Tthe consequences of climate change affect the poor and the marginalized disproportionately and harshly, especially in the short term. In the long run, the future of the planet becomes endangered. This fact has been highlighted in recent years by grassroots activists and empathetic thinkers who care not solely for themselves and their pleasures but also for the lives and livelihoods of other less fortunate humans. Happily, this campaign has had some effect. An awareness has crept into people that climate change is a threat to each living being on this planet.

In this issue, we look at the possible corrosive structures and forces that can hamper the flourishing of democracy in any country or region. Some of these factors may be open and visible, but others are indirect and less apparent but more insidious. We hear reports from
across the globe detailing the threats to democracy faced by different countries and societies.

Abuse in any form disables and destroys the principal participant and all others connected with the evil process. Though in this issue of Pax Lumina, we are focusing on the violent repercussions of substance abuse, all other types of abuse, whether that be of money, power, or relationships, are equally damaging. Unfortunately, the damage does not stop with the annihilation of the principal victim; it extends to the family, society, and ultimately to the human race itself.

Pax Lumina considers caring for the other an option that has to be explored in this context. This issue focuses on this question. Not really the rationality of this question, but its relevance to the meaning of one's existence, as demonstrated by the varied narratives and stories of caring for the abandoned and the unentitled in different parts of this planet by people of goodwill.

Across the world, it is seen that the weaker participants in almost all situations of life receive treatment that is unjust and exploitative. The the term ‘weak’ is relative, but this tendency of the ruthlessness of the strong towards the weak seems to be universally prevalent among all living beings, except when emotions of love and empathy, or values of fair play and justice come into play. In this issue, we examine this pathological bent of mind of the human race, and probably of all living beings. First of all, let us ask the question: Who is the weak?

A person's identity is a social and psychological construct. Though we talk about the identity of a person as something innate and immutable, it is hardly so. Often, it is a product of chance and circumstances. This contingent nature of identity is often forgotten leading to very unpleasant social, psychological and wider consequences. In this issue of Pax Lumina, we focus on identity and its relation to violence, and therefore, to peace.

Pax Lumina tries to chronicle the efforts of our friends all over the planet to bring peace to areas and communities which writhe
under the curse of violence. It should be admitted that though everyone knows that violence of any sort is a negation of human dignity
of both the self and the other, in the interest of expediency and result orientedness, often violence is resorted to, condoned, and even commended. Aggression and wars thus take place. Actually, peace does not occupy headline space, violence does. In this context, for a magazine like Pax Lumina, to pursue peace and reconciliation doggedly needs a lot of determination and patience.

In this Issue of Pax Lumina, we have tried through our writer-friends from all over the world to look into the various dimensions of inequalities we human beings encounter on this planet and possible solutions to address them. Of course, our chosen path is one of non-violence and therefore we have not considered the different attempts at amelioration of inequalities that human history is replete with.

Jacob Bronowski, the chronicler of science, says the ability of human beings to oppose the thumb to the forefinger led to the first major step in human evolution. It simply means that the ability to hold and manipulate things led to the creation of tools with flint and iron initially, but later, with all sorts of matter and energy. Even at this stage, humans must have realized that these tools have another potential use, not a peaceful one, in the guise of protecting oneself and others. Initially, animals, then other humans, can be attacked and killed. This narrative continues even today. The tool is technology, the enemy is the other and the aim is the protection of the self and whatever is considered as one’s own, including a host of extended identities valuable to oneself, but abominable in others. One now wonders whether what Bronowski considered as the first step in ‘The Ascent of Man’ viz., the invention of technology contains the seeds of destruction of men and women, animals and plants, rivers and mountains, and all other existences. This is the question we hope to explore in this issue of Pax Lumina.

