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| Wednesday, February
21, 2001, Chandigarh, India    |
Tactless
attack Dungarpur’s foot in
mouth Cancer fells a
titan |
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Election tremors in States
The Fakir of
IPI
Reeta Sharma
Basu enjoying unprecedented
privileges
“Funeral rites” for trees Suicide power
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Tactless attack SADDAM HUSSEIN was one wild horse that George Bush Sr could not lasso and tame when he was US President. Ten years down the line, now that the sunny boy is in the saddle, he is out to get even and ride roughshod in true cowboy style. That is the kind of attack that he ordered on Friday. It was the most serious airstrike since 1998. The adventure was a copybook example of a counterproductive move. It allowed Mr Saddam Hussein to pose as a victim instead of a villain. The dictator has not become a hero to his own people alone. As the only leader to stand up to the US might, he has emerged as the knight in the shining armour for the entire Arab world. One wonders what prompted the new President to launch this unilateral punitive action. It has fragmented the 38-nation coalition that took part in Operation Desert Storm badly. Even strong supporters like France and Egypt have come out categorically against Friday’s airstrikes. French planes once flew alongside those of the USA and Britain during the airstrikes, but it has expressed “incomprehension and discomfort” over the recent raids. Cairo has called it a “serious negative step”. In fact, the USA has no solid supporter except the UK, which too is facing criticism internally. The move may encourage Russia and France to break the embargo and strike oil contracts and other business deals with Iraq. This criticism is not to endorse the policies of Mr Saddam Hussein, who is holding back food and medicines from his own people, even children, to project the USA in bad light. But the attack that Mr Bush has ordered amounts to playing straight into his hands. In a refreshing change, India has shed its shilly-shallying and come out strongly against the attacks. That does not amount to confrontation, but only to calling a spade a spade. The target of the attacks is Mr Saddam Hussein, of course, but these are killing and maiming ordinary Iraqis. In any case, the no-fly zone enforced by the USA over a large part of Iraq is quite an insult to its sovereignty. American calculations after Operation Desert Storm were that the population of Iraq would rise against the ruler once he was humiliated and defeated. That has not happened. Instead, American obduracy has helped him become stronger and more popular. Iraqi aggression against Kuwait is being forgotten in the light of the US meddling in Iraq. US policymakers need to weigh the pros and cons of such adventurism in a dispassionate manner. |
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Dungarpur’s foot in mouth THE former Maharaj Kumar of Dungarpur has served Indian cricket in various capacities. Controversy is his second name. Even if there is no occasion, he creates one for starting a controversy, as he did while inaugurating an international cricket coaches’ conference in Bangalore on Monday. He chose the occasion to rubbish the achievements of the Indian cricket team of the 80s. He should have confined his speech to defining the role of international coaches in the new millennium. But he evidently cannot help making loose talk in public ever since he stepped down as BCCI President in 1999. Of late he has been behaving like an unguided missile. In December, last year, he decided to pick on Sunil Gavaskar of all the people apparently without any provocation. He had the temerity to question the Little Master’s contribution to the game other than scoring runs for his personal record! Gavaskar promptly resigned as director of the National Cricket Academy. On Monday he went for the entire team of which Gavaskar was a member. He reportedly pointed a finger at Syed Krimani and Balvinder Singh Sandhu, sitting in the audience, and told them to their face that the West Indies had lost the 1983 World Cup through poor batting. It is a different story that India’s golden run continued for the next three years. It won the Asia Cup in 1984 and the World Championship in Australia in 1985, and Ravi Shastri was declared “Champion of Champions” for his all-round performance in the tournament. On a scale of 10 Raj Singh would easily have scored 10 for his services to the game of cricket both as player and administrator. But he somehow cannot help undoing whatever he has done for the game by making unwarranted and often inexplicable statements. India is about to begin a difficult home series against Australia. Steve Waugh has already started playing mind games with Saurav Ganguly for getting his team in the right frame of mind for beating India in India after a gap of over 30 years. He has set an awe-inspiring record of winning 15 Tests on the trot. His team has lost few one-day games either after winning the 1999 World Cup. Raj Singh, with his vast experience, would have served the interest of Indian cricket better had he chipped in on behalf of Ganguly to score a few psychological points against the tough-talking cricketers from Down Under. |
