 |
Tuesday,
January 7, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
|
Granting dual citizenship Clueless Congress Cracks in US-Pak alliance |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Depressing state of higher education
New kids on the block
Aftermath of PM’s Goa musings
Cloning: wrecking or saving lives?
|
Granting dual citizenship THE Indian diaspora had been clamouring for dual citizenship for long. But the government was dilly-dallying because the security angle involved in it was proving to be a nightmare. Now that it has decided to go ahead with the move, it will have to make comprehensive arrangements to ensure that the facility is not misutilised. For every 100 genuine persons of Indian origin (PIOs) who want to keep ties with the country of their birth intact because of nostalgia or love for one’s past, there is at least one who covets this facility for subversive reasons. Anti-India forces can hijack the well-meaning gesture to gain easy mobility within the country. It can also provide simpler access to funds and sources of information. These apprehensions arise because secessionist movements in Punjab, Kashmir as well as the North-East have had foreign support and funding sources. Sifting grain from chaff will be quite a tedious job. The government has sought to install two filters. First, the dual citizenship will be granted only to those living in countries like the USA, the UK and Australia which allow for dual citizenship. There are about 20 million PIOs all over the world. By this measure, the number will come down to about one-fourth. Two, the citizenship grant will not be automatic. Everyone will have to apply for it and the government will decide on a case-to-case basis. That again is going to be a massive administrative exercise, which is unlikely to remain foolproof. Then there is also the ticklish issue of legal requirements. Article 9 of the Constitution specifically says: “No person shall be a citizen of India if he has voluntarily acquired the citizenship of any foreign State.” Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani insists that the Constitution need not be amended to include provisions on dual citizenship. The Citizenship Act, 1952, could be amended or a special piece of legislation enacted by an Act of Parliament could be put in place once the formal announcement was made. However, there are constitutional experts who hold a contrary view. A legal battle may ensue. Those getting dual citizenship will get visa facilities and will also be able to purchase or own property in India without going through the present red tape. This will lead to a property boom. But they won’t be entitled to vote or contest elections. Still, dual citizenship will create a three-tier structure of Indians living abroad. First will be those with American or British nationality who could also claim Indian citizenship. Second will be the Indians living in the Gulf who have only Indian nationality. Third will be the Indians living in the countries which do not allow dual citizenship. These differences will cause a lot of heart-burn. By the way, what will happen if some country happens to revoke the dual citizenship policy? Will India reciprocate the gesture? |
|
Clueless Congress AT some point of time when the obituary of the Congress is written, analysts will have a tough time identifying what kept it going for so long after Independence. Its present leadership will earn the dubious distinction of trying very hard to press the destruct button. The irony is that the hard it tries to become irrelevant, the more stronger it emerges. Perhaps, it is the absence of a credible secular and democratic option that has so far seen the party provide glimpses of regaining its pre-eminent place in Indian politics. But from the tone and tenor of the decisions taken at the Congress Working Committee meeting in Delhi on Sunday it is clear that the scale of the Gujarat fiasco has made most Congress leaders lose the all-important sense of direction for political survival. This element alone saw Indira Gandhi face stiff political challenges with amazing ease. Of course, the Gujarat campaign itself was highly flawed. Instead of chalking out a strategy that was strikingly different from that of the Bharatiya Janata Party, Mrs Sonia Gandhi used the same tools that Mr Narendra Modi had chosen for re-establishing his hold over the electorate. He began his campaign by praying at a temple. Mrs Sonia Gandhi too began the Congress campaign by offering prayers at a temple. Had she offered a diametrically different option and followed an aggressive politically correct secular path, that promised to take the state away from the road chosen by Mr Modi, the electorate may have given a different verdict. The CWC meeting offered nothing new. It merely added to the confusion of the average Congress worker as also the party's sympathisers who believe that the Congress is the only viable political option for resurrecting the people's faith in secularism. Mrs Sonia Gandhi is not known for following a consistent and clear political line. At Sunday's meeting she was led into negating the earlier resolutions that sought to distance the