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Thursday,
December 26, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Vajpayee’s political dreams Metro comes to Delhi Silver lining for IT hardware |
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Bush’s war on Iraq a certainty
New GOC-in-C, Army Training Command, Shimla
Significance of Gita today
How USA tilted towards Pakistan during the Bangladesh war
Fish cuts stroke risk
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Vajpayee’s political dreams Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee was his real self at the concluding session of the BJP executive meeting on Tuesday. The occasion had a special significance as the party function was held after the “sagar-manthan” in Gujarat. India could not expect more from its Prime Minister. He spoke as the leader of the 100 crore or more Indians that he is. “The churning of the sea” was not mythical in the present context. It threw up more poison than nectar and other good things. The poison is the politics of communal polarisation, and both the BJP with its sister organisations and the principal Opposition party, the Congress, are responsible for it. There may be the difference of degrees, but this is the ugly reality. In such a setting, it is heartening that Mr Vajpayee has taken upon himself the responsibility of neutralising the poison like Shiva did after the mythical process was over. In his own enviable style, he disapproved of an electoral strategy which divided society on communal lines, and weakened the country from within. He cautioned the nation of the designs of the enemy next door — Pakistan. Chastising those within his political parivar who did not think on these lines, he wanted his party to remember that among the responsibilities of the BJP as the leading member of the ruling National Democratic Alliance were the protection of national unity, strengthening of national security and ensuring all-round progress of the country. This is the kind of politics Mr Vajpayee wants his party men to practice. This is constructive politics and cannot fit in with the strategy employed in Gujarat for winning the election which Mr Vajpayee does not want to be used elsewhere. That is why his speech focused on nullifying the impact of the address of his party colleagues like Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. In the Prime Minister’s own words, “ This is not a game of winning a few more seats or winning elections in this or that state. The party must be guided by the lofty goal for which we plunged into electoral politics.” The truth is that when our politicians “make brother fight brother” as part of their crude electoral strategy, the real gainers are India’s enemies. A divisive tactic ultimately goes to help the forces bent upon weakening the country from within. Such politicians, in their unhealthy pursuit of vote-bank politics, help the nation’s enemies, though unwittingly. Their strategy may bring them electoral victory, but the nation is the ultimate loser. It is foolish to rejoice over an achievement if the nation has to pay dearly for it. After all, nothing is bigger than the nation. Here it must be mentioned that it is only Mr Vajpayee who could say all this against the prevalent thinking in the Sangh Parivar’s rank and file and get away with it. One hopes he succeeds in giving a new and healthy direction to his party by reminding it, as he did on Tuesday, that elections could not be fought and won on a single issue (as in Gujarat) in every part of this vast country. India is full of diversities. No responsible political player can afford to ignore this reality. |
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Metro comes to Delhi The crowd trouble during the first public run of the Delhi Metro on Wednesday threw out of gear the bandobast at Shahdara, Tis Hazari and the stations connecting the two points. The trouble could be attributed to the novelty factor as also the fact that the Christmas holiday gave the people the option not to wait until Sunday for trying out the state-of-the art mode of public transport. The Kolkata Metro had experienced similar teething trouble. Besides, the stretch between Shahdara and Tis Hazari is particularly crowded. That is why it was given priority over the other proposed sections to be covered by the Metro in due course of time. The authorities would do well to improve the crowd control arrangements to avoid the kind of scenes that marred the first public run of the superfast transport system. Road transport takes about 45 minutes for covering the short distance of 8.3 km between Shahdara and Tis Hazari. The Metro will take only 13 minutes to cover the same distance. This point alone should be sufficient to answer the criticism of those who had opposed the introduction of the Metro in Delhi because of the cost of creating the necessary infrastructure. According to one estimate, the introduction of the Metro, that will in due course connect the entire National Capital Region, will help reduce the nation’s petrol bill by a whopping amount of Rs 500 crore per annum. Unhappily, the Christmas eve inaugural ride was not smooth. Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee travelled in the Metro from Seelampur to Shahdara to formally inaugurate it at the other end! When he actually inaugurated the service by pressing a button an empty train moved out of Shahdara! Of course, it was a minor oversight. More disturbing was the political squabble between the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party. Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sonia Gandhi was invited to the inaugural function as an “ordinary VVIP” so that the media focus remained on Mr Vajpayee. Both parties wanted to take credit for the introduction of the new service with an eye on next year’s Assembly elections in Delhi. Who should take credit? Delhi’s Congress Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit had appointed the country’s leading technocrat, Mr E. Shreedharan, as the Managing Director of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation. He proved to be the magnet that attracted equally competent engineers to help him in meeting deadlines for the completion of the various segments of the project. Four days before the inauguration of the first phase the BJP-led government at the Centre appointed Mr Madan Lal Khurana as the Chairman of the
DMRC. The Congress leaders would not have sulked had the Centre followed the Delhi Government’s example and appointed a traffic management expert or an equally competent technocrat to provide “real” help and guidance to Mr Shreedharan. Incidentally, Mrs Dikshit travelled as an ordinary passenger on the first public run of the Metro on Wednesday. She took notice of the crowd trouble and promised to improve the bandobast based on her personal experience of why the situation went out of control at the Metro stations covered under the first phase. So what? Mr Khurana remains the Chairman of the
DMRC. |
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Silver lining for IT hardware There is always a silver lining. For the beleaguered information technology sector things are looking up and the latest prediction is that IT hardware exports are expected to go up. As more and more companies adopt information technology solutions, the demand for hardware has been increasing, especially because of the rapid computerisation in the banking sector which involves extensive networking, computer peripherals and communication hardware, such as switches and hubs, as well as security devices and firewalls. India’s software exports have been hogging the limelight, and rightly so, because they form the largest component of exports in this sector. However, we have to remember that for software to run, hardware is required. More and more computers are being upgraded because new software requires more powerful hardware and also over the years expectations have risen. There is no reason why India should not also become a base for hardware manufacturing. Indian hardware firms, under the umbrella of the Manufacturers Association of Information Technology (MAIT), have been making steady progress in lobbying for hardware technology parks, in line with software parks. MAIT is rightly asking for government help, which is freely available in other Asian nations, such as China and the South-East Asian “little tigers” like Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea that are in the forefront of hardware manufacturing. It must be pointed out that the surge in demand will eventually come from individuals, which will get a boost whenever software using local languages proliferates here. This is yet to happen in India. While our advantage of having a large English-speaking population of 500 million has worked wonders in getting an increasing amount of business from the West, both in the software and the service sector, the flip side is that it has worked against language localisation, which would open computer skills to many times the present number. More attention is required from software firms in this matter. In spite of this handicap, while the hardware sector might not grow at the rate which the IT and service sector is growing (around 20 per cent), it is expected to have a compounded annual growth rate of 9.5 per cent, which is quite creditable. This would translate in a growth from an estimated $2.3 billion to $ 6.78 billion by 2006. As the economic picture grows across the board, the decisions on IT spending, which have been deferred during the last fiscal year, are likely to be taken now. This could create more demand for IT hardware. |
