Always Take The Side of Love

By: Bikal Dhungel

It doesn’t feel nice to see so many unsatisfied people these days. Longing for money, popularity or a successful career, more and more people are unhappy. People forget that life has to be lived with compromise and all we wish may not come true. Hapiness comes from accepting these facts and still going forward with a smile in the face. It is not hard to have a happy life but it is also not easy. Accepting onceself, service to others, and selflessness are the three key things you got to follow strictly. We are beautiful as we are and unique in our own way however we might look like. Service to others in whatever we can should always be the first priority in our life. What we are today is because of other people, not because of ourselves. They are the ones who made us who we are today, so it should be our responsibility to give back to the society and people. Selflessness is the key for inner satisfaction. It requires immense amount of love, respect and sympathy and love remains above everything and is most powerful thing in our life that is capable to make anything we wish possible. 

Noone was born with hate. Hate is what people were forcibly installed by some. So, if we think that there is some portion of hate in us, inorder to lead a peaceful life, we need to unlearn this, which is twice as difficult as to learn. Large portion of life will be used to unlearn things if we want to free ourselves from the toxic thoughts we already possess. 

With love and mutual respect you will have more inner peace, you will feel happier, feel better and inner peace and hapiness is also one of the major factors that enhance our immune system and help us to be protective from diseases. 

Mutual respect comes from respecting each other. No matter who you are, Hindu or Buddhist, Muslim or Christian, Banker or Teacher, Communist or Capitalist, there is a human side in everybody. Everybody has a family, friends or children whom they love. A key to have a peaceful heart is to treat everybody as your own family member, by being selfless. 

The most incredible people I know always took the side of love even though their circumstances were lot more different and difficult than mine. For their deeds, they have been able to change a lot in people’s lives. They were explorers, travellers, or even a normal people like everybody of us who have seen the world and universal suffering. This has led them to raise their voice, to make a world a better place for everybody. These people possesed important characters like respect, understanding, forgiveness, selflessness, love and most importantly, service to others. 

These people are for example: George Harrison, John Lennon, Albert Schweitzer, Martin Luther King Junior, Alexander von Humboldt, J.F Kennedy, Mahatma Gandhi, Albert Einstein, Nelson Mandela and many others who refused to give up and fought for the righteousness and service to others.  From the past, not only such heroic individuals, even many institutions are contributing for the better world. 

Nelson Mandela was 27 years in Prison. He decided to forgive those who sent him to jail. Is there anything that can be more courageous than this? Learning forgiveness is hard, it takes time and lots of practice but it is possible. Dalai Lama still chooses the path of non-violence even though thousands of Tibetan people are massacared every year for no reason. He still proudly campaigns as an ambassador of peace. The power of peace and non-violence was already displayed by Mahatma Gandhi who kneeled down the most powerful empire where the sun never set. Albert Schweitzer, Martin Luther King or John Kennedy are the symbol of selflessness who sticked to the service to others in a hope to create a better world. While doing that, many of them have paid their vision from their life, everything for other people, for us. Kennedy, John Lennon, Dr. Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Yitzak Rabin all were shot, they were murdered. Many such good people were murdered. This shows that in our society hate is still present but this is not the reason to stop fighting for peace and love. Rather, it shows us the nessesity to fight even more so that one day we can eradicate hate completely. For that we need such heroes and many other organisations that are performing extraordinary tasks everyday in all the corners of our world. 

International Committee of Red Cross (founded by Henry Dunant in Switzerland), gives hopes to the hopeless people in the warzones who just lost their loved ones, and all belongings. Showing the human sides of life, the volunteers of Red Cross have risked their life in places where noone wants to go to help the people disregarding their political view, their country and skin colour. Henry Dunant got the first Nobel Peace Prize in 1901 as a founder of ICRC. Again, International committee of Red Cross won the Nobel Prize in Peace in 1917, and again in 1944 ‘for the great work it has performed during the war in behalf of humanity’, and again in 1963 ‘for the protection of human rights’. 

United Nations High Comissioner for Refugees also deserves the highest respect. It was handled the Nobel Peace Prize in 1954 and 1981 for its extra-ordinary efforts by helping the refugees in the warzones by bringing them to safety, giving them a new home and a perspective of a good life. Especially, the most vulnerables in any war are the innocent childrens. Helping these powerless children, the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) got peace prize in 1965 and still continues to serve for the sake of humanity. 

