E D I T O R I A L   P A G E

EDITORIALS

The forgotten kisan
IT would sound cussed to turn the spotlight on one or two weak spots in a budget which has evoked superlative praise from the urban, salaried class and industrialists. It is like inserting a jarring note in what one newspaper has uncharacteristically called “Sinha’s fourth symphony”. 

Taliban again in the dock
ANYONE who has even rudimentary knowledge of Islam understands that it does not stand for intolerance. But the actions of the Taliban regime of Afghanistan, which claims to follow the injunctions of Islam, present an opposite image.

Communalists corner Laloo
RASHTRIYA Janata Dal President Laloo Prasad Yadav could never have imagined that he would be accused of being anti-minorities by a section of the Muslim members of his party in Bihar.

FRANKLY SPEAKING

By Hari Jaisingh
Keeping fingers on the nation’s pulse
Lessons not learnt from history and experience
ONE learns from experience. That is the way open to most people. And the only way to recall our experience is to record it. But if people are not used to recording their experience or to remembering it, they are bound to repeat their follies and suffer. This has been India's fate.

MIDDLE

Taking care of trivialities
J. L Gupta
YEARS bring fears. Travel begins to appear troublesome. Therefore, I always found some excuse to stay at home. The ploy had worked well. But only till the dawn of the new millennium. This year, my undesignated boss was adamant. She unequivocally declared, “I want to go to the East”. 

ANALYSIS

Time to correct India’s West Asia policy
M.S.N. Menon
THE horse is the only animal dearer to Allah, says the Prophet of Islam. Now that we have been gifted a horse by no less a person than Prince Abdullah, we should hope that it has brought with it the goodwill of its masters. Prince Abdullah is next in line to the Saudi throne. And he is the most powerful man in his country. 

Gene therapy for diabetes
SCIENTISTS have succeeded in using gene therapy to regulate blood glucose levels in diabetic rats and mice, a development which may pave the way for treatment of diabetes in humans. A team led by Hyun Chul Lee from the College of Medicine in Seoul prepared an insulin analogue, a substance similar to insulin which retained 20-40 per cent of the activity of native insulin, using genetic engineering, a report published in the journal Nature said.

• Women scared to pop the pill

• Fraudulent mummy

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

The forgotten kisan

IT would sound cussed to turn the spotlight on one or two weak spots in a budget which has evoked superlative praise from the urban, salaried class and industrialists. It is like inserting a jarring note in what one newspaper has uncharacteristically called “Sinha’s fourth symphony”. In his single-minded pursuit of the second generation reforms, he has exposed the farm sector to the mercy and uncertainties of free market. And that too at a time when it is in a deep crisis and the kisan has suffered both because of natural adversity and government apathy. Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha has lent budgetary endorsement to three proposals first floated by Agriculture Minister Nitish Kumar. One, the role and reach of the FCI will shrink severely. It will merely store about 10 million tonnes of foodgrains as buffer stock and to ensure food security. The private trade and rice millers will do the rest. This means that the kisan will be pushed to the pre-FCI days when he was open to exploitation by the middleman and suffered like fruit and vegetable growers do now. This is the kind of forced backward march he does not deserve.

Then there is what officials like to call the sins of omission. Mr Sinha was expected to steeply hike the customs duty on dairy and poultry imports. For some time now one report has alarmed poultry farmers in this region, who meet the bulk of the need of New Delhi’s five-star hotels and middle-class consumers. It says that even after paying the peak 35 per cent customs duty, a kilo of chicken legs from the USA will cost just about one-third of the Indian price of Rs 100. Milk and butter products can virtually wipe out the Indian segment. One and the only way to protect Indian farmers engaged in this is to steeply hike the import duty. One expert feels that a 300 per cent duty is alright by WTO rules. The Budget is silent on this, although prohibitive import and counter availing duties have been slapped on edible oils, tea, coffee, coconut and second-hand cars. Well, there are lobbies and lobbies, some weak and some with a stranglehold on decision-making. The country now knows who is who. 