Bush’s war on Iraq a certainty Until recently almost everybody used to say that the question wasn’t whether President George W. Bush of the United States of America would launch an invasion of Iraq but when. Now this query has become redundant. Those raring to go to war, with the “regime change” in Baghdad as its main objective, have themselves said and done enough to indicate that the D-Day would be sometime in February. As if this was not enough, a “famous” astrologer from Russia, of all places, Mr Pavel Globa, has been precise enough to state that the second Gulf War would begin at any time between February 18 and 20. Like all stargazers, however, he has kept an escape hatch, just in case. For, he says that a final decision on launching the offensive would be taken only on “January 4-5”. Mr Pavel needn’t have been so diffident. Mr Bush, who has idefinitely postponed his long-decided African safari, is hell-bent on completing, as early as possible, the task left unfinished by his father 12 years ago. Leave aside the scale and speed of the military build-up in the region, the reaction of the White House to all that President Saddam Hussein of Iraq has done to comply with UN Resolution 1441 speaks for itself. Many might agree with the USA that Mr Hussein’s 12,000-page reply to the UN questionnaire, even while UN weapons inspectors are continuing their totally unhindered search for hidden weapons of mass destruction (WMD), has some “gaps” and “omissions”. But surely this does not justify the American position that the way is now clear for war because it is for Baghdad to prove that it doesn’t possess what it says it doesn’t. This stands the fundamental principle of justice on its head. It is for the accuser and prosecutor to prove the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt, not for the accused to prove his or her innocence. Since Mr Hussein is not lacking in the instinct for self-preservation, he has gone an extra mile to meet American and British objections to Iraq’s declaration on WMD. His Chief Scientific Adviser, General Amir al-Saadi, has stated categorically that Iraq would answer any questions raised by Washington or London, and would allow CIA agents to “come and identify suspect sites for inspectors”. He has also announced that before December 31 Baghdad would also give the chief weapons inspector, Dr Hans Blix, the list of Iraqi scientists working on nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. The White House summarily rejected the Iraqi offer as a “stunt” but the UN weapons inspectors have chosen to “interrogate” the Iraqi scientists, if necessary, by inviting them outside Iraq. All this is little more than a formality, just as the debates in the UN Security Council and discussions with dissenting or skeptic allies are a charade. Mr Bush’s mind is made up. Iraq has got to be attacked, and Mr Saddam Hussein overthrown. The only constraint on him is that he cannot take precipitate action until February because Dr Blix has to give his final finding to the Security Council on January 27. Thanks largely to the firm stand taken by President Jacques Chirac of France before the adoption of the Security Council’s Resolution 1441, it cannot automatically trigger military action against President Hussein. This would be so even if the council agrees with the USA, that Iraq has committed a “major breach” of the UN resolution, which is far from being the case. A fresh resolution authorising war would have to be passed, and this is problematic judging by present comments by Russian and French Ambassadors to the UN. Moreover, the 10 rotating members of the Security Council - that would include Pakistan after January 1 — have yet to read the “filtered copies of Iraq’s 12,000-page tome”. They got these “cover sheets” only on December 17. But all these procedural niceties are of purely academic interest. The essence of Mr Bush’s doctrine of American unilateralism in a unipolar world is that the USA would impose its will on the world through the UN and other international institutions if possible and on its own whenever and wherever necessary. In the case of Iraq he is determined to go it alone, with such loyalists as Britain meekly following him. In all fairness, it would be wrong to say that the US President is being dangerously rash though he must be blamed for arrogance of power. He is right in calculating that those who do not like his unilateral action would lump it nonetheless. As one of Iraq’s neighbours, Turkey would look the other way. America’s hawkish Deputy Defence Secretary, Mr Paul Wolfowitz, after detailed talks in Ankara, has made sure of this. In other Arab countries there are likely to be angry demonstrations in the streets. But the regimes in the region, almost completely dependent on America for security, as in the case of Saudi Arabia, or for cash, as in that of Egypt, would go along. Among the big boys having permanent seats on the Security Council, Russia might make a strong but pro forma statement, France perhaps an even stronger one and China might temper its criticism with caution. But none of them would take on the USA or has the capacity to do so. Britain, of course, is already anxious to fight shoulder-to-shoulder with America. The British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, has reduced Britain’s “special relationship” with the USA to one of following America “nose to bum”, to borrow The Guardian’s words used in a different but similar context some years ago. Against such a backdrop this country has done well to spell out its policy on Iraq clearly. India considers Iraq, led by Mr Saddam Hussein, as a “consistent