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Thursday,
June 27, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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BJP’s
desperate move Exposing grains to rain |
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Left
Front’s record EVEN as the Left is getting increasingly isolated in national politics on various issues, the latest being its refusal to support Mr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam in the Presidential elections, its track record in West Bengal is indeed amazing. The Left Front’s completion of 25 years of uninterrupted governance in the state is no small achievement. In fact, it is said to be a world record. Undoubtedly, the credit should go to the grand old patriarch of the CP(M), Mr Jyoti Basu, who was at the helm of affairs in the state till October, 2000.
Signals
of the dangers ahead
CNN’s
anchor woman from Punjab
New
technology for catching liars Alcohol
craving may all be in brain
Nutritious
diet reduces crime
With
faith and without fear
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BJP’s desperate move THE appointment of Mr Vinay Katiyar as President of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Uttar Pradesh unit clearly reveals the party bosses’ desire to return to a combative style of politics in the country’s most populous state. The elevation of Mr Katiyar to the sensitive post seems more surprising in view of the fact that the BJP had so far endeavoured to project a sober, middle-class friendly image. The one extreme of this effort was the appointment of the genteel Ram Prakash Gupta as Chief Minister a few years ago. Even the outgoing President of the unit, Mr Kalraj Mishra, though a staunch Hindutva supporter, had the grace that shielded from view the hardcore elements in the party. However, Mr Katiyar is a different type of political player. His views are radical and he has often been described as a rabble-rouser. His worldview is limited to Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan and “liberalism” has no meaning for him. Since 1972 he has been an RSS
pracharak, and has been groomed for a role in the organisation by leaders like Mr Ashok Singhal and Mr Murli Manohar Joshi. In fact, Mr Singhal handpicked him in 1984 to lead the Bajrang Dal when the Ram Janmabhoomi movement was at its nascent stage. It speaks of Mr Katiyar’s handling of the Dal that it has emerged as a notoriously rabid outfit over the years. Often, it is described as the strong
arm of the VHP that does much of its dirty work in UP and various other parts of the country. Organisational matters apart, Mr Katiyar has also been personally involved in activities that were allegedly criminal in nature. In other words, he is hardly the sort of a leader who has a track record that would inspire confidence in different sections of society. Two main considerations seem to have tilted the scales in his favour. The BJP heavyweight from UP, the Union Minister, Mr Murli Manohar Joshi, has a smooth working relationship with the BSP Chief Minister, Mr Mayawati. The latter in turn is comfortable with Mr Katiyar, who is also a favourite with Mr Joshi. Since the BJP is currently sharing power with the BSP in UP, Mr Katiyar’s appointment takes the comfort level between the two partners a couple of notches higher. The second consideration is perhaps the most vital and takes the party’s stakes to a win-all or lose- all situation. It seems that the party leadership has taken the February poll results to mean that a middle-of-the-road approach does not pay the required political dividends and a more aggressive Hindutva line is the need of the day. Some lessons could also have been drawn from the recent riots in Gujarat. The end result is the naming of Mr Katiyar to lead the party in a state where the Mandir tension is perpetually on the boil. It is well known that Mr Katiyar is committed to building a temple where the Babri Masjid once stood. It is also known that he is capable of upping the ante at will, without the fear of consequences. A strident pro-Hindutva line may appeal to some party managers, as also to a section of the electorate though it is doubtful whether it will have a broadbased impact in this day and time. A repeat of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement of the mid 1980s and the consequent resurgence of the BJP is a thing of the past. The temple card has lost much of its relevance. However, it seems the BJP’s top leadership still believes that the likes of Mr Katiyar can make the party ride the crest of popular appeal. But this a hope that even the most diehard BJP supporters are unlikely share. |