Being peaceful and non-violent also saves cost. Our world has a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of 70 trillion dollars. 2 trillion dollars per year are spent worldwide as military expenditures (1). 2 trillion means 2000 billions. 2000 billion dollars means the combined GDP of 130 countries of the world starting from the bottom. This money is huge. With this money, we can easily fulfill the Millenium Development Goals. We can feed the hungry and provide free education for the needy. It is surely not possible to cut all military expenses at once but it is possible to reduce it massively if there is more peace and love in the world. Then it will automatically reduce security expenses and the amount we save there we can invest in our real problems namely poverty, climate change, global health and education. The first step for this is love. 

We can justify this argument with some other figures, the most peaceful countries in the world, presented by Global Peace Index (GPI), are lead by: Iceland, Denmark, New Zealand, Canada and Austria. Security Spending of Denmark was 1.3% of GDP, Canada’s was 1.1% of GDP, Finland’s was 2% of GDP, and Iceland has no military. Whereas, countries with internal conflicts or that has a repressive governments have higher percentage of GDP spendings on security, for example: Bahrain spends 4.5% of its GDP for security, Equatorial Guinea spends 6.3%, Yemen spends 6.6%, Syria spends 5.9%, Oman spends 11.4%, Qatar spends 10% and Saudi Arabia also spends 10% (2). Please note that I havent taken countries that have higher military expenses due to particular conflicts that are dependent on neighbouring countries or long term conflicts for example Israel, Greece or Cyprus. These figures show us that love also saves costs. Peaceful countries are spending less money for security purposes whereas not so peaceful countries are spending heavy amount for security purposes. They could rather invest in other sectors which will profit all people if there is an absence of hate and repressions 

Hence, it is necessary to abolish hate from our society. It is too destructive and too costly. Hate destroys us all. It will seed you a dangerous ingredient in you which will appear to be a terrifying suicide attack in your career. Your mission should be to be the best version of you by your service towards other people by keeping other people’s interest in mind and by always reminding yourselves that we also have a moral responsibility to take care of innocent creatures that share this world with us and our planet earth that gave us home and food to live. We have to follow the principles of great people who gave up their live for the good causes. 

The world visioned by these visionaries are the optimal world to live in, they have made the world a better place to live, with their work and vision. We have a proof today that love is in fact the most powerful weapon in every aspect of life. And most of these wonderful people and institutions were thanked by the sacred gift called The Nobel Peace Prize. Be it Dalai Lama for his ‘non-violent struggle for the liberation of Tibet’, be it the United Nations for its ‘more peaceful world’, be it Muhammad Yunus for his ‘social and economic opportunities for the poor’, be it Medicins Sans Frontieres (Switzerland) for its ‘pioneering humanitarian works on several continents’, be it the United Nations Peace Keeping Forces for their effort to reduce conflicts, be it Mother Teresa for her missionary charity, be it Amnesty International for ‘protecting the human rights of prisoners of conscience’, be it Martin Luther King Junior for his ‘peaceful civil rights movement’, be it Carl von Ossietzky ‘for his struggle against Germany’s rearmament, be it Jimmy Carter ‘for his effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts’ or be it the group called International Physicians for the prevention of nuclear war for their ‘awareness programs for the catastrophic consequences of atomic warfare’. All the efforts done by these extra-ordinary people were for love, for peace and the goodness of our society in order to make a better world. Their vision has indeed made our world better. It would not have been possible without the ingredient of love. Hence, love is the most important of all, the most powerful of all that makes everything possible. 

Our struggle for daily life may not always let us keep love in our mind, neither the struggle for limited resources in the world where every individual is running to be the best, to be the top and to earn the most. It may not simply be possible to live with love. But it is all wrong, it is possible. Peace and Love beings in personal level, It beings with you. You have to force yourself so that love still remains in your mind. The neighbour might be too loud and disturbs you, still love him. Your friend might have excluded you from the birthday party invitation. You still invite him to yours and appreciate him. There might be too many immigrants in your country, still give them a feeling that they are important and treat them with respect and love. Force yourself to love in the beginning, then slowely it will be your habit. Remember how hard it was to wake up in the morning for school, college or work, but you forced yourself and now it’s your habit and you realise now how easy it is. It is same for love. Loving unconditionally brings peace to your mind and you will be happier. Even though others hate you, do not hate them back. Buddha once said, ‘Hate can never be ended by hate, rather by love’. So, especially those who hate you, you got to love more. It might not lie within your comfort zone but you have to go beyond your comfort zone. Try this and remember how the great people I mentioned above did this. If J.F Kennedy could forgive the Russians and start a dialog with them in much more complicated situation than today by saying “Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings”, If Nelson Mandela could forgive the people who sent him to prison for 27 years, if Dalai Lama could forgive the people who kept him 54 years out of the homeland, you can surely forgive your enemies by the thing called love. In your life, if you have a choice between love and hate, always take the side of love. 