Congress from parties with similar ideological inclinations. The fact of the matter is no two political parties have a substantially identical programmes. Now that it has decided to do political business with "like- minded" parties for securing the secular vote, it has sent out a clear signal to grassroots workers that the party they have placed their faith in simply does not have the strength to go it alone. But the party is sure to run into difficulty identifying "like-minded" organisations for doing political business. Unhappily from the Congress’s point of view, "like-mindedness" is a concept that has seldom been recognised as a valid political strategy. The Janata Party was a conglomerate of "unlike-minded" outfits and, therefore, collapsed. What about the initiative that saw Mr V. P. Singh replace Rajiv Gandhi as the Mr Clean of Indian politics? It did not last long. Pre-election arrangements with regional parties demand greater sacrifice than would be good for the political health of the Congress. In any case, few parties have as confused and politically inept leaders as the Congress has. This fact alone may come in the way of the Congress seeking political alliance with "like-minded" parties. |
|
Cracks in US-Pak alliance THE recent clashes between US and Pakistani armed forces in the Waziristan tribal area are the undeniable symptoms of the marriage of convenience between the two countries nearing the breaking stage. The Pervez Musharraf regime had agreed to become part of the US-led coalition against terrorism after the September 11 developments in America as a tactical move to protect Pakistan’s interests despite its being knee-deep in terrorism and the people’s strong opposition to the unnatural arrangement. While India has provided enough proof of Pakistan’s involvement in cross-border terrorism, the strong anti-American sentiment in that country has never been hidden. Immediately after the military action against Afghanistan’s Taliban and Al-Qaida forces large-scale anti-US demonstrations were organised by religious organisations, which constituted the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) to contest the recently held elections. The MMA todays is the ruling party in both states bordering Afghanistan ----- Baluchistan and North-West Frontier Province. It is these two areas where anti-US feelings are too strong to be suppressed. But this is so mainly because of the tribal factor. The Pushtun tribes have a strong concentration on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan divide. Most Taliban and Al-Qaida recruits were also Pushtuns. These tribal people have been resisting the US drive against Taliban and Al-Qaida cadres in their areas. The situation has taken a turn for the worse with the American forces dropping a 500-pound bomb flattening a madarsa building in a southern Waziristan tribal agency and killing a member of the Waziristan Scouts, composed of Pushtuns. Pakistan is in trouble from various angles. The area in the news is a disputed territory between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Recently the Hamid Karzai government had accused Pakistan of violating Afghanistan’s territorial integrity in its over-enthusiasm to cooperate with the USA in pursuit of Taliban and Al-Qaida cadres. The provincial regime in NWFP is reluctant in extending any assistance to American and Pakistani forces. The USA has, however, asserted that it will not budge even an inch from its “hot pursuit” policy to track down terrorists, particularly those belonging to the two outfits chased out of Afghanistan. As a result, Pakistan is faced with serious difficulties, which were otherwise built in the fake anti-terrorism understanding reached with the USA. Islamabad wants Washington to abandon its “hot pursuit” policy as it fears that India too might feel encouraged to follow it in Occupied Kashmir. Islamabad’s fears are, however, unrealistic as India knows it well that this is not possible owing to the American presence in the region. Pakistan’s ploy is to use the India angle to settle the problem it now faces with regard to the US drive against the Taliban and Al-Qaida. The USA has adopted a soft line for handling the Waziristan crisis as its primary target today is Iraq. Otherwise it could have given hell to the regime in Islamabad. The tribal people do not understand these intricacies. They may begin the process of the US-Pakistan fraudulent alliance coming to an abrupt end. |