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Exposing grains to rain HUGE piles of foodgrains rotting in the open make a pathetic sight. More so, with the fast approaching monsoon. In a country where starvation deaths are not uncommon, such waste is criminal. Neither the Centre nor the states have initiated any serious long-term measures to deal with the problem of plenty. The foodgrain crisis has not risen overnight. It has been building up over the years. Timely preparations could have been made. But politicians like to postpone a crisis rather than face it and defuse it. Last October when Mr Shanta Kumar, Union Minister of Food and Public Distribution, was in Chandigarh, the media raised the issue of storage of foodgrains. His claim then — ‘“There will be no shortage of space to store foodgrains after procurement” — sounds hollow now. Large stocks of wheat and paddy are lying exposed to rain and rodents as is evident from The Tribune’s front-page picture on Tuesday. Similarly, the enthusiasm that the Punjab Government had displayed at the time of procuring foodgrains ebbed when it came to storing it. An additional storage capacity is being created through the construction of godowns by private parties under a seven-year-guarantee scheme of the FCI. The state agencies in Punjab and Haryana are also increasing their respective storage capacities, but that alone will not solve the multi-dimensional problem. The foodgrain storage crisis has arisen because of two chief factors. One, production has increased, but at a high cost. Two, the offtake of foodgrains has not matched the procurement levels. The deficit states have increased their own output or/and are buying grains cheaper from other states. The procurement prices being high, Punjab and Haryana foodgrains have become less competitive. The two states have failed to help farmers bring down their production costs. Apart from the excessive use of fertilisers, pesticides and inefficient use of farm machinery by the growers, manual handling, transportation, wastage and pilferage of food stocks significantally inflate their costs. Because of this, foodgrains have remained beyond the reach of the poor. The public distribution system has also not reached the desired destinations. The Food-for-Work programme has achieved only a limited success. Diverting the farmer from the traditional wheat-paddy cycle has only been a talking point. Of course, it will take time, but will not happen unless remunerative procurement prices of other desirable crops are introduced and their marketing is assured. Markfed in Punjab did once take the initiative of building silos by inviting a few foreign firms to ensure cost-effective, mechanised bulk handling of foodgrains, but it seems the scheme has landed in the coldstorage. To tackle the issue of foodgrain storage, an integrated approach is required to slow down grain production, lower its costs and speed up grain offtake through an increased domestic reach of the PDS and through exports. |
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Left Front’s record EVEN as the Left is getting increasingly isolated in national politics on various issues, the latest being its refusal to support Mr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam in the Presidential elections, its track record in West Bengal is indeed amazing. The Left Front’s completion of 25 years of uninterrupted governance in the state is no small achievement. In fact, it is said to be a world record. Undoubtedly, the credit should go to the grand old patriarch of the CP(M), Mr Jyoti Basu, who was at the helm of affairs in the state till October, 2000. In a party in which personalities are subordinate to ideology and causes, Mr Basu may not have been accepted as larger than the office he had occupied. But, certainly, he strode the state’s politics like a colossus for well over 23 years and provided it with stability and continuity after a fairly extended period of flux, uncertainty and violence. Stability, however, was not his only achievement. The state government, under Mr Basu’s leadership, had ushered in a socio-economic revolution for which the Left Front continues to enjoy the political returns till this day. Land reforms, changes in the laws pertaining to ownership rights, safeguarding the interests of sharecroppers and small farmers and minimum wages to workers are some of the monumental achievements of the Left Front government. If Mr Basu had left an ever-lasting impression on the Left movement and governance, his successor, Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, too, has proved to be in no way less than his mentor. The fact that he could lead his front to victory in the Assembly elections early last year, despite the stiff challenge posed by Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee, speaks volumes for his leadership, even though one cannot lose sight of other factors such as the committed party cadre and a well-oiled organisational machinery. It is noteworthy that Mr Bhattacharya is not a rabble rouser. Nor is he too rigid in his style and approach to issues. His party may have opposed the entry of MNCs either as a matter of policy or in principle, but he says his government will not hesitate to bring in foreign technology wherever required. This has become all the more important following the shift in the government’s agriculture policy. Now that it has decided to diversify to agro-based industries, horticulture and food processing, there is a move to bring in foreign technology. As it is, the state tops in fish, rice and vegetable production at the all-India level. The shift in its agricultural policy is expected to give a boost to the farm sector. Despite its achievements, the government has been facing problems on many fronts. In