Taliban again in the dock

ANYONE who has even rudimentary knowledge of Islam understands that it does not stand for intolerance. But the actions of the Taliban regime of Afghanistan, which claims to follow the injunctions of Islam, present an opposite image. The latest is the announcement by Kabul that it has ordered the destruction of the centuries old two towering statues of the Buddha at Bamiyan. The famous monuments are on the world heritage list, and the international community has every right to prevent their dismantling. It is in the interest of the people and the most hated regime of Afghanistan to listen to the plea of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) to abandon the thoughtless and outrageous plan. Taliban leaders should not forget that in today's global village it is just not possible to go against world opinion, especially when there is an assault not only on the tradition of a particular country but also the common heritage of mankind.

The Buddha statues are a surviving witness to the rich cultural past of the proud Afghans. If the Taliban regime does not feel comfortable in taking care of what undeniably represents Afghanistan's own invaluable heritage, it can ask UNESCO or any other world body to play this role. If it behaves on these lines, showing the traditional Afghan grace, it will earn the gratitude of not only the millions of upset Buddhists in countries like Sri Lanka, Thailand and Japan but also the entire liberal world. The Afghans have plenty of problems on their plate, the most serious being the crippling drought. Their economic sufferings have multiplied with the imposition of the UN sanctions owing to the Taliban role in protecting Osama bin Laden, the guide and financier of dreaded terrorists. People in large numbers are dying of hunger and disease. Lakhs of Afghans have taken shelter in refugee camps in Pakistan and Iran. Taliban supremo Mullah Omar and his associates should concentrate their energy on saving the lives and honour of the unfortunate Afghans instead of wasting it on the tasks which will bring more hardship to them. But this is the voice of reason. Fanatics and fundamentalists are not known to value such thinking. The world community will have to tell them to behave in the language they understand. 

Communalists corner Laloo

RASHTRIYA Janata Dal President Laloo Prasad Yadav could never have imagined that he would be accused of being anti-minorities by a section of the Muslim members of his party in Bihar. It is not exactly a case of the Muslims having turned against him before the crucial RJD sponsored "desh bachao" rally on March 4. Those who provide patronage to criminal elements in the name of promoting secular values and social justice are largely responsible for the distortions which have crept into Indian politics. Mr Laloo Prasad Yadav in Bihar and Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav and Ms Mayawati of the Bahujan Samaj Party in Uttar Pradesh are among the national level leaders who have provided political respectability to criminals for deriving short-term gains. But no Frankenstein has ever shown respect to his creator. The tirade against the former Chief Minister of Bihar has been started by Mr Anwarul Haque, once considered to be his close ally. He is angry with Mr Laloo Prasad Yadav for not helping him escape action in a criminal case. Mr Haque is said to have physically assaulted a policeman in Sitamarhi and has since then been on the run. He asked his political patron to use the position of his wife, Bihar Chief Minister Rabri Devi, for the cancellation of the criminal case registered against him [Mr Haque]. Mr Laloo Prasad Yadav is reported to have pointed out that both Mrs Rabri Devi and he have been chargesheeted in a number of cases. If it was within his power, he would first have got the cases registered against them quashed before helping Mr Haque.

The refusal to help provided Mr Haque the excuse to paint his mentor as a rank communalist. He has spread the dangerous canard that Mr Laloo Prasad Yadav had accused Mr Shahabuddin, Mr Taslimuddin [ who too are involved in a number of criminal cases] and him of being "involved in ISI activities". Of course, Bihar's strongman has denied ever having called any Muslim in the state an "ISI agent". But reports indicate that the damage has already been done. Mr Haque has managed to arouse the anger of the illiterate Muslims against Mr Laloo Prasad Yadav. However, Mr Haque and his supporters must be stopped from spreading the anti-Muslim rumour before Bihar goes through another round of avoidable communal violence.

Keeping fingers on the nation’s pulse
Lessons not learnt from history and experience
By Hari Jaisingh

ONE learns from experience. That is the way open to most people. And the only way to recall our experience is to record it. But if people are not used to recording their experience or to remembering it, they are bound to repeat their follies and suffer. This has been India's fate.

Indians, as a nation, are least conscious of their history. Thus, the great events of their history have been forgotten, for they went unrecorded. In fact, the British had to reconstruct our history. That is the reason why there was not much awareness of the fact that the greatest of our emperors — Ashoka — ever lived at all!