friend”. It does not approve of everything the Iraqi President has done. Indeed, it has urged him, publicly and privately, to abide, fully and faithfully, with all the UN resolutions. But it has opposed emphatically the very idea that anyone other than the Iraqi people should decide who would rule them. New Delhi has also voiced its disapproval of wars declared and fought unilaterally. India, of course, does not want to start a campaign of criticism against the USA as was in fashion during the Cold War era any more than Russia and China want to. Like them, this country, too, values maximum possible friendship and cooperation with the USA. The credit for articulating this sound policy that combines principle with pragmatism must go to the External Affairs Minister, Mr Yashwant Sinha. Until his arrival in South Block even the mildest criticism of America was taboo. Mr Sinha not only stated the Indian position candidly but also invited the Syrian Foreign Minister to Delhi to share Indian views and thoughts on the situation in the Gulf and West Asia. A pleasant surprise was a brief discussion in the Rajya Sabha focused entirely on Iraq in a day and age when Parliament has ceased to discuss foreign policy. During the Nehru era a foreign policy debate was a must in every session. The Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, fully endorsed the Iraq policy as articulated by his Foreign Minister. Remarkably, he did so on the solemn occasion of celebrating Guru Nanak’s birth anniversary at the Prime Minister’s House, recalling the great saint’s visit to Iraq 500 years ago. Even at the risk of stressing the obvious one more point must be made. Whatever President Bush’s other motivations for targeting Iraq and Mr Saddam Hussein, he evidently wants to divert attention from Afghanistan where the success of his war on the Taliban and Al-Qaida has at best been partial. Osama bin Laden, America’s “enemy number one”, and his cohorts are happily ensconced somewhere in the tribal areas of Pakistan, as are Mulla Umar and other top leaders of the Taliban. Conditions in Afghanistan, under President Hamid Karzai’s interim administration, remain precarious. Authoritative reports suggest that Al-Qaida desperadoes are still operating there. In spite of all this, America has reduced its military presence there to only 8,000 troops. Seasoned experts on the rugged country in the Hindu Kush region are apprehensive that, as in the past, so now, the USA might “declare victory and wash its hands of Afghanistan”. The question is whether the neighbours of the Afghans - Russia, India, Iran and so on - would be able to pick up the pieces. The last time Pakistan had the run of the place and Talibanisation of Afghanistan was the result. This invests Iranian President, Mohammed Khatami’s visit to this country next month with even greater importance than it would have had in any case. |
New GOC-in-C, Army Training Command, Shimla Hailing from a martial family, “JJ” or “Jogi” as he is fondly called, has seen active service in Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Joshimath and Jammu and Kashmir while serving with 9 and 7 Maratha LI. He was awarded the VSM for a major counter-insurgency operation in Arunachal Pradesh. Later, he commanded 5 Maratha LI at Hyderabad as a Colonel. A consistent front-runner, JJ is the youngest and one of the first few in his batch to do the Staff College senior and higher commands and National Defence College courses. JJ served as India’s first Defence Attache in Algeria during 1987-90. On his return from Algeria, he successfully commanded a mountain brigade in the Baramula sector during the counter-insurgency operations in 1991-92. Wounded in action in a fierce engagement with terrorists, he was awarded the COAS Commendation and nominated for the prestigious NDC course in 1994. He commanded 9 Infantry Division with distinction during 1996-98 and was transferred to Army Headquarters as ADGMO where he served an eventful period lasting 34 months. While serving as ADGMO (A) he was decorated with AVSM in the execution of the Kargil war. On promotion he assumed the command of 1 Corps in Mathura on January 26, 2001. He successfully conducted Corps-level exercise “Poorna Vijay” during May, 2001. In October the same year the regiment by an overwhelming verdict elected him as Colonel of the Maratha LI. He took over the reigns of the regiment from Lieut-Gen Vijay Oberoi, PVSM, AVSM, VSM and ADC on his retirement. Born in Bahawalpur, now in Pakistan, JJ’s family migrated to Patiala following the traumatic Partition in 1947. A third generation soldier, his grandfather served in 1/67 Punjab Regiment during World War I in Mesopotamia and Kut-al-Amara along with 103rd, 105th, 110th, 114th and 117th Mahrattas. His father Lieut-Col J S Marwah (retd) was in the EME from 1943 to 1973. Kanwal Rekhi’s saga in USA Excelan went public in 1987 and merged with networking major Novell in 1989. In recent years, Mr Rekhi has become the dominant investor among the Silicon Valley’s affluent Indian community. He has funded 12 small companies — all started by Indian-Americans