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The Ken-Betwa message A first welcome step |
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For children’s sake Punjab cannot deny mid-day meals THE Punjab Government’s stand that it is unable to implement the mid-day meal scheme in the primary schools of the state because of paucity of funds cannot be accepted at its face value.
Kadirgamar killing
VIPitis
‘Tiger should be worshipped’ Meeting India’s energy needs Anesthesia use to detoxify addicts questioned
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The Ken-Betwa message THE grand scheme of interlinking all the country’s rivers has hit a brick wall, not only technical and financial but also political. The current thinking is to take one small step at a time. The first was taken on Thursday by the Centre, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh when they signed a memorandum of understanding on the Ken-Betwa river link project. It is not a bad beginning. A detailed project report for the Rs 4,263-crore project will now be made. If it is approved it will be the first of the 30 link projects proposed at a cost of a staggering Rs 5,60,000 crore. The benefits it promises are tremendous. Much will depend on how much the Chief Ministers of the two states ruled by different parties cooperate with each other. The Prime Minister on his part has tendered cautionary advice regarding taking into account social and environmental aspects before implementing any river linking projects. The UP-MP initiative should be a model for other states engaged in petty quarrels over river waters. Punjab and Haryana can emulate it to their mutual advantage. A similar understanding on the Cauvery can work wonders down South. In fact, the scheme of transferring surplus water of the Ken to the Betwa basin in Uttar Pradesh can be a veritable pilot project for similar linkages all over the country. Once the benefits become obvious, others will be better persuaded to shed their trivial rivalries and reap them together. As if to prove this point, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh on the same day approved the linking of the Parvati, Kalisindh and Chambal rivers. All these are small rivers. The linking of bigger rivers will obviously pose bigger problems but there is no reason why these cannot be surmounted. All that is needed is political will. The time has come for the leaders of differing hues to shed parochial animosities and create an atmosphere where water — a national resource — can be shared by the entire country to everyone’s benefit. |
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A first welcome step AN outcome budget is aimed at “converting outlays into outcomes”. Finance Minister P. Chidambaram’s idea is commendable, but the first such budget presented on Thursday could be better. It is bulky with 723 pages, covers 44 ministries and 61 departments and loses focus while repeating budgetary details, targets and allocations. Brevity and clarity are virtues not many finance ministers are known for. People need to know in simple, clear terms how the government spends their tax money with what results. Such information can be posted online also. The thrust can be on major initiatives with possible hurdles so that project implementation is smooth and time-bound. Government projects are known to linger, resulting in heavy cost overruns. The outcome budget, hopefully, will activate government machinery. The Planning Commission has set up a monitoring division to assess outcomes like the number of jobs created, roads built and children enrolled in schools. Large Central funds often remain unspent or under-utilised because states fail to cough up matching amounts, holding up vital programmes. This has happened in case of the Accelerated Irrigation Benefit Programme, the Backward States Grant Fund, the rural water supply programme and the integrated child development plan. The states too will have to shed lethargy and introduce their own outcome budgets as suggested by the Finance Minister. The outcome budget lists some targets: nine infrastructure projects under private-public partnership costing Rs 1,500 crore to be cleared by September, Rs 762 crore for Indian Airlines and Rs 10 crore for Air India to buy aircraft and 767 km of highways to be built by this fiscal. Since the outcome budget is a pre-expenditure exercise, it can only guide the ministries to spend keeping in view outcomes. A post-expenditure picture can be more revealing. Besides, development is a long-term, ongoing process. One hopes the bureaucracy’s time and effort are not wasted on stitching together rosy facts and figures to reduce the outcome budget to a PR exercise. What citizens would like to know more is what is holding up development. |
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For children’s sake THE Punjab Government’s stand that it is unable to implement the mid-day meal scheme in the primary schools of the state because of paucity of funds cannot be accepted at its face value. Surprisingly, though the government has enough funds to buy luxury cars for ministers and organise foreign travel of legislators, it has no funds to spare for a unique scheme like this. A report in The Tribune (August 23) quotes Punjab’s Principal Secretary, School Education, of having said that in addition to fund shortage, there were other problems like arranging kitchen sheds and utensils for cooking within the school premises. If the government takes an objective view of the scheme, this too need not be treated as a problem area. Does a school need huge infrastructure to provide a simple, nutritious meal to school children? It is also not clear why the state government wrote to the Centre for the release of Rs 27 crore. The former is very much aware of the fact that as the scheme is Centrally-sponsored, the latter would only defray the cost of the food and not for the infrastructure or the creation of additional facilities. In the process, precious time and energy are wasted in pointless exchange of letters between the Centre and the state and the innocent students are deprived of their meals. It is a pity that the implementation of this scheme in Haryana and Himachal Pradesh is no better than Punjab even though it can check the dropout rate and improve the literacy level and health of the students. This is in sharp contrast to the initiatives taken by the states like Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Orissa and Rajasthan to realise the cherished goals of the scheme. Most of these states have roped in panchayat raj institutions, philanthropists and NGOs for making the scheme a success. In Punjab too, if self-help groups and panchayats could be involved in a district like Bathinda, why can’t the government emulate the same in other districts? Clearly, it is all a question of the government’s priorities and political will, backed by timely administrative action.