India has paid a heavy price for this indifference to history and historical facts. It is tragic that it continues to repeat its mistakes. For, how can one explain the hijacking of an Indian Airlines plane from Kathmandu to Afghanistan when there had been similar cases earlier? We were unprepared for it as we were for the earlier ones.

One would have thought that India was ready to face an earthquake because earthquakes were common in the country. During the past few years alone, India had major earthquakes in Latur, Jabalpur and Garhwal. In all these cases, the destruction was heavy. In the process, it was assumed that the country had learnt much. But it had not.

The Gujarat tragedy once again shows that we have learnt little from our experience. There is only one explanation for it: we fail to record our experience in detail, to analyse it and to prepare manuals for use in times of crisis whenever there is an earthquake.

Yet another folly, which has now become ingrained in us, is to let things be, to be permissive, to be "soft". "Sab chalta hai" — this has become the guiding philosophy for the ruling establishment. This has encouraged evil tendencies in the polity. It has also promoted the status quo and an aversion to learn new things, with two consequences:

1) We refuse to examine our experience and learn from it, and

2) this casual tendency to governance has encouraged complacency and tolerance of wrong-doings bordering on blunder. It is, therefore, not surprising that the builder mafia in Gujarat, as elsewhere, became bolder and corrupt over the years. They violated building laws with impunity. They knew that they had only to bide their time and everything would be forgotten.

And yet India has collected a vast amount of information on earthquakes and other disaster situations from other countries. And they are available in our universities and other institutions. It is said that we come third after the USA and Japan in knowledge about earthquakes. All that has been of no practical avail. As usual, the teaching institutions have also failed to enlighten the country on facts and solutions.

As stated in my column earlier, the Department of Earthquake Engineering in Roorkee University has a good record of achievements. It has produced low cost earthquake resistant technology. It has produced even a manual, which could have been regularly updated. But where was its leadership during the present crisis?

The Central Building Research Institute is another organisation which has done good work in connection with earthquakes. For example, it has produced low cost shelters to accommodate victims of cyclones and earthquakes. But, where is the initiative for updating information and technology? As it is, the negative, obstructionist and clerical mindset has played havoc in all segments of governance, including non-governmental institutions.

There was a time when we thought that India was free from major earthquakes. It was a false hope. The whole of India, as recent reports suggest, is earthquake prone. This is shown in the global map on seismicity produced by world experts.

It is time we revised our thoughts on earthquakes as they affect the country as a whole. We cannot afford to be complacent on these matters. We must make a fresh study of every dam we have built and the ones which we propose to build. For example, Tehri. But I am not sure whether a water body attracts earthquakes. In that case, the ocean bed must be the most earthquake prone.

What we need, above all, is earthquake education through schools, colleges and the media. This has become imperative. And it needs to be started at the primary class level. A child should know how to cope with a calamity. And so should the old and young, men and women, the strong and the weak.

Earthquakes do not kill people. It is falling buildings which do so. So the main cause of the tragedy is to be found in the poor quality of building construction. Behind this failing is the building mafia, in cahoots with politicians and bureaucrats.

In Tokyo, Moscow or London, they build cities to last. Not so in India. Which explains why high-rise buildings develop problems, say, within a decade!

Building activity in Gujarat, and even in other states, has been the most profitable business. It has, therefore, been attracting the worst possible anti-social and criminal elements. But nothing was done against them because the mafia bought the silence of the politicians and the bureaucrats.

However, to point our finger at the builder and not at the politician and the bureaucrat is not fair. If an inquest is to be made (and it should be made) there is need to identify the persons at the helm of decision-making and supervision.

It is a sad commentary of our times that while a 5000-year-old Indus Valley structure could withstand the earthquake, new buildings, supposed to be made of cement and steel, could crumble with the first shake of the earth.

There are disaster management plans for most of the disasters. But they are on paper only. We have seen that the Disaster Management Committee at the Centre failed over and over again. What is needed is not a bunch of secretaries who are illiterate about disaster situations but a body of experts with emergency powers. Such committees must be available at different levels in the highly earthquake-prone zones.

There is also need for mass-scale training and awareness generation in the highly prone areas. Workers and students should be mobilised to provide rescue and relief operations. It is also necessary to have standardised damage assessment so that relief and rehabilitation can be provided without delay.