_____________________________________________________

Sources: 

All Facts Related to Nobel Prizes: www.nobelprize.org . Retrieved  on 16^th  March, 2013

(1)    - http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/spending.htm Retrieved on 16th March, 2013

(2)    Global Peace Index 2012 , Retrieved 16^th March, 2013 .

(3)    http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/spending.htm Retrieved on 16th March, 2013

 

The Water War

The Water War 

By: Bikal Dhungel 

What will be added to international conflicts in this 21st century? Hardly anyone can guess that it will be water, war for water, yes water that we drink. Water is a public good, at least in many countries and is available freely. 

Two third of planet Earth is covered by water. From this, 97% is salty, hence not drinkable. Among the remaining three percent, 99% of it is stored as ice in North and South Pole or trapped underground. So, only 1% is available for use. Still, this 1% is enough to fulfill the daily needs of all people in the whole world. However,1 billion people around the world have no access to clean water supply and 2.5 billion have no sanitation. This number is huge even though water is a freely available resource provided by the nature. Additional to this fact, 2.1 million children die every year because of water-related disease for example by consuming contaminated water because of the lack of clean water availability

Ignored by the mainstream politics in almost all countries, water is an important issue today that should be addresed. This will engage us in this century intensively because the availability of water is the same but world population is growing in an alarming rate.

In the year 1800, world population was only 1 billion, in 1920 it reached to 2 billion, in 1960 it rised to 3 billion, in the year 2000, it reached to 6 billion and took another 10 years to hit the record of 7 billion. This is not the end, world population is still growing with a very high rate: Every year 80 million more people are born, as much as the population of Germany. With the current rate, we will have crossed the record of 10 billion people by 2050 and another 5 billion at the end of this century. What does this mean? This means an intensified struggle for limited global resources including water. People need resources to survive and given the economic growth of today, people not only need water to drink but they’ll need more amount with the increase of their well-being. For example, an average person in the US today uses 700 liters of water per day whereas most Africans living in rural areas use 30-40 liters per day[1].Now imagine, all Africans and Asians including China and India where over two third of the world population live, using as much water as the americans. With the growth rate of China and India, they are on their best way to catch up with USA and Western Europe. They are already increasing their food consumption, which is one of the main factors of rising food prices throughout the world. Same argument is valid for water consumption.  This will keep the demand of fresh water high and lead to the depletion of natural resources. This case is alarming as we do not know either our planet can sustain this growth when there will be 15 billion people at the end of this century. The scientific community is unsure how to deal with this issue as it is a multi-dimensional problem. The issues of food prices, climate change, bio-fuel, world economy and many more are connected with it. One nation or even many powerful nations cannot solve this, there is either a global solution or nothing. However, the issue of water is the most important one because it is not only vital for our survival but our future and future of our earth also lies in it.

Water is such a fantastic thing to talk about. It is the most essential factor for humans after air to survive but it is also one of the most dangerous killers. Water pollution causes various diseases like Hepatitis A, Typhoid, Diahhroea, Arsenicosis, Cholera, Fluorosis, Guinea Worm disease, Malaria etc. Diahhroea alone has 4 billion cases per year with 1.5 million deaths[2]. In a typical year in Africa, 5-10 times the number of people die from Diarrhoea than from war[3]. Diseases have immense affect in human lives. Due to water related illness, 443 million school days are lost every year.