in the past three years. Mr Rekhi, 56, is the third of eight children of an Indian Army officer. He grew up in Kanpur. Born in Rawalpindi, now in Pakistan, Mr Rekhi’s family shifted to India when he was barely two. Like thousands of other families, Mr Rekhi’s family had left behind their property and possessions in Pakistan. “We left Pakistan with nothing but the clothes on our backs,” he recalled in an interview. “Being uprooted every so often is good because the insecurity is the most necessary thing for growth. That’s why immigrants succeed in their adopted countries at a higher percentage than the natives,” Mr Rekhi observed. He is the President of the Indo-US Enterpreneurs (TiE), a non-profit global network of enterpreneurs with over 40 chapters in eight countries. |
Significance of Gita today While at Angers a graduate student of the Universite of D’ Angers, France, politely asked me: “Explain to me why today’s intelligent man whose mind is the most scientifically advanced about everything in this universe and who is gradually losing faith in religious texts should, as you say, turn around and start reading “The Bhagavad Gita”, which provides one with the teachings delivered centuries ago by Krishna to Arjuna on the battlefield. This is the question that many young educated minds do often ask me. The answer to this question is not so simple as one may think. In fact, the vast majority of people, in both conservative and secular milieu, throughout today have been seeking not to be deprived of the chance of living by science alone, for true scientific thinking raises man’s consciousness to that high level of suspension which acts like a “filter to clear the mud from the muddy water.” Moreover, living in the world of knowledge explosion today’s man has lost faith in myths, superstitions, man-made imaginings about God, religious institutions which very often result not only in an enhancement of the separate personal self and an eclipsing of truth but also in bad ends: the poisoning, slandering, denying of life, hatred for the body, the condemnation and self-violation of man through the idea of sin and abysmal vulgarity. However, before I answer the above question I feel impelled to utter a few words of warning in regard to “The Bhagavad Gita”. The Bhagavad Gita is neither a religious book nor a book of the worst obscurantist fundamentalism. Unfortunately scholars and commentators of “The Gita” have favoured the view for several centuries now that its response to life is “moral,” “religious” and even “spiritual”, and that it advocates the idea of renunciation which is now regarded with distrust by almost every human being in every part of the world. “The Bhagavad Gita” is non-religious book and is not addressed to any community in particular. Unlike the other religious books it is not a study in myths, linking primitive concepts and modes of thought to the many institutions and customs they underlie. It is not a book of any religious authority but a great book of science whose philosophy is vast, multi-layered and complex. It, in particular, represents (of course in a complexly scientific manner) a profoundly significant and important contribution to the philosophy of karma done in freedom. In fact, Krishna’s perception of life here is no different from that of a scientist and that is why The Gita’s fame in Europe and other countries has gone far beyond the bounds of Indology. The greatest blessing that “The Bhagavad Gita” can offer today to our generation suffering from confusion, tension, unhappiness, violence and fear is not any appreciation of the powers of God or Allah or any mythological ancestor of the human race (in fact, there is — if understood in its penetration — no concept of God in the Gita) but the principle of Karma, whose aphoristic profundity and relevance to human life is to be accepted as the core of its wisdom. And this philosophy of karma or the technique of enlightening oneself by the path of right action presents a complete practical wisdom of life, beginning from the evolution of consciousness and ending in the state of fulfilment. Moreover, “The Gita” creates a perception of the whole creation in the readers’ mind by structuring its ideas about parkriti (nature) in such a scientific manner as to make him realise that everything in creation — which in its entirety displays the interplay of three gunas (sativa, rajas and tamas, born of parkriti or nature) evolves through karma (activity) only. Therefore, a proper understanding of “karmas” — which do come under the influence of these gunas that make man’s life toss about as “ship on the rough sea from one wave to another” — would provide one (as it did in case of the rationalist not ignorant Arjuna on the battlefield) with a dharma (path) guided by wisdom that calls upon humans to transcend the human condition (e.g. negative thinking which is responsible for giving birth to, world of lies, devils and diseases) and live the integrated life in all its “truth and fullness.” Once this is done, one need not to go to any god or temple or church, or perform any ritual to satisfy God or gods. Hence, today when we are aspiring for revival of true life and living “The Bhagavad Gita” will be worthy of reading, contemplating and practising. |
