fred de sam lazaro reports on gender imbalance in india and its effect on society. >> they're not seeing that you know eliminating their own daughters is leading to this bride shortage. and bob faw on an after-school program for kids from tough city neighborhoods. >> it was the biggest turning point in my whole life. now i want, i want to change the world now. plus, aging as a spiritual practice.

welcome. i'm deborah potter, sitting in for bob abernethy. thank you for joining us. there was widespread condemnation this week of the massive escalation of violence in egypt, where military forces cracked down on supporters of ousted president mohammed morsi. more than 600 people were killed and several thousand were injured. the largest muslim advocacy group in the united states, the council on american islamic relations, urged president obama to cut off military aid to egypt.

israel released 26 palestinian prisoners this week as peace talks resumed in jerusalem. the second round of talks began despite israel's announcement that it plans to build more than a thousand new housing units in disputed areas, including east jerusalem. u.n. secretary general ban-ki moon, visiting the west bank, called the new settlement activity troubling and warned it could make a two-state solution impossible. attorney general eric holder proposed major reforms this week to the country's prison system. under new justice department rules, some non-violent drug offenders will no longer face mandatory minimum sentences. >> too many americans go to prison for far too long and for no truly good law enforcement reason. >> many religious groups welcomed the change. justice fellowship, a prominent christian prison ministry, said mandatory sentences can turn non-violent offenders into

hardened criminals by the time they are released. a commission of faith leaders is calling for an end to the irs ban on clergy endorsements of political candidates. in a report to senator charles grassley, the group said the regulation infringes on free speech. under the current policy, houses of worship that openly back candidates risk losing their tax-exempt status. the group americans united for separation of church and state urged congress to keep the ban and enforce it. the country's largest lutheran denomination, the evangelical lutheran church in america, has elected its first female presiding bishop. reverend elizabeth eaton is the elca bishop of cleveland. she is described as a moderate who supported the denomination's decision to allow openly gay clergy but said the church needs to make room for those who do not agree. eaton's selection was a surprise. she defeated the incumbent bishop who had been widely expected to win a third term.

what happens when a country has a social preference for male children? in india, a history of female infanticide and abortion has led to a noticeable distortion in the population. the country has almost 40 million more men than women, a gender ratio far out of balance with most of the world. one result in some parts of india: a growing shortage of brides, as fred de sam lazaro reports. >> reporter: gudia and babitha are sisters and they share a lot in common. each is a mother of two young sons, both live in the same extended family home and they're even married to brothers. with their husbands, they have far less in common. the young women come from hundreds of miles away, where dialect and diet are very different. how young are they? that's a sensitive question. >> gudia: (through translator) i'm 28 and she is 25 or 26.

>> neither woman went to school and may not actually know her age. but yudhvir zaildar, a ph.d. student who studied the growing number of marriages like theirs, says women's ages are exaggerated because it's illegal to marry before age 18. >> yudhvir zaildar: (through translator) i would say in that case that both of them were under 18 at the time of marriage. and in such cases the husbands are often twice, sometimes three times their age. >> their husbands told me they were 40 and 35. they're caught in what demographers call a marriage squeeze. there are no local women to marry, they said, and those who are eligible are taken by people of more means. >> brijender: (through translator) we have no land, we have no steady job. that is the big problem. >> the northern farm states of punjab and haryana have a lopsided gender ratio. in some regions, particularly economically prosperous ones, there are as few as 650 female

births for every 1,000 males. that's because for at least two decades, ultrasound scanners have been used to detect the sex of fetuses and have led to widespread abortion of females. one generation later, it's led to a shortage of brides in a culture where everyone is expected to marry. >> 98% to 99% of indian men and women do get married. so it is considered to be the socially honorable thing to do. it gives people social adulthood because there is no courting, there is no cohabiting before marriage and so how do you move on to the next stage of life? >> men like ramesh and brijender find brides like babitha and gudia in impoverished parts of india. for their part these women say their own marital prospects were dim in eastern bihar state where they grew up. marriage has, literally, been a meal ticket. >> gudia: (through translator) i know my husband is much older but then we were so poor, there