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Forgive your enemies, but never, never forget their names. — John F. Kennedy
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Kadirgamar killing THE International Spy Museum in New York has on its souvenir tee-shirts an apt slogan: “Deny Everything”. The world’s most deadly terrorist organisation, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), follows this maxim in letter and spirit. They denied any involvement in the recent assassination of Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar though it clearly carried the LTTE trademark. To call this cowardly act a breach of the Norwegian-brokered 2002 ceasefire Agreement (CFA) would be a criminal understatement. This writer reached Colombo within 24 hours of the crime to find Lankans involved in the blame game for the security lapse. Next to President Chandrika Kumaratunga, Kadirgamar was the most closely guarded figure in Sri Lanka. He used to admit he was high on the LTTE hit list, even that they would, one day, get him. He was a distinguished Tamil, his brother was one of the first few Sri Lankans to graduate from Sandhurst. As Foreign Minister he campaigned tirelessly, from Los Angeles to Laos, to have the LTTE proscribed and he was successful. This made him a traitor to the LTTE cause. Kadirgamar’s killing is a grave setback to the moribund peace process but no one (except, of course, the JVP), least of all the LTTE, wants to go back to war. LTTE supremo Prabhakaran frequently reads Frederick Forsyth’s Day of the Jackal and watches Rambo movies. Operation Kadirgamar was meticulously planned. Since it was not possible to pierce Kadirgamar’s security, the traditional suicide bomber was replaced by a sniper. This is only the second time the LTTE has used a sniper. The first target was Robert from the rival Tamil EPDP. A house overlooking Kadirgamar’s, belonging to a Tamil, was used to stalk him. Two LTTE operatives had been arrested
video filming Kadirgamar’s private bungalow. The police recovered cyanide capsules, the hallmark of the LTTE, and a backup rocket launcher from the sniper’s perch. There is never any backlash any more in majority Sinhalese Sri Lanka. The last occasion was in July 1983 when Tamils were systematically attacked after an LTTE attack against an Army patrol in Jaffna. But Kadirgamar was a Tamil, killed by a Tamil. Last week in Colombo it was business as usual after Kadirgamar’s cremation. The streets were aflutter with white flags and Kadirgamar’s photographs. But for a few security guards on the roads and the antiaircraft nest overlooking the President’s Temple Trees residence, Colombo was breathing normally. But not the LTTE. A day after the cremation, its cadres tore into the UN compound in their stronghold Kilinochchi and brought down UN and Sri Lankan flags flying at half mast. Ever since the LTTE lost their number three, Kausalyan, to the breakaway Karuna faction in the east, they’ve gone on the offensive, targeting the army and the police, who they allege, are helping Karuna. In July 2005 alone, the LTTE lost 20 of its fighters to Karuna’s boys. They retaliated by taking out an Army Intelligence Major, Muthaliff and Jaffna Superintendent of Police, Charles Wijewardene. The internecine war between Prabhakaran and Karuna has inevitably drawn in the security forces. According to a report published in The Island newspaper of August 18, the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) had received till May 2005, some 2903 violations of the CFA by the LTTE. The LTTE has been alleging government complicity with Karuna and has demanded it act to end this nexus. Since the peace process stalled after six rounds of talks in April 2003, the LTTE has placed three items on the agenda: Interim Self Governing Authority (ISGA), the Karuna problem, and the P-TOMS (Post Tsunami Operational Management Structure) for relief distribution. If there is any consensus among the Sinhalese south, it is over nurturing Karuna. Even here, the leader of the opposition, Ranil Wickremesinghe view is that Karuna has to be muzzled for the peace process to be revived the ISGA, stuck over JVP’s intransigence over LTTE first accepting a federal solution was soon overtaken by tsunami. JVP considers the present ISGA a virtual Eelam. Lately, the LTTE has been cool to the P-TOMS which was expected to facilitate the revival of the peace process. The Supreme Court, in response to a JVP PIL, struck down the P-TOMS on two counts — its location in LTTE-held Kilinochchi and the funding mechanism. It was a combination of a sense of drift and dismay over LTTE’s triad of concerns that triggered Kadirgamar’s assassination. The Tigers have served notice on the government to rein in Karuna and move on ISGA and P-TOMS. The Tigers keep alive the threat of war to keep their flock together. Meanwhile, the JVP has accused the government of being scared of the LTTE, taking the breaches of the CFA by the LTTE lying down. Their propaganda secretary Wimal Weerawansa lambasted the government for hesitating in naming the LTTE in Kadirgamar’s murder, instead of referring to them as “terrorists”. The JVP has demanded the