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Cancer fells a titan TO live to be 82 is nature’s benediction. But to die at 82 is more than the loss of one life if the person happens to be Indrajit Gupta whom cancer has claimed. It is a sharp snapping with all that is, rather was, the best in Indian politics and parliamentary behaviour. This CPI leader was the quintessential people’s representative, forever conscious of his obligation to the people, not only his voters. He served out his days as a Lok Sabha member with dedication and sincerity. The most outstanding feature of his long years as MP was his simple life and transparent thinking. Only Indrajit Gupta could have described the 1996 elections in the Kashmir valley as a thoroughly rigged one despite having as his deputy an elected man from there, Mr Maqbool Dar, and he himself being the Union Home Minister. That the then Prime Minister Deve Gowda contradicted him did not take away the weight of his remark nor dented his reputation. It takes years and patient working to build that kind of public confidence and that is indeed the secret of his success as a politician. He did not marry until he was 62, thinking mistakenly that getting tied to a family would affect his party work. And when he did his bride was a 50-year-old Muslim divorcee with children from her first marriage. He had one more second guess: in later years he felt he could have served the party equally well as a teacher or an engineer or even as an ICS officer like five of his family members. It was less of a regret and more of a inward looking question, dispassionately assessing his past choices. But it was Indrajit Gupta’s austere life and total commitment to his ideology and party that stand out from today’s run-of-the-mill politicos. Even after becoming the Home Minister he insisted on living in his two-room flat in New Delhi’s humble Western Court on Kasturba Gandhi Marg, gladly giving up his right to a spacious bunglow. It required persistent armtwisting by the security forces to eject from there into a more securely guarded home. In this respect he was like other tall Marxist leaders who shun ostentatious living which is an insult to millions and millions of deprived fellow citizens. The late Nripen Choudhry left the Chief Minister’s bunglow in Agartala in a cycle rickshaw to take up residence in the CPM office. More, Indrajit Gupta, like his party comrades, lent more importance to ideology and party work than to building up his personality and prosperity. For such men and women, frugal living was nothing to be ashamed of, as it took them closer to the common man. When will India have more such men? |
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Election tremors in States THE States of Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and the Union Territory of Pondicherry will go to polls in a few weeks. The politics in these States being so different, there is no common approach by political parties in facing the elections. The most keenly fought electoral battle will be in West Bengal. After 24 years of uninterrupted rule by the Marxists, West Bengal faces a serious challenge from the Trinamool Congress led by Ms Mamata Banerjee. The important question is whether she would be able to dethrone the long-entrenched Marxists and capture power. She is known for her unpredictability and jumping into agitational politics on the slightest pretext. In a State known for its processions, rallies and bandhs, Ms Banerjee has taken the level to a higher pitch during the past 18 months. With her party as a constituent of the National Democratic Alliance at the Centre and the Railways as her chosen portfolio, she has a lot of clout and influence which she exercises in her State. These alone would not, however, bring home electoral victory. Her sway is primarily confined to urban areas, particularly Greater Calcutta, and in some districts like Burdwan and Midnapore. In the rural areas the Marxist cadres are still assertive. During the last two decades the Marxists have brought the school teachers under their influence. There were reports that several teachers were not attending schools at all but working full time as Marxist cadres and drawing salaries year after year. The Zila Parishads which are very active in the State are also believed to be bastions of the Marxists. Funds for developmental work at the grassroots level are channelled through these Zila Parishads and they act as sources of sustenance to the cadres. The problem is that these teachers and Zila Parishad employees would be deployed as polling officers during the elections. The dice is, therefore, loaded heavily against Ms Banerjee and her party candidates. On top of this, her being part of the BJP-led NDA has given her a black mark which weighs adversely with Muslim voters. These voters, including the Bangladesh migrants, most of whom have managed to get ration cards and their names entered in the electoral rolls, are strong supporters of the CPM-led government in West Bengal which has been tolerant and generous towards them. The Muslim voters constitute a little more than 20% in the State, and in the districts of Murshidabad, 24 Parganas, Nadia, Malda and Kishanganj, they would decide the outcome in a majority of the constituencies. Ms Banerjee is aware of this serious handicap and is trying to distance herself from the BJP’s electoral platform in the State as far as possible. She knows that it would be difficult to convince the Muslim voters that she is not co-existing with the BJP and the