What health means is not clearly understood. This is evident from the way different societies, cultures, and even individuals look at it and deal with it. And, when an additional and mostly ill-understood, and even misunderstood variable, namely the mind comes in, the matter becomes vague with serious consequences for society and the individual. In this issue of Pax Lumina, this is clearly illustrated by our writers from different countries and cultures. Also, the thinking on this subject varies substantially, amongst different intellectuals. Take the case of the modern French philosopher Michel Foucault. He held the view that rationality itself is a construct created by society to exclude, and even do away with those who think and act differently from the rest of the population, that is, those who question the dominant rationality and its mores. His famous book, 'The history of madness' explores and elucidates this thinking historically. The situation has improved somewhat, we can say, from the days of ‘chaining the mad,’ but the field of mental health is still clouded by superstition, ignorance, and most importantly, lack of empathy.

The world food crisis has not come upon us suddenly. Of course, the  Ukraine War precipitated matters. What has been a conflict between Russia and Ukraine has got amplified by the supply bottlenecks faced especially in the corn and cereal supplies to the rest of the world. It is strange to observe that when thousands of people, soldiers, their families, and children died, the world was not as worried as it is now when the prospects of hunger loomed large before the world with imminent disruption of grain supplies to the rest of the world.

The nations of the world are much more interdependent today than they were in the past. This happens because of the import and export of commodities, technologies, information, and even viruses. In this context, Pax Lumina would like to raise the question: How do the poor, the weak, and the excluded get affected by the present global economic imbalances as well as the legacy of the past structural iniquities of the world? Our contributors from many parts of the world have written about this with concern and empathy. They have also indicated some ways of thinking about solutions that can give us some hope.

Ukraine war has slipped out of the headlines, though not yet disappeared altogether from the news. There are some lone voices are still being raised.The kinematics of this war is by now fairly known to everyone. Any one of the players can stop playing the war game and the war will end and negotiations can begin.

Rape is universal infamy. It happens all the time, from high noon to midnight. It happens everywhere, from the mighty precincts of the
high, holy, and hallowed to the lowly backyards of the metros, cities, towns, and villages. Thus, it is the most perverse equalizer except that the victim is always the same, the powerless, irrespective of class, caste, race, and color. Rape is the uncontrolled application of power with the well-defined objective of the total annihilation of the other.

This issue of Pax Lumina focuses on the world of the differently-abled. When this topic was mentioned, there were some eyebrows raised, politically correct ones for sure. The world of the differently-abled, according to those eyebrows, conjures up an image of a different, separate world for some of us who are less fortunate than those “abled” inhabiting the rest of the society. We agree; but also disagree. Yes, discrimination of all forms reinforces stereotypes that perpetuate further discrimination, exploitation and cruelty. But, on the other hand, if we do not talk straight and hide behind politically correct and diplomatically acceptable gibberish, the truth will be hidden from those who can face the truth and act for change. This magazine addresses such people. When we looked at what we thought to be the world of the differently-abled certain things became clear. There is no clear boundary between the world of the differently-abled and the world of the so-called abled. It is all mixed-up and fuzzy. There is only one world of people, all differently-abled in different ways. Of course, there are those who care and those who have yet to learn to care. While the former does their best to share their abilities with those who need them, the latter just talks and talks. But all of us, I am sure, will agree that one of the biggest problems facing the world today is pollution. It is noise pollution. Instead, we need action. And we feature some of those who have reached out to their neighbours on this planet with hope, dream and empathy. It is also true that the differently-abled do not form an undifferentiated mass of humans waiting for our sympathy. They too have a right to live a life of fulfilment and honour here. Many people do not even understand what autism is.

All religious texts speak of peace as the ultimate goal of a human being. Peace is invoked during many religious rituals. Religious greetings generally comprise peace and its synonyms. Yet, many consider religion to be the cause of much violence in the world both in the past and the present. At the level of nations, most theocratic states inflict direct and indirect violence on their own citizens especially the most vulnerable, women, children, and the other excluded. Look at the Taliban which has come back to power in Afghanistan. They have shown themselves to be viscerally and sadistically intolerant of women and art. Can their guiding force be any kind of a religion? The founders of all religions preached peace, love, justice, tolerance, and a host of other desirable values. But when these ideals got concretized into institutions and organizations, they appear to have been short-changed for the need for preservation of the organizational identity and its expansion. Conquest for the accumulation of wealth and power seems to have replaced the original ideals.

