ruin a human life.”
— “A Woman of No Importance”

“A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her.”
— “The Picture of Dorian Gray”

“Young men want to be faithful and are not; old men want to be faithless and cannot.”
— “The Picture of Dorian Gray”

“Faithfulness is to the emotional life what consistency is to the life of the intellect – simply a confession of failures.”
— “The Picture of Dorian Gray”

Origin of the French word Renaissance

Please refer the following:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance

The word Renaissance, literally meaning "Rebirth" in French, first appeared in English in the 1830s. The word also occurs in Jules Michelet's 1855 work, Histoire de France. The word Renaissance has also been extended to other historical and cultural movements, such as the Carolingian Renaissance and the Renaissance of the 12th century.

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/renaissance

Origin of Renaissance Expand

1830-40; < French, Middle French: rebirth, equivalent to renaiss- (stem of renaistre tobe born again < Latin renāscī; re- re- + nāscī to be born) + -ance -ance

Word Origin and History for Renaissance Expand

n. "great period of revival of classical based art and learning in Europe that began in the fourteenth century," 1840, from French renaissance des lettres, from Old French renaissance, literally "rebirth," usually in a spiritual sense, from renastre "grow anew"(of plants), "be reborn" (Modern French renaître), from Vulgar Latin *renascere, from Latin renasci "be born again, rise again, reappear, be renewed," from re- "again" (seere- ) + nasci "be born" (Old Latin gnasci ; see genus ).

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=renaissance

Online Etymology Dictionary

Renaissance (n.) 

"great period of revival of classical-based art and learning in Europe that began in the fourteenth century," 1840, from French renaissance des lettres, from Old French renaissance, literally "rebirth," usually in a spiritual sense, from renastre "grow anew" (of plants), "be reborn" (Modern French renaître), from Vulgar Latin *renascere, from Latin renasci "be born again, rise again, reappear, be renewed," from re- "again" (see re-) + nasci "be born" (Old Latin gnasci, from PIE root *gene- "give birth, beget").

An earlier term for it was revival of learning (1785). In general usage, with a lower-case r-, "a revival" of anything that has long been in decay or disuse (especially of learning, literature, art), it is attested from 1872. Renaissance man is first recorded 1906.

O.Henry's After Twenty Years Short film

Summary:

"After Twenty Years" tells the story of two friends who made a pact to meet at a specific time and place. Bob, a noted criminal from Chicago, arrives on time and speaks to a policeman who happens to be walking by. Later, it's revealed that this policeman was Jimmy Wells, Bob's friend.

Bob and Jimmy were friends when they were younger. Before Bob left to try his luck in the West, he and Jimmy made a pact to meet again exactly twenty years later.

At the appointed time, Bob waits outside a hardware store. A policeman walks up and asks what he's doing. Bob explains, boasting about how well he has done for himself.

Later, a man claiming to be Bob's friend arrives. It turns out that this man is a plainclothes police officer sent to arrest Bob, a known criminal from Chicago. The original policeman, Jimmy Wells, didn't have the heart to arrest Bob, because Bob was his friend.

Break, Break, Break by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Break, break, break, 

         On thy cold gray stones, O Sea! 

And I would that my tongue could utter 

         The thoughts that arise in me. 

O, well for the fisherman's boy, 

         That he shouts with his sister at play! 

O, well for the sailor lad, 

         That he sings in his boat on the bay! 

And the stately ships go on 

         To their haven under the hill; 

But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand, 

         And the sound of a voice that is still! 

Break, break, break 

         At the foot of thy crags, O Sea! 

But the tender grace of a day that is dead 

         Will never come back to me.

The Pied Piper of Hamelin

Once upon a time…

On the banks of a great river in the north of Germany lay a town called Hamelin. The citizens of Hamelin were honest folk who lived contentedly in their Grey stone houses. The years went by, and the town grew very rich.

Then one day, an extraordinary thing happened to disturb the peace.

Hamelin had always had rats, and a lot too. But they had never been a danger, for the cats had always solved the rat problem in the usual way- by killing them. All at once, however, the rats began to multiply.

In the end, a black sea of rats swarmed over the whole town. First, they attacked the barns and storehouses, then, for lack of anything better, they gnawed the wood, cloth or anything at all. The one thing they didn’t eat was metal. The terrified citizens flocked to plead with the town councilors to free them from the plague of rats. But the council had, for a long time, been sitting in the Mayor’s room, trying to think of a plan.

“What we need is an army of cats!”

But all the cats were dead.

“We’ll put down poisoned food then . . .”

But most of the food was already gone and even poison did not stop the rats.

“It just can’t be done without help!” said the Mayor sadly.

Just then, while the citizens milled around outside, there was a loud knock at the door. “Who can that be?” the city fathers wondered uneasily, mindful of the angry crowds. They gingerly opened the door. And to their surprise, there stood a tall thin man dressed in brightly colored clothes, with a long feather in his hat, and waving a gold pipe at them.

“I’ve freed other towns of beetles and bats,” the stranger announced, “and for a thousand florins, I’ll rid you of your rats!”

“A thousand florins!” exclaimed the Mayor. “We’ll give you fifty thousand if you succeed!” At once the stranger hurried away, saying:

“It’s late now, but at dawn tomorrow, there won’t be a rat left in Hamelin!”

The sun was still below the horizon, when the sound of a pipe wafted through the streets of Hamelin. The pied piper slowly made his way through the houses and behind him flocked the rats. Out they scampered from doors, windows and gutters, rats of every size, all after the piper. And as he played, the stranger marched down to the river and straight into the water, up to his middle. Behind him swarmed the rats and everyone was drowned and swept away by the current.

By the time the sun was high in the sky, there was not a single rat in the town. There was even greater delight at the town hall, until the piper tried to claim his payment.

“Fifty thousand florins?” exclaimed the councilors,

“Never…”

” A thousand florins at least!” cried the pied piper angrily. But the Mayor broke in. “The rats are all dead now and they can never come back. So be grateful for fifty florins, or you’ll not get even that . . .”

His eyes flashing with rage, the pied piper pointed a threatening finger at the Mayor.

You’ll bitterly regret ever breaking your promise,” he said, and vanished. A shiver of fear ran through the councilors, but the Mayor shrugged and said excitedly: “We’ve saved fifty thousand florins!”

That night, freed from the nightmare of the rats, the citizens of Hamelin slept more soundly than ever. And when the strange sound of piping wafted through the streets at dawn, only the children heard it. Drawn as by magic, they hurried out of their homes. Again, the pied piper paced through the town, this time, it was children of all sizes that flocked at his heels to the sound of his strange piping.

The long procession soon left the town and made its way through the wood and across the forest till it reached the foot of a huge mountain. When the piper came to the dark rock, he played his pipe even louder still and a great door creaked open. Beyond lay a cave. In trooped the children behind the pied piper, and when the last child had gone into the darkness, the door creaked shut.

A great landslide came down the mountain blocking the entrance to the cave forever. Only one little lame boy escaped this fate. It was he who told the anxious citizens, searching for their children, what had happened. And no matter what people did, the mountain never gave up its victims.

Many years were to pass before the merry voices of other children would ring through the streets of Hamelin but the memory of the harsh lesson lingered in everyone’s heart and was passed down from father to son through the centuries.