Scandinavian truce monitors be served the prescribed 14-day notice to terminate the tattered CFA — in other words, declare war on the LTTE. The Norwegians who are perceived in Colombo to be having a soft corner for the LTTE, are keen that some features of the CFA are revised. Many feel Norway’s dual role as monitor and mediator also needs to be reviewed and that India should find a place. The JHU, a rightwing Buddhist party, has asked the UK to expel LTTE ideologue Anton Balasingham, from London. Thanks to the JVP and the JHU, anti-LTTE feelings in the South are rising. This is not helpful for bringing the South together for returning to the peace process. India’s reaction to Kadirgamar’s assassination was strong but measured. The LTTE was not named. New Delhi’s shadow is conspicuous in Colombo. Even the US recognises it, especially after the mammoth tsunami relief operations by Indian security forces. Given its past experience in Sri Lanka, the question is how does India play a bigger role in engaging old and new players to the ethnic conflict. Should India play some role in the SLMM ? Should it occupy a co-chair in the donors’ forum and peace process ? How does it engage the proscribed LTTE and sensitise the JVP and JHU to legitimate Tamil aspirations ? With 50 million Tamils in South India, Delhi has to help rebuild the Tamil Northeast ravaged by 20 years of war and 20 minutes of Tsunami. Does Karuna have to be caged ? India has vital security concerns — Palaly airfield, Kankesanturai and Trincomalee harbours. Despite a promising economic partnership, the strategic architecture of India-Sri Lanka relations is incomplete. The defence cooperation agreement, however symbolic, is one of the missing parts. It is still lying with the Cabinet Committee on Security. India is hamstrung in its foreign policy owing to the nature of coalition politics. Political
self-interest has subsumed national interest. External forces are taking advantage of the vacant strategic space, not just in Sri Lanka but also elsewhere in the region. The international community has a responsibility towards restraining the LTTE as it does in uniting and urging the south in Sri Lanka to get on with the peace process. The forthcoming presidential elections should not mask this ground reality. There are lessons out there for the India-Pakistan peace process — to move beyond CBMs like ceasefire, to the political
questions.
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VIPitis PATROLLING on highways was introduced to check crime on roads but vehicles inducted for the purpose have failed to yield results. Instead, they have been converted into vehicles which receive VIPs on the outskirts of the city, escort their vehicles up to the circuit house and either come back to the point of duty or wait if the VIP wants extension of their services.” It was my 12-year-old nephew reading aloud the morning newspaper as we sat down to sip the morning cup of tea. In no time, he announced that he would become a VIP and not a supercop. It was until yesterday that he fancied himself as a top cop. Most of us suffer from a disease called VIPitis or status anxiety. Symptoms are there for all of us to see. A VIP suite of a government guest house is a cynosure across the babudom. Times without number, I have seen a proud occupant of the VIP suite being requested (!) to shift to its country cousin type because the chowkidar had just got a message that the bigger saheb was on his way to the town, sorry VIP suite. A disgusted but determined unit head took it upon himself to equip the remaining suites at par with the VIP suite and renamed all of them after mighty mountains and revered rivers. He not only drew less flak and more flowers but also bought peace for himself. Remember a newly appointed Maharashtra minister postponed his visit to the floodhit areas of Mumbai until he got a red light flashing car. But don’t get disappointed. VIPitis is curable. A successful friend of mine who works for a mini-ratna public sector undertaking and lays great store by orders of protocol and degrees of hospitality was in for a shock (treatment) the other day. Cordially invited and warmly greeted by the managing director of a major multinational shipping company, my friend was looking forward to a grand star-style lunch. And deservedly so. Or so he thought. Official business over, the MD requested the august audience to join for lunch. Double quick, the MD picked up a plate from the pile, queued up to fill it up and quietly sat at one of the tables. Noticing none joining him at the table, he glanced around while digging into his plate. Apology writ large on his face, he walked up to his unamused guests struggling to come to terms with the situation. Holding their plates, the guests inched towards the self-service counters. A little later, the MD excused himself to catch up with a waiting business delegation. Obviously he did not suffer from VIPitis. My friend is slowly recovering. Here is wishing you too an early
