Author: derestrained

Revealed: The £271 billion rape of the National Insurance Fund that deprived 50s women of their state pension

Westminster Confidential

dsc_8416 Guy Opperman – the current pension minister who says it is too expensive to pay the 50s women.

CROSS POSTED ON BYLINE.COM

The fact that 50s women  were robbed of their pensions  by raising the pension age is undeniable. But the biggest argument against putting this right has been the cost – a fact perpetually used by the present pensions minister, Guy Oppenman, who quotes the £70 billion plus figure.

Recently I discovered that successive governments had taken a decision  NOT to top up the fund as originally proposed by William Beveridge when the welfare state was set up in 1948.

What I did not know was how much money was lost. Now thanks to an extraordinary paper prepared for the National Pensioners Convention by a social security expert Tony Lynes,and still on the web, I now know. And it is staggering. You can read it here.

The paper…

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Hanuman’s Warriors – Grey Langur

incidental naturalist

According to Hindu scripture, during the great battle of Lanka, Hanuman, the monkey god, was in trouble. He had been captured, and fires raged all around. Help came in the unlikely form of a troop of Grey Langurs, who rushed to assist Hanuman, resulting in scorched black faces, and a revered status in Hindu culture that persists to this day.

While visiting the great north Indian state of Rajasthan, I traveled from Jaipur to Ranthambhore National Park, chasing a dream of seeing a wild Royal Bengal Tiger.  Ranthambhore oozes history, spirituality, and a spellbinding sense of the exotic. Since 1754, the wilderness now known as Ranthambhore National Park, was maintained as the private hunting preserve of the Maharajas of Jaipur. In 1980 the Indian government declared the 392 km² (150 square miles) area a National Park, dedicated to the protection of tigers.

DSC_1246 A Ranthambhore Royal Bengal Tiger studies me through the trees

On…

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