E D I T O R I A L   P A G E

EDITORIALS

Enron power cut
AN ugly controversy is brewing over the price of Enron power. And the Maharashtra government has rightly decided not to accept supply at over Rs 6 a unit. The state electricity board would rather pay the company Rs 159 crore every month towards capital cost without drawing even one unit of energy. This payment is mandated in the power purchase agreement signed in the middle of last decade.

Clinton's latest on West Asia
WHEN Mr William Jefferson Clinton, popularly known as Bill Clinton, became the US President in 1993 he had a great wish to fulfil. He wanted to be remembered as the biggest peacemaker of his times. Hence his concerted efforts to settle the Arab-Israeli disputes, specially the one concerning the re-establishment of the state of Palestine. 

OPINION

IMPENDING CHANGES IN SOUTH BLOCK
The importance of economic diplomacy
by G. Parthasarathy
WITHIN the next few weeks India’s sophisticated and savvy Foreign Secretary Lalit Mansingh will be leaving Delhi to face the challenges of dealing with the new Bush Administration and with Washington’s power centres in the White House, Capitol Hill and Foggy Bottom. 

National interests, international obligations
by Balraj Mehta
THE precedence given by successive governments to international obligations over national interests in the nineties, after the launching of the economic liberalisation-globalisation policy, has become an acute issue of political contention.

MIDDLE

Military special
by Rajinder Gauba
THE day to depart from the land of Lahee, Lahee had finally dawned. The battalion my husband was posted to was all packed and geared to board the Military Special placed at the railway siding. The exuberance of the brave soldiers was, in fact, worth watching.

TRENDS AND POINTERS

• Humiliation proves the strongest link

• Antioxidant may protect against asthma
  
  

Trusts that raise status of women
by Reeta Sharma
CHANDIGARH has witnessed the mushroom growth of trusts devoted to charity. While the role and intentions of many have often been exposed, a few genuine ones are caught up in extremely taxing situations borne out of modern commercialisation and the mindsets of the bureaucracy.

ANALYSIS

Revival of extinct species
From Robin McKie in London
THE death of the ageing ox in San Diego zoo in 1993 was greeted as a biological catastrophe by conservationists. The animal - a member of an endangered south-east Asian sub-species known as a gaur - had died without fathering offspring. Its precious genes, crucial to maintaining the viability of dwindling gaur herds, had been eradicated. Or so it seemed.

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

Enron power cut

AN ugly controversy is brewing over the price of Enron power. And the Maharashtra government has rightly decided not to accept supply at over Rs 6 a unit. The state electricity board would rather pay the company Rs 159 crore every month towards capital cost without drawing even one unit of energy. This payment is mandated in the power purchase agreement signed in the middle of last decade. But Enron is demanding payment for the unconsumed part of its generation at 60 per cent capacity utilisation. Since the talks in Mumbai have collapsed, the parent company in the USA is meeting its financiers to decide on the next move. It is bound to revoke its bank guarantee for Rs 155 crore, which will mark the worst phase of the first fast track power plant. The whole thing will explode into a crisis if the company refuses to renegotiate the draft agreement for the second phase which will use natural gas as fuel. Since naphtha prices have crashed in recent weeks — from $ 310 a tonne to $ 170 a tonne — power will now cost only Rs 4 or slightly more. But even this is excessively high and the board, already standing on crutches provided by the state government, will go bankrupt if it buys costly power and supplies it to its consumers at 25 per cent less. First the delay and now the unholy wrangle have brought a bad name to those who were once glamorously called independent power producers, mostly foreign companies like Enron, Cogentrix and a Hong Kong-based one and AES. Two of them have left, one is eyeing for a partner and one is creating the wrong type of waves. It can now be safely said that the Centre’s ambitious plan for attracting a huge investment in this vital infrastructure area is steadily going up in smoke. And it is not realistic to hope that local entrepreneurs will fill the gap. As it is, government-owned industrial development banks are closely watching the Enron row and the clear signals are that funds will dry up in the weeks to come.