was not enough food, not enough for simple clothing. here we eat, we have everything. we didn't have a refrigerator, cooler, fans, television. >> but marriage is not always what such women from other regions are led to believe. the northern farm states, where india's green revolution began in the 1970s, have a reputation in other parts of the country for abundant food and prosperity. so, 20-year-old beena says, in the impoverished east where she's from, it was not hard to convince her parents to consent to a marriage that would take her a thousand miles away. >> beena: (through translator) they said it would be fancy, like life in a hindi movie - big houses, things like that. >> and what did she find? well, you can see for yourself, she said. beena's parents also had a financial incentive, they didn't

have to come up with a dowry. she says they could never afford one anyway. >> beena: (through translator) my family did not receive anything but they also gave nothing. the middleman got about 30 to 35,000 rupees, and the groom's family paid for that. >> that's about $500. life can be lonesome at times, says beena, who was married at 15 and now has two children. no one speaks her native bengali and it took her time to adjust to the local diet and customs but she says she's become reconciled to it. >> beena: (through translator) i'm married now, this is just the way it is. it's my fate. >> visit any village here in the impoverished rural areas of beena's native bengal and you'll hear stories of missing young women, many of them minors. >> saleha bibi: (through translator) i prayed for my daughter in the mosque, and i gave sacrificial offerings, and i keep praying so i can find her. >> it's been ten years since saleha bibi heard from her

daughter manuara. she and husband mazlum momin were approached by a stranger proposing marriage to their daughter. they say she was 18 then. momin says the supposed groom quickly slipped away with their daughter and was never heard from again. >> mazlum momin: (through translator) i went to the police, they said "fine, but we need a photo of the girl first"" and we did not have a photo to give them. >> in any event, many people here say, the police are indifferent or worse in such cases. >> jabani roy: (through translator) there's no use in going to the police, they would simply accuse us of selling our daughter. >> in fact, some people, like jabani roy, here with her son bimal, do receive money. >> roy: (through translator) two thousand rupees. >> two thousand rupees, she

said, about $40. it's been years, and she's never heard from her daughter. >> roy: (through translator) i think something bad happened. >> bimal: (through translator) if she would have returned at least once we would feel better, but she hasn't even returned once. >> kailash satyarti, one of india's best-known anti- trafficking activists, says marriage is but one fate tens of thousands of young women face every year across india. >> kailash satyarti (sociologist): they are stolen, they are sold and resold and resold at different prices and eventually they end up as child prostitute, child slave, many of the missing girls from west bengal and orissa and assam other northeastern state, they are found being married to old man in punjab and haryana and sometimes in delhi. a 14-year-old girl could have been married to a 40-year-old man.

>> back in haryana, elders in the village we visited say the root cause of the so-called imported brides phenomenom - the illegal practice of sex selective abortion - continues. >> sri ranbit singh: (through translator) it goes on underground. it's continuing. >> joginder singh: (through translator) in our society, the status of women is still low. it's in the mindset of people. that needs to change. otherwise how do we sustain a society? >> sociologist kaur says everyone knows it's a problem the challenge is to change the mindset of individual families. >> they don't connect the dots. they're not seeing that, you know, eliminating their own daughters is leading to this bride shortage. so if, as long as they can get somebody from somewhere else, they think that's okay. >> but ironically, experts say, the young sons of gudia and babitha may well face less of a grad student yudhvir zaildar says it's for unlikely reasons. >> yudhvir zaildar: (through translator) the reason is these wives who are brought in from outside, they make them pregnant as quickly as possible and produce many children so that they won't run away.

>> the young women may feel tricked or homesick but they are far less likely to run way if tied down with children or pregnant. and that means fewer abortions and more girl babies. for religion & ethics newsweekly, this is fred de sam lazaro. here in the united states, after-school programs are gearing up for fall. many of them promise "enrichment" for students, but one in particular also turns that promise outward. build-on, established 20 years ago, puts students from 73 high schools to work on service projects in their tough urban neighborhoods. in the process, as bob faw discovered, both communities and teenagers are transformed. >> everybody real quick. i'm sure you guys all know when you pull out your weeds pull out the roots, as much roots as you can.

