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| Wednesday,
March 14, 2001, Chandigarh, India   
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M S Gill owes an explanation Innovative schemes Waiting for rabi MSP |
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BUDGET
2001-2002 Australia’s problems: lesson for India
Who will gain from Tamil Nadu alliance? Pak sympathy for Taliban shows at UN
Smoking, drinking proving
fatal in USA
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Notwithstanding the claim by the Chief Election Commissioner to the contrary, Dr M.S. Gill cannot ignore the disturbing disclosure by Capt. Amarinder Singh that electronic voting machines (EVMs) can be tampered with with the help of a programmed chip installed therein by unscrupulous persons. If what the President of the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee says is anywhere near the realm of possibility, given the known vulnerability of the system, then we have reasons to be doubly worried. First, it exposes the electoral process to an ugly design of enterprising crooks at the helm. Second, it will undermine the people's faith in their power to throw out those they wish to punish. At stake, therefore, is the very future of democracy. It is one thing to go hi-tech. But if the technology is misused by corrupt politicians and their collaborators, then we will have to review the desirability or otherwise of installing electronic voting machines. The PPCC chief's demonstration of the doctored device has already sown seeds of suspicion in the minds of citizens. They will surely not like to suffer unwanted persons if the new device can be manipulated to their disadvantage. As it is, cancerous cells are eating into the vitals of the body politic. The old electoral system suffers from a number of flaws. It has become highly expensive. Elections, for that matter, have become a big business. We have also seen how this lucrative trade has begun to attract criminals. A nexus is established between money bags and electoral politics. Corrupt persons will not mind spending a few lakhs of rupees to buy programmed chips and decide winners and losers. Technically, this is feasible. In the circumstances, how can the Election Commission ensure fairplay and transparency? Capt. Amarinder Singh has cited examples of a number of Western countries like Germany, France and the United Kingdom which have gone back to the conventional ballot paper polling by discarding the EVMs. The Election Commission must study why these developed nations gave up these hi-tech machines. It is true that a huge order for EVMs, costing crores of rupees to the exchequer, has been placed. The country cannot afford the luxury of replacing the earlier booth capturing practice at the point of the gun with "hi-tech booth capturing". The people expect Dr Gill to look into the matter seriously. Even the slightest doubt about the efficacy of the new device should not prevent him from discarding EVMs. The nation looks to him for a convincing answer to this mind-boggling problem. Any erosion of faith in the efficacy of the electoral system can be dangerous if corrective measures are not initiated urgently. |
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THE term “tax-free” Budget makes an interesting headline. Small wonder that it is being exploited to the hilt by almost every State. Haryana has managed to use this in its exercise for the second year in running. But have no illusions. If past experience is any guide, fresh taxes can be imposed any time during the year. The Chief Minister was asked about it in his post-Budget Press conference and he said he could not predict what would happen in the future. “Who could have imagined that Gujarat earthquake would take place?” he is reported to have said. Read his lips and be prepared for taxing quakes of moderate to severe intensity as the year unfolds. The Budget, presented by the Finance Minister, Prof Sampat Singh, is more noteworthy for two innovative schemes. One is the “state economic renewal fund”, which will be used for the “rationalisation” of government departments and agencies. That means the government has come to realise the gravity of the problem of overstaffing and is gearing up to do something about it. Will the babu brigade allow it to proceed? Wait and see. The other scheme is a sinking fund to meet any sudden debt-servicing contingency. In fact, there is no suddenness about it. The State stands guarantee for the debts of public sector enterprises which have ballooned to Rs 2,841.30 crore. The total borrowings of the State Government are as high as Rs 14,039 crore. Given the staggering salary burden and terrible debt position, the State just has to think of drastic measures. The real position cannot be hidden through juggling with figures or downsizing the Plan. What have the austerity measures taken so far yielded? Don’t ask such difficult questions! Jammu and Kashmir has also had a Budget with no new taxes for the second consecutive year. Finance Minister Abdul Rahim Lather does not agree that this is an “election” Budget (the State is to go to the polls in October, 2002), but there are many who beg to differ. There is a yawning deficit, which is unlikely to go away in a hurry. Whatever the causes — the Finance Minister has quoted the payment of salaries to employees who fled the valley in 1990, and the expenditure on account of budgetary support for public sector undertakings that have gone into the red because of militancy — the huge deficit is a grim reality which has to be tackled boldly. The financial exigency does not square up with the concessions offered to the liquor lobby. |
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In four weeks time this region will be celebrating Baisakhi, symbolising the rabi harvest. A later tradition expects the government to announce the minimum support price for wheat and other crops well before the sowing time. This year there is an eerie silence on MSP, although there have been reports of freezing it at last year’s level of Rs 580 a quintal or even lowering it to Rs 520. The Chief Ministers of Punjab and Haryana and the farmers are a worried lot. Their experience last year was painful and this year offers no hope. Mr Om Prakash Chautala, with his ears to the ground, suspects that the Centre will retain MSP at the old level; hence he has offered a token bonus of Rs 20 a quintal to make it a round figure of Rs 600. Mr Parkash Singh Badal has to follow suit but he prefers to wait for the Centre to act. The reasons behind New Delhi’s queer behaviour are well known. It is sitting on a grain mountain of 45 million tonnes or so. This year the wheat crop is likely to be 70 million tonnes and the saleable surplus with the