While some experts are eager to use the Enron-related problem to press for privatisation of the whole sector, opinion is sharply divided on what went wrong and when. But there is unanimity that the agreement on the first phase is heavily tilted in the company’s favour. As already pointed out, the company insisted on and secured a guaranteed 16 per cent return on its capital. This was achieved by committing the state electricity board to pay a fixed capital cost in dollars and meet the entire variable cost for fuel and other inputs. These need to be reworked for the second phase. As one energy expert has said, even the capital cost calls for pruning since interest rate has come down and outstanding bank loans are shrinking. Fuel charges should be fixed for the entire year based on the previous year’s average and, if it is unusually high as now, to the average of a longer period, say, five years. Two, the tussle has also highlighted the woeful inefficiency of the board. Nearly half the power supply is not paid for because of the subsidised part to farmers, theft, transmission loss and refusal of the politically influential to pay the bill. Another expert, who is an authority on Enron, wants to still the controversy over coal versus naphtha or LPG as the fuel. In the long run naphtha and LPG should be preferred over coal for two reasons. It is non-polluting and over a long period the cost will be the same. After all, Enron opted for LPG because it was cheaper both in price and trasportation cost than coal. It is so even today.

Clinton's latest on West Asia

WHEN Mr William Jefferson Clinton, popularly known as Bill Clinton, became the US President in 1993 he had a great wish to fulfil. He wanted to be remembered as the biggest peacemaker of his times. Hence his concerted efforts to settle the Arab-Israeli disputes, specially the one concerning the re-establishment of the state of Palestine. Mr Clinton's latest proposal to end the West Asia tangle should be seen as his last-ditch attempt to realise his long-cherished dream. Since he is an untiring optimist, he has reactivated his entire West Asia network to persuade the Israelis and the Palestinians to coolly listen to his final appeal that "there can be no peace without sacrifice", though January 20 is not far away when he has to hand over the baton to President-elect George W. Bush. He has formulated a fresh peace plan which envisages that Israel should withdraw from 95 per cent of the West Bank area and the entire Gaza Strip which it had occupied in the 1967 war. His plan also has it that Israel must concede Palestinian sovereignty over the Al-Aqsa shrine area and in return the Arab demand for the return of over four million Palestinian refugees to their homes in Israel should be dropped. These hapless people had to run away from Israel after the armed conflict following its establishment in 1948. Among them are also those who became refugees after the six-day 1967 Arab-Israeli war. They are spread all over the Arab world but yearn for going back to the land of their forefathers. The Palestinian leadership under the command of Mr Yasser Arafat is reluctant to allow them to settle in the areas under the control of the Palestinian Authority because that will mean an additional burden on it. Israeli refusal to accept these refugees as its citizens is based on the fear that their presence may alter the demographic character of the Jewish homeland. It is a very complicated human problem, but Mr Clinton wants it to be handled by keeping emotions aside.

Of course, he has also proposed that Jerusalem should be shared as their capital by Israel and the future State of Palestine and that the 170,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank area, to be handed over to the Palestinians, be shifted to Israel. This is what Israeli negotiators had been hinting at when the Oslo peace process was on. Since Mr Clinton's proposals are tilted in favour of Jewish aspirations, Israel has accepted the outgoing US President's "ideas" as the basis on which to clinch a final peace deal. But the Palestinians are unwilling to move ahead according to the road map drawn by Mr Clinton. The reason is that their two basic grievances have been treated lightly: the fate of East Jerusalem and the four million refugees. Both are highly sensitive issues. No Palestinian leader can ever think of foregoing their claim over East Jerusalem and signing an accord without an amicable resolution of the refugee problem. 

Film plot thickens

THE screenplay of an average Bollywood film is so predictable that every viewer knows the end after the first reel itself. Something similar has been happening in the tinsel world in reality also. The police is only now wising up to the presence of the mafia that has a vice-like grip on every aspect of filmmaking. Ironically, this was one of the worst-kept secrets of this make-believe world. Look at the kind of money some actors were demanding and getting. Who except those rolling in slush funds can afford to pay Rs 4 crore plus distribution rights for a film! Also, just notice the way some producers have been making inane, flop films one after the other for so long, as if they had money to burn. At last, the gravity of the situation seems to have sunk in. The arrest of Bharat Shah has introduced an unusual twist to the whole plot. He is arguably the biggest financier of the filmdom, behind some 15 big-budget productions. The diamond merchant is reputed to have an average of Rs 100 crore invested in Bollywood at any given time. The police claims there is clinching evidence about his links with Chhota Shakeel. In fact, he is believed to be fronting for the don in Bollywood. The nailing of the biggest fish has others running for cover. In the melee, skeletons are tumbling out of some reputed cupboards and some very big names may find their reputation in mud if the drive is allowed to continue unhindered.