How USA tilted towards Pakistan during the Bangladesh war That the USA put its full weight behind Pakistan during the Bangladesh war in 1971, is a fact well known to everyone in India. But Washington has never conceded this fully. Now, full 31 years after the independence of Bangladesh, documents declassified by the US government and tape recordings connected with US policy towards India and Pakistan during that crisis give a lie to the public US assertions. The documents reveal in sordid detail how the infamous “Tilt” directed by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger unfolded. Discussing the martial law situation in East Pakistan during March, 1971, President Richard Nixon, in his February 9, 1972 State of the World report to Congress indicated that the “United States did not support or condone this (Pakistani) military action.” However, the USA did nothing to help curtail the genocide and never made any public statements in opposition to the West Pakistani repression, the Electronic Briefing Book of the National Security Archive reveals. Instead, by using what Nixon and Kissinger called quiet diplomacy, the Administration gave a green light of sorts to the Pakistanis. In one instance, Nixon declared to a Pakistani delegation that “Yahya (Khan) is a good friend.” Rather than express concern over the ongoing brutal military repression, Nixon explained that he “understands the anguish of the decisions which (Yahya) had to make.” As a result of Yahya’s importance to the China initiative and his friendship with Nixon and Kissinger, Nixon declares that the USA “would not do anything to complicate the situation for President Yahya or to embarrass him”. Ironically, the same policy is being repeated after 9/11, with Washington hesitant to criticise Pakistan publicly out of fear that such a tactic might weaken the dictator’s support for American interests. Declassified documents show that in addition to tilting towards Pakistan in its public statements, the USA also followed a pro-Pakistan line in the UN, in discussions with China, and on the battlefield as well. Not only did the USA publicly pronounce India as the aggressor in the war, but it sent the nuclear submarine, U.S.S. Enterprise, to the Bay of Bengal, and authorised the transfer of US military supplies to Pakistan, despite the apparent illegality of doing so. American Military assistance was formally cut off to both India and Pakistan. A combination of Nixon’s emotional attachment to General Yahya and his dislike for Indira Gandhi, West Pakistan’s integral involvement with the China initiative and Kissinger’s predilection for power politics greatly influenced American policy decision-making during this conflict. Highlights from this briefing book include: * Cable traffic from the US Consulate in Dacca revealing the brutal details of the genocide conducted in East Pakistan by the West Pakistani Martial Law Administration. In the infamous Blood telegram (Document 8), the Consulate in Dacca condemns the USA for failing “to denounce the suppression of democracy,” for failing “to denounce atrocities,” and for “bending over backwards to placate the West Pak(istan)dominated government and to lessen any deservedly negative international public relations impact against them.” *
Details of the role that the China initiative and Nixon’s friendship with Yahya (and dislike of Indira Gandhi) played in U.S. policymaking, leading to the tilting of US policy towards Pakistan. This includes a Memorandum of Conversation (Document 13) in which Kissinger indicates to Ambassador Keating: “The President has a special feeling for President Yahya. One cannot make policy on that basis, but it is a fact of life.” [Documents 9, 13, 17-21, 24-25] *
Greater insight into the role played by the USA in South Asia. While the USA tried to ease the humanitarian crisis in East Pakistan, it did not strongly endorse to Yahya the need for a political solution, which would have allowed the peaceful and safe return of refugees. While some historians believe the roots of the 1971 war were sown following the 1965 India-Pakistan war, the declassified documents show that the 1971 war had its own specific causes: a tremendous refugee flow (approximately 10 million people), Indian support to the Mukti Bahini, and continued military repression in East Pakistan. All these causes were exacerbated by the lack of public White House criticism for the root cause of the South Asian crisis, the abrogation of the December 1970 election results, and the refugee crisis that ensued following genocide. [Documents 12, 16, 22, 27, 46] *