Sangh Parivar. If she decides to cut herself adrift from the NDA for proving her secular credentials a few weeks before the election date, it should not come as a surprise. In this complicate electoral game the Congress is playing a secondary and cautious role. As many as 18 Congress MLAs have asked for a mahajot/grand alliance with the Trinamool but any such alliance could only be on Mamata terms. Moreover, that would stamp the Congress also with the BJP stain. Given the circumstances, the Congress may ultimately decide to go it alone. The second most important State which is already witnessing hectic political activity is Tamil Nadu. Notwithstanding the numerous cases and convictions in some of them, Ms Jayalalitha seems to be emerging as a strong challenger to the well-entrenched DMK government led by Mr M.Karunanidhi. Ms Jayalalitha has appealed against the conviction cases which would come up before the High Court in due course and later before the Supreme Court. This process may take a few years and she cannot be debarred from contesting the elections or becoming the Chief Minister if her party and allies emerged with an electoral majority as a recent opinion poll has predicted. Ms Jayalalitha’s AIADMK is well entrenched in the southern districts of Madurai, Ramanathapuram, Thirunelveli, Kanyakumari etc, where the Thevars are politically and socially dominant. She has emerged as the favoured leader among the Thevars over the years. Her political allies for the electoral battle are the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) led by Dr Ramadoss, the Tamil Manila Congress (TMC) of Mr G.K. Moopanar, the Congress, the Leftists and some splinter groups of Muslims and Dalits. The PMK is influential in the northern districts of Tamil Nadu such as Salem, South Arcot and North Arcot. It fought the last elections as an ally of the DMK and the BJP and was a constituent of the NDA Government till a few days back when it pulled out and announced its alliance with the AIADMK. Dr Ramadoss’s ambition is to bring all the Vanniyars, who correspond to the Kurmis of Bihar, into a politically active community led by himself. The DMK supremo, Mr Karunanidhi, did not unduly bother to retain Dr Ramadoss in the NDA alliance which he led during the last elections particularly because Dr Ramadoss has been quite blatant about capturing power in Tamil Nadu in 2006 and in Pondicherry this year itself. Mr Karunanidhi may yet rue this act of political miscalculation as the PMK may indeed tilt the balance in favour of Ms Jayalalitha. That Ms Jayalalitha’s star is on the rise is indicated by the fact that most of the parties are seeking alliance with her AIADMK. It is known that out of the 234 seats in the Tamil Nadu Assembly, Ms Jayalalitha would like to keep a cushion of about 40 seats beyond 50% of 117 seats. This would leave less than 80 seats for all her allies who will resort to hard bargaining. Eventually they may have to agree to share what is available and fight to bring down the DMK-BJP alliance in Tamil Nadu. This explains why the TMC as well as the Congress spokesmen have ruled out a Third Front in the State. The LTTE factor weighed heavily with the TMC and the Congress against joining the camp of the AIADMK along with the PMK and its leader, Dr Ramadoss, who is an unabashed supporter of LTTE supremo Prabhakaran. However, MDMK leader V. Gopalaswamy (Vaiko) is equally vociferous about supporting the LTTE cause and he is an ally of the DMK. Both groups will quieten down and may not touch the controversial topic during the elections. Since both the PMK and the MDMK had agreed to be guided by the NDA policy on LTTE earlier, their utterances were meant for home consumption and not to be taken seriously. In Pondicherry, the Congress is the dominant party as of now but this may change after the elections, with the AIADMK, the TMC and the PMK sharing the honours. Kerala, the most educated state in the country, faces serious economic problems, with the prices of coconut and coconut oil, rubber, spices, tea, etc, falling steeply, resulting in large-scale unemployment. The Gulf employment of a large number of Keralites has resulted in a money order economy, but these funds have not gone into infrastructure or capital investment for long-term returns. The festering rivalry and clashes between the CPM cadres and the RSS in the Malabar areas and the recent illicit liquor scandal have gone against the ruling Marxist government led by Mr E.K. Nayanar. Kerala may be God’s own country from the tourist point of view, but a sense of disillusionment among the people is real. It has always been the history of Kerala politics that whichever front, the Leftist or the Congress, came to power, the difference in votes was between 1 or 2 per cent. It could, therefore, well be the turn of the Congress-led United Democratic Front to capture power this time. In Assam, the electoral outcome would be largely decided by the large non-Assamese population consisting of Bangladesh migrants, Bengalis, people from Bihar and Orissa working in the tea estates, the Nepalis, the large number of tribals and the Muslims. BJP President Bangaru Laxman recently alleged a nexus between the Ulfa militants and the ruling party, and the ULFA factor will adversely affect the prospects of Mr P.K. Mahanta and his AGP party. However, the BJP may yet enter into an alliance with the AGP as otherwise both may lose heavily.