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‘Tiger should be worshipped’ POPULARLY known as India’s latter-day Jim Corbett and “tiger man”, 87-year-old Billy Arjan Singh has devoted the last 50 years of his life to saving animals. It was due to his advocacy that Indira Gandhi authorised the creation of the Dudhwa National Park. In March, 2005, he received the J. Paul Getty Wildlife Conservation Award. On the publication of his autobiography “Honorary Tiger” by the famous British biographer Duff Hart-Davis, Arjan Singh rues the fact that tigers in India are a dying species. Q. Why is the Indian tiger close to extinction? If the tiger goes, the forests go, the trees go, the water goes because without trees, we cannot conserve water. The tiger is at the very root of conserving our wildlife. Like all our religions, the tiger should be made into a god and worshipped. I’m saying this with full consciousness because our entire civilisation hinges around our saving our forests and our wildlife. We are in the midst of a terrible crisis. But nothing is being done out of sheer ignorance. Q. Despite grand plans, why has so little happened on the ground? Indians are being allowed to procreate at the expense of all other animals. But because animals are not part of our vote-bank politics, they have no voice in anything that happens in our country. Q. Wasn’t the Dudhwa National Park created largely at your
initiative? Way back in 1955 I realised the central government was planning to impose a ceiling on land-holdings. I submitted a proposal to the State Board of Wildlife of UP to make about 3,000 acres into a North Teri Reserved Forest. It was only when Charan Singh became Forest Minister that he agreed to the formation of the Dudhwa sanctuary. The biggest problem even at that time remained poaching. Poachers, even then, were just shooting down every animal in sight. When I first settled at Tiger Haven, there were three leopards in my neighbourhood. These were killed by poachers. They next turned to tigers and began killing these. I’m trying to increase the population of barasinghas so that tigers return to Dudhwa. Q. There were suggestions to set up a separate wildlife body to monitor animal welfare. Several international bodies had emphasised the tremendous earning potential of wildlife tourism as demonstrated in Africa. They, along with other conservationists, had suggested that a separate wildlife service be constituted. The issue was placed before Indira Gandhi . If she had given her sanction, the situation would have been different. But this proposal was sabotaged by people belonging to the Forest Department. A forester’s aim is always to make money by selling trees for timber. But tree felling means destroying the natural habitat of animals. Sanctuaries need specialised management. Forest officers are being posted to do wildlife jobs without any particular aptitude for work. I have been insisting that no commercial forestry should be allowed within our parks. Also, buffer zones of a five-mile radius should be created around the park in which no shooting of any kind be permitted. The latest initiative in which the government is talking about tribals being allowed to co-habitat with animals is ridiculous. Tigers cannot co-exist with human beings. For a tiger everything that moves is a prey. He cannot distinguish between animals and humans and why should he differentiate ? Q. What is the condition in Dudhwa at present? Being located so close to the Nepalese border, Dudhwa is more vulnerable than most other sanctuaries. There is an insatiable demand for tiger skins and bones from China and this is one of the main reasons why killings are so rampant. The park staff are poorly equipped to deal with ruthless criminals. The wildlife guards are armed with ancient 12 bore shotguns and old cartridges while poachers have AK-47 rifles. In places like Kaziranga, wildlife guards are empowered to shoot poachers on sight, in UP guards are allowed to fire only in self-defence. Q.You were a friend of the legendary hunter Jim Corbett? I met him for the first time when I was 10 years old. He would recount anecdotes about his shoots to me. I loved listening to his stories. Q. Your decision to release pet tigers and leopards into the wild raised a controversy. One of the points I have been stressing is the need to refresh the gene-pools of tigers in our 23 separate tiger reserves. Since it is physically impossible to link them all together with forest corridors along which animals can migrate, we need to use other means to obviate the danger of inbreeding. Tigers cannot be moved physically from one area to another. This attempt was tried in the Sunderbans delta, and the tiger who was brought in was killed within two or three days by another. The tigers in Dudhwa are breeding well. But again this is not a suggestion that the Project Tiger officials are willing to lend a ear to. I’m plodding on, but I would just like to add that the tiger must be saved in its own natural habitat. There is no point in leaving it locked inside a tiny cell in a zoo. |