Henry Kissinger’s duplicity to the press and toward the Indians vis-à-vis the Chinese. In July of 1971, while Kissinger was in India, he told Indian officials that “under any conceivable circumstance the USA would back India against any Chinese pressures.” In that same July meeting Kissinger said: “In any dialogue with China, we would of course not encourage her against India.” However, near the end of the India-Pakistan war, in a highly secret 12/10/1971 meeting with the Chinese Ambassador to the UN Huang Ha, Kissinger did exactly this encouraging the PRC to engage in the equivalent of military action against the Indians. [Documents 14-15, 30-32] Details of U.S. support for military assistance to Pakistan from China, the Middle East, and even from the United States itself. Henry Kissinger’s otherwise thorough account of the India-Pakistan crisis of 1971 in his memoir White House Years, omits the role the United States played in Pakistan’s procurement of American fighter planes, perhaps because of the apparent illegality of shipping American military supplies to either India or Pakistan after the announced cutoff. Of particular importance in this selection of documents is a series of transcripts of telephone conversations from December 4 and 16, 1971(Document 28) in which Kissinger and Nixon discuss, among other things, third-party transfers of fighter planes to Pakistan. Also of note is a cable from the Embassy in Iran dated December 29, 1971 (Document 44) which suggests that F-5 fighter aircraft, originally slated for Libya but which were being held in California, were flown to Pakistan via Iran. |
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Fish cuts stroke risk Eating fish as infrequently as once or twice a month reduces the risk of the most common type of stroke by almost half, researchers have said. Fish contains Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids that enhance blood flow and help prevent formation of the blood clots and blockages that cause most ischemic strokes. “Men who consumed fish two times a month or more had almost half the risk of stroke as compared with men who never ate fish,” said the study author, Dr. Alberto Ascherio of the Harvard School of Public Health. “There seemed to be no benefit in eating fish very frequently, so eating fish just a few times per month was just as good as eating fish almost every day,” he said. “Our study didn’t look at the specific type of fish. We can only conclude that eating fish in general is likely to be beneficial to prevent stroke,” Ascherio said. The study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association involved more than 43,000 men who were between 40 and 75 years old at the start of the 12-year survey in 1986. The study found those who consumed just one to three 5-ounce portions of fish per month cut their risk of ischemic stroke by 43 percent. Those who ate fish five or more times per week only enjoyed a slightly enhanced benefit.
Reuters
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The son commits many faults, The mother does not take them to heart; I am your child, I am your son, Lord will you not pardon my sins? If a child in anger runs and hits his mother, She bears no grudge Nor takes offence; I am your child, I am your son, Lord, will you not pardon my sins? My mind sinks Into a gloom of anxiety: How will I reach The opposite shore Without the power of Nam? I am your child, I am your son, Lord, will you not pardon my sins? Dear Lord, bless Kabir with a pure heart, A clear mind, That he easily attains Sahaj state And becomes absorbed in your
virtues I am your child, I am your son, Lord will you not pardon my sins. — Sri Guru Granth Sahib, Rag Asa, page 478
*** Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. — The Bible, Ephesians 4:32 *** The worst of men are those who will not forgive. — Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia, 4849 *** Forgive us, O Lord, If immersed in our own affairs, We have committed sins against Divine powers, Forgive us For our sins Against men, sins against elders, And sins against our own conscience. And for all sins that we have committed knowingly, And those which we might have committed unawares. — Yajurveda, 8.13 Compiled by Satish K. Kapoor |
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Lieut-Gen Joginder Jaswant Singh, AVSM, VSM, takes over as the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Army Training Command in Shimla on New Year’s day on promotion after having been GOC of the elite 1 Corps in Mathura. An
officer of the NDA’s 25th Course, he was commissioned from the IMA in August, 1964, into 9 Maratha LI raised in Belgaum in October the same year. He received the colours for the 9 Marathas from the then President Zakir Hussain in 1968. 
Indians are joining the big league globally. Venture capitalist Kanwal Rekhi has joined US-based software firm Ensim Corporation as President and CEO. The son of Sikh refugees, Mr Rekhi landed in the USA in 1967 after doing his electrical engineering graduation from the IIT, Mumbai. As one of the founding-investors of Ensim Corp, a leading provider of software for the web boosting industry, Mr Rekhi was named enterpreneur of the year in 1987 by the Arthur-Young and Venture magazine and has more than 20 years experience in building successful technology companies. In 1982, Rekhi, a successful businessman in his own right, co-founded a networking company Excelan. He became its CEO in 1985.