It is believed that the involvement of the mafia in the film industry is far more sinister than what was believed till now. The murder of Gulshan Kumar and the attempt on the life of Rakesh Roshan were only the tip of the iceberg. More than 60 per cent films are estimated to be sponsored by the mafia through the hawala route. There is a mega-scale laundering of money and similar generation of black money through the film route. Agents of mafia dons force stars to sign films, reduce their fee and to ensure that a film is canned in record time. The real story never comes into the open because everyone fears for his life. Ever since the reins have gone into the hands of the goons, serious filmmakers have all but been elbowed out of business. The quality of films has been deteriorating steadily. There is another sinister dimension that can be perceived by a sensitive cinegoer. For the past 20 years or so, there has been a subtle attempt to glorify crime. The mafia dons are almost always presented in a favourable light. Reports from Kolkata suggest that sleaze money is being pumped into Bengali film industry also. The underworld calls the shots in matters like distribution rights of new releases, allotment of shooting dates and the signing up of stars. Now that the police has galvanised itself into action, the industry should make bold to come to its help. Men like Dawood Ibrahim thrive on fear. Insiders reveal that he tried to start his extortion business in Karachi also. But plucky traders there put up such a stiff resistance that he had to beat a hasty retreat. Once Bollywood makes up its mind to do the same, the paper tigers can be made to run. For once, the dream-merchants have to practice the heroics that they have been portraying all along. 

IMPENDING CHANGES IN SOUTH BLOCK
The importance of economic diplomacy
by G. Parthasarathy

WITHIN the next few weeks India’s sophisticated and savvy Foreign Secretary Lalit Mansingh will be leaving Delhi to face the challenges of dealing with the new Bush Administration and with Washington’s power centres in the White House, Capitol Hill and Foggy Bottom. He will be succeeded by Ms Chokila Iyer, a soft-spoken but strong-willed Foreign Service diplomat, respected by colleagues who know her as a person who can put forward India’s viewpoints effectively and firmly, especially in dealing with our neighbours. While public attention is naturally focused on the personality and activities of the Foreign Secretary, few people realise that it is really the Secretary in charge of Economic Relations in South Block who plays a crucial role in ensuring that Indian missions abroad effectively promote the country’s economic interests. It is also largely through him that the government is advised about the current economic trends abroad and the functioning of multilateral economic groupings in the contemporary globalised world economic order.

During the days of the Cold War our economic priorities lay in promoting self-reliance through import substitution rather than through promoting efficiency and competitiveness by submitting the Indian economy to the rigours of global competition. While China was able to attain high rates of economic growth and create a highly competitive industrial structure by adopting the path of economic liberalisation in 1979, we commenced moving in this direction only 12 years later. Thus, while China attracts Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) of around $ 50 billion annually, we are still struggling to get an annual inflow of around $ 4 billion. The realisation is only now dawning on us that even as we remained rooted in the socialist rhetoric of the 1950s, the pragmatic Chinese have emerged on the world scene as a major player economically. They have also used their vast economic resources to become a military power that even the USA cannot afford to ignore.

The 1990s did, however, see a sea change in our diplomatic priorities and in the functioning of our missions abroad. In earlier years Secretaries dealing with economic affairs in South Block like Mr B.K. Sanyal and Mr Romesh Bhandari focused attention predominantly on promoting Indian joint collaborations and exports in the Persian Gulf, East Africa and elsewhere. New dimensions were, however, added to the economic priorities of Indian diplomatic missions in the post-liberalisation era. Embassies and consulates also became actively involved in investment promotion work as India sought to develop an investment-friendly approach to the world. Both former Prime Minister Narasimha Rao and ex-Finance Minister Manmohan Singh deserve major credit for the manner and speed with which they brought about this change in the functioning of the Indian missions. But one should not forget that if their efforts succeeded, it was in no small measure due to the efforts of Secretaries like Mr A.N. Ram and Mr Sudhir Devare. (Mr Devare is scheduled to retire in another few months.) They ensured that the External Affairs Ministry (MEA) and the missions became well-informed and able to deal with the challenges of persuading the audiences abroad about the new economic directions that the country was irrevocably committed to pursuing. They also ensured that the MEA was well equipped to contribute positively on issues involving the WTO. More importantly, Indian missions were able to continuously advise New Delhi about the policy changes that needed to be effected in key areas like power, mining, roads and telecommunications to make the country a viable investment destination.