— The writer is a former Governor of West Bengal and Sikkim. |
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The Fakir of
IPI BETWEEN
World War I that ended in 1919 and the beginning of World War II in 1939, in both of which he participated, my father spent the bulk of the years allotted to him fighting against the Fakir of IPI. He had to do that, as a part of the Indian Army. The Fakir of IPI was the most notorious warlords of those times. The field of his operations was Waziristan and the other tribal areas around. He had managed to keep the British troops and their Indian counterparts at bay. They had control over the road running through the Khyber Pass as well as over Malakand, Swat, Swabi and half a dozen other agencies which were at par with the Indian States of those days. There, in those Agencies, the British ruled through what were known as Residents. The rest of the territory belonged to the Fakir of Ipi and those who might have been his accomplices. The British ostensibly tried their level best to capture the Fakir of IPI
alive. They failed in that. Could be, they did not try hard to capture the bloke. They wanted to go on fighting the Fakir in order to keep their troops operationally fit. As far as the Fakir goes, his one great ambition in life was to shoot a British soldier dead through his mouth while the soldier was in the process of shaving his chin. The Fakir was known to be a sharp shooter. And soldiers had invariably to open their mouths in order to have a clean shave. My father used to tell me, whenever he came to Peshawar, our home-town, that there were clear-cut instructions from the Army Command that soldiers must not perform the obligatory ritual of shaving their chin while standing or sitting on a rock in the open. They had to do it in the safe sanctuary of their barracks or field tents. Anybody detected disobeying that order could be court-martialled. Did the Fakir of Ipi achieve his life-long ambition to shoot a British soldier dead through his mouth? Did the British manage to capture him at all? I am not in a position to answer those questions for I was bundled out of Peshawar as freedom came and my father had retired earlier than August 15. But today, as I read about the great exploits of our great hero, Koose Muniswamy Veerappan, in the forests of Karnataka, and I learn more and more about his remarkable ability to bring the government down to its knees, I can’t help thinking of IPI. And I can’t help thinking of our no less remarkable ability to surrender before those who have the guts to hold us to ransom. Isn’t the story of India in recent times a testimony to that? In order to gain something precious, we are ready to part with something valuable. How long can this spectacle go on? |
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The magic of “durries” REMEMBER
Roop Raj Prajapati of Salawas village in Jodhpur of Rajasthan who had shot into fame for weaving magical patterns on “durries” and getting the “Weaver of the Year” award in 1998. His smiling photograph was published in all leading dailies of India. But it suddenly made him an international personality when the electronic and print media including that of the BBC, CNN, German and Italian, TV channels made documentaries on him and highlighted his works of art. Roop Raj Prajapati is the ninth generation of his family who is a proud inheritor of his forefathers’ heritage of weaving “durries”. Interestingly, all his forefathers have lived in this very village Salawas which is about 70 km from Jodhpur. So naturally one was full of curiosity to meet him in person. Entering his humble home one realised that it did not speak of his international status. But no! One was certainly mistaken. He spread a stunningly red-yellow combination “durrie” for us saying, “Aye hain bari door se/ Phoolon ke raste/Bathiah, durrie banai humnem, aap ke vaste” (You are our guest who have come through the fields of flowers to see us and we have woven this ‘durrie’ to welcome you!). While this traditional welcome was on his phone bell rang. Oh! You have a phone in your village was our typical urbanite reaction. Amazingly, Roop Raj Prajapati, who is humbly dressed and weaves in the open courtyard of his home with his nine goats and lamb playing around, today owns a jeep, a mobile phone, a fax, a photocopier and a computer. No, he has not opened a shop for people to use these facilities. He needs them himself because his clients all over the world are directly placing orders with him. The ninth generation of the Prajapatis has opened the gates for their women to join hands with them. “Till my