the last 25 years, over 19,000 industrial units have been closed down. With the jobless numbering in over 57,39,000, the unemployment problem in the state has assumed dangerous proportions. It is also said that while rural West Bengal has witnessed rapid development over the years, no tangible progress has been achieved in the urban areas. Industrial development has somewhat slackened. The government is yet to keep its promises on industrial rejuvenation. Moreover, the move to raise tuition fees, hospital charges and Mr Bhattacharya’s silence on power tariff hike have not gone well with the general public. How the government would tackle these issues together with the larger problem of urban and industrial development in the succeeding years is a challenge to believe and an opportunity to prove. |
Signals of the dangers ahead THINGS in this country have a way of changing with great frequency and greater speed. Only the other day the mood was congratulatory on the success of the Vajpayee government’s “coercive diplomacy” in relation to Pakistan, the broad consensus on Dr A. P. J. Abdul Kalam’s candidacy for the Presidency and the merciful absence of Gujarat from the front-page. Now all of a sudden the national scene has once again turned rather grim thanks to the convergence of a number of danger signals, rather like several streams merging together to form a mighty river. Let me just list some of the deeply depressing developments and it would be easy to see how grievous their combined effect can be. There is, to begin with, the wild, bitter and threatening rhetoric that accompanied the passing of the baton from Dr Farooq Abdullah to his son Omar in Kashmir. By a remarkable coincidence this was accompanied by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad surpassing its past record of irresponsibility, folly and bigotry by making demands that cannot but add to discord and strife the country simply cannot afford. On top of it all has come General Pervez Musharraf’s interview to Newsweek in which he has gone back on all his assurances of ending cross-border terrorism in Kashmir, underscoring that the situation can again turn grave at any time of his choosing. Strangely, despite this dismal scenario, government leaders here are displaying a shocking inability to speak in one voice. Long after the Defence Minister, Mr George Fernandes, had repeatedly stated that “infiltration from across the LoC had more or less come to an end”, the electronic and print media started informing the country that the Prime Minister’s view was exactly the opposite. It quoted Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee as having told Newsweek: “There has been no change in Pakistan’s policy so far as cross-border infiltration is concerned. Everyday we are getting reports that infiltration is continuing”. Clearly, Atalji’s interview to Ms Lally Weymouth of the American newsmagazine was given several days before the Defence Minister’s statement. This might resolve this particular contradiction but that would not solve the problem. For, many other, glaring contradictions persist. For instance, only 24 hours before Mr Fernandes had pronounced the virtual death of the infiltration of jehadis, the GoC of 16th Corps in the Jammu area, Lieutenant-General Yadav, had said something utterly different. There had been, he had declared, no diminution in infiltration of terrorists from Pakistan. And even when it started taking place, to verify it would take time. More serious than this is the continuing divergence between the Prime Minister’s and the Defence Minister’s pronouncements. According to Mr Vajpayee, a war between India and Pakistan was a matter of “touch and go” and that “we were ready even for a nuclear war”. The Defence Minister has asserted repeatedly that India had “never intended to make any strike” on Pakistan. This is doubtless disturbing, but it can be allowed to pass because attention must focus on the truly dangerous implications of the substantive developments mentioned above. As for Kashmir, it is clear that the sudden and fierce bitterness and bellicosity of the Abdullahs, father and son, against the Vajpayee dispensation is rooted in New Delhi’s alleged breach of promise to Dr Farooq Abdullah. The deal evidently was that he would be made India’s Vice-President after he had passed the task of taking care of Srinagar to his son. Those who made this promise — and, like General Musharraf in a different context — broke it and, therefore, bear a very heavy responsibility for queering the pitch on the eve of crucial elections in Jammu and Kashmir. And yet this can in no way excuse Mr Omar Abdullah’s infinitely intemperate outburst and unacceptably offensive remarks against the government in which he was then, and at the time of writing still is, Minister of State for External Affairs. Indeed, what made his pernicious performance both shocking and surprising was that until that moment this obviously able young man’s behaviour had been impeccable. To talk of “crumbs being thrown to a grateful dog” in the context of his father’s future assignment was disgraceful enough. To talk of “your human rights record in Kashmir” (as if Dr Farooq Abdullah had nothing to do with it) and