It is indeed a matter of surprise and concern that the country has no civilian machinery to deal with disasters. Reliance is still on the armed forces. But even they are mainly used to tackling cyclones and floods. Though they were the first to reach Gujarat, they are ill-equipped to deal with earthquakes.

NGOs have surely grown over the years. But with little experience and equipment, they cannot be effective. As for civil engineers and architects, they are not experts on earthquake problems.

Earthquake resistant designs require a very specific branch of engineering called earthquake engineering. There are only a few hundred engineers trained for this purpose. But they are not licensed, while there is a licensing of even an electrician. In the meantime, there is a trend to rely more and more on architects, who know little about earthquake engineering.

Rehabilitation is yet another area where our knowledge is not perfect. A number of corporate units have offered to "adopt" villages. But they have no experience in rehabilitation. Putting up models of houses or even villages is not a bad idea. But unless the villagers and users approve of them, it is a futile endeavour.

Then, again, information can be made available. This has also been found wanting. In short, this is a slow process. There is need to find a more acceptable solution. Equally vital is the positive response system.

Finally, it is absolutely necessary to prepare the people for future shocks. The first task required for this is to do micro-zoning. Every high-risk area must have a regular monitoring system to take up follow-up actions.

Earthquakes are becoming more frequent and more dangerous. It is time we learnt from our experience. This requires tremendous political will.

It will be worthwhile for our leaders to learn from Mahatma Gandhi. He kept his fingers on the pulse of the nation. As a grassroots leader, he knew what people aspired for. His identification with the masses was total. He consistently interacted with them, responded to their sentiments and guided them in their hour of peril. Can we say this about the present-day leaders?

Taking care of trivialities
J. L Gupta

YEARS bring fears. Travel begins to appear troublesome. Therefore, I always found some excuse to stay at home. The ploy had worked well. But only till the dawn of the new millennium.

This year, my undesignated boss was adamant. She unequivocally declared, “I want to go to the East”. The hills, waterfalls and thick green forests were luring her. And she had the last word. So, the programme was prepared. In consultation with a friend in Guwahati. The “Jains” were very generous in extending help and hospitality.

So, we were on our way. The flight to Guwahati was scheduled to leave at 10.15. We reached the airport before 9 a.m. Went to the lounge. The smart steward offered a drink. He was courteous. But having just broken our fast, we were unable to accept the hospitality. So, we sat browsing through the morning papers. After a while, I got up to look for some more reading material.

My eyes unwittingly fell at the chart on the steward’s table. A record of what various passengers had consumed. Two glasses of orange juice were mentioned against my name. Without either of us having even taken a sip of anything. Apparently, everything in India carries a price tag. Even courtesy. And the staff working for the airlines is not satisfied with merely the pay packet.

The sound system came alive. We expected an announcement regarding the flight. No! The lady announced, “All passengers on IAC flight 899 may please note that a complete bandh has been declared in Guwahati. No surface transport may be available at the airport.” No hope of any help was held out. A sure damper.

The promised time for takeoff had already passed. Everyone in the lounge was waiting for the flight to be announced. The passengers were asked to move for the security check. All quickly queued up. Despite the X-ray machines and the tough looking men in uniform, everyone seemed to be eyeing the other passenger with suspicion.

The flights were being announced one after the other. To various places. But there was not a word about flight “899”. Why? Nobody seemed to have a clue. So, everyone waited and wasted time. An avoidable loss.

Ultimately, some kind soul announced: “Passengers waiting for the flight to Guwahati and Imphal are informed that there would be some delay on account of ‘technical’ reasons.” What were the technical reasons? Nobody knew. Resultantly, more delay.

Finally, an hour late, we were in the plane. To the hearty “welcome” of the hostesses. Some were slim and trim. Some looked well fed and fit. The traditional Indian “saree” can hide many sins. But today it did not seem to make a secret of the bulge around the belly. The plane was neat. But no hot and cold towels were offered. Even in Executive class. No wonder, it is now called “J” class. Some saving?

Soon, we were airborne. After sometime, the captain announced that we were flying at 31000 ft above sea level. Cruising at a speed of 875 km per hour. From that height, the snow-covered peaks in the Himalayan range on the left looked majestic. It was a sight to behold. Yet, we do not attract enough tourists.