All his life Fr. Stan Swamy SJ had fought for the protection of human rights of the excluded; the undertrials and the Adivasis. It is, indeed, a cruel irony that he had to die as an undertrial. But the irony does not end here. While his struggles and protests were peaceful and non-violent and involved only legal recourses guaranteed under the Constitution, the charges leveled against him amounted to abetment to waging war against the State. Also, the rights he sought to ensure for others were denied to him after his arrest under the Unlawful Activities [Prevention] Act (UAPA). Does UAPA or for that matter any other law of the land permit such a treatment to an undertrial?

Depending on the economic, social, and cultural background the youth vent
their frustration and anger in various ways. Some try to change the system,
some broker an uneasy peace and join it and some others opt out of it
altogether with tragic consequences. But even others who do not adopt the
path of violence but advocate peaceful change while protesting tyranny and
exploitation are also looked upon with suspicion by the authorities. Often,
non-violence in these cases is met with violence. This seems to be a universal
phenomenon. In this issue, we try to portray the spectrum of anxiety, despair and hope the young people all over the world today carry with them especially
in the context of the raging pandemic.

Childhood is lost to children because of a variety of reasons and this loss permeates all sections of the society cutting across class, caste, region, culture and any other categorization one can think of. Yes, the pain and trauma of the loss may differ.

The condition of the sex workers has not changed, if not for the worse, from the time Picasso painted them. They remain where they are, in their ghettoes, universally lit up in the red of the setting Sun stoically waiting for the darkness to swallow them. But there are lights of hope.We feature brave women and men who, despite all odds, have shown that change is possible, justice and peace are realizable. We just want to walk with the excluded in the hope of some meaningful action from those who are moved by the plight of these unfortunate people who are part of our society.

The focus of this issue is manual scavengers and their nullified lives. We know they are alive because of the indispensable work they do in collecting, removing, carrying and dumping the most dispensable commodity human beings produce-- excreta. The primary work of collection from the lakhs of dry latrines that still exist in many parts of India is done by women of certain communities which form the lowest of the low of the outcastes.

We are deeply delighted to let you know that Peace and Reconciliation Network of the Jesuit Conference of South Asia, along with its Nodal Agency, Loyola Institute of Peace and International Relations (LIPI), Kochi, has launched the  online Magazine: PAX LUMINA: A Quest for Peace and Reconciliation.

We are deeply delighted to let you know that Peace and Reconciliation Network of the Jesuit Conference of South Asia, along with its Nodal Agency, Loyola Institute of Peace and International Relations (LIPI), Kochi, has launched the online Magazine: PAX LUMINA: A Quest for Peace and Reconciliation.

We are deeply delighted to let you know that Peace and Reconciliation Network of the Jesuit Conference of South Asia, along with its Nodal Agency, Loyola Institute of Peace and International Relations (LIPI), Kochi, has launched the first issue of  the online Magazine: PAX LUMINA: A Quest for Peace and Reconciliation.

March 2024

Jan 2024

Nov 2023

September 2023

July 2023

May 2023

March 2023

January 2023

November 2022

September 2022

July 2022

May 2022

March 2022

January 2022

November 2021

September 2021

Peace and Reconciliation Network of the Jesuit Conference of South Asia, along with its Nodal Agency, Loyola Institute of Peace and International Relations (LIPI), Kochi, has launched the first issue of  the online Magazine: PAX LUMINA: A Quest for Peace and Reconciliation.

This is brought out with a view to promoting Peace and Reconciliation worldwide with a South Asian Perspective. In fact, we are highly privileged to have an array of eminent scholars, writers and peace practitioners in our Advisory/Editorial Board.

1. You agree that the use of Magzter.com, the application and its services, are at solely at your own risk. Neither Magzter.com nor its associates nor employees nor third party content providers guarantee that the service will be completely uninterrupted or error-free or foolproof against miscreant activities. Nor do they warranty that you will get the exact results as expected or promised by the website or product.