Depressing state of higher education PRIME Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee did not appear quite jubilant while inaugurating the UGC golden jubilee celebrations on December 28. That should dampen the spirit to rejoice, inspire a desire for change for improvement, and stimulate fresh and action-oriented thinking. The academicians and the user public have been raising questions, repeatedly, on several occasions and on several fora: Has the higher education system in India, with the UGC at its top, really delivered? Has it achieved the lofty objective of providing wholesome education? Has it followed the path it had to traverse, without drifting? Has the education given in the universities been socially relevant? Has there been a satisfactory link between higher education and productivity and employment? Has the system led to effective innovations in industry, agriculture and other economic areas for speedy and sustainable economic growth? Has the excellence of sensibility in literature, humanities and liberal arts been pursued to a level that instills hope and happiness? Have pure sciences made some significant contribution to the cause of promoting scientific search for truth? Has the higher education system been able to prepare the entrant youth to face the challenges of the new globalised markets as managers and entrepreneurs? Has the UGC performed its control and development functions satisfactorily? Is it not that the system is bogged down to only quantitative expansion of higher education? Has the quality of higher education under the UGC control (that is excluding the IITs, IIMs, etc) not deteriorated? Has it helped build human beings, men and women of character? Yes, these and several other questions stare us in the face. Naturally, the Prime Minister was not impressed by this state of affairs. He expressed the view that the future path of the UGC should be radically different from the present one and laid a road map for reforms in the education sector. He asked,If the UGC’s future path is going to be radically different than traversed so far, why not give yourself a new name that better conveys your mandate and your mission — University Education Development Commission — rather than UGC”. Hopefully, Mr Vajpayee’s advice shall set the ball rolling toward an appropriate restructuring of the UGC and the higher education system. It is expected that the problems of the higher education system will be properly identified. Albert Einstein wrote in 1938, “The formulation of a problem is far more often essential than its solution, …” (see Albert Einstein and L. Infeld, “The Evolution of Physics” New York: Simon & Schuster p.95] one hopes a scientific process of reaching the most desirable solutions shall be followed before any restructuring is done. Often the problems in reality are different from what men in authority may perceive, and the optimum solutions may be quite divergent from those recommended by them. The concern in this article is only limited to the financing aspects of higher education, an immediate response to the need for an innovative financial model underscored in Mr Vajpayee’s speech. He stated unequivocally, “If we cannot make the rich pay fair value for education, how can we make it widely available to the poor.” A financial model that is based on some simple principles of economics/marketing is outlined. It can be implemented by the universities with little structural change. Empirical evidence suggests that the quality of education at an institution, and thereby its growth and prestige, increases with the amount of finances available. Richer the institution, better is the quality of teachers, better is the infrastructure facility, better is the quality of education, better is the quality of the output (that is passing out students). A better quality of the output enhances the prestige of the institution. This in turn leads to demand-led improvement in the quality of its input (students seeking admission and teachers willing to come to the institution). True, the quality of education is not merely a product of greater resources and better facilities, as the Prime Minister said. Yet, exceptions apart, other causal variables of quality of education respond significantly positively to the financial resources. It may not be an exaggeration to say that even the quality of optimal use of finances depends on how rich the institution is. It has been found that rich institutions utilise their resources better than poor institutions. Even the attitude of teachers to teach and students to learn is found to be better in rich institutions. One can find umpteen examples of lack of proper maintenance and wasteful purchases at the end of the financial year by institutions suffering from the paucity of funds. The institutions that lack financial resources also suffer from student indiscipline and the casual approach of teachers more as compared to the rich institutions. The vicious cycle holds: an institution is poor because it is poor. The corollary holds more strongly: an institution is rich because it is rich. One is reminded of Bhartrihari’s “Nitishatak” where the fact of life is clearly stated as: ‘Yasyasti vittam sa narah kulinah Sa panditah sa shrutvana gunagya Sa eva vakta sa cha darshaniyah Sarvey gunah kanachanamashrayanti’ An approximate English meaning of the famous quote is: One who has financial resources, only he is from high clan, only he is knowledgeable, only he is valuable listener, only he is speaker, only he is attractive looking. Indeed, all virtues are embodied in wealth. The statement is quite apt in the present context. Thus, if government funding to the universities is cut while the universities do not have an alternative system of finances, as was indicated by the attitude of the government recently, the consequences as regards the quality of higher education are obvious. The universities produce