describing it as “not worth the paper it was written on” is surely unpardonable. There must be jubilation in the Foreign Office in Islamabad because at the next meeting of the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva all that the Pakistani delegation has to do is to quote Omar, regardless of whether or not his father is there to defend the Indian position. At the ceremony for anointing Omar as the third-generation member of the Abdullah dynasty to claim his “inheritance” as Kashmir’s ruler, the issue of autonomy for Kashmir, evidently the National Conference’s main plank in the coming Assembly poll was raised vigorously. It is wrong of the BJP to reject it out of hand. The matter needs to be discussed seriously, if only because Mr P.V. Narasimha Rao, as Prime Minister, had promised the Kashmiris autonomy and indeed declared that “sky was the limit” to the autonomy on offer. Instead of asking Dr Farooq Abdullah to cite the Articles of the Indian Constitution that impede Kashmir’s “welfare”, as the Prime Minister has done now and Mr L. K. Advani in the past, the father and son have to be told that an autonomous Kashmir should be fully autonomous financially, too. If Kashmir wants to be a manor, it must live on its own produce. However, what kind of a dialogue with the Kashmiris, belonging to the National Conference as well as others groups, including the separatist ones, can there be if the wild men of the VHP — who manifestly enjoy considerable support from other sections of the Sangh Parivar — are allowed to run riot? They are demanding a four-way division of Kashmir, including a bifurcation of the valley, declaring that they would not accept the court verdict on Babri Masjid, and threatening Muslims across the country that they might have to “live in refugee camps”, like the victims of the carnage in Gujarat. Will Mr Vajpayee restrain these hotheads? Or would they be allowed to perpetrate their depredations in which case General Musharraf and the ISI would have to do nothing except to it back and watch this great country in a self-destroying mode. That is where General Musharraf’s flip-flop comes in. The point to ponder is that he has given this country no assurances directly. His commitments were made to the USA. The US Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, at a Press conference declared that Pakistan’s military ruler had promised “visibly” and “permanently” to end the infiltration of jehadis across the Line of Control. The General has blandly told Newsweek that all he had “promised” the Americans, including President Bush, was that “nothing is happening at the LoC” and it is for India to reciprocate”. He has added, for good measures, that he cannot promise that “nothing will happen for years”, and the thing to do was for the USA, as the “only country” capable of doing this, to “persuade India to initiate a dialogue and move towards a settlement of Kashmir”. So far, only a spokesman of the US Embassy in Delhi has mildly joined issue with him. More than General Musharraf, the leadership of the USA — worried about more Al-Qaida attack on American targets and still unable to find Osama bin Laden in Pakistan — is on test. One final point about General Musharraf’s mindset must be made. Ms Weymouth asked him whether “some kind of autonomy for Kashmir” or accepting the Line of Control as the border could be a solution. His reply: “That is just not possible. If the Line of Control were the border, what have we fought two wars for?” Someone should tell this officer of the Special Forces that the LoC is the consequence of the 1971 war — in which Pakistan had suffered a comprehensive defeat — not its cause. |
CNN’s anchor woman from Punjab One of her parents’ four children, Daljit has an arresting presence on the television and is a former anchor of the ITN’s celebrated World News for Public Television from London. Till late last year she was seen on 100 PBS stations in the USA as well as over the Internet where she made an indelible mark. There is an unofficial Daljit website with her fans eulogising her though she has refused to visit it. She was named one of People magazine’s “50 Most Beautiful People in the World” in 1999. In August, 1999, Esquire named her one of the magazine’s “Women We Love.” Wary of disclosing her age, Daljit, 39, did her MA in politics, history and economics from the University of London. She started as a reporter in the BBC in 1990 covering Northern Ireland and five years later went on to work for the ITN. She is married to American journalist Lee Patrick Sullivan and surely wants to have a family. Jammu academic is IBS Dean During the course of his career, Professor Mahajan has researched and written extensively on product diffusion, marketing strategy and marketing research methodologies in many prestigious journals such as Harvard Business Review. A widely acclaimed academic in the field of marketing, Professor Mahajan has made presentations at more than 90 universities and research institutions worldwide. He has been a consultant to both the government and industry and offered executive development programmes in the USA, Asia, Europe and South America. He is the recipient of the American Marketing Association Charles Coolidge Parlin Marketing Research Award (1997), the oldest and most eminent lifetime award in the field for distinguished academics and practitioners who have demonstrated leadership and sustained impact on the evolving profession of marketing. In recognition of his achievements, the AMA instituted in 2000 the Vijay Mahajan Award for Career Contributions to Marketing Strategy to be presented annually to an educator for sustained contribution to marketing strategy literature. His doctoral students, co-authors and colleagues have endowed this award. |