father’s time our women folk were in strict ‘parda’ and concentrated only on managing the home. But when many foreign tourists visited my home and asked me as to why my wife did not weave with me, I realised that might be she too could. So I started training my wife and today she is as good as I am and has become my right hand in completing orders”. Though Nainu, his wife, wears a “pallu” on her forehead yet she is no more a shy, nervous village woman. She talks confidently and even suggests extremely creative designs, mostly drawn from rituals of various festivals that she probably perceived from her childhood. Says she, “I have three sons and one daughter. They all go to school and we shall impart training to all of them after the age of 15. I do not want them to shift to cities. If they know this art then they would not need to”. Until you meet Roop Raj Prajapati you would not be able to imagine that he can speak fluent English with the reasonably good accent though he has never been to school. How has this miracle happened? Well, he has picked up from his foreign customers. Yes, he is smart in every respect. He says, “ I walk slow, Madam, but I never walk back. Looking forward is my aim”. How does he send his ‘durries’ abroad? “ There is a proper procedure, Madam. We make their parcels freight forward and send them either by air or by shipping. For the domestic market we send them through insured parcels. For payment we accept all acknowledged credit cards of India as well as the world”. Roop Raj Prajapati and his wife mostly weave traditional designs with conventional colours on ‘durries’. The intricate weaving sometimes requires as many as 60 to 70 coloured threads simultaneously. And incidentally no design has ever gone wrong. The unprecedented response of tourists to Rajasthan has made Roop Raj much wiser, commercially too. He has started an open farm where all the designs with various colour patterns are displayed in innumerable number. The buyers can not only go around selecting at leisure but also have traditional Rajasthani lunch and dinner at a nominal cost. “I started this service because there is no food available anywhere nearby, putting the customers into inconvenience”. Incidentally, he promptly offers mineral water bottle, free of cost to every visitor from his refrigerator as a pleasant gesture. Do not be surprised if you see fancy Swiss, French, TSR TV crews quietly shooting around. You will also come across a thick file of reports on Roop Raj Prajapati and his magical ‘durries’ in Sunday Telegraph (London), Daily Mail, (London), Daily Lystampa (Italy), Modeblett Magazine (Germany), Weekend Financial Times (London) besides almost all National dailies and magazines of India. And next time you will see this copy of The Tribune too because Roop Raj is extremely meticulous in preserving everything quite like the art of weaving ‘durries’. |
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Basu enjoying unprecedented
privileges Kolkata, February 20 Mr Basu had stepped down on November 6 from the Chief Minister’s chair, which he held for a long 24 years at a stretch. But even now he has been getting the same VIP treatment and other privileges that he had enjoyed during his tenure of chief ministership, which neither the powerful Prime Minister, Pandit Nehru nor Mrs Gandhi or any other Chief Ministers had ever enjoyed. And this has been the cause of anger to most of the opposition leaders. Some honest Marxists are also not very happy about the situation. A public litigation case, framed by the legal cell of the Pradesh Congress Committee against the state government’s granting of undue official privileges, is pending with the Calcutta High Court. At its first hearing by the Division Bench of Chief Justice, the state Advocate-General, Mr Naranarayan Gooptu (CPM), could not justify the reasons for sanctioning the official privileges to the Marxist leader. The case will come up for further hearing on March 6. Mr Gooptu said it was for security reasons that Mr Basu was being granted special arrangements. But former Congress Chief Minister Siddhartha Sankar Ray, who later became Punjab Governor during the most turmoil days of terrorist movement and afterwards took over as US Ambassador, was also at security risk and given the Z-category of security. However, after his retirement, he did not get any official privileges. Like former Chief Minister, Dr B.C. Roy, he did not use any official bungalow but lived in his ancestral house at Beltala Road in Bowanipore, south Calcutta. Another former Chief Minister, Mr Prafulla Chandra Sen, who led a simple life