education (or, to be more accurate, confer degrees that are supposed to be certificates for having acquired education!). They are monopolists as regards conferring degrees. No other organisation can confer a degree formally. Yet, paradoxically, they have to run door to door to obtain grants. They use means which sometimes tantamount to begging. Why can’t the universities keep their heads high and demand from society the payment for the services they provide. A university can develop a fee structure, which is cost-based, is differentiating among courses, is discriminating among income classes and which will propel them to achieve self-reliance. The universities should fix the cost of each course scientifically. It is not easy. For example, how to distribute overheads over different courses, or how to annualise the costs of equipment, buildings and other assets that have a long life. It is expected that the faculty of management/commerce shall be able to do it. It must be clearly recognised that some subjectivity is bound to occur in the estimation process. Some arbitrariness will certainly be there. Objectivity and accuracy are the objective goals, yet, unfortunately, subjectivity and approximation are the facts of life, even in management! The idea is that the total annual cost of each course per student must be estimated even if somewhat approximate. It is time the universities brought in the concept of costs and course-based fee differential while deciding their fee structures. It is obvious that different courses will cost differently. For example, an English MA will cost less than Chemistry M Sc. The principle is that the universities should charge a higher fee for a course that costs more. Naturally, a student pursuing M Sc. in Chemistry will pay a higher fee as compared to the one who pursues MA in English. Different courses have different intensity of demand. For example, MBA is in demand more than M Com. The principle is, “charge a higher fee for the course that has greater demand”. Thus, the fee for an MBA course must be higher than that for an M Com.. Indeed, the total revenue from a course much in demand could be more than its costs. While from another course not that much in demand but considered necessary to be offered, it could be less than its costs. The constraint is that the overall total revenue from all the courses is at least equal to the total cost of all the courses. The next principle is that the rich must pay a higher fee than the poor for the same course. Indeed, the concept of income-elasticity can be used to decide a fee structure. It is well accepted that the demand for education for a family becomes less elastic as the income of the family increases. Thus, the rich families will seek admission for their wards even at a higher fee in their self-interest. The rich should be, and can be, charged a fee that is more than the average cost per student of a course. The poor should be charged less than the average cost per student. Again the constraint is that the overall total revenue from all the students must be at least equal to the total costs of all the courses. In this system, the rich will pay for the education of the poor not on sympathetic considerations but for their self-interest. The principle of equity and justice is paramount. At the time of implementing this proposal, quite a bit of fine-tuning will be required. To start with, the current level of the activities at a university can be taken as the base for costing purpose. In the long run, however, the activity portfolio of the universities will need to be dynamically improved in tune with the social needs. The concept of merit and means can be easily incorporated in the model. People may conceal their true incomes to benefit from the discriminating fee structure as they may be doing while filing their income tax returns. An effective control mechanism can be devised to minimise such unscrupulousness. Other sources of finances must be welcome. For example, if any organisation, including the government, wants to give a grant without strings, it is acceptable. The idea is that the universities should not depend on such funding sources for survival. I believe the model proposed here is feasible operationally. It is in tune with the need of the hour. It shall help mitigate major problems facing the universities. Of course, it requires political will. I believe if the principles of equity and justice in-built in the system are succinctly explained, costs are scientifically computed and the principles of how these are used in deciding a fee structure are laid bare, and its link with the long-term interest of the higher education system per se is clearly delineated, the political pressure groups presently opposed to any attempt to enhance students’ fees by the universities can also be taken along to have their cooperation in implementation. The writer is a Professor at the University Business School, Panjab University, Chandigarh. |