11. THE SERVICE AND ALL PUBLICATIONS ARE PROVIDED ON AN 'AS IS' AND 'AS AVAILABLE' BASIS. MAGZTER, ITS AFFILIATES, SUPPLIERS, LICENSORS AND AGENTS EXPRESSLY DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. WITHOUT LIMITING THE FOREGOING, NEITHER MAGZTER NOR ITS AFFILIATES, SUPPLIERS, LICENSORS OR AGENTS, MAKES ANY WARRANTY THAT (I) THE SERVICE WILL MEET YOUR REQUIREMENTS, (II) THE SERVICE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, TIMELY, SECURE, OR ERROR-FREE, (III) THE INFORMATION THAT MAY BE OBTAINED FROM THE USE OF THE SERVICE OR THAT MAY BE CONTAINED IN THE PUBLICATIONS WILL BE ACCURATE OR RELIABLE, OR (IV) THE QUALITY OF ANY PUBLICATIONS OR THE SERVICE WILL MEET YOUR EXPECTATIONS. YOU ARE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR OBTAINING AND MAINTAINING RELIABLE INTERNET CONNECTIVITY AND YOUR DEVICE. MAGZTER IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR INABILITY TO DOWNLOAD CONTENT. ANY MATERIAL DOWNLOADED OR OTHERWISE OBTAINED THROUGH THE USE OF THE SERVICE IS DONE AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION AND RISK AND YOU WILL BE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGE TO YOUR COMPUTER SYSTEM OR MOBILE DEVICE OR LOSS OF DATA THAT RESULTS FROM THE DOWNLOAD OF ANY SUCH MATERIAL. NO ADVICE OR INFORMATION, WHETHER ORAL OR WRITTEN, OBTAINED BY YOU FROM MAGZTER OR THROUGH OR FROM THE SERVICE SHALL CREATE ANY WARRANTY.

2. You will maintain and promptly update that information to keep it true, accurate, current and complete. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your account and password and for restricting access to your computer, and you agree to accept responsibility for all activities that occur under your account, including the selection and use of all content and services.

2.You will maintain and promptly update that information to keep it true, accurate, current and complete. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your account and password and for restricting access to your computer, and you agree to accept responsibility for all activities that occur under your account, including the selection and use of all content and services.

3. In no event will Magzter.com or any person or entity or third party involved in the creation, production and distribution of the content on the website and the application be liable in contract or legally for any damages, including and not limited to, direct, indirect, incidental, special, and consequential incurred to you while or on using Magzter.com. By registering on the website or downloading the application, you agree that the provisions mentioned in this section shall apply to all use of and content on the website and the application.

3. Without prior written or authorised permission from Magzter, you should not modify, copy, distribute or sell any content obtained from Magzter as everything published here is the proprietary property of Magzter or its licensors. As such unauthorised use may also violate applicable laws including copyright and trademark laws, Magzter strictly prohibits these and will terminate your access and account if any such illegal activity is proved or detected. You should also stand liable for the damages caused by these unauthorised activities. Except as permitted by the Publication's lawful owner, you acknowledge that you do not acquire any ownership rights by downloading Publications accessed through the Service. Except as explicitly required under copyright law or permitted by the features of the Service you may not modify, reverse engineer, publish, transmit, display, participate in the transfer or sale, create derivative works of, or in any way commercially exploit or provide to a third party the content of the App, the Publications, or any portion of them without the express permission of Magzter and the owner of such content. We do not grant you any licenses, express or implied, to the intellectual property of Magzter or Magzter's licensors.

5. You specifically acknowledge that Magzter.com is not liable for any kind of defamatory or offensive or illegal conduct of other users or third parties or their content and that the risk of injury from the foregoing rests entirely with you.

8. Magzter reserves all rights to monitor the content published and inputted by you for the purpose of determining whether you are compliant with these terms and conditions and other operating rules determined by Magzter. Magzter has the right to take decisions about the content and delete them at its own will.

