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Saturday,
September 27, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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India combats Pak lies with sharp PM has enough of NRI meetings
Japan island rocked, 323 injured |
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Geelani rubbishes Pervez’s ‘Pak first’
policy
Maoists announce
9-day ceasefire French scientists clone rats
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India combats Pak lies with sharp wit at UN New York, September 26 Pakistan exercised its Right of Reply (ROR), and in two sharply worded speeches, a Pakistani diplomat said: “We can concede that India knows a lot about terrorism because it is the mother of terrorism.” He then accused India of promoting cross-border terrorism. “During the past few years, India’s security agency RAW (Research and Analysis Wing), has carried out 170 acts of terrorism in Pakistan and 279 of its agents have been apprehended. Not just in Pakistan, but agents of the Indian Government acting on the ruling BJP’s directive, also committed state-managed massacre of Indian Muslims and genocides” he said. He said India was ruled by a party which had a “fascist doctrine”. Examples were given of Bal Thackeray forming alleged terrorist groups to eliminate Muslims. The Indian delegation gave a befitting yet mature reply. Counsellor Harshvardhan Shingla said Pakistan protested too much, and that was reason enough to suspect. Pakistan, he said had a “foreign policy that relied traditionally on camouflage and doublespeak”. Though he didn’t call the Pakistani diplomat a liar, he couched his word in “diplomatese” by saying Pakistan’s history and policies are “rooted in political fiction”. When the Pakistani delegation tried to take the credit of “the hand of friendship” making it seem as if the initiative came from General Musharraf, the Indian diplomat dismissed it as “Pakistan’s diplomacy of abuse and hate” terming all that poor Munir Akram, Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the UN, had to say as “egregious comments”. The war of words was the expected end to the India-Pak spat at the UN which began as soon as the Pakistan President, Gen Pervez Musharraf, started with his media interviews. The Indian side was remarkably restrained till today. After four long days of perfect gentlemanly behaviour, it was as if the floodgates had opened. The one who opened these was none other than the Prime Minister. He snubbed Pakistan and its Chief Executive and then it was no holds barred by evening. The Indian attack was, however, classically diplomatic in nature as opposed to the street fighting tenor of the Pakistanis. Then there was the body language. The Indian side was smirking all through the speeches made by the Pakistanis, who had to be cut short due to time. The Indian response was well within the time limit. It was erudite, witty and brief. The Pakistani accusation and response was repetitive (Kashmir, genocide, human rights), audacious (numbers dead, numbers of terrorist attacks), rambling (getting into internal politics of India), false (peace offer Musharraf’s not Vajpayee’s when every world leader has commended Vajpayee) and seemed just a rehash of Gen Musharraf’s speech. —
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PM has enough of NRI meetings New York, September 26 On Thursday, at the third gathering of NRIs, which included eminent literary persons from India, Mr Vajpayee looked ill at ease. Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan had organised a three-day conference on Indian literature and had invited the creme-de-la-creme of the Indian literary scene to mark the birth centenary of Lok Nayak Jayaprakash Narayan (JP). Neither the organisers nor the Prime Minister referred to JP in their speeches, nor was homage paid to him or recollection made of his contribution to India’s freedom movement or the formation of the political party (BJP), which the Prime Minister today leads. The show began on a sour note with Secret Service detail taking ever so long in allowing people inside the Manhattan Centre in downtown New York. Frisking, dogs, metal detectors, all post-9/11 procedures, led to frayed tempers. The media was kept about 50 metres from the dais and not allowed to even get to the ‘raiser’ (American for platform). Barely half the hall was occupied when the Prime Minister walked in. Eminent authors and poets, Sahitya Akademi award winners Indira Goswami, Sunil Gangopadhyaya, Urdu poet Gulzar, eminent author Nirmal Verma and several others were present there. Mr Vajpayee breezed through his well-written speech in a most desultory manner. If it was an audience where the poet in him would have been awakened, it somehow did not work the magic. He had to be cajoled to recite his now oft repeated “Geet naya gaata
hoon.” Mr Vajpayee said Indians should be proud of their heritage of languages. He also said culture had to modernise with time and modernisation was incomplete without culture. “Words may have limit, but not the feeling that goes behind those words”, “languages are the rainbow of Indian culture”, “in India, tradition still has more followers than laws laid down by the courts”, “necessary development and persistent continuity” ....all beautiful thoughts and expressions but somehow it just didn’t click. It was the Prime Minister’s last public engagement in New York. He leaves on Friday for home via a one-day stop over in Zurich. —
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Japan island rocked, 323 injured
Obihiro (Japan), September 26 The quake — the strongest anywhere in the world this year — forced the evacuation of some 41,000 persons and left some 16,000 homes blacked out. It struck at 4:50 a.m., cracking roads, capsizing fishing boats and causing the roof of a local airport to partially cave in. The quake was centered in the Pacific about 100 km off Hokkaido’s eastern shore. It was followed by two strong aftershocks and several small ocean waves. Public broadcaster NHK reported that at least 243 persons were hurt. Most of the injuries were caused by glass from shattered windows and falling objects in homes. Officials said at least 11 persons suffered serious injuries, but most others escaped with only cuts and bruises. A 61-year-old man cleaning up broken beer bottles on a street immediately after the quake was hit by an oncoming car and died, the Hokkaido police said. There were no reports of other quake-related deaths. “It shook hard and long and I was very frightened,” said Eri Takizawa, a city official in Kushiro, which was believed to be the hardest hit. “We have small quakes here from time to time, but this was completely different.” She said the city offices were a mess, with papers and books strewn around. But she added that there was no serious damage. Damage was lighter but also evident in Hokkaido city, about 100 km from Kushiro. Japan’s Central Meteorological Agency initially estimated the quake’s magnitude at 7.8 on richter scale, but later revised that to 8. A powerful aftershock of magnitude 7 followed shortly after 6 am, and another hit at about 8 am. The meteorological agency said there were more than 12 smaller aftershocks by late morning. —
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The death of a legend His life has to be seen from the tragic perspective of a fatal ailment which he had suffered from for many years. “Sometimes you get tired of the whole thing and just wish that it would end”, he once confessed in a subdued voice. “I guess I’m committed to going on”. Edward Said had continued right up to the very end to bridge the gap between the private and the public, his literary criticism being always in consonance with his personal political experience and his deeply radical and oppositional stance that ‘tries to speak the truth to power’. We shall not hear him speak anymore. Life is not fair, but for Said to lose his to the complications of leukaemia at the age of 67 is grossly unfair to all who knew him at work or had read his writings over the years. I met Said first at Canterbury and then later when he visited my college at Oxford to deliver a lecture on Beethoven and
Adorno. And my impressions today take me back to those days when he looked so young and handsome, so modest and unassuming that all would take an instant liking to him. But it was as a delightful, wise, gentle and
good-humoured teacher that he will be remembered by generations of students. He was devoted to serving the role of a secular critic in exceptional ways: as an informal institutional memory, source of wisdom, as guardian of clear and proper language (and thereby clear thinking) and above all, by contributing through first class research and teaching. His intellectual enthusiasm was so visible in his every lecture that I heard, the most memorable being the Reith Lectures given on the ‘Representations of the Intellectual’. One of the Western world’s most outspoken intellectuals, Said had an ambivalent and contradictory location with a growing sense of an outsider: Palestinian but an American citizen, Arab but Christian with an English first name bound to an Arabic surname. His privileged position within an institutional framework had provoked critics, mostly from the third world who held him responsible for complying with Western material and political values, against which he had himself warned historians to be alert. Said was fully aware of the imperceptible influence of the dominant ideologies located within cultural and institutional sites. He once narrated a provocative incident that took place in the British colonial club in Cairo of which his family was a member. Walking on the lawns of the club he was told to get out as Arabs were not allowed. Said comments: ‘That was the first time I realised that to be an Arab in a country dominated by someone else was, if not a crime, then a
misdemeanour.’ Having spent most of his life as an exile, Said had a deep sense of belonging to a dispossessed culture. Living under ‘torrents of abuse’ in the US with Right-wing conservative Americans burning down his office, Said had learnt to cope with opposition and write on the prevailing atmosphere of injustice. To understand the history of his people and their eviction from their homeland unlike any other colonial experience, he began to educate himself on all relevant accounts of his people as well as learn Arabic so as to realize problems and sentiments at the grass-roots. In 1977, he joined the Palestine National Council which was the parliament in exile. The problem of Palestine led him to the study of
Orientalism, Imperialism and Post-colonial studies, as well as to liberation movements which focused exclusively on “forgotten or repressed histories.” Said protected intellectual independence and spoke up against the establishment whenever the need arose both in academic or international arenas. Said died while pursuing his lifelong passion — writing and fighting for peace in the Middle East. |
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Geelani rubbishes Pervez’s ‘Pak first’ policy Islamabad, September 26 In a phone-in interview published in Pakistan weekly ‘Friday Times’, Geelani, who headed a faction of the All-Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC) after its recent split, denied that he was a “stooge” of Pakistan and ISI. “Remember we are not lackeys of the ISI or any Pakistani agency,” he said and recalled his objections to some statements by Pakistani leaders, including Mr Musharraf’s slogan that Pakistan came first. Pakistan was a citadel of the Muslim world and the fate of J and K must be decided in the light of UN resolutions, he said. The ‘Pakistan first’ slogan was coined by Mr Musharraf during the referendum held last year to get himself elected. Geelani said the Kashmir policy being pursued by Mr Musharraf was not that of the General but of Pakistan’s policy. Asked whether he supported Mr Musharraf’s Kashmir policy, he said, “This is not his policy. That is Pakistan policy. But I would like him to use his clout with the USA and Britain to pressurise India to implement UN resolutions.” Geelani also denied the allegations that Pakistan jehad groups like Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Toiba had hijacked the Kashmir struggle. “These are bogus allegations,” he said. He justified the presence of these two groups in Kashmir, stating that India sent its troops to assist Mukthi Behani during the war to liberate Bangladesh. “The world unfortunately adopted double standards. It looks at us through the prism of terrorism. Laskar and Jaish are our friends and benefactors. They have been sacrificing their lives for us. And they have never acted in a manner against humanity and morality, he said. While carrying the interview, the weekly said judging from the publicity being given to the Geelani faction in the official media, Pakistan appeared to have recognised his faction as the APHC. —
PTI |
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Maoists announce 9-day ceasefire Kathmandu, September 26 The ceasefire would be in effect from October 2-10. A statement e-mailed by Maoist supremo Prachanda to various media organisations said that they would halt military action for nine days during the festival. However, it said that the rebels would retaliate if the security forces attacked them. Earlier, Chairman of Human Rights Organisation of Nepal, Sudeep Pathak said the Maoists had rejected the request by political parties to declare ceasefire during the festival season. “The rebels are not in a mood to declare ceasefire,” Pathak, who held a meeting with regional bureau member of CPN-Maoist said. —
PTI |
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French scientists clone rats Washington, September 26 The rat had not been cloned earlier due to the fact that almost all oocytes “spontaneously, though abortively, activate within 60 minutes of their removal from oviducts,” the authors explained in the article published yesterday. They were able to overcome the problem with a “one-step SCNT procedure for the rapid substitution of the endogenous meiotic metaphase by an exogenous mitotic one” using MG132, a protease inhibitor to stabilise the oocyte. —
PTI |
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Obihiro (Japan), September 26
ROBERT PALMER DEAD