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New technology for catching liars THE world is becoming a trickier place for people who tell lies — even little white ones. From thermal-imaging cameras, designed to read guilty eyes, to brain-wave scanners, which essentially watch a lie in motion, the technology of truth-seeking is leaping forward. At the same time, more people are finding their words put to the test, especially those who work for the government. FBI agents, themselves subjected to more polygraphs as a result of the Robert Hanssen spy case, have been administering lie detection tests at Fort Detrick, Maryland and Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, bases with stores of anthrax. Nuclear plant workers also are getting the tests in greater numbers since September 11. “There has been a reawakening of our interest in being able to determine the truth from each other,” said sociologist Barbara Hetrick, who teaches a course on lying at the College of Wooster in Ohio. “As technology advances, we may have to decide whether we want to let a machine decide guilt or innocence.” The new frontiers of lie detection claim to offer greater reliability than the decades-old polygraph, which measures heart and respiratory rates as a person answers questions. The frontiers also pose new privacy problems, moral dilemmas and the possibility that the average person will unwittingly face a test. At the Mayo Clinic, researchers hope to perfect a heat-sensing camera that could scan people’s faces and find subtle changes associated with lying. In a small study of 20 people, the high-resolution thermal imaging camera detected a faint blushing around the eyes of those who lied. The technique, still preliminary, could provide a simple and rapid way of scanning people being questioned at airports or border crossings, researchers say. But would it be legal? “As long as no one was being arrested or detained solely on the basis of the test, there is no law against scanning someone’s face with a device,” said Justin Hammerstein, a civil liberties attorney in New York. “You could use the device to subject someone to greater scrutiny in a physical search or background check, and it would be hard to argue that it is illegal.” Barry Steinhardt of the American Civil Liberties Union said any technology that isn’t 100 per cent effective could lead unfairly to innocent travellers being stranded at airports. “You would be introducing chaos into the situation and inevitably focusing on people who are innocent,” he said. At the University of Pennsylvania, researcher Daniel Langleben is using a magnetic resonance imaging machine, the device used to detect tumors, to identify parts of the brain that people use when they lie. Langleben said, “The process for telling a lie is more complicated than telling the truth, resulting in more neuron activity.”
AP |
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Alcohol craving may all be in brain IF you thought getting rid of your tippling habits was impossible, to say the least, scientists say that it might all be in your head. They have identified a possible way of curing alcoholism and stopping people from drinking excessively. Researchers in the USA say they have pinpointed a cell in the brain that encourages people to continue drinking and according to them, blocking this cell could stop a person’s urge to drink, reported the journal Cell. Used to develop medication to help alcoholics to stop drinking, scientists at the Ernest Gallo Clinic and Research Centre in San Francisco found that a signalling molecule in a region of the brain called the nucleus accumbens may contribute to alcohol craving. But the US scientists found that alcohol can also trigger a chemical called adenosine. Together these chemicals send out signals to the brain, which maintain the urge to continue to drink alcohol. Following tests on rats, Dr Ivan Diamond, Professor of Neurology at University of California San Francisco and Director of the
EGCRC, said, “It enables a substance taken into the body — alcohol — to team up with the normal, ongoing dopamine process to cause an exaggerated response to alcohol.” He added, “It provides a novel target for new medications to prevent or reduce excessive drinking.” Dr Raynard
Kington, acting Director of the US National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism agreed, saying, “The report fast- forwards efforts to understand the precise brain mechanisms involved in alcohol-seeking behaviour. “Extending this work in animal and human studies may fast-forward the development of medications to impede alcohol-seeking behaviour and prevent relapse in dependent drinkers.”