9. Magzter is a distributor and NOT a publisher of the Publications and so Magzter has no editorial control over the content, including opinions, advice, statements, services, offers etc., that is represented in the magazines. So Magzter will not take responsibility for the accuracy or the reliability for any information or facts provided therein or that is made available through the service, by anyone other than authorised Magzter employees who are acting on their official capacities. Accordingly, we have no editorial control over the Publications. Any opinions, advice, statements, services, offers or other information or content expressed or made available by third parties, including those made in Publications offered by the Service, are those of the respective author(s) or publisher(s) and not of Magzter. Magzter will not be liable for any loss or damage caused by your reliance on information obtained through the Service or from the Publications. The Service may contain links to other Internet sites and third-party resources and Magzter does not assume any responsibility or liability for communications or materials available at such linked sites. These links are provided for your convenience only. You are solely responsible for understanding any terms and conditions that may apply when you visit or place an order through a third-party site.

Details of the objectionable content, including its link on our platform

Download your favorite titles and read them offline, anytime and anywhere

Gift your loved ones with a Magzter Gift Card instantly and give them the freedom to read their favorite magazines and newspapers from thousands of best-selling titles.

Gift your loved ones with a Magzter Gift Card instantly and give them the freedom to read their favorite magazines from thousands of best-selling titles.

Gift your loved ones with a Magzter Gift Card instantly and give them the freedom to read their favorite magazines from {{magCount}} best-selling international titles.

Girish Ramdas is the Co-founder and CEO of Magzter, a New York based startup that has been making waves in the global digital publishing business. Magzter has crossed 80 million users since its inception in 2011 from more than 150+ countries with 1000s of magazines, newspapers and books from more than 4,500 publishers worldwide. He has more than 25 years of experience in cross-platform publishing, including print, mobile, and Web development. During this period, he has co-founded and run three successful start-up businesses. He has enabled magazine companies to go digital and helps them monetize their content across the digital world. Girish's deep industry experience in online, mobile and publishing ecosystems has made him an expert in acquisition, marketing and monetizing digital content across platforms globally.

In the event that you encounter any objectionable content on our platform, we have put in place a grievance redressal policy to address your concerns.

Magzter Inc. (“Company”, “we”, “us” or “our”) knows that you care about how your personal information is used and shared. Please read the following privacy policy (the “Policy”) to learn more about our privacy practices. By visiting any of the websites operated by the Company, and any sub-domains thereof, or using any of our mobile applications and other methods of content distribution (collectively, the “Service”), you acknowledge that you accept the practices and policies outlined in this Policy, and you hereby consent that we will collect, use, and share your information in the following ways.

Magzter Inc. is the World's largest and fastest growing self-service, cross-platform digital newsstand with over 80 million users since its inception in 2011 and thousands of magazines and newspapers across 40+ categories and 60+ languages. Headquartered in New York, Magzter has its local presence in Amsterdam, London, Mexico City, Chennai, Mumbai, New Delhi, Bengaluru, Singapore, and will soon be expanding to other countries. Founded by global entrepreneurs, Girish Ramdas and Vijay Radhakrishnan in June 2011, Magzter enables magazine and newspaper publishers around the world to create and deliver digital editions of their titles to global consumers.

Magzter is committed to providing a safe and secure platform for our users. Please note that Magzter is merely a platform for publishers to distribute their content. We do not control or endorse the content published on our platform. We cannot be held responsible for the actions of our publishers or their content.

Magzter is not responsible for compensating any party that has suffered damages or incurred costs due to any content, or part of the content, that violates their rights. Magzter is not liable to face any legal action in civil court for any violation of rights caused by any content, or part of the content, that infringes the rights of a third party.

Magzter offers the world’s largest {{allyoucanread}} subscription service called {{gold}} which gives digital readers unlimited access to 8,500+ magazines and newspapers for a monthly subscription price. Magzter also has the largest number of stories in the world with its game-changing ezRead 2.0 feature for its apps, which enables smartphone and small-screen mobile users to enjoy magazine content the way it was meant to be enjoyed, with article text that is easy to read and is accompanied by stunning videos and high resolution photography.

Magzter offers the world’s largest “All-You-Can-Read” subscription service called Magzter GOLD which gives digital readers unlimited access to 8,500+ magazines and newspapers for a monthly subscription price. Magzter also has the largest number of stories in the world with its game-changing ezRead 2.0 feature for its apps, which enables smartphone and small-screen mobile users to enjoy magazine content the way it was meant to be enjoyed, with article text that is easy to read and is accompanied by stunning videos and high resolution photography.