>> in a poor south bronx neighborhood, high school sophomore rhani davis and senior eddie bonner, volunteers in a group called buildon, are doing more than turning a vacant lot into a community vegetable garden. >> i think that's one of buildon's mission statements, we see a problem, we feel like we need to fix it, and that's when we come in. >> shake the dirt off. leave the dirt inside. we basically transformed a weeded out, destroyed area. we can actually say that we did something to benefit the neighborhood. >> once the gentleman got finished with the handshake for the stadium, we need someone tall to write on it. >> and at this south bronx high school, buildon volunteers like mohammed "mo" tunkara are transforming a drab wall into a colorful mural. a few years ago, "mo" wouldn't have been caught dead doing this. >> i was thinking about being cool and trying to define being cool. >> now, because of buildon, "being cool" has an entirely different meaning.

>> two, three years ago, i was lost. i was lost in my own life. i mean i had family problems at home. so when i first started to like join buildon and actually be a part of it, it was a life-changing event for me. it was the, like it was the biggest turning point in my whole life. now i want, i want to change the world now. >> that audacious goal of "changing the world" is the mantra of buildon's founder, 47 year old jim ziolkowski, who stepped out of the fast lane in corporate finance to achieve something more than making money. >> i believe strongly in the social justice aspect of my catholic tradition. but i wasn't living it, and i wanted to reconcile my faith with the way i was living, so i started up buildon. our mission is to break the cycle of poverty, illiteracy and low expectations through service and education. and the way we approach it is by

organizing after school programs in very challenged communities, urban environments and urban high schools across the united states. >> for now if we can get all the vegetables that are in the borders to kind of look like this, that would be great. you guys are all doing an excellent job. keep it up. thank you. >> the students plant gardens, work with the elderly, the sick and the homeless and many of them travel to such far flung spots as malawi, nepal and haiti to help build schools. funded by private foundations and contributions buildon has constructed 546 schools abroad with the help of the local communities and with american volunteers, some of whom many people have written off. >> there are no bad kids. i think every kid, no matter what the circumstance, can elevate, can rise above. and i am convinced that the kids from the most challenging circumstances are also the grittiest, the most determined and have the biggest capacity for compassion.

>> some of these kids have had difficult lives. eddie bonner was hanging out on the mean streets of the bronx when a friend was murdered. >> it was just basically a traumatic experience because me and my friends were actually just hanging out together and he basically was murdered in front of our face. >> since then eddie has helped build a school in nepal, has helped clean up neighborhoods at home; and all that has helped change who eddie bonner is. >> if it wasn't for buildon i tell you i wouldn't be doing nothing else. after i did it once and i felt like somebody actually needed me for something, i started going back. and it actually keeps you so busy you don't have time to think about the negative, you always focus on the positive. >> dip it in and then paint. >> likewise for gimy arzu. at 14, he joined a street gang. now he's joined buildon.

>> buildon changed me as a better person and a better man. >> in what way? >> in what way? >> what way? i've been working hard in school. i'm on my way to college. >> jim ziolkowski who says buildon, which closely monitors what each student volunteer does, has seen radical changes in their academic achievement too. >> what we've seen, even in schools where four year graduation rates are 50% or less, 94% of our kids are not only graduating, they're going to college. >> come back afterwards. it's from eleven 'til one, right? >> from her vantage point as assistant principal at the bronx center for science and math, madeline rios has witnessed those changes. >> i've seen a big confidence booster in their personality, in

their schoolwork. i think it's important for people to have a purpose and the kids like that sense of wow, i did something for someone else. >> and buildon isn't just trying to change kids like mo or gimy. it is also quite literally trying to change the world by building hundreds of those schools abroad. it's a mission he's undertaken because of a devout catholic faith which his father helped instill. and which jim ziolkowski says he sometimes reinforces with a passage from mark about confronting his fear of failing. >> i go back to that passage about fear all the time. for me, my trust in god, i was able to overcome that fear. and then you got to get by it so that you can step up and do what you know you're capable of doing. >> even though pancreatic cancer claimed his beloved father, and his older son was ravaged by encephalitis and meningitis, jim ziolkowski's faith has not wavered. >> this journey with my son jack has reinforced and strengthened my faith.

i rely on it more than i ever have, and i'm thankful. i know that's a gift. i'm thankful. >> he has described all the heartache, and all the success of buildon, in his forthcoming book, whose subtitle poses the daunting question: can one person change the world? >> i'm convinced that we can, and when we do it collectively, it's gonna become a massive movement. you gotta decide what you're passionate about, i think you've got to take that first step, in service, and then light that fire and that ignition is something that nobody, nobody can put out, that fire that you start, no one can extinguish. >> the way eddie and rahni in the garden, or mo with that paint brush are doing, one project, one day at a time. >> from nothing to something, which is kind of what buildon is truly about. going from nothing to something.

