I would have liked to have dinner with Mahatma Gandhi: Obama

Washington, Sep 9 (IANS) US President Barack Obama has said that if he could have dinner with anyone, dead or alive, it would be Mahatma Gandhi, adding he is 'a real hero of mine'.

Obama had gone to Wakefield High School in Arlington to give a speech welcoming students back to school, when he took a few questions from ninth-graders.

Lily, a student, asked: 'And if you could have dinner with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be?'

'Well, you know, dead or alive, that's a pretty big list,' Obama was quoted as saying by Los Angeles Times Wednesday.

'You know, I think that it might be Gandhi, who is a real hero of mine.'

Obama said: 'Now, it would probably be a really small meal because, he didn't eat a lot.'

'But he's somebody who I find a lot of inspiration in. He inspired Dr. (Martin Luther) King, so if it hadn't been for the non-violent movement in India, you might not have seen the same non-violent movement for civil rights here in the United States.'

Obama told the students that Gandhi represents the power of change through ethics and how to use that morality to foster change, themes he has repeated through his presidential campaign and administration.

Facing sharp divisions in Congress and within his own Democratic Party, Obama stressed Gandhi's fighting spirit and will to overcome long odds.

Gandhi helped 'people who thought they had no power realise that they had power and then helped people who had a lot of power realise that if all they're doing is oppressing people, then that's not a really good exercise of power'.

A well-mannered, focussed legend

Australian great Steve Waugh has referred to the Indian maestro as the `(Don) Bradman of our times'.

Some of the world’s greatest cricketers have heaped praise on Sachin Tendulkar as he reaches another milestone in his career with former Australian skipper Steve Waugh paying him the ultimate tribute by calling him the “Bradman of our times“.

A day before completing 20 years of international cricket, Tendulkar’s peers doffed their hats to the batting genius, recalling their association with him.

“The last time I watched Sachin was last week when he was on his way to a spectacular 175 and once again I felt that I was watching a player who comes but once in a century. It can be said that he is the Bradman of our times and I do feel privileged to have played a lot of cricket against him,” Waugh said in his tribute.

AP Poll: Health care overhaul has a pulse

WASHINGTON – The fever has broken. The patient is out of intensive care. But if you're President Barack Obama, you can't stop pacing the waiting room. Health care overhaul is still in guarded condition.

The latest Associated Press-GfK poll has found that opposition to Obama's health care remake dropped dramatically in just a matter of weeks. Still, Americans remain divided over complex legislation that Democrats are advancing in Congress.

The public is split 40-40 on supporting or opposing the health care legislation, the poll found. An even split is welcome news for Democrats, a sharp improvement from September, when 49 percent of Americans said they opposed the congressional proposals and just 34 percent supported them.

Anger about health care boiled over during August. Lawmakers returning home for town hall meetings faced outcries that the government was trying to take over the system, ushering in higher costs, lower quality — even rationing and euthanasia.

"It's very significant that there's an upturn in support for the plans because after August there was a sense that the whole effort was beginning to decline and would not come back in terms of public support," said Robert Blendon, a Harvard professor who tracks public opinion on health care.

"Even with this," added Blendon, "the country is still divided over whether or not moving ahead is the right thing to do."

Behind the shift seems to be a growing determination among Democrats that going forward would be better. Meanwhile, political independents don't appear as alarmed about the congressional proposals as they were just a few weeks ago. Still, opponents remain more passionate in their convictions than do supporters.

In a significant change, opposition among older Americans dropped 16 percentage points. Seniors have been concerned that Congress would stick them with the bill by cutting Medicare to pay for covering the uninsured. Among the most reliable voters, they were much more wary of the changes than the public as a whole. The gap has narrowed.

The poll found that 68 percent of Democrats support the congressional plans, up from 57 percent in early September. Opposition among independents plunged from 51 percent to 36 percent. However, only 29 percent of independents currently support the plans in Congress.

Among seniors, opposition fell from 59 percent in September to 43 percent now. Almost four in 10, 38 percent, now support it, compared with 31 percent in September.

Retiree Sandi Murray, 65, of Hesperia, Mich., said she doesn't have any concerns her Medicare coverage will suffer. "I think it will be A-OK," she said.

Murray said she thinks it's time to address the problems of nearly 50 million people without coverage. "We need to do something so that everybody has some amount of coverage for some reasonable amount of money," she said.

Republicans remain solidly against the congressional health care plans, with four out of five opposed.

Americans overwhelmingly say it's important that health care legislation have the support of both parties.

Blendon credits Obama's speech to Congress in early September and his blitz of media interviews and appearances since then for moving public opinion toward the positive column. What some have criticized as presidential hyperactivity, many Americans took as a sign that the president was taking ownership of the issue, Blendon said.

Before his prime-time speech to Congress, 52 percent disapproved of Obama's handling of health care. Now the public is split, with 48 percent approving and 47 percent disapproving.

"Getting more directly involved in the outcome is what people expect a president to be doing," said Blendon.

There's still deep skepticism that the government can fix the health care system to expand coverage and tamp down rising costs.

Andrew Newcomb, 28, who works in sales and lives near Destin, Fla., said he doesn't think taxpayers should have to take on the costs of covering the uninsured.

"I don't want my tax money to pay for some pill-popper to fake some injury and go to the hospital when I don't ever go to the hospital," said Newcomb, adding he can afford to go to the doctor and pay $60 for a checkup.

The congressional bills would require all Americans to get health insurance, either through an employer, through a government program or on their own. Tax credits would be offered for many of those who buy their own coverage but failure to comply could result in a fine.

"I don't think that the government should supply health care to the people," said Newcomb.

The AP-GfK poll was conducted Oct. 1-5, based on a nationally representative sample of 1,003 adults age 18 or older, contacted by telephone on land lines and cell phones. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points for results based on the entire sample.

We should open doors to Tamil people: Rahul

Thursday, Sep 10, 2009 , India

                                              

                                                

Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi, who is on a three-day visit to Tamil Nadu, has said that he is in the state to build the Youth Congress. "We should start opening our doors to Tamil people," said Rahul Gandhi.