After about 90 minutes, the plane moved to the starboard side. The Himalayan hills were almost hidden. However, there were patches of green and brown. We were descending. Soon one could see what seemed like streams of water. Despite that there were no green fields. No crops. I learnt that the people are satisfied with a single sowing. Nobody wants the second. Before long we had touched down. In precisely, two minutes less than two hours from the takeoff.

We moved from place to place. Met very nice people. Enjoyed their generous hospitality. The days flew fast. And we were back in the plane. For the return journey. Same procedures. The flight touched down after two hours 20 minutes. We were able to come out after another 10 minutes. Why the extra 30 minutes? Was the delay not avoidable? To save on precious fuel.

Crops. Fuel. Juice. Time. Individually, all small things. But a small leak can sink a big ship. We must take care of even trivialities. Otherwise, the “Titanic” can become tiny. And vice-versa.

Time to correct India’s West Asia policy
M.S.N. Menon

THE horse is the only animal dearer to Allah, says the Prophet of Islam. Now that we have been gifted a horse by no less a person than Prince Abdullah, we should hope that it has brought with it the goodwill of its masters.

Prince Abdullah is next in line to the Saudi throne. And he is the most powerful man in his country. What is more, he hates terrorists and terrorism. He denounced both at the Tehran conference of the OIC.

See how these things happen! Now, we should invite Prince Abdullah to India. He should know that India is the home of 120 million Muslims, that in inter-action with the Hindu civilisation, they have produced a culture which has no parallel in the Muslim world. It could not have happened in any other country. Not in Europe. Not in China.

It was thought that the Arab would never change. And yet new winds are blowing. The young Moroccan king speaks of respect for laws and human rights. Oman and Qatar have widened people’s participation in governance. The ruler of Qatar is in favour of a free media. Both have granted freedom of worship to non-Muslims. These are indeed revolutionary.

There are 22 Arab countries with a population of 130 million. They hardly mattered before. But oil and gas have changed their fortunes. And perhaps the prospects of the world, too.

Oil sales began in 1927. But only after the oil crisis, it fetched a good price. In 1946, oil was sold at $ 2 a barrel. It rose to $ 36 per barrel by 1979. Arabs account for 34 per cent of the world oil production. It has brought them unprecedented prosperity. And disproportionate power, too.

India has had a long trading relation with the Arabs. The trade turnover with the Gulf is about $ 10 billion now. India’s exports account for $ 2.5 billion.

The Arab image of India has been shaped by the propaganda of Pakistan. It had projected India as anti-Muslim. We can only blame ourselves for this. Our foreign publicity needs change.

India has always been pro-Arab. It stood with the Arab world in its fight against Zionism and Israel. It opposed the division of Palestine on religious lines, being a victim of the two-nation theory. In principle, our stand on Palestine was right. But on after-thought, it was wrong. We got into a trap. And the Arabs exploited it. We could not establish diplomatic relations with Israel after we opposed its very creation.

Friendship with Arabs was a one-way street. It began with Gamel Abdel Nasser of Egypt. By opposing the Suez invasion by Britain, France and Israel, India incurred the wrath of the West. (It confirmed what it had long suspected: that Hindus are anti-West.) But when China invaded India in 1962, the Arab world was silent. And Nasser chose to remain on the fence. But Pakistan, which stood with the West, gained much and lost nothing.

At the Casablanca conference of Muslim countries (after the 1965 Indo-Pak war), the Arabs took the side of Pakistan. But India stuck to its position of support to Arabs during the 1967 Arab-Israel war. In fact, our policy became pro-active at this stage. It became more anti-Israel.

This one-way love affair did not go without a protest. However, the ruling party — the Congress — continued its support of the Arabs because it wanted the votes of the Muslims in India.

At the Rabat conference of 1969, the Arabs, under Pakistan pressure, prevented the entry of the Indian delegation into the conference hall. India had a formal invitation.

In 1971 the Arabs chose to be silent over the atrocities of the Pak army on the Bengali Muslims of East Pakistan (That they were Muslims made no difference to the Arabs. Perhaps they were not Muslim enough?) Nor did they have a word of sympathy for India, which was reeling under a 10-million refugees problem from East Pakistan.

