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Volume 54, Issue 30 | wednesday, october 9, 2019 | ndsmcobserver.com
Rajmohan Gandhi talks India, politics Kroc and Liu Institutes host biographer to discuss religious tensions and legacy of his grandfather By ALVIN KRAJA News Writer
Rajmohan Gandhi, the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, gave a lecture called “Is the Dream Alive? Ref lections on Race, Nationality and the Legacies of Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. King” at the Hesburgh Center for International Studies on Tuesday. The lecture was part of a joint event hosted by the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies and the Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies. Gandhi is a biographer and research professor at the Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has written numerous books, including “A Tale of Two Revolts: India 1857 & the American Civil War” and “Mohandas: A True Story of a Man, His People and an Empire.” Gandhi started his talk about the current situation in India with the recent government and its policies. He said he is “tremendously troubled of what is happening in India.” According to Gandhi, he has always tried to answer the question “Why the world today is the way it is.” see GANDHI PAGE 4
ALVIN KRAJA | The Observer
Rajmohan Gandhi, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, spoke about contemporary political issues and his grandfather’s legacy on Tuesday at the Hesburgh Center for International Studies.
Sustainable farm Students react to talk of to move forward presidential impeachment at Saint Mary’s By JOHN SALEM News Writer
By HANNAH THOMAS News Writer
A sustainable farm is in its preparation stages for the Saint Mar y’s communit y by a campus group know n as the Going Green Committee, which has been working on the project w ith numerous opportunities for the communit y to get involved. “The Going Green Committee … engage[s] in consciousness-raising on sustainabilit y initiatives, assist[s] in implementing green initiatives and identif y ing sustainabilit y needs for strategic planning,” Judith Fean, the College’s v ice president for mission and chair of the Going Green Committee, said in an email. ”We also address matters of env ironmental concerns.” The two acres of land set aside for the farm were acquired through a land purchase of 40 acres from the Sisters of the Holy Cross
NEWS PAGE 3
three years ago w ith approval and designation for the farm use over that period of time. After significant efforts were made to groom the land for this farm, it is now in the final stages of preparation to begin growing crops. “We started remediating the soil, but it had all been in field crops for decades … so that tends to lead to the soil deteriorating in certain respects … there’s a loss of organic matter, and there’s a loss of certain micronutrients, especially calcium tends to get leached out of the soil,” Chris Cobb, an English and env ironmental studies professor and member of the committee, said. The ‘farm group’ of the Going Green Committee, which includes Cobb, has been working to take the soil to a more fruitful state. “We had the soil limed see FARMING PAGE 3
SCENE PAGE 5
After an anonymous whistleblower reported a concern in August to the House of Representatives and Senate Intelligence Committees about U.S. President Donald Trump soliciting foreign interference
to better his chances in the 2020 election, the complaint was eventually passed along to the Justice Department. On Sept. 24, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi announced an impeachment inquiry into Trump for his dealings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The anonymous whistleblower claims Trump threatened to cut off Ukraine’s foreign aid if the government did not cooperate in the investigation of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. The possibility of impeachment see PRESIDENT PAGE 4
Pro-woman, pro-choice club gains interest at SMC By MAEVE FILBIN Saint Mary’s News Editor
In an Oct. 1 post to the Saint Mary’s College Class of 2021 Facebook page, a student posed this question: “If someone made a pro-woma n/pro-choic e club, would you become a member? ” Since then, 29 students have voted in support of joining the proposed group, and nine have voted
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against membership. Junior Rebecca Ward voted in favor of joining a future pro-woman, prochoice club, but said in a Facebook comment that she did not think the group would be allowed to operate on a Catholic campus. “I would love to have [a pro-choice club], but I’ve heard from a friend that in the past it’s been proposed
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and denied [because] this is a Catholic college,” she said in the comment. Ward said she’s always felt passionate about starting a pro-choice group at Saint Mary’s since her freshman year, but did not pursue creating an official club after learning about a past failed attempt made by another student. see CHOICE PAGE 3
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