ANI |
Nutritious diet reduces crime RESEARCHERS at the University of Surrey have suggested a new, cheap and better way to combat crime and anti-social behaviour in society. They have revealed that an addition of vitamins and other vital nutrients to young people’s diets may lead to reduction in crime. The scientists have found that improving the diets of young offenders at a maximum security institution in Buckinghamshire cut offences by 25 per cent. The study, the first of its kind to show a scientific link between healthy eating and crime, has now been extended to see if the findings can be applied to the population in general, reports BBC. Bernard Gesch and his colleagues at the University of Surrey enrolled 230 young offenders from HM Young Offenders Institution Aylsebury in their study. Half of them received pills containing vitamins, minerals and essential fatty acids. The other half received placebo or dummy pills. The researchers recorded the number and type of offences each of the prisoners committed in the nine months before they received the pills and in the nine months during the trial. The findings revealed that the group which received the supplements committed 25 per cent fewer offences than those who had been given the placebo. The greatest reduction was for serious offences, including violence, which fell by 40 per cent. However, there was no such reduction for those on the dummy pills. Writing in the British Journal of Psychiatry, the authors said that improving diets could be a cost-effective way of reducing crime in the community and also reducing the prison population. Gesch observed: “The supplements just provided the vitamins, minerals and fatty acids found in a good diet which the inmates should get anyway. Yet the improvement was
huge. This approach needs to be re-tested but looks to be cheap, highly effective and humane.”
ANI |
With faith and without fear TODAY
life is an arduous journey. A long struggle. Stress and strain are man’s constant companions. Peace of mind is a casualty. Even the persons who do their duty honestly and work well are seen to suffer. Sometimes even hard and honest work does not suffice. What to do? An abiding faith in the Creator and the consequential freedom from fear may be the answer. Who is the Creator? God? But where is the God? Who has seen Him? Where does He dwell? These questions have been asked for ages. The believers and non-believers have continuously fought their battles. Everyone can be an atheist when the going is good. It is in moments of adversity that man looks for help. At such times, even the ardent atheist acknowledges that there is a higher power that governs the universe and dictates the destiny of all. The sun, moon and the other planets are His creation. The mountains, plants, planets, and rivers are not the result of a man’s effort. Some power has created a perfect system under which we live. The day and night, summer and spring, snow and storms are the gifts of a higher power. Nature is the work of God. All this sounds logical. But there are many who still raise questions. Why? For man has not yet developed the faculty to see everything. Like the scent of a flower. Nobody has seen it. But it is there. We can feel it. By exercising our ordinary sense of smell. Similarly, we may not have seen God in flesh and blood. Yet, He is there. In the blade of grass. In the stars and the skies. In the small speck of sand under the feet. Everywhere. Like the blood in every part of the body. Where to find Him? We do not have to go to a big building of bricks, marble and mortar to find Him. Nor to a Church or Temple. We need the sense and sight to see Him. The believer would say — “Everyone can see Him inside himself. Human body is the shrine.” He paints the skies. He gives the strength in the hour of sorrow. It is “the heart that experiences God, and not the reason.” The non-believer quotes scientific principles to contest the claim. He says — “God has no fixed form. No particular name. No definite shape. No beginning or end. Even two men may not trust one God. How do I accept His existence?” Truly, the eye of flesh may not be able to see Him. We need an eye of faith. It is only by experience that we can recognise His existence. An unflinching faith in the existence of the omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient is the best way to create confidence. To overcome the obstacles. Trust Him. He will take care of you. All the time. Everywhere. Depend on Him. You will be independent. Devotion to Him puts man on the road to the divine destination. Remembering God, all the time, is the way to glory. Faith ensures fulfilment. And then, man is basically a coward. Despite progress, he is not free from