after stepping down, had shifted to a small flat at Russel Street by the good grace of Mr Ashoke Krishna Dutt, Congressman who, is by profession an advocate. Mr Sen led a very poor and simple life and had breathed his last at the same Russel Street flat in distress. Mr P.C. Ghosh, the first chief minister of Bengal after independence, also died in distress in an LIG flat in the city. Mr Ajoy Kumar Mukherjee, who led the first UF government during 1967 and 69, of which Mr Basu was a senior Cabinet colleague, also led a very simple life as a member of his nephew’s life in Calcutta who was a central government employee. Mr Saugata Roy, MLA and the vice-president of the WBPCC (I) and other MLAs, raised the issue several times but there was no convincing reply either from the Chief Minister, Mr Buddhadev Bhattacharyya, or any others from the Treasury Bench. Nor was there any change in granting of official privileges to the leader. Mr Basu owns an ancestral house at Hindusthan Park in the posh locality of Ballygunge, south Calcutta. But after being sworn in as Chief Minister in 1977, he shifted to Raj Bhavan and the Hindusthan Park house was rented out (a two-room flat at the house, however, was kept vacated for the use of Basu family, where a lift was later installed at government expenses). The Chief Minister, however, never returned to Hindusthan Park but stayed for long years at Raj Bhavan. In the mid-eighties, he shifted to an official bungalow at Salt Lake, which was built and named as Indira Bhavan during the AICC(I) session in 1972 by the then Chief Minister, Mr Siddhartha Sankar Ray for the Prime Minister’s rest house. It was then a small two-room hatch cottage, which was converted to a two-storeyed bungalow with all modern amenities and for renovation work, over Rs 2 crore was spent from the governemnt exchequer for Mr Jyoti Basu. As security arrangements, the building was guarded off with sky-rise iron fencing and the vast areas of the adjoining thoroughfare, were used for the Chief Minister’s security needs. After stepping down from the Chief Minister’s office, Mr Basu got more involved in the party activities. But he did not leave the official bungalow. It was stated officially that for security reason, the former Chief Minister would live in the Salt Lake bungalow and also would get the same privileges and other VIP treatment that he had been so long enjoying. After his retirement, the first thing which Mr Basu did, was to visit the flood-hit district of Murshidabad, where he received an official guard of honour by the district police, which no former Prime Minister or Chief Minister had taken. This caused a great uproar both in the administration and political circles, and eventually brought to the notice of the President, Mr K.R. Narayanan. Mr Basu, however, later apologised and said that he had accepted the official guard of honour by mistake. But still there was no end of acceptance of official privileges and other facilities which only as Chief Minister, he could enjoy. |
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“Funeral rites” for trees Dozens of environmental activists turned up in a village in West Bengal’s Hooghly district on Sunday to perform the “last rites” of trees and to plant new saplings, but they had to beat a hasty retreat after being attacked by local hoodlums. The occasion was to mourn “deaths”of about 1,000 illegally felled trees in Guptipara. The activists carried placards and banners that read: “Father forgive them for they know not what they do” and “Jesus Christ was crucified, Mother Nature is now sacrificed.” As the funeral rites were about to commence, local goons attacked the environmentalists with stones, bows and arrows. When attempts to reason with the attackers failed, the activists were forced to leave with their saplings. “When we reached there, a mob of about 500 people armed with bows and arrows and stones attacked us. Three of our members were injured. We had to beat a retreat without planting the saplings,” Subash Dutta, secretary of Howrah Ganatantrik Nagarik Samity (HGNS, or Howrah Democratic People’s Society), a non-governmental organization (NGO), told IANS. About 1,000 trees had been illegally felled in Guptipara area some time ago. HGNS had brought this to the notice of the Green Bench, which had ordered that Rs 30,000 from the sale proceeds of the felled trees be spent on development of the area and saplings be planted to replenish the greenery. But Charkrishnabati village council, which allegedly helped timber dealers cut the trees, did not pay up. Neither did it plant saplings in place of the trees.
