ArthurPendragon

:ssign11:

I have to agree with this. In the bigger scheme of things, my tax money is being used for lots of things, some I might agree and some I might not agree. And the amount spent on Royals isn't that high anyway. They are what makes us special. And on top of that, they are a wonderful couple.

Any advantage given to countries in the commonwealth wouldn't work now, as there are 53 countries in it. And as English is integral to the migration program, the common wealth countries would have an advantage in the migration points anyway.

I'm a non-Caucasian and I would have gone to meet and greet them if they would have come to Melbourne. They are a nice couple. So I'm sure we won't become a republic anytime soon.

Hi Jodi, Can you try printing with atleast 300 dpi which will be pleasing on the eyes. Check if your print mode has "save cartridge" option selected and de-select it while printing.

India, the most populous democracy on the planet, is about to hold elections that will seat a new parliament and prime minister. It will be the largest democratic event in history. India's election commission is charged with what has been called the world's largest event management exercise, making sure that democracy doesn't falter in the vastness of the numbers. About 15,000 candidates from 500 political parties are vying for 543 seats in the Lok Sabha, or lower house of Parliament. Those candidates are expected to spend about $5 billion on campaigning. That's second only to the most expensive U.S. presidential campaign -- $7 billion in 2012. Parliamentary elections in India are held every five years, unless the government is dissolved before that. This year will be India's 16th election since independence in 1947. The voting begins Monday and the numbers are mind-blowing. http://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2014/04/world/infographic-india-by-the-numbers/

Nope. It wasn't you MaryRose. India came into picture with this post.

I too like the way the threads spread out into different directions , and get a chance to listen to what the wide audience feel and think, even if I don't agree with them. Also, I try to argue and attack any idea that i might find not to my liking, but try not to make it personal and keep it civil.

Trying to solve is not enough. We have to solve it. Either through education or through affirmative actions if we are to be considered part of the civilized world. I think Tony Abbott is doing a good job here by trying to spend more on indigenous education and recognizing the first people. So you criticize India for trying to solve its problems and say its not enough. But when its your country, you try to justify the problem by victim blaming?

I agree with your comments. I too came in as a skilled migrant and having a job and a good life. I've been living the Aussie dream and have no complaints. Now the question is how we let people in and whether its wise to let in people who come by boat without any vetting process and if we need to have a vetting process for security, how do we handle that. No country will like to have a porous borders and has a right to decide on whom to let in. At the same time, as a liberal democracy, we can't turn blind eyes to human suffering. We can try to stop the fights, but then we might be accused of invading nations. Thats the reason I've been stressing the importance of our governments helping India and China in the quest for development. We have this problems because a few small countries are having instability in their midst. Just image something like this happening in India or China. We can then kiss world stability good bye for a century.

Now, we need to find out if people are fleeing for safety or for any economic reasons, and it gets more tricky then. So no easy answers from the looks of it.

I'm still not able to judge though. As they say, the truth is always in between. These articles are not from Greens or the lefts, but from reputed publications. http://thediplomat.com/2014/02/australias-troubling-asylum-seeker-policy http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/26/opinion/australias-guantanamo-problem.html

Now that's my point. Before we comment about how other country and its disadvantaged minority, we also need to look into ours and try to solve the problem. We can't have a section of our population in jail in disproportionate numbers and then not try to solve it. And that's especially if we want to champion human rights all over the world. Else our credibility takes a hit.

I've been thinking about this and still couldn't make up my mind though. I find it sad when I hear people comment about violently stopping refugees from coming in. This prevents any proper discussion in a mature way about this issue. But I'm not sure if we can have people coming in here without verification or security checks as the things that are happening in the regions where the refugees are coming from are pretty horrifying and we don't want any battle hardened extremists coming in the disguise of refugees. So we might have to come up with a balanced solution, which is humane and is logical at the same time.

This brings up two possibilities. Either the people are committing more crime or the people are being jailed more than the rest of the population. Either way, we need to come up with new ideas to solve the problem and move people from committing crime and into the job market.

It doesn't matter whose fault it is, MaryRose. If you ignore the names of the country and close your eyes and imagine about a rich country with a small population and with abundant natural resources is having problems in solving the problems of one set of its citizens and then a middle income developing country where nearly 30% of the population is struggling to develop, including men, women, upper castes, lower castes and all types of people. How can you expect the middle income country to solve all its problems within a few decade when a rich country isn't able to? And India has a very strict law to protect the lower class from abuse, almost pushing the proof of innocence to be provided by the accused. This is from Human rights watch and not any indian publication. http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/india/India994-16.htm Whereas we are still debating if section 18C is needed or not. And looking at the domestic violence situation here, even the women's rigths activists are complaining that the intervention orders are not properly enforced. So why should we assume that India won't enforce its laws, but other countries would? Was the British laws against child labor during 19th and 20th century enforced properly at first? The answer is no, but having a law means that the abuse is illegal and the law will catch up with you anyday, even after 30 years. This puts the fear into the abusers and it will stop.

No comments:biggrin:. And I'm not able to make up my mind either way.

Non discriminatory migration to attract the best in the world who will be law abiding and agree to live by the values of the land is what we should aim for.

Just trying to exchange ideas

Its more complicated that that, MaryRose. Actually, India has pretty strong laws against Caste discrimination and anyway, the discrimination is on the vane. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/11/world/asia/11caste.html India also has a pretty good affirmative action to end the caste discrimination. http://www.economist.com/blogs/banyan/2013/06/affirmative-action On the same note, isn't the life expectancy of natives in Australia equal to a third world nation inspite of living in one of the world's richest, less populated and resource rich country?

The state should help when you are down and out. Not when you don't want to work. Its not a question of handout, but a question of children being there for the parents. Kids should make time to look after their parents. The me and me only culture will lead to uprooted children and other problems. Not every country was plundering during those days. It was mostly European countries. And during the last 400 years of plundering was on an industrial scale, more like a virus than like a symbiotic relationship. In Roman times, if you accept the Roman empire as your overlord, you were pretty much left alone. Those who tried to plunder too much had to face constant revolt. I didn't see India or China plundering during their history. They kept to themselves.

Why should the state look after you? I don't want a nanny state. Out of the 300 years, 200 were from plundering other states. so you can't brag.

If I were a women and given a choice, It would be India always. I know my children will care for me when I get old. I know I'm in the world's largest democracy with a great future ahead. I know that I'm part of a great civilization that built cities as part of Indus valley civilization when most of the world was in cave. I also know that my nation gave religions like Buddhism and Jainism which recognized human and animal rights long long before it became a fashion in the rest of the world. And I don't think a country that's better than India only for the past 200-300 years can brag about it.

The world wide focus happened because of the protests. There are worse things happening all over the world. I have been in India and been to India frequently. I can give you examples in England where more horrific things happened. And i think in England too the women are scared to report it. [h=4]In the UK[/h] Two women are killed by their partner every week in England and Wales. Of all female homicides, 40% are killed by gendered violence. The UK police receive a call every minute about domestc abuse,89% of which are about a woman being abused by a man. Only 24% cases of domestic violence are actually reported, http://www.womensaid.org.uk/domestic_violence_topic.asp?section=0001000100220041&sectionTitle=Domestic+violence+(general)

India has a bigger population and Indians protested against sexual violence, which led to the world wide media focus. India's per capita figures aren't that bad compared to lot of other countries that think they are better off.