>> five hundred plus schools, one million plus hours - and counting. >> we are buildon! we are buildon! >> for religion and ethics newsweekly, this is bob faw in the south bronx. political philosopher jean bethke elshtain died this week. a professor of ethics at the university of chicago, she was a strong proponent of the "just war" theory and defended u.s. intervention in iraq: in the classic just war teaching, it's protecting the innocent from certain harm. the data on what was going on in iraq was horrid and overwhelming. >> a convert to catholicism, elshtain was 72 and had suffered heart problems. cardinal francis george of chicago called her "a woman of deeply held principles." the actress bette davis once said that "old age ain't no

place for sissies." aging may be a universal quality of being human, as the author lewis richmond puts it, but that doesn't mean it's easy. his book, "aging as a spiritual practice," tells how buddhist principles can help with life's transitions. richmond leads meditation workshops on the subject of aging, and we attended one at the shambhala center in new york city. >> buddhist wisdom begins with a very simple principle - everything changes. aging is really about time, and our experience of time, the things that we love and cherish will change, will get old, including us, and pass away. a big challenge for us is to see aging as it really is. not as we imagine it, not as the society or advertisements say it is, not as our friends say it

is, but what is it really for us? all of buddhist spiritual practice is a kind of great re-framing. seeing all of human life differently, much more positively, and deeply. so buddhist mindfulness practices, as it relates to aging, is really pay attention, pay close attention, to what's really going on in your body, in your emotions, in your fears. it's about the courage to just be there, you know, to be there in whatever your life is bringing you. illness does come more as we get older. we also worry about money and is there going to be someone there to take care of us when we need it? lots of worries and i'm very candid that, yes, this is the way it is. i'm not pretending to erase all

of that with some magic potion. what i'm offering is something different, is find a different approach, a different way of seeing it, a different level of meaning, a different context that's bigger than just those things. this is a gratitude practice. i want you to close your eyes. when you hear the words, 'thank you,' i want you to notice the first thing that comes to mind. one woman said, "i never knew that i was thankful for my eyes, my eyes, that i could see," and she started to cry. i think that gratitude is right under the surface of everyone as they age. let's face it, aging is partly about eventually this life is going to end.

what's going to happen? what's going to happen when i die? when people ask me that, as a buddhist teacher, i say, "well, you'll return to your divine nature, which is who you fundamentally are anyway, all the time." i had a buddhist teacher who once said, "every breath, new chances." this is a great teaching for older people, because part of aging is "there are no more new chances for me, i'm stuck with what i've got." well, that's not really true. every breath, every day, every morning, every person you meet, is a kind of new chance. a judge in tennessee is under fire for ordering a couple to change their baby's name from the boy's mother and father, who aren't married, were in court because they couldn't agree on a

last name for the child. to their surprise, judge lu ann ballew changed his first name too. "messiah is a title that is held only by jesus christ," she ruled. in fact, according to the social security administration, messiah is an increasingly popular name for american babies. the judge's ruling is being that's our program for now. you can follow us on twitter and facebook and watch us anytime on the pbs app for iphones and ipads. and visit our website, where there's more of our interview with lewis richmond and an excerpt of his book. audio and video podcasts of this program are also available. join us atpbs.org. as we leave you, music from wild goose, a christian festival held in hot springs, north carolina.

♪ next time --

barry kibrick: today on "between the lines," the master of the modern police novel, joseph wambaugh. i'm barry kibrick. whether it's his fictional masterpieces like "the choirboys," "the blue knight," or "the new centurions," or his acclaimed nonfiction books, like "the onion field" or "fire lover," joseph takes us behind the badge into the heart of his characters. with his latest novel, "hollywood crows," he once again delves deep into his subject with a poignant look at the men and women in blue. linda ellerbee: i'm a writer today because i was a reader when i was 11 years old, and it was... deepak chopra: you do not need to prove your state of happiness to anybody. warren christopher: most of these speeches were as much as a month in preparation.