IANS
Blood from umbilical cord
could help stroke victims UMBILICAL cord blood injected into the veins within 24 hours could restore the damaged brains of stroke victims. The discovery — so far demonstrated only in laboratory rats —could lead to tests in humans within two years. The technique might one day also help sufferers from spinal injuries, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, motor neurone disease and other brain injuries. It could also re-awaken the controversy over the use of embryo stem cells as a treatment for disease. Embryo stem cells can change into any of the 300 types of tissue in a human being. Britain broke new ground last month when the UK Parliament changed the rules and permitted the use of embryo cells for research into disease as well as fertility, in the hope that this would open up a new kind of transplant treatment. Opponents argued that adult stem cells and umbilical cord blood could be altered to provide transplant tissue without raising any kind of ethical problems. There are also other difficulties: one of them is a shortage of donated embryos. Paul Sandberg, of the University of South Florida, told the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in San Francisco that more than four million children were born in the USA each year, bringing with them the bonus of umbilical cord blood. There were also 700,000 strokes a year. Stem cells from cord blood had been used in the treatment of children’s blood diseases such as leukaemia. This suggested that the cord blood stem cells could change into something else. But it was the first hint that they could also change into the neurons and glial cells that make up the brain. Working with a commercial company that preserves cord blood from hospitals, Dr Sandberg’s group separated the stem cells and treated them to trigger changes in the precursors of nerve cells. They injected the cells into the veins of rats that had suffered induced strokes. The earlier the injection, the faster they seemed to recover.
Guardian
Suicide power After reading a theory that electricians have a higher suicide rate because of their exposure to strong electromagnetic fields, researchers in Sweden decided to find out for sure. Sure enough, there was a difference: “the risk of suicide among electricians is clearly lower than for a group of construction workers (or for) Swedish men in general,” says the study by Umea University. Next they’ll study plumbers, per the theory they suffer severe embarrassment over their inability to wear belts.
Reuters |
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SPIRITUAL NUGGETS Lust thou native of hell. That goadest man into the cycle of births, Enchanter of hearts, wielding power on the earth and below and above it, Thou who destroyeth meditation, austerity and virtue, And offerest in return but a petty and a passing delight, Thou lordest it over high and low, In the company of the holy, men loss their fear of Thee: I seek the Lord as a stronghold, saith Nanak. —Nanak Arjan Dev, Sri Guru Granth Sahib, page 1358. *** Mind is the country, Where shall I go? All belongs to me. Mind is the beloved, Mind is the friend, Mind is the foe. Mind is heaven, Mind is hell, Mind is lover, Mind is beloved, Dalpat was relieved of the ego, As yearning for the beloved grew, And realisation dawned, That the beloved is omniscient And the universe is his body. —Sai Dalpat Rai of Sind. *** Remain silent, Do not move your lips, Shut your eyes, close your ears, Do not fill your belly With food and water. You will then realise the image That is in your mind. —Shah Abdul Latif *** The scriptures suggest two simple yogic practices for controlling the mind: first, pranayama and second, control of desire and vasana... The instability of the mind depends upon the movement of the prana. When a jiva practices pranayama, his mind gradually comes under control and he enjoys bliss.... The other method envisages checking desires and vasana. (As a result), the movement of his prana slows down, and in due course he automatically practices controlling the prana. Sufis call it dam habas. —R.M. Hari (ed.) Some Moments With the Master: Spiritual Dialogues with the Sufi Saint Sai Rochal Das Sahib. *** My homage to that Mighty Supreme Being who is the ordainer of all that existed in the past and of that which will exist in future and whose essence is bliss alone. — Atharva Veda, X.8.1 |
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