While it was only natural that India should look towards OECD countries like the USA, Germany, France and the UK for sourcing its requirements of foreign direct investment, the last decade has seen a new recognition of the importance of the countries of East and South-East Asia. The “Asian Tigers”, as they are known, have emerged as valuable partners in our quest for accelerated economic growth. Mercifully, talk about new “Look East” policies has not remained mere rhetoric, but has been translated into a growing and dynamic partnership, particularly with the members of ASEAN. The visits of Prime Minister Vajpayee to Vietnam and Indonesia reflect the importance that we now attach to our economic and strategic ties with our South-East Asian neighbours. It may be of interest to note that over the last decade investment approvals for even a country as small as Singapore have almost equalled that for major players like France and Italy. Further, with important discoveries of natural gas, ASEAN members like Vietnam, Myanmar, Indonesia and Malaysia could well emerge as major energy suppliers for our eastern and southern states, especially as Bangladesh seems politically immobilised and unable to decide how to utilise its large potential of natural gas.

The Prime Minister is scheduled to visit Malaysia and Japan next month. Most Indians found the tone adopted by Japan in the aftermath of our nuclear tests as unwarranted, especially given the fact that Japan bases its own security on the American nuclear deterrent. There has also been a tendency on the part of the Japanese to presume that they can play a role in dabbling in subcontinental differences. But these now appear to be things of the past, with a series of high-level exchanges culminating in the visit of Prime Minister Mori setting the stage for a possible new beginning. But Japanese business must learn that if it is to succeed in India it cannot function in the same manner as it has done in the crony capitalist environment that prevailed earlier in some South-East Asian countries. South Korea is now emerging as a far more dynamic investment partner in India than Japan even in sectors like the automobile industry. Japanese business would be well advised to see why this is happening and be more forthcoming in areas like technology transfer and indigenisation if Japan is to emerge as a major economic player in India. Given the high respect that South Korean President Kim Dae Jung has won internationally and the growing role of South Korean investment in India, one hopes New Delhi will move expeditiously in promoting more high-level exchanges with Seoul.

South Block is now well conditioned to play the key role in promoting our economic interests in a globalised world economic order. But if we are to improve our standing, especially in developing countries, it is imperative that the budget for technical and economic cooperation (ITEC) that now stands barely at Rs 40 crore should be rapidly increased. There is growing interest in our information technology skills, and our long-term economic interests will be well served by extending substantially more training assistance to developing countries in the IT-related areas. We will also have to step up developmental assistance to neighbours like Nepal, Bhutan and Myanmar if we are to fully tap the potential for expanding cooperation in key areas like energy, transport, communications, tourism and trade.

It is essential that the entire process of economic reforms should be expedited and made more transparent if we have to get our missions abroad to facilitate a process of rapidly increasing the flow of foreign investments. It makes little sense to reserve vast sectors of productive activity for the so-called small-scale sector when we face the prospect of being swamped by products from countries like China that are far more pragmatic on such issues.

We also need to recognise that investment in crucial areas like mining, energy, power and telecommunications will not be forthcoming in adequate measure till our pricing and other policies become rational, realistic and transparent. Finally, like many of my colleagues I have had to often listen to long discourses abroad from foreign companies and NRIs about why they avoid India as an investment destination — because of what they say is all-pervasive corruption. While we may wish to gloss over this issue, we will sooner rather than later have to address it effectively if we are to be respected in the comity of nations.

The writer is a former High Commissioner of India to Pakistan.

National interests, international obligations
by Balraj Mehta

THE precedence given by successive governments to international obligations over national interests in the nineties, after the launching of the economic liberalisation-globalisation policy, has become an acute issue of political contention. The Prime Minister, Mr A.B. Vajpayee, in his New Year articles has, however, chosen to make a virtue of upholding international obligations, accepted by his government or the predecessor governments.

The plethora of treaties and agreements based on the globalisation principle, have, however, been admittedly signed under duress in the nineties. The need for review and even abrogation of some of these treaties is imperative for upholding the national interests, sovereign status of India and democratic rights of the Indian people. There is indeed a strong case for a constitutional review to withdraw carte blanche for the government to negotiate and sign an international treaty. An international treaty must be subject to ratification by Parliament before it comes into force.

The curtailment of the development role of the government in India must in no case be accepted by way of an international treaty. The primary obligation of any government after the people of India won political independence was to guard against foreign economic exploitation and promote domestic efforts for economic growth with social equity. But the protective walls against foreign exploitation are being demolished in the name of upholding international obligations to implement the globalisation-liberalisation economic reform policy.