New kids on the block HENRY was driving us home for a night cap, some home-made French wine and coffee. He was making a special trip to Montreal to meet friends from India as his Indian wife, Kiran, had organised a big dinner. In between the drive Henry asked his wife: “How is Duke doing?” “He is recovering, I have asked the physio to visit home to give massage,” replied Kiran. “Well, arthritis is bad for him,” said Henry. I thought all was not well at the home of Henry and Kiran. Silence prevailed till we reached their home. Henry rushed straight to see Duke while we were put up in the living room by Kiran. After a while Henry walked back to the living room, followed by a big German shepherd wagging his tail and dragging his feet. “Folks, meet Duke!” said Henry. On my next stop in San Diego, one of my former scholars, Joseph, came to receive me at the airport. As we sat in his brand new top of the line Mercedes, I complimented him. As he proudly started explaining the unique features of his car, there was an SMS on his cellphone. It was his wife who sounded anxious. I said to him: “All is well?” He replied: “Suzy is unwell; has not eaten for a day and threw up. You know, she misses me, and I was out of town for a couple of days”. All I knew was that the Josephs have two sons, and I had no idea of any new additions to their family since my last visit, that was same four years ago. As we reached home Suzy welcomed us and jumped on Joseph and expressed all her love for him. Suzy (a female German shepherd) was really missing him! I suddenly realised that it was a great time to be a canine. It reminded me of the article and the advertisement that I was reading in the airline magazine. It was all about the New York Dog Spa and Hotel. It was described like this: “Some clients sit under hairdryers; others relax in the lounge, still others indulge in luxurious baths followed by a manicure. There is no class system, all kinds of clients, mutts, purebreds, celebrity dogs, and rescued greyhounds, all are welcome. Private suite for $250 a night with VCR and a rooftop solarium, where he can stroll the English garden and lap purified water from a bubbling fountain.” It further said that one could get the following facilities: private obedience lessons ($600), chanel leather collar set ($265), Oh My Dog doggy perfume ($57), pet spa ($275), pool dog party ($640), leather jacket ($110), dog chow ($68), photography session ($800) and funeral and casket, including tombstone ($1600)! More and more people in the West have fewer children or prefer to have no children. When they come home after a long day, pets (dogs) are a big social part of their lives, stress relievers and literally act as members of the family. Raising them costs more than raising and caring for children, said Henry, “but then they are obedient”. It is a kind of sacrifice one would make on behalf of a child. After all, dogs are the new kids, at least in the western society.
|
Aftermath of PM’s Goa musings WHATEVER may be the explanations, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee’s outbursts against the exclusivist programmes of the VHP have put the parivar in greater confusion. So far the protests have come mainly from the Ayodhya group of VHP hotheads like Giriraj Kishore. Their ire is not confined to the Goa musings. It has been an omnibus assault on all those who had “betrayed the Hindus” on the Ram temple issue. It is not that the RSS establishment is not angry with Vajpayee for his condemnation of their “narrow, rigid and extremist” interpretations of Hindutva. Even the top BJP leaders, including the routine “think tank” writers, have been repeatedly ridiculing secularism as ‘pseudo’ and western. Vajpayee now rejects this contention and says: “India has been secular since the beginning of her history.” They cannot also be happy with him for assailing the “unfortunate and unacceptable interpretation (by the RSS) that runs contrary to (their) Hindutva’s true spirit.” Despite such embarrassment, the parivar and its friends in the BJP have not yet been able to tackle Vajpayee’s new advaita. At the academic level, RSS circles assure us that they will soon come out with a detailed counter to Vajpayee on the issues he had raised at Goa. They will carry on the “ideological” fight at a different plane without making it an intra-parivar acrimony. The BJP side has also been pleading with the parivar leaders not to commit any strategical folly when post-Gujarat politics is moving in Hindutva's favour. While striving hard to restrain the RSS establishment, the BJP side's main concern is how to put the different irreconcilable formulations in the musings to best use during the forthcoming elections. Should the party ignore it altogether? Can it use the harmony part of it to assuage the feelings of the large minority sections in the not-so-communalised states which are going to the polls? These are the issues being talked about among the effective leadership of the BJP. If the RSS establishment raises a hue and cry about the Vajpayee matrix, it will upset such calculations. It is widely acknowledged that Vajpayee’s Goa musings have not been able to achieve two of its three objectives. At Kumarakom, his effort was to uphold his liberal image which had eroded following his earlier remarks that the construction of the Ram temple at Ayodhya “reflected the national sentiments which is yet to be realised.” It is a different matter if this explanation had failed to carry little conviction with either the VHP or the liberal spectrum. The thrust of the Goa musings has been his anxiety to be seen above the controversies proped up by the Gujarat model. The opposition has rejected it as a ruse and the parivar seems to be ignoring it. The second objective has been to reassure the NDA partners that he is still very much in command and they could well go by his interpretations of the secularism and Hindutva. Without any direct mention, he tries to put across the view that the acceptance of Hindutva as being secular (as he has laboured to prove on the authority of Vivekananda and Tagore) will ipso facto make it acceptable to the allies. Those NDA allies who wish to clutch to any new hopes trotted out them may find it satisfying until they come face-to-face with his designer Hindutva on the ground. His third aim has been to persuade the parivar into accepting his view of Hindutva as being most practical. Since he has firmly put across his view, instead of a confrontation, he seems to feel that the RSS may restrain its outfits from
pushing it to the brink. While it is obvious that Vajpayee’s endeavour is not going to work this time, the arguments he has put forth and the tools he has applied to establish his thesis from the Taj hotel resort do call for a closer look for its academic significance. Part of it may be a repetition of the old tired arguments. But he has tried to attractively package it. For this, he has adopted an advaita — “both are same” — kind of argumentation with regard to the three controversial contemporary politico-religious expressions. First he does the most indefensible — of super-imposing Hindutva over Hinduism. Surprisingly, few commentators have even taken note of his equating these two contradictory expressions. Hinduism is a positive expression devoid of any hatred. It simply denotes being a Hindu or of Hindu. Hindutva is a 20th century connotation which expounds a doctrine of Hindu exclusivism and hatred towards other religions. Being a founder member of the BJP and its former incarnation Bharatiya Jana Sangh, Vajpayee may not be unaware of this clear distinction. Vir Savarkar who had coined the word Hindutva had himself specified its aggressive dimensions. Unlike an average Hindu, adherents of the Hindutva don’t subscribe to equality of religions and harmonious co-existence with others. The latter advocates Hindu exclusivism and supremism. A person like Vajpayee is not expected to confuse the two words which have become the central point of a raging controversy. By arguing that Hinduism and Hindutva are one and same — advaita — he adds more confusion to the debate. Next he tries to equate secularism with Hindutva. Vajpayee is right when he reiterates the widely endorsed position that Hinduism’s acceptance of the diversity of faiths is the central feature of secularism in India. The problem arises when he tries to equate secularism with Hindutva. And hence all his laborious efforts to depict the two as the same — advaita — convince few. Contrary to what he argues, secularism is not just a “concept of the state, enjoining upon it the duty to show respect for all faiths and to practise no discrimination among citizens on the basis of their beliefs.” It is also an attitude, a mindset and a way of life to be followed by its people. There is a vague attempt here to assign different roles for the NDA government and the BJP as a party. But it is not that explicit. After equating secularism with Hindutva, he tries to attribute the “true spirit” Hinduism to Hindutva. “Hindutva is liberal, liberating and brooks no ill-will, hatred or violence among different communities on any ground.” Hence he asserts that “the current controversy over Hindutva will be seen as wholly unnecessary.” Unfortunately, neither the Hindutva zealouts nor the rest will subscribe to this kind of sweeping conclusions. |
|
Cloning: wrecking or saving lives? PRODUCING cloned babies appals many people, but some scientists think the same technology, harnessed to a different end, could hasten the search for new ways to treat incurable diseases. The dividing line lies between reproductive cloning -- making babies that are genetically identical to another individual -- and therapeutic cloning, in which embryos are created so scientists can mine them for stem cells, the master cells of the body. Advocates of reproductive cloning include the Raelian Movement, a cult that believes aliens landed on Earth 25,000 years ago and started the human race through cloning, and maverick Italian fertility specialist Severino Antinori. He claims a woman in his programme will give birth to a cloned baby in January. Scientists say there is no fundamental reason why human cloning should not be possible, using the same techniques that produced Dolly the cloned sheep in 1996. But the risks are enormous. Clones of non-human species, including mice and sheep, have been plagued with defects, suggesting an overwhelming danger that a cloned child will have fatal defects such as malformed organs. Experiments on animals show that while many of the unborn clones perish due to defects, those that survive birth usually are normal. In cloning, the nucleus is removed from a female's egg cell and replaced with the nucleus from a cell of the animal, or person, to be cloned. If this is done at precisely the right time and in precisely the right way, the egg cell starts to divide as if it had been fertilised by a sperm. The resulting embryo is only an exact genetic duplicate of the mother if the mother's own egg cell was used. Otherwise, it does carry a small amount of genetic material from the donor egg. Scientists are not entirely sure what the consequences of this are. The tiny ball of cells can either be grown into an embryo and eventually a foetus, or the cells, all of which have the potential to form any kind of cell in the body, can be used for stem cell research. Many scientists believe stem cells, either from embryos or adults, offer tremendous potential to treat diseases ranging from Parkinson's to diabetes, and that research on both types of stem cells should proceed. Reuters
|
Japanese pray to rake in profits KIMONO-CLAD priests waved white paper wands, attendants rang ceremonial bells and members of Tokyo's business community lined up to buy symbolic wooden rakes at a shrine in the capital on Monday. As they threw coins into a donation box and joined their hands in prayer, most visitors were asking the shrine's deities for the same favour: the chance to scrape together a little profit in 2003. "I have only one wish -- that the market will go up and our customers will make money," said Aya Takada, a financial sector employee, who was marking the start of the New Year at Kanda Myojin, a shrine favoured by company executives. Many visitors downed small cups of sake in a toast to the year to come, or possibly in a bid to forget the economy's dismal performance in 2002. "We come every year, but this year more than ever we prayed that our company's finances would improve," said Takashi Nakajima, still clutching his wooden rake after taking a souvenir photograph with colleagues from a steel trading company. "We have waited a long time for an economic recovery. I hope it will happen soon," he added. Reuters Diabetic men father smaller babies British scientists have found that babies of diabetic fathers weigh almost 200 grams less on average than those of healthy men, according to a report in the British Medical Journal. The researchers have said that a single genetic abnormality could underlie both low birth weight and diabetes. For the study, they examined the birth records of 34 children whose fathers were born during a single week of March, 1958, comparing them with the children of non-diabetic men born at the same time, reports The Sydney Morning Herald. It was found that babies were significantly smaller if their fathers were diabetic. Further analysis showed the smaller size of the babies did not appear to be related to their father's height or social circumstances, or to whether the child was a firstborn or younger sibling. The study leader, George Davey Smith, professor of clinical epidemiology at the University of Bristol, said diabetic women's larger babies were thought to be a direct result of disruptions to the mother's metabolism during pregnancy. He said it was possible that diabetic women, like the men, were genetically programmed to have smaller children but the metabolic effects overrode this tendency. There was some evidence from the study that women who were free of diabetes at the time of giving birth but developed it later also had lighter babies.
ANI |
Men understand not, says Ravidas, Like mad men they have lost their ways. God's Name alone is my support, It alone is my life, my vital breath and my wealth. — Sri Guru Granth Sahib, page 974 *** He who receives from the Master His wealth of devotion And Divine Knowledge, His mind becomes pure And turns towards the Lord. This wealth is water For those burning with cravings; This wealth is a pillar That holds steady the wavering mind; This wealth unties the knot of delusion And drives away all fear. — Sant Kabir, Sri Guru Granth Sahib, Gauri page 336 *** There are two powerful forces which attract living beings - beauty and melody. Of the two, melody has the greater power of attraction and influences the mind to a great extent.... Nam or true Kirtan is within us... The Divine Melody can be heard in the region of the forehead. — Huzur Maharaj Sewa Singh, Philosophy of the Masters *** Dancing and singing to instruments is a vain attempt to control the mind; The mind is blind and deaf to this mimicry. The fire of wordly attachments burns within, And the wind of doubt blows constantly; It is hard to light the lamp of right understanding. — Sri Guru Granth Sahib *** Fortunate is he who finds a Satguru, For he will always hear the Music within. — Sri Guru Granth Sahib, M4, Vadhans Var page 592 |
 |
| Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir | Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs | Nation | Editorial | | Business | Sport | World | Mailbag | In Spotlight | Chandigarh Tribune | Ludhiana Tribune 50 years of Independence | Tercentenary Celebrations | | 122 Years of Trust | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