But the story of water is not only about the disease related to it. There is a much bigger issue going on. Its about the unfair distribution of water, its about the wars that are being fought only because of the power struggle about who should get how much. We don’t only need water to drink, we also need it for industries, for irrigation and many other purposes. Agriculture is responsible for about 70% of the world’s water usage, industry needs another 22%. An important task of any government is to insure that its citizens get enough on their plates. Hence, enhancing agriculture is an important task. Nomatter how many varieties of foods you see in the supermarket, all of them have their origin on the field. For example wheat is required to make our daily bread, noodles, biscuits, beverages, beer and many other varieties of foods that we consume everyday[4]. According to Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), alltogether in 2010 over 2 billion tons of wheat, maize and rice was produced ( 1 ton= 1000 kg). It takes 2000-5000 liters of water to produce one person’s daliy food[5] . Now imagine how much a person eats out of wheat or rice or maize in a day and how much water is actually neccesary to produce all of these billions of tons of crops. This is why countries fight for water because their lifelines lie there. If they don’t get the water, they will not survive. Especially in developing countries, a large portion of people rely on agriculture, in many countries as much as 80%.

Due to the differences in geographies, there are dry places on earth where there is no or little water resources. Saudi Arabia for example, is the world’s largest oil producer but they have no single river and no source of fresh water. Being a rich country, they can afford desalination, a process of turning salty sea water into fresh water in an artificial way but with a natural procedure but most of the developing coutries cannot afford this, it is an expensive method and requires lots of energy. This is why many people of some parts of sub-saharan Africa should walk many miles every day to get water. The scarcity has led to problems, in small and large scale water conflicts. 

In every continent, there is a conflict related to water. Jordan River, where Jesus Christ was baptized is the source of conflict between Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel and Palestine. Every country built large dams in order to store water for their purpose that causes a large damage in eco-system. In the future, Jordan River might not reach the country Jordan from what it is named for because too much water is being taken out. The Dead Sea, where Jordan River actually ends, is also the lowest point on earth’s surface, has a high evaporation rate. With this rate, the amount of water there will shrink and scientific community doesn’t know what kind of impact that will have in our eco-system. But eco-system is of less concern about these countries, the bigger issues is about who will take how much water and either it is fair. The Arab-Israeli war of 1967, also called ‘Six day War ‘had its origin in water disputes between Israel and its Arab neighbours. Israel won the war and took 60% of water which the Arabs often cite as unfair[6]. From that time onwards, in every Arab-Israeli peace negotiation, water has always been the important topic. 

River Nile, which flows through 12 countries in East and North Africa, is an imporant source of fresh water in the region. It is also a matter of conflict between the nations.  East African countries like Uganda, Ethiopia, and Kenya frequently mention that they are handled unfairly and that Egypt is having massive advantage from the river. Many negotiations have taken place in the past to resolve the dispute. For all these countries, Nile’s water is important for their agriculture and economic development.

The Middle East has 5% of the world population but only 1% of world’s fresh water that is freely available[7]. Other notable conflict in the Middle East is over Tigris and Euphrates between Iraq, Turkey and Syria. Bit further in central Asia, Kazakstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikstan and Kyrgyszstan are fighting for Aral Sea water. 
Once, Kyrgyszstan cut off the water to Kazakstan until coal is delivered and Uzbekistan did the same to Kazakstan for not paying the debt. These insecurities of water have resulted in building huge dams for water conservation. It is in fact a good technique for securing the water need for the future but is also connected with other vulnarabilities and risks. In 2008, the Taliban threatened to blow up Warsak Dam in Peshawar, Pakistan. Warsak Dam is not only the primary source of water in the region but also, if the Taliban blow it up, hundreds of thousands will die from flood and many others will have no water to drink. Similarly, in Srilanka, the Tamil Tiger rebels cut the water supply to the government-held villages leaving people waterless. The conflict caused 425 lives. Terrorist group Al-Quida has frequently threatened to poison the drinking water in Western and American cities. In 2002, Italian police allegedly arrested four Morrocans for planning to contaminate the water supply system in Rome with a cyanide based chemicals. In the same year in Nepal, the the Khumbuwan Liberation Front (KLF) blew up a hydro-electric powerhouse in Bhojpur district. The Maoist terrorists have destroyed more than seven micro-hydroelectric projects as well as drinking water projects and pipeline supplying water to western Nepal. Innocent people have suffered and even lost lives[8].

Importance of water is increasing, especially in the economically booming areas for their industries, hydro-power, irrigation etc. So, human activities are intervening too much in the natural flow of water. Human activities have pulled so much water out of the rivers that Indus River on the Indian sub-continent, Yellow river in China or the Rio-Grande along the US-Mexico border that they now either disappear before reaching the sea or contain sections that seasonally run dry[9]. This is a sad thing because Rivers have historical meanings, they played an important part in our history and they helped human beings to prosper, by helping us to transfer our goods from one place to another throughout the past. 