While the governments in India are often berated by the IMF/World Bank/ WTO for lacking in political will and authority to implement their “reforms”, the governments have tended to compete in devotion to these reforms. After the Indian people have voted out as many as four governments in the nineties after the launching of the structural adjustment programme, the economic reformers in India and abroad have been applauding the successive governments in India for upholding the principle of continuity of the reform policy as a sacrosanct obligation. This has naturally encouraged the World Bank/IMF/WTO and the governments of developed countries, in particular of the USA, to intensify the pressure for “deepening” and “widening” the reform process. The government headed by Mr Vajpayee is meekly responding to these pressures unabashedly. This is what the talk of the second phase of economic reforms is all about.

With the stoppage of the development credits of the developed countries to India since 1991, there were bound to be far-reaching implications of the implementation of the market-friendly economic reforms policy without democratic sanctions. These implications extend to not just economic but also political processes at work in India. The surveillance of the World Bank/IMF/WTO and the demands of the US administration and its allies no longer cover the policies and performance of the government in India related to the servicing of foreign credits only. It now covers wider economic, social and political-strategic matters as well. Management of the exchange policy, the financial sector and the tax system have come under their direct guidance. The political-strategic matters, including even the government’s expenditure on defence and internal security have come under their scrutiny. Political alignments in India have not escaped their attention either. The World Bank/IMF/WTO combine and their political controllers have made it clear that they would regulate the flows of private capital to India on which the governments are relying as the prime instrument of economic growth. This position became stark with sanctions enforced against India for conducting the nuclear tests. It is significant that the World Bank has gone so far as to squarely hold political instability and nuclear tests responsible for the slow foreign capital flows to India and the consequent depressed economic growth. This is indeed gross interference in the sovereign domain of India by the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO.

A myth has been sought to be spread, however, that economic reforms have been initiated and implemented by elected governments of different ideological complexion. It is, therefore, argued that the reforms must enjoy national consensus and any opposition to these reforms is inspired by sectional interests. This is far from the truth about economic reforms initiated in 1991.

The credentials of the minority Congress government which decided suddenly and without democratic sanctions to launch economic reforms under the direction and surveillance of the IMF-World Bank combine were widely questioned in India. The “structural adjustment” of the Indian economy which was started on the lines laid down by the IMF/World Bank/WTO actually marked a cynical break with the national consensus on planned economic and social development on which India had embarked after winning political independence.

The acute balance of payments position that India faced in 1991 was engineered by massive deficit financing and short-term foreign borrowing during the eighties, with the approval and support of the IMF/World Bank combine. The minority Congress government sought an easy way out of the financial crisis by accepting onerous conditionalities attached to special structural adjustment credits of the IMF and the World Bank and opened the Indian market for unconditional foreign direct and portfolio investment. The so-called economic reforms programme was delineated in its entirety by the IMF-World Bank. It did not have any indigenous content and has since been implemented under the direction and surveillance of the IMF/World Bank/WTO.

The trickle down of the benefits of market-oriented economic growth to the mass of the people is now widely admitted to be a fanciful notion. The benefits of the effort to “modernise” the economy by the market-oriented liberalisation-globalisation growth strategy and open door for foreign investment has tended to be visibly fore-closed by hardly 10 per cent of the Indian population. If some part of the gains of growth did percolate down to the mass of the people in the past, in the period of planned development and had some positive impact on social relations, the position has significantly changed under the regime of market-friendly jobless economic growth. The market-friendly policy has provided opportunities to the upper classes openly and brazenly to monopolise the gains of economic growth and only throw about crumbs for the benefit of a small segment of the middle class only.

The market-friendly policies, therefore, naturally and spontaneously arouse the anger and resistance of those whose access to the market is limited or wholly barred. Those who talk with aplomb of taking hard decisions to cope with the development problems of India and the pressure of the competing interests that development generates do so in abstract terms. Their discernment is poor and perception of the sentiments and aspirations of the people is incorrect. They cavalierly disregard the fact that hard decisions are bound to hurt. The truth is that the hard decisions to push forward the reforms are designed to foreclose the available surpluses in the economy for the satisfaction of the current consumption of the elite in society and strengthen the economic power, social prestige and political clout of this privileged class. The social and political base of the market-friendly economic policy by its very nature and substance is narrow and fragile in India. It is simply not sustainable and is not making easy and smooth headway even as popular opposition to it is gathering momentum.

Military special
by Rajinder Gauba

THE day to depart from the land of Lahee, Lahee had finally dawned. The battalion my husband was posted to was all packed and geared to board the Military Special placed at the railway siding. The exuberance of the brave soldiers was, in fact, worth watching. All the pent-up energy accumulated during the tenure in counter-insurgency was evident while loading the train, which was accomplished in a record time. Encumbered, bugle sounded and final bye-byes to the officers of the formation, we placed ourselves at the mercy of the Indian Railways for placement of the Power (provision of the locomotive).

Thus commenced the journey from Gauhati to Pathankot, a total distance of 2530 km. The train was a combination of goods and passenger coaches. It had a KF (an open wagon) interlinking the two types, which had the privilege of housing the anteroom, the dining hall, the most sought after bar, which only served hard liquor to the teetotallers not forgetting the open air auditorium which screened the magnum opus Mission Kashmir, the most apt movie for an august audience comprising all counter-insurgency operations veterans.

An hour left to disembark at New Jalpaiguri. The Officer Commanding of the Military Special had magnanimously decided to treat all of us to a sumptuous brunch where the bill of fare comprised appetisers, both from the South and The East (the famous Rashogola). But lo and behold! the native residents had a different view. What better time to present their demands to the Railway Minister by launching “rail roko” agitation with the Military Special as the target. Whereas on one side was the exultation of being compared by the inhabitants at par with the prestigious Rajdhani on the circuit, the flip side of the coin was the brunch becoming a distant dream.

The journey spanned seven days and had many a mystery to unravel. Though the Railways had selflessly attached a gargantuan Power, it was a Herculean task to keep the lights in the six GS coaches functional after dusk. Candles were more in demand than the bulb, which I am sure would have made the illustrious inventor repentant in not listening to his wife’s evocation to squander less time in his famous laboratory.

The journey reminded me of a one liner which I was often privy to, during lighter moments spent in the officer’s mess: “If one were to describe how a train of the Indian Railway sounded while in motion it was no mean task. However, if the same was asked about the Military Special, the description was simple, Chalange te Pahuchange, Chalange te Pahuchange!”

Humiliation proves the strongest link

BRITAIN is to export humiliation around the world from Japan to Finland.

For that is the key to a hit quiz show that has turned its fiery presenter Anne Robinson into a gay icon and even prompted Prime Minister Tony Blair to adopt her venomously delivered catchphrase.

“Sad old blokes, I’m told, now dream of me with a whip in hand,” said Robinson, astounded by the success of the low-budget BBC television quiz “The Weakest Link”.

“The number of foreign broadcasting companies hoping to buy the idea and make their own version is staggering,” Robinson told the Times newspaper in a recent interview. “Seventeen, including Japan, Italy, France, Finland, Australia and of course America.”

They say the only problem is finding a host nasty enough to front the show.

The idea — as in all the best quiz shows — is simple.

Nine contestants answer quickfire general knowledge questions. At the end of each round, they vote off the worst performer. The last survivor scoops all the prize money — up to 10,000 pounds.

After bombarding the dejected failure with insults, Robinson dismisses each loser with the crisply executed command: “You are the weakest link. Goodbye.”

That catchphrase has now caught on around a country already obsessed with answering the questions in “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?”, another British quiz export that has spread like wildfire around the world from France to the USA.

Robinson is constantly pestered by kids wanting her to record it as the answering message on their mobile phones.

Blair shouted across Parliament to opposition Conservative leader William Hague: “You are the weakest link. Goodbye.”

Aston Villa soccer club supporters, fed up with their chairman Doug Ellis, held up a giant banner at one game with the same blunt message. — (Reuters)

Antioxidant may protect against asthma

Lycopene, a natural antioxidant found in many ripe fruits including tomatoes, seems to reduce the risk of exercise-induced asthma in some patients, Israeli researchers report in the December issue of Allergy.

Dr A. Ben-Amotz of the National Institute of Oceanography, Haifa, and colleagues note that there is some evidence that dietary antioxidants protect against exercise-induced asthma.

To determine whether lycopene might be helpful in this regard, the researchers conducted a study of 20 patients with exercise-induced asthma. The patients were randomly assigned to once-daily treatment with an inactive placebo or lycopene from tomatoes.

After a week of such treatment, patients given the placebo showed a drop in lung function of at least 15% after exercise challenge. Of those given lycopene, 55% showed significant protection against exercise-induced asthma. — (Reuters)

Trusts that raise status of women
by Reeta Sharma

CHANDIGARH has witnessed the mushroom growth of trusts devoted to charity. While the role and intentions of many have often been exposed, a few genuine ones are caught up in extremely taxing situations borne out of modern commercialisation and the mindsets of the bureaucracy.

Aruna and other women activists led many agitations and even filed petitions to force the newly-formed government to pass laws upholding equal rights for women and eradicating evil customs woven around women those days.

It would be interesting to note, especially by the present generation who are so embroiled in commercialism, materialism and consumerism that Aruna had refused to accompany her husband, Asaf Ali, when he was appointed the first ambassador to the USA after Independence. She had told him: “How can a ‘mother’ leave her millions of poor children to enjoy the luxury and comfort of the USA, as your wife? You are on duty, so you go and perform your best and let me take care of my duties in India”.

Today, Aruna is no more amongst us but a trust in her memory is one way of carrying on her ideals, aims and objectives. The Punjab Istri Sabha, which has its patron in Vimla Dang, president in Oshima Raikhy, vice-president in Shiela Didi, has already paid a most touching tribute by carrying on the legacy of the revolutionary.

If you thought that for the cause of women only women activists work then you will change your opinion. The most visible man fighting issues related to women is none other than PH Vaishnav, who was unanimously chosen as president of the Aruna Asaf Ali Memorial Trust (AAAMT).

From day one, the trust was faced with empty coffers. “There was no money to begin with, so we decided to collect donations. We approached people who were already involved in such issues. Vaishnav himself donated Rs 25,000 to begin with. Shiela Didi, who is a practising Bar-at-Law, collected Rs 62,000 from her colleagues and friends at Punjab and Haryana High Court. Similarly, Namita Singh, the famous architect, and her daughter donated Rs 30,000. Then one of Punjab Istri Sabha members in Canada, Veeran, donated $4,000 from her pocket besides making a collection of Rs 4 lakh. Thus the campaign goes on”, revealed Oshima Raikhy.

“You see both Vimla Dang and Satpal Dang collected Rs 1 lakh from the people for this trust because we are emotionally involved in Aruna Asaf Ali and her ideas. Oshima herself donated Rs 1 lakh. But all our endless, untiring efforts resulted in about R 17 lakh. But the amount appeared a pittance when we applied for a 500 sq yd plot in Chandigarh for building a memorial from where various schemes, ideas and efforts could be implemented.

Vineeta Rai, Adviser to the Chandigarh Administrator, had so much faith in the trust that she even waived the five-year requirement of the trust to avail any such land. We were promptly allotted the land. But the amount involved is Rs 40 lakh this is simply beyond capacity because one would need money for construction as well”, disclosed Shiela Didi.

The AAAMT began following its aims and objectives immediately after formation. “We launched two child labour education centres. While one is being run at the Janata Colony in Sector 25, the other is located in Azad Labour Colony in Panchkula. Then we also started to adopt a poor student for higher education for which donors were identified and financing monitored. Besides we were very worried about the alarming rate of dropouts from government schools. We surveyed and discovered that it was on account of poverty. So we started a scheme under which poor drop-outs are being brought back to the school and provided for education, uniform and books”, Oshima Raikhy asserted.

It was Vaishnav’s idea to introduce an “Aruna Asaf Ali puruskar” in colleges by holding debates and essay competitions. Every year one is held in every district. In the past four years Bathinda, Amritsar, Jalandhar, and Chandigarh have held these competitions in which an overwhelming number of colleges have participated. The topics revolved around women and burning issues like violence against women: Similarly a craft centre for young girls and women has also been started.

But trusts with sincere motives and dedicated workers are not in a position to dream of a place where many more centres could be a reality in future. “People donate funds and land for religious institutions but when it comes to trusts like the AAAMT, the public has not responded. It is mostly our personal friends’ circle that has come forward. But we hope more people will reach out to us”, Oshima hoped.

Revival of extinct species
From Robin McKie in London

THE death of the ageing ox in San Diego zoo in 1993 was greeted as a biological catastrophe by conservationists. The animal - a member of an endangered south-east Asian sub-species known as a gaur - had died without fathering offspring. Its precious genes, crucial to maintaining the viability of dwindling gaur herds, had been eradicated. Or so it seemed.

All had not been lost, however - a point that will be dramatically demonstrated in a few days when a clone of the long-dead gaur is born to Bessie, a regular American cow, on a farm near Sioux City, in Iowa.

The animal’s resurrection is a scientific milestone: it raises hopes that potentially unlimited numbers of endangered creatures could one day be created, generating arks of threatened or extinct species, including pandas, rhinos, and wildcats. Appropriately, the baby gaur will be called Noah.

“We have shown that domestic animals can be used as surrogate mothers for clones of endangered sibling species,” said Noah’s creator, Dr Phil Damiani, of the US biotech firm, Advanced Cell Technologies (ACT). “We now have a new weapon in the fight against animal extinctions.”

According to theory, scientists need only save a few cells of an endangered animal; use one to create a cloned embryo; stick this in the womb of a similar domestic species; and in a few months, a rare wildcat or antelope will be born.

Even better, cells from the preserved corpse of an extinct animal could be use to breath life into an entire species. Scientists at ACT, in collaboration with conservationists at the Ordesa National Park in Spain, have already begun work on cells taken from the body of the last bucardo, a Spanish mountain goat. The aim is to create a clone which would placed in the womb of an Ibex, a closely related species.

The key development in this technology is not the use of cross-species embryo implantations, however. The technique may appear dramatic but has already been used to persuade horses to give birth to zebras, and common antelopes to bear rarer sister species. What really excites scientists is the use of cloning in the gaur clone’s creation, for it means that no risky operations had to be carried out to remove eggs from its mother’s womb - a crucial advantage when dealing with a highly endangered species.

“We used a technique very similar to that used in the creation of Dolly the sheep,” said Damiani. “We took an egg from a domestic cow and removed its nucleus, the bit that contains its genes. Then we fused this empty egg with a single gaur cell, creating a gaur embryo that was immunologically acceptable to its surrogate cow mother.”

As a result of this work, it should now be possible to produce endangered animals merely by collecting a few sample cells - say from saliva, hair or blood - which can then be used to generate new animals. At least, that’s the theory. Several serious obstacles still have to be overcome.

For a start, Noah’s conception was certainly not without difficulty. He is the only survivor of a total of 690 attempts to create embryos from the cells of its “father”. Only 30 were sufficiently robust to transfer to surrogate cows, and from these only eight pregnancies were achieved. Noah is the only one of these that has gone to term. “We believe he is healthy, but cannot be sure until after he has been born,” added Damiani.

Then there is the question of surrogate mothers. For a gaur, this is not a problem since the species is so genetically similar to domestic cattle. Other rare creatures are not so well-blessed, or well-connected.

Take the panda. “It is the only member of its genus,” said Damiani. “It has no close cousins and no obvious candidates for surrogate mothers. The closest species to it is the bear. However, we will need some major advances in immunology before we can think of persuading a bear to accept a panda embryo.”

And finally, there is the problem of sex, a vexed issue demonstrated neatly by ACT’s work on the bucardo. Its last representative on earth - killed last year when struck by a falling tree - was female. Clones from this animal will therefore be female as well. A herd made up of nothing but lady bucardos suffers an obvious reproductive problem.

“Once we have cloned bucardos we will have to look at ways of creating males,’ said Dr Damiani. “That means finding a method of adding Y chromosomes to embryos and again that is something that will require major advances in biology.”

— By arrangement with The Guardian

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

O son of the wind,

dispeller of all calamities,

the very embodiment of all blessings.

O king of the immortals,

always dwell in my heart

with Lord Rama, Lakshmana and Sita.

— Hanuman Chalisa

*****

By the remembrance of Hanuman we get wisdom, strength, fame courage, fearlessness, absence of ill-health, freedom from stupidity, and power of speech....

He was Hanuman in his first birth, Bhima in the second and Purnaprajna in the third, engaged in the service of the Lord for ever....

There is none equal to Hanuman in any place and at any time, in respect of Jnana, Vairagya, the love of the Lord, courage, recollection, in activities, in physical strength, in meditation and in intelligence....

I pray to Sri Hanumana whose shine is equal to the lusture of gold and who is worshiped even by the yogis.

— Hanumat Prabhavah, 1, 8, 15, 20

*****

His speech foretells success to us.

— Valmiki Ramayana, IV.3.32

*****

Hanuman, the son of Anjana, the son of wind-god, having the power of highest degree, the favorite of Rama, the friend of Arjuna, having the eyes of tawny colour, holding immense valour, one, who taking a jump crossed the ocean, the destroyer of the sorrow of Sita, the life-giver of Lakshmana, the dispeller of the pride of Ravana.

If any one utters these twelve names of the sage Hanuman the king of monkeys, at the time of sleeping, rising and during journeys, he faces no fear of any kind. He gains victory always.

— Ananda Ramayana, Manohara Kanda, XIII, 8-11.

Solicited resolutely and respectfully with love and faith, Hanuman gets the pious missions of his devotees accomplished.

— Bajaranga Bana, stanza I