fear. Even the God-fearing are not fully free. Why? Greed is a human instinct. But desire for more is only a disease. The worldly goods are an extra baggage. The material possessions are a mere burden. Money gives happiness when spent on a stranger. Otherwise, more the money, more the worry. Desire and love for worldly possessions is the source of fear. The fear of losing haunts man and makes him miserable. In a sense, fear is an essential part of human nature. It is the response of the inner conscience to man’s deeds. Fear gives foresight. The fear of doing wrong. Being seen in bad company. The fear of failure. It is an asset. It keeps man away from evil. From falling a prey to human weaknesses. It protects man from evil. It helps him to stay on the right path. It is a good preservative. In this form, fear is essential. It has been said, “Fear on guilt attends, and deeds of darkness; the virtuous breast never knows it.” Thus, good deeds are a guarantee against fear. If a man goes to sleep with a clear conscience, the devil never haunts him in his dreams. The good are not afraid. The virtuous go through life without fear. Yet, why do we see the good suffer? That is the God’s way to purify man. He is hard on the men He loves. Just as the hottest furnace produces the brightest steel, so do the adversities test a man’s mettle and bring the best out of him. Why do the wicked flourish? They do not. What appears on the surface is only a mirage. We feel they are happy. In fact, a gnawing fear is constantly eating into their vitals. They are scared of their own shadow. The fear of the guilt inside haunts them. Today, we take our rights seriously. Duties lightly. Then we have problems. Let us take our duties seriously. And the life lightly. With faith in Him and fear of none, life shall pass happily. |
Countries, continents and worlds beyond this world which you made and sustained, The entire cosmos sings praises to your name. Only those favoured by you Can sing your praises and get dyed in your hue. There must be your other acclaimers of the same kind, How far can Nanak stretch his mind? It is He and eternally He alone who is our true Master And truth is His name. He is and ever will be, till eternity, Never, will He fade, The creator of all infinity! Creator of species in different colours and hues. Creator of Maya too; Having created he watches over his creation. This His greatness proves. What pleases Him, He ordains None can order Him otherwise; For He, O Nanak, is the king of kings As He Wills, so must we live. *** He is the only one with this gift, No one else possesses it. There is none like Him Nor ever will be. Lord as mighty as you are, so is your giving might You gave us the day, then gave us the night. Mean and lowly are they who forget the Lord Says Nanak, without His name, They are wretches outcaste. —
Rehras, Sri Guru Granth Sahib
*** In an emergency, a noble-souled brother is used for a shield in the same way as the stroke of a thunderbolt is parried by the hand. —
Shri Ramacharitamansa, Ayodhya Kanda *** The advice of a guru, a father, a mother, a master or a friend should be cheerfully followed as soon as heard. —
Shri Ramacharitamansa, Ayodhya kanda *** One's guru, parents, brother, gods and master -= all these should be cherished as one's own life. —
Shri Ramacharitamansa, Ayodhya Kanda |
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CONSIDERED
one of the most successful Asian women in Britain, Ms Daljit Dhaliwal will be crossing the Atlantic to anchor the CNN’s prestigious World News from its base in Atlanta. Daljit’s father, who hails from Punjab, migrated to the United Kingdom in 1953 and worked in a factory till his retirement. Having grown up in “little India” in Southall, she has shown a steely determination in charting her professional career and has emerged a phenomenon with her English accent and clarity. A no-nonsense person and intense individual who draws a clear line between her professional and private life, it has taken her a while in signing the mega contract with the CNN. 
For Prof Vijay Mahajan, who takes over as the Dean of the nascent Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad, the new assignment will mark a new phase in his career. As Dean, he will be responsible for creating future thought leaders of the country and will have to lead the institution through its next stage of growth. Professor Mahajan, who hails from Jammu, holds the John P Harbin Centennial Chair in Business in the McCombs School of Business, the University of Texas, Austin. A graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology at Kanpur, he completed his Masters in Chemical Engineering and PhD in Management from the University of Texas at Austin.