The Indus Valley Civilization dates back to five thousand years, started from about 3300-1300 BCE. The largest civilizations in human history were based on three rivers, the Nile Valley Civilization in present day Egypt, which was the earliest civilization, Indus Valley Civilization in South Asia and Yellow River Civilization in China. Mega cities like London, Paris, Tokyo, Shanghai and New York City all have a history of prosperity that was supported by the rivers, their water. Without the in-land water system in Great Britain, its industrialization would have taken another direction. Inner European trade would not be so strong without the rivers that are there. The river Rhein that originates from the Alps Mountains and ends in the North Sea helped the trade pattern of Austria, Switzerland, France, Germany and Netherlands. Still today, Rhein is one of the busiest Ship routes in Europe. Many big cities have been created at the shores of Rhein. we can count what kind of cities lies; Basel, Strassburg, Karlsruhe, Mannheim, Mainz, Bonn, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Duisburg, Rotterdam, Utrecht etc to name the few. Hence, how much importance these cities have today in European economy is immeasurable. Hence, rivers are the origin of human civilization and we need to protect it and share its water in a fair way among the fellow citizens and give the best to solve the problem of water.

In an international level, the crisis of water is known to us all, the Climate Change. Rising sea level water threatens our survival. The ice on Greenland and the Anctarctic are melting. If the temperature rises by 3 degree in Greenland, all the ice will start to melt. In about 100 years, there will be no ice remaining and that will cause the sea level rise by 7 meters. When the sea-level rises by 1 meter, 20 countries will perish from the world. So, imagine all ice of Greenland melts and the sea level rise to 7 meters worldwide[10].That has catastrophic consequences.  7 meters rise means all the east coast cities of USA will be gone, from Boston to Miami, including New York City, Jacksonville, Newark and many other cities in-between. Highly populated areas like Bangladesh with its 145 million people will completely disappear. From Belgium to North-eastern Germany, including the cities of Hamburg, Kiel, Amsterdam, Copenhagen will all be gone. In Africa, high populated areas like Niger Delta, East Africa will face problems. The most vulnerable areas are in Africa, Asia and Europe. The UN estimates that there will be 634 million climate refugees[11]. Can we afford so many refugees? Who will take them all? We already have a world where Refugees are unwanted everywhere. Refugees always face descriminations in everyday life. Without required papers, it is hard for them to find a job to live a decent life. We can see so many Refugee camps in many countries full of people  who arrived from their villages due to voilence, political problems, war, famine and natural catastrophe and hope to find a place for them and their children where they should not fear death. They are forced to move in search of a better life. Despite the suffering of Refugees, whereever an Asylum center will be planned, we encounter a massiv opposition of the locals, mainly in Europe. People seem to be hostile towards immigrants and refugees. In this situation, we need to think where such a large climate refugees should go in the future. Anyway, this is the topic for the future. And when Antarctic ice melts, 55 meters of sea level rise[12]. 55 meters sea-level rise is a horror scenario. We will be depressed to know which places we will never see again above water.

This problem of climate change is in global level. In national level, as I mentioned above, there are many conflicts between more countries regarding water. The greatest problem however is in the local level. Whereever there is scarcity, there will be conflict. A village somewhere in Africa has just one well as a source of water, now imagine thousands of people are living there who need to feed their family, livestocks etc. There are thousands of examples where the individuals are fighting with each other for water, sometimes even killing the neighbours etc. Water is a matter of life and death, so people do anything to get it. In India few years ago, when Coca Cola Company pulled too much water from the wells to make Coca Cola, sources of fresh water dried and there were no water in the wells. This resulted in massive protests because the locals had no water left to drink. That lead to a national discussion in India and ethical consumers throughout the world boycotted Coca Cola for such activities. Big Oil corporations in Niger Delta contaminated the water but still nothing happens because Oil companies can bribe the public officials easily who are then reluctant to pass any regulations against big multi-national oil companies. In other countries, companies have contaminated the water resources with their waste. Not only big and small companies, even people with their household waste contaminate water resources. 90% of waste water in developing countries is discharged into rivers or streams without any treatment[13]. In the city of Kathmandu, all the household waste will be directed to Bagmati River. Bagmati will merge with other rivers at some point and people again use that water for drinking purposes, for agriculture and for animals. This again has a very bad implication in human health. This will lead to an increased number of diseases and the health-care cost overall. We can see this picture in other places too, where animals take bath in a pond, where people throw their waste and others take the same water for drinking purposes. Due to the lack of waste management and recycling techniques, developing countries are facing this problem. Hence, it is a responsibility of countries that have efficient recycling technologies to help the countries that do not, because this contaminated water will finally flow to the Ocean and it has bad implications for the eco-system as a whole and it affects the whole earth.

To conclude everything, a major problem our generation is facing today has its roots in water. Be it a conflict for drinking water in individual villages, be it a war for a river, be it water contamination or terrorism or climate change, until and unless we seriously sit down together to find a genuine solution that is also fair, we will spend a long time in the future to resolve this crisis. It is important to accept that water is not only essential for survival, but also a human right. A right to safe drinking water and sanitation should finally be granted. The millenium development goals (MDG) target this right but in implication, it is still far away. This was shown by the fact that, after 13 years of signing MDG, still almost a billion people have no access to clean drinking water and other billions have no proper sanitation. It is time to agree that in some problems of 21^st century, there is only global solution, for example water. Today we have a technology, an ability to finance this and a neccesity to do this, so we should take a one step ahead in order to make it a reality that someday no woman should walk 5 miles everyday to collect water, no child should die of Diarrhoea, no man should kill his neighbour to get one additional pot of water and no war should be fought anymore for water. This is the world I envision, a world without a water war.

Sources: 

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[1] http://www.waterindustry.org/Water-Facts/africa-water.htm retrieved, 26.feb. 2013

[2] Unicef: http://www.unicef.org/wash/index_wes_related.html , retrieved 23. Feb. 2013)

[3] http://matadornetwork.com/change/40-shocking-facts-about-water/ , retrieved – 15^th Feb. 2013)

[4] Cauvain, Stanley P. & Cauvain P. Cauvain. (2003) Bread Making. CRC Press. p. 540.ISBN 1-85573-553-9.

[5] http://www.ifad.org/english/water/key.htm retrieved 26th feb. 2013

 [6] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11101797

 [7] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2859937.stm  retrieved 26.02.2013

 [8] http://www.worldwater.org/conflictchronology.pdf  retrieved 26.02.2013

 [9] http://e360.yale.edu/feature/will_the_jordan_river_keep_on_flowing/2064/  retrieved 26.02.2013

 [10] http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/04/0420_040420_earthday_2.html  retrieved 26.02.2013

 [11] http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/04/0420_040420_earthday_2.html (page 21) retrieved 26.02.2013

 [12] ( Source: University of California, Irvine, lecture slides of public Health, retrieved 27^th feb.2013)

[13] http://www.waterindustry.org/Water-Facts/africa-water.htm  retrieved 26.02.2013

Facts About Foreign Students in Germany

Datas/Facts About Foreign Students studying in Germany 

i) Total Foreign Students in German Universities : ca 245,000 (ca 12%) 

ii) Largest Groups – China, Russia, Poland,  Bulgaria, Turkey 

iii) University with highest portion of foreigners in percentage – Universität zu Köln 

iv) Fachhochschule with highest portion of foreigners in percentage – Fachhochschule Köln 

v) Average Percentage of students who finance their stay themselves – 54% 

vi) Main Problems of students : Orientation in studies, Finance, Contacts with other students, Room 

vii) Best Universities for Technical Subjects : TU Berlin, RWTH Aachen, TU Munich, 

viii) Best Universities for Economical Subjects: Uni Mannheim, Uni Köln, Uni Bonn

ix) Best Universities for Medicine: Charite Berlin, Uni Heidelberg, Uni Bonn

x) Largest teaching Universities : Uni Köln, Uni Munich, Uni Hamburg 

xi) Largest teaching Fachhochschule : FH Köln, FH Munich 

Facts: 

i)                    Germany is third attractive country in the world for higher education after USA and UK

ii)                   81% of students came here for full time studies

iii)                 19% came as exchange or guest students

iv)                 49% of Foreign Students work in vacations 

v)                  47% student’s first choice was Germany for further education 

Source: http://www.studentenwerke.de/pdf/Internationalisierungbericht.pdf