Name

Note: This will only share the cover and the publication information, but not the content.

Please fill out this form if you need any help regarding publishing your content on Magzter

Prior to Magzter, he was the President of Dot Com Infoway (DCI) and Galatta Media. His duties included strategic marketing, partnership development, and monetizing content globally. DCI grew from a small team of 3 in 2000 to 300 by 2011 and was dealing with web, software and app development for clients globally.

Since we launched, Magzter has been committed to partnering with global organizations to provide the greatest possible newsstand technology & service to our customers. Whether you are looking to offer magazine subscriptions to your customer database or just want to learn more, Magzter is committed to helping your business grow. To find out more, please fill out the questionnaire below:

The DMCA allows us to restore the removed content if the party filing the original DMCA Notice does not file a court action against you within ten business days of receiving the copy of your Counter Notice.

This Policy covers Company’s treatment of personally identifiable information (“Personal Information”) and other information about you and your computer or device that Company gathers when you are accessing the Service. We may collect Personal Information from you, as explained in more detail below, and we use this Personal Information internally in connection with our Services, including to personalize, provide, and improve our products, services, content, and advertising, and to allow you to set up a user account and profile, to contact you, to fulfill your requests for certain products and services, and to analyze how you use the Services. In certain cases, we may also share some Personal Information with third parties, but only as described in point 4.

This title is included with your Magzter GOLD subscription

To analyze the quality of content and provide appropriate feedback to publishers

We have designated a Grievance Officer to address any complaints related to objectionable content.

We request that any complaint related to objectionable content be sent to the Grievance Officer through email to the above-mentioned email address. We also request that you provide the following details when making a complaint:

and the App that provides you the capability to order, subscribe to and receive the delivery of various magazines, books, news and magazine and publication related content (collectively known as 'Publications') and to have these digital versions of the Publications delivered to you

c. We also collect information associated with your use of the application in order to make personalized recommendations. If you provide your third-party account credentials to us, you understand some content and/or information in those accounts (“Third Party Account Information”) may be transmitted into your account with us if you authorize such transmissions, and that Third Party Account Information transmitted to the Service is covered by this Policy.

f. The Personal Information we collect allows us to respond to your requests, improve our products and services, customize the advertising and content you see, and communicate with you about new products.

is the World's largest and fastest growing self-service, cross-platform digital newsstand with over 87 million users since its inception in 2011 and thousands of magazines and newspapers across 40+ categories and 60+ languages. Headquartered in New York, Magzter has its local presence in Amsterdam, London, Mexico City, Chennai, Mumbai, New Delhi, Bengaluru, Singapore, and will soon be expanding to other countries. Founded by global entrepreneurs, Girish Ramdas and Vijay Radhakrishnan in June 2011, Magzter enables magazine and newspaper publishers around the world to create and deliver digital editions of their titles to global consumers.

n. We will also use usage information in order to ensure users adhere to our Terms of Use. For example, a user’s usage information will help us confirm that a user only downloads a magazine or other content a permitted number of times or to a permitted number of devices.

which gives digital readers unlimited access to 8,500+ magazines and newspapers for a monthly subscription price. Magzter also has the largest number of stories in the world with its game-changing ezRead 2.0 feature for its apps, which enables smartphone and small-screen mobile users to enjoy magazine content the way it was meant to be enjoyed, with article text that is easy to read and is accompanied by stunning videos and high resolution photography.

{{magzter}} is the World's largest and fastest growing self-service, cross-platform digital newsstand with over 87 million users since its inception in 2011 and thousands of magazines and newspapers across 40+ categories and 60+ languages. Headquartered in New York, Magzter has its local presence in Amsterdam, London, Mexico City, Chennai, Mumbai, New Delhi, Bengaluru, Singapore, and will soon be expanding to other countries. Founded by global entrepreneurs, Girish Ramdas and Vijay Radhakrishnan in June 2011, Magzter enables magazine and newspaper publishers around the world to create and deliver digital editions of their titles to global consumers.

PAX LUMINA Magazine - January 2022

PAX LUMINA Magazine - January 2022

In this issue

PAX LUMINA Magazine Description: