Prof. Fani Bhusan Das

Ms Chloe Joquel

(1)     Month of “Nobleness”.

“Nobleness” is the fifth month of Peace Calendar. Nobleness is one of the characters of Peace. It mainly symbolizes courage, generosity and magnanimity. These qualities contribute to inner peace, which are gradually declining as we are distancing ourselves  to learn the basic lessons of life. We are today ignoring the crucial role of our five sensory instruments in our body whose quality is fully dependent on  seven energy centres of the body activated or deactivated by high or low voltage of Absolute Energy of consciousness.

Nobleness

• A recent World Health Organization report estimated the cost of interpersonal violence in the U.S. (excluding war related costs) at $300 billion a year. [The Economic Dimensions of Interpersonal Violence, World Health Organization, 2004]

• In 2004, 5,292 young people ages 10 to 24 were murdered--an average of 15 each day. [Youth Violence Facts at a Glance, Summer 2007, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)]

    World HealthOrganization

World Report on Violence

• Worldwide, an estimated 1.6 million people lost their lives to violence in 2000. About half were suicides, one-third were homicides, and one-fifth were casualties of armed conflict. (World Report on Violence and Health, World Health Organization, 2002)

• In 2006, worldwide terrorist incidents increased 25 percent to 14,000, and deaths caused increased 40 percent to 20,000 persons. [Report on Terrorist Incidents, 2006 (issued April 2007), National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC)]  

(NCTC)]  

• Homicide was the second leading cause of death for people ages 10 to 24 in 2001. Suicide was the third leading cause of death for people ages 10 to 24 in 2002. (Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System – 2002, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

• The health-related costs of rape, physical assault, stalking and homicide committed by intimate partners exceed $5.8 billion each year. Of that amount, nearly $4.1 billion are for direct medical and mental health care services, and nearly $1.8 billion are for the indirect costs of lost productivity or wages. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Costs of Intimate Partner Violence Against Women in the United States, April 2003.)

Abused physically

• A 1992 study in the United States put the annual cost of treating gunshot wounds at $126 billion. Cutting and stab wounds cost an additional $51 billion. (Miller TR, Cohen MA.,. Accident Analysis and Prevention, 1997, 29:329–341.)

• Seventeen percent of high school girls have been abused physically; twelve percent of high school girls have been abused sexually. (The Formative Years: Pathways to Substance Abuse Among Girls and Young Women Ages 8-22, The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, 2003)

• About 1 in 3 high school students say they have been in a physical fight in the past year, and about 1 in 8 of those students required medical attention for their injuries. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Youth risk behavior surveillance – United States, 2001. In: CDC Surveillance Summaries, June 28, 2002. MMWR, 51(SS-4), p. 5.)  

• In the United States, some 31,000 gangs were operating in 1996 in about 4800 cities and towns. [World Report on Violence and Health, World Health Organization 2002]

• A significant number of School Resource Officers (SROs) reported budget cuts for school safety funding in their local school districts, inadequacies in federal school safety funding, and the need for an “Education Homeland Security Act” to fund school terrorism training, improve security and crisis planning, and support SRO programs. (2003 NASRO School Resource Officer Survey, National Association of School Resource Officers)

Association of School Resource Officers)

three-strikes

• A study on the cost-effectiveness of early intervention to prevent serious crime in California, showed that training for parents whose children exhibited aggressive behavior was estimated to have prevented 157 serious crimes (such as homicide, rape, arson and robbery) for every $1 million spent. In fact, training in parenting skills was estimated to be about three times as cost-effective as the so-called ‘‘three-strikes’’ law in California. [Greenwood PW et al. Diverting children from a life of crime: measuring costs and benefits. Rand, 1996.]

• Domestic Violence is the single greatest cause of injury to women. [Journal of Amer. Med. Assoc.]

 •In 2005, there were 191,670 victims of rape, attempted rape or sexual assaults according to the   2005 National Crime Victimization Survey  

• 22% of women in the U.S. have reported being physically assaulted by an intimate partner. [Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, 1999 (Population Reports, Series L, No. 11)]  

• In the year 2001, more than half a million American women (588,490 women) were victims of nonfatal violence committed by an intimate partner. (Bureau of Justice Statistics Crime Data Brief, Intimate Partner Violence, 1993-2001, February 2003)

• In 2001, 41,740 women were victims of rape/sexual assault committed by an intimate partner. (Bureau of Justice Statistics Crime Data Brief, Intimate Partner Violence, 1993-2001, February 2003.)

As many as 324,000 women each year experience intimate partner violence during their pregnancy. (Gazmararian JA, Petersen R, Spitz AM, Goodwin MM, Saltzman LE, Marks JS. “Violence and reproductive health; current knowledge and future research directions.” Maternal and Child Health Journal 2000;4(2):79-84.)

violance

Children’s Defense Fund

• From 1985 to 1992, the homicide rate for 16-year-olds increased 138%, while the rate among 18-year-olds doubled, and the rate for 24-year-olds and above either remained the same or declined. [National Institute of Justice Research Preview, 1995]  

• $48,000,000 - Amount by which federal family violence prevention services program were under funded in 2005. [Campaign for funding to end violenceagainwomen.FYBudgetBriefingBook. www.ncadv.org/files/compiledbriefingbookandchartsfy06.pdf]

• Children in adult jails commit suicide eight times as often as their counterparts in juvenile facilities. In addition, children in adult facilities are five times more likely to be sexually assaulted, and twice as likely to be beaten by jail staff. [Children’s Defense Fund, 1998]

• Annual rates of firearm homicides for youths age 15-19 increased 155% between 1989 and 1994. [National Summary of Injury Mortality Data, 1987-1994; National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, 1996]

• In the United States, some 31,000 gangs were operating in 1996 in about 4800 cities and towns. [World Report on Violence and Health, World Health Organization 2002]

• Large cities claim that 72% of their school violence is attributable in part to gang activity. [National League of Cities 1994 survey of 700 U.S. cities]

• In Los Angeles County between 1981 and 1992, 15,000 people died of AIDS, but 22,000 died as a result of homicide. [Los Angeles Department of Health Services]

•In Los Angeles County between 1981 and 1992, a child between five and nine was slain, on average, every eight and a half days. [Los Angeles Department of Health Services]  

• In Los Angeles County, the use of semiautomatic handguns in gang-related killings has more than quadrupled, to more than 40 percent. [Los Angeles Department of Health Services]

Los Angeles 

• In 1992, handguns killed 33 people in Great Britain, 36 in Sweden, 97 in Switzerland, 60 in Japan, 13 in Australia, 128 in Canada, and 13,200 in the United States. [Handgun Control Inc., cited in The Washington Post,1998]