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Meeting India’s energy needs AFTER more than four decades of economic stagnation, India in recent times has been growing at a modest rate of about 7 per cent. That is not saying much, but it is better than how things were in the first four decades following Independence. The expectations now are that in the next two decades the economy will grow at 5 to 8 per cent. What needs to be remembered is that even a 7 per cent growth per year is not sustainable without a substantive boost to energy access. As Mr Jasjit Singh, Director, Centre for Strategic and International Studies, recently pointed out, there is no hope of moving nearly 300 million people out of the poverty trap, leave alone provide for a better quality of life for another 600 million without rapid assured access to energy at affordable coats. That is the basic truth. In the first place, India’s population has been growing at the rate of 1.7 per cent per year and is expected to touch 1.19 billion by 2010 and 1.41 billion by 2020. The share of urban population is projected to increase from 28 per cent in 2001 to 43 per cent in 2020. Presently, coal meets 33.04 per cent of total energy demand in the country and oil 25.94 per cent. Lignite provides about 2.78 per cent and natural gas around 7.66 per cent. India’s dependence for energy is primarily on coal and oil. For oil, India has largely to depend on imports up to 70 per cent. In recent years oil prices have almost doubled to around $ 60 a barrel and this has imposed very heavy load on our economy. This can’t go on for ever. Nuclear power meets hardly 1.08 per cent of the nation’s energy requirements which is a crying shame. At the turn of the millennium India barely produced 2000 MWs of electricity, the ambition of the government is to help produce ten times that amount by 2020. If that aim is not fulfilled, the country’s growth would be badly hampered. Let it be remembered that it is energy that makes the economic mare run. And India plainly cannot depend on oil for successfully running its economy. It has to run on cheaper sources like natural gas and nuclear power. And if we remember that China which, unlike India, had virtually no nuclear power 15 years ago but is now set to produce 40,000 MWs by 2020, we will realise that if we want to survive in a highly competitive world, we will have to look for cheap energy wherever it is available. It is this that primarily drove Dr Manmohan Singh to strike a deal with the US whereby India will have a quick and easy access to US technology in the field of nuclear energy. But that is only one side — though an important side — of the problem. India can do with cheap gas and that is available in Turkmenistan, which has estimated reserves of 71 trillion cubic feet and in Iran whose natural gas reserves at estimated to be 940 trillion cubic feet (tcf). If we can get natural gas just from these two countries via pipelines, it would cost 35 per cent less than the cost of liquified natural gas (LNG) in India and Pakistan. And that is a bargain. The length of the pipeline from Iran through Pakistan to India would be about 2,700 km and would cost around $ 5 billion to build and deliver about 3.3 billion cubic feet per day (bcpd). The completion of such a pipeline would have a substantial benefit for Pakistan. It has been estimated that Pakistan would get a total estimated income of $ 14 billion over 30 years of which $ 8 billion would be transit fee that Iran has reportedly offered Islamabad, plus $ 1 billion in taxes and $ 5 billion in energy costs savings. According to a survey made by the Strategic Foresight Group (The Second Freedom South Asian Challenge), the cost of gas delivered to north western India from a pipeline through Pakistan could be about $ 2.70 to $ 3.00 per thousand cubic feet. Given an anticipated demand for natural gas in India of more than 7 bcpd per day by 2010, a pipeline would save India about $ 1 to 2 billion annually and that is not exactly chicken feed. Tripartite talks have been going on involving India, Pakistan and Iran on the proposed Indo-Iranian gas pipeline informally but regular talks are promised to begin by year-end. The US has expressed its disapproval of the talks, but India is in no way beholden to Washington in matters where its own progress is concerned. According to Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar, the process of collecting and sharing information to enable project structuring will be concluded by November this year. Already, a roadmap has been laid for the gas pipeline project. India, of course, can get natural gas from its eastern neighbours as well. International company Unocal has proposed a 1,360 km long pipeline from Bangladesh to Delhi that will link up with the pipeline system in north-western India. The pipeline will start from the Bibiyana fields in Bangladesh and reach Delhi via West Bengal, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Expected to cost about $ 1.2 billion, the pipeline will provide 500 million cubic feet per day which would rise to 4 billion cubic feet per day by 2010. India can also get natural gas from Myanmar through the pipeline passing through Bangladesh, which can earn a yearly income of $ 100 million in transit charges. Significantly, there is also much talk about a pipeline to bring to India gas from Russia, passing through Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Chinese Xinjiang and the Indo-China Line of Control, entering India via Ladakh. Yes, it is gas that India will get, but more significantly, it is peace that will be at stake. Nations that do benefit from trade have no reason to fight. Pipelines do something more than bring gas from one country to India; they become pre-cursors of peace in the land and prosperity to all. And that is their special significance. One has only to keep one’s fingers crossed to see that what seem dream-projects are converted to daily reality. |
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Anesthesia use to detoxify addicts questioned USING general anesthesia to help detoxify heroin addicts is no more effective than other treatments and potentially much more dangerous, according to a study published last Wednesday by Columbia University researchers. The method — going by names such as “rapid detox” and “detox in a day” — has been promoted as a quick and easy way to relieve the stress and pain of withdrawal from heroin, as well as more easily accessible narcotics containing opium, such as Vicodin and Oxycontin. Dr Eric D. Collins, an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University, studied 106 addicts, who were divided into three groups. One group was put under general anesthesia for about five hours and given a high dose of naltrexone, a drug used to neutralize heroin’s effects. Another was temporarily given a heroin substitute called buprenorphine and then eased onto naltrexone. A third group was given the antihypertensive drug clonidine, which lessens withdrawal symptoms. All patients were then offered 12 weeks of additional naltrexone therapy and psychotherapy designed to prevent a relapse into heroin use. None of the methods was very successful. The results showed high relapse rates, with only 11 percent of the patients finishing treatment and achieving two clean urine tests. But three patients who underwent general anesthesia nearly died. One suffered a severe buildup of fluids in the lungs and pneumonia, while another had a diabetic episode. A third patient entered a bipolar mental state that required hospitalization. All of the incidents were related to the use of general anesthesia. The benefits of the method “were limited to the few hours when patients were under general anesthesia, and they came at the expense of risks that should be intolerable,’’ said Collins, lead author of the study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Jake Epperly, the clinical director of the Midwest Rapid Opiate Detox Center, which has clinics nationwide, disputed the study’s findings, saying the Columbia physicians were inexperienced with using general anesthesia as a detoxification method. “Our anesthesiologists have done 400 or 500 procedures on average,” he said. “Experience is everything.” In an editorial accompanying the study, Dr Patrick G. O’Connor, a professor at the Yale School of Medicine, said the low success rate with all three methods shows that the best therapy is still weaning patients with the long-term use of a heroin substitute, such as methadone.
— LA Times-Washington Post |
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From the pages of Angels in trousers THE number of Magistrates and Judges who hold that “all Natives are liars” has evidently increased of late. For within a short time quite a number of cases - between European “gentlemen” and “Natives” of course — have been decided in the orthodox manner. “It is impossible for a European to be and for a “Native” to speak the truth.” Such appears to be the verdict of the European Magistrates and Judges who have been trying cases between Europeans and Indians. We do not deny that all Europeans are angles in trousers or that all “Natives” are devils with the crooked horns. But curiously enough the European complainant in the Assansole case was openly condemned by the Judge for bringing a false case against the accused, who were Indians, and his case was accordingly dismissed. We should not scrutinise the shortcomings of our saints and angels too narrowly. But one of the many things in this world which we do not clearly understand is — how upon the evidence of these same “Natives” the same Judges and Magistrates hang hundreds of “Natives” every year? Are we to conclude that they commit hundreds of murders every year?
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And do not desire that, with which God has graced some of you more than others: there is portion for men from what they have earned, and there is portion for women from what they have earned. But ask God from divine bounty, for God knows everything. — Book of quotations
on Islam People fast to earn divine compensation. But while our bodies fast, our mind feasts on worldly thoughts. What good then is our physical austerity? — Book of quotations
on Hinduism What need have I to know of his infinite splendours? If I must know these let me first realise him. — Ramakrishna He who willingly seeks the company of fools is like them and with them. The company of the wise brings happiness like meeting with well loved ones. — The Buddha
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