But India again supported the Arabs in the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. In this case, it was the Arabs who attacked Israel.

The oil crisis of 1973 bankrupted most of the developing countries. They became indebted to Western banks. India was one of the worst victims. The Arabs were indifferent to the problems of the poor countries.

And yet India continued to support the Palestinian cause. India voted for punitive sanctions against Israel and supported the PLO for an observer status in the UN in 1974. In 1975 India voted for a resolution in the UN General Assembly equating Zionism with racism. And India was the first non-Arab country to extend formal diplomatic accreditation to the representative of the PLO. But all these had no impact on the Arab attitude towards India.

The Janata Government, which came to power in 1977, naturally wanted to have a fresh look at Israel. But opposition from the Congress forced Morarji Desai, the Prime Minister, to go secret. He invited Moshe Dyan secretly in 1979. But even he made a condition that India could normalise relations with Israel only if the latter returned the Arab territories. On that, the discussion broke down.

When the Congress came to power in 1980, it reversed the trend. In 1982, it expelled the Israeli Consul in Bombay for saying that India’s policy towards Israel was a prisoner of Muslim opinion in this country. But was he not stating the bald facts?

However, by the late eighties, there was a perceptible shift in India’s policy. In June, 1988, Rajiv Gandhi saw a leading Jewish lobbyist in New York at the request of Stephen Solarz, the head of the Indian caucus. This led to the appointment of a new Israeli Consul in Bombay.

Was this move of Rajiv Gandhi a response to US pressure or was it in line with his new thinking which led to the opening of the Babri Masjid locks? We will perhaps never know. The point is: the Congress policy towards Israel was solely guided by its vote bank politics, and not by the interests of this country.

Similarly, the BJP’s policy towards Israel was shaped by the Jana Sangh legacy and that of the Jana Sangh by its anti-Muslim policy. Israel was seen as anti-Muslim. Ergo, it should be an ally of India — so went the argument.

Of course, greater realism has dawned on the BJP. It has realised that its policy was not guided by the country’s interests, that it was ideological. The Arab policy is also ideological. It is time they changed it.

The BJP, now in power, has rectified its errors. Today, even the Arabs do not question the right of Israel to exist. And more and more Indians can see the advantages of having normal relations with Israel. The only exception is the Congress. It has not changed its vote bank politics.

Israel is a unique state. It was born of the suffering of the Jews for two millennia. And they are determined to make their state a success. And it is really a success story. Israel has much to give India in terms of experience and technology, particularly in desert irrigation, agriculture, defence, combating terrorism and so on.

Having said this, one must hasten to add that nothing should be done to damage our relations with the Arab world. It is rich and powerful, although backward in thinking. We have varied interests in the Arab world. By 2010 India’s need of oil is put at 350-400 million tonnes. And nearly four million Indians have found jobs in the Arab world. They remit about $ 7 billion yearly.

Saudi Arabia, with 21 million people, is the natural leader of the Arab world. It is also the home of two of the holiest places of Islam — Mecca and Medina. And then Saudi Arabia is the leader of the Wahhabi Sunni sect — the largest sect of Islam.

Saudi Arabia is important to India. It meets 20 per cent of our oil needs and 40 per cent of the gas. And it has the largest contingent of Indian labour — about 1.5 million. In turn, about a lakh of Indian Muslims visit the holy places each year. India spends about Rs 200 crore in subsidising this pilgrimage.

So, it was right and proper for Jaswant Singh to have gone to Riyadh to establish a new equation with the Arab world. Strange that it has happened under a BJP regime!

Gene therapy for diabetes

SCIENTISTS have succeeded in using gene therapy to regulate blood glucose levels in diabetic rats and mice, a development which may pave the way for treatment of diabetes in humans.

A team led by Hyun Chul Lee from the College of Medicine in Seoul prepared an insulin analogue, a substance similar to insulin which retained 20-40 per cent of the activity of native insulin, using genetic engineering, a report published in the journal Nature said.

The gene encoding the insulin analogue was inserted into the virus which was then used to deliver the gene into diabetic rats and mice. The gene became incorporated in the liver cells of animals.

The experiments were conducted in animals which had type I diabetes — a condition which begins in childhood or early adulthood and causes complete destruction of insulin-secreting cells. Insulin is a substance which plays a key role in maintaining blood sugar levels.

Since patients with type I diabetes produce absolutely no insulin, treatment of the disorder revolves around administering externally produced insulin through subscutaneous injection, external pumps or nasal sprays. PTI

Women scared to pop the pill

Fateema Bibi comes to Calcutta Rescue, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) that provides health-care for women and children to consult the doctors. Her four-month-old baby is thin and she is worried that he does not suck her milk. But the doctors say that Fateema herself needs treatment as she is weak due to repeated abortions.

Fateema Bibi is among millions of women in India who are afraid of taking the contraceptive pill due to a fear psychosis. Fateema says she is afraid because her mother-in-law has warned her that taking the pill would lead to stomach-pain and other complications. Women like her try out ineffective local concoctions to prevent pregnancy and ultimately resort to abortions.

Lack of awareness about contraceptives, even among urban women, is a major reason for India’s population growth, according to Dr Rita Leavell, head of the country operations of the “Goli ke Hamjoli” programme. India’s record for use of oral pills is one of the lowest in the world at 2.1 per cent. Compared to this, neighbouring Bangladesh, considered one of the poorest in the world, has 20 per cent use.

It is regrettable, Dr Leavell contends, that though the pills produced by the Indian Government are of good quality and that now the oral pill is a non-prescription drug in India, its performance has been so poor. WFS

Fraudulent mummy

The mummified corpse of a young princess, discovered in October, 2000, in Pakistan, may end up being one of the century’s more elaborate hoaxes, say experts. CT-scans, chemical analyses and carbon dating of samples of the sarcophagus and the slab on which the mummy was resting and deciphering the cuneiform script reveal that the corpse is, in fact, that of a young woman who died approximately two, not 2,000 years ago as was earlier claimed. The identity of the deceased and the cause of death, however, remain unknown.

Investigations revealed that all the three layers of the woman’s skin are still preserved, and her body has started to decompose — which suggests that she was mummified not more than two years ago! Experts reckon that the woman — probably in her early twenties — was either stabbed or shot. However, the exact nature of the injury can only be determined once the mummy is unwrapped.

Further investigations also reveal various other discrepancies between Egyptian mummies and this one, related to the manner of mummifying a body. Experts also maintain that all the mummified woman’s teeth have been extracted — a procedure that has not been known to have been carried out with Egyptian mummies — probably deliberately removed to camouflage the woman’s identity. Now the only way to determine the identity of the woman will be through the men from whose possession the mummy was recovered, and this is a task that can only be undertaken by the police. WFS

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

The One is manifested as many.

Wherever I see, He pervades everywhere.

Maya tempts all with its alluring forms,

But rare is the dispassionate one who knows:

All is God. All is God.

With out God there is none.

The thread is one, its beads are many.

So is the Lord woven into the world.

— Sri Guru Granth Sahib, page 485

***

A frog lived in a well. It had lived there for a long time. It was born there and brought up there, and yet was a little, small frog. One day another frog that lived in the sea came and fell into the well.

"Where are you from?"

"I am from the sea."

"The sea! How big is that? Is it as big as my well?"

and he took a leap from one side of the well to the other.

"My friend, said that frog of the sea, "how do you compare the sea with your little well?"

Then the frog took another leap and asked, "Is your sea so big?"

Well nonsense you speak, to compare the sea with your well!"

Well, then," said the frog of the well, "nothing can be bigger than my well; there can be nothing bigger than this; this fellow is a liar, so turn him out."

That has been the difficulty all the while.

I am a Hindu. I am sitting in my own little well and thinking that the whole world is my little well. The Christian sits in his little well and thinks the whole world in his well. The Mohammedan sits in his little well an thinks that is the whole world.

—Swami Vivekananda at the Parliament of Religions, Chicago, September 15, 1893

***

A fish said to another fish:

"Above this sea of our there is another sea, with creatures swimming in it — and they live there even as we live here."

The fish replied, "Pure fancy! Pure fancy! when you know that everything that leaves our sea by even an inch, and stays out of it, dies. What proof have you to other lives in other seas.

—Kahlil Gibran, The Forerunner.