farmers will be about 15 million tonnes. The stock of 60 million tonnes cannot be disposed of in any way. Open market prices are lower than PDS prices, thanks to the inefficient working of the FCI. Nor can it be exported since India has priced itself out. The government is not known for its creative thinking. Hence the reluctance to even initiate the first step. In other words, the government wants to shift its problem to the farming community. In this background, a news item from Karnal struck as curious. The Directorate of Wheat Research has developed a hybrid variety to increase yield. And it has also designed an attachment to the tractor which will help farmers to combine tilling and sowing and thus save on diesel use. A hurried calculation has convinced the scientists that the savings will work out to Rs 50 a quintal. If the yield too increases, the Indian farmers will be able to offer stiff competition to even their American counterparts, or so it is said. That is jam tomorrow but today’s problem is becoming unbearable. This is reflected in the plan for an indefinite dharna by all kisan organisations in Punjab from Thursday. That is ostensibly to protest against the threat to the agriculture sector from the WTO agreement. But it is a safe bet that the issues of MSP and procurement will prominently figure in the agitation. |
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Budget of class interests If Yashwant Sinha finds himself on cloud nine he cannot be blamed. Never before, or perhaps only just once before, has a Finance Minister received such full-throated hosannas for his budget proposals. Predictably enough, the paeans have come from the privileged precincts of our chasmic social order and particularly and most cheerfully from big business and economic predators, existing as well as wannabe, at home as well as abroad. Whether it was bad lighting or plain envy, the “dream merchant” of the Gowda-Gujral vintage, P. Chidambaram looked distinctly green in a Doordarshan discussion on the budget night. Following the Gujarat havoc the Prime Minister had repeatedly warned of a harsh budget, which many translated to mean, among other things, a hike in the higher income-tax rates. He is reported to have advised even a harsh railway budget but when Ms Mamata Banerjee refused to oblige (undoubtedly for partisan electoral reasons), there was a further spurt in the fear that the main budget would deal a majorly incremental blow to the moneyed sections. Even otherwise the picture was none too rosy for them; what with all the ills besetting the economy and the social sector in the dumps, the need to marshal additional revenues could not be overlooked. Direct taxes apart, fancy consumer goods, especially luxury goods, including those of the imported variety, would become dearer, they feared. Praise be to the Finance Minister, none of these fears came true. Not only was there no increase in the highest income-tax rate, which at 30 per cent is lower than in most of the rich as well as poor countries, even the surcharge was removed. Needless to say, if your income is in six and seven figures, the 15 per cent drop in the tax adds to a pretty sizeable bonus. And a whole range of goods too will now be cheaper for you — things like imported leather items, foreign liquor, toys, pickles and coke! But it is not just the tang and the zing; to the rich and the very rich what makes Mr Sinha a zinger Finance Minister is that even cars and limousines will be cheaper now, at the minimum by as much as the per capita income in this country and in several cases by three times as much! What we see here is the by now all too familiar Marie Antoinette mindset: can’t afford dal-roti, eat pickles and imported food items; no water in your tap or no tap in your village, drink beer or go for a coke (even in many parts of progressive Haryana, according to a recent DD documentary, people still have to trudge 10 kilometres to and fro for water); no public transport, buy yourself a car (what petrol scarcity, what pollution?) ..... The catalogue is long and will soon be longer still when another 1000 items, including foreign spirits, will be brought on the free import list! But it is not only cheaper toys and tipple and coke and cars that explain the rapturous reception to the budget in our socio-economic stratosphere. Capital itself will now be substantially cheaper as a result of the slashing of interest rates. Industrialists and businessmen can borrow all they want at the new low rates, invest it in whatever they want, and earn their megaprofits. No licence, no restrictions and no permission needed. Workers and labour laws coming in the way? Not to worry; in the emerging hire-and-fire culture there will be no hassles on that count. Already, thanks to Mr Sinha, if you employ fewer than 1,000 workers you can get rid of them en block by simply closing down without even the semblance of a frown from our modern-day welfare State. It is not only a shift from workers to employers and capitalists, there is in the continuing “reform” strategy an overall shift from the weaker to the stronger sections — both in the national context and within specific sectors and sections. The poorest among us, the demonstrably wretched of the earth called India, whose uplift should be the first charge on governmental concern and coffers in a genuine democracy, have no place in the unfolding scheme of progress; the “new economics” has simply written them off. If this is an exaggeration it is exaggeration of a fact. Is there anything concrete in this budget that would even in a small way make life less miserable for these voiceless millions who constitute at least one-third of the population? So much for two out of six Indians. What of the other four? Three of them stand squeezed or harassed or positively disadvantaged. Take even the better-off among them: While the budget has made elitist and luxury goods cheaper, relatively mass consumption goods like sugar, tea, coffee, toothbrushes, bulbs, biscuits and even matchboxes will now cost more; while mobile phone prices and tariffs stand slashed, postage goes up — even the “lowly” postcard is to cost twice as much. This is how the tax cuts amounting to a whopping Rs 5,500 crore are to be offset in Mr Sinha’s proposals. Even as the rich as a class have reasons to celebrate, the corporates among them are simply rejoicing over the low interest rates. That this has caused a slashing of interest on bank deposits and, therefore, will result in seriously eroding the value of savings, especially of small savers and pensioners, is evidently of little concern to Mr Sinha and company. A classic case of robbing Peter to benefit Paul! Additionally now, interest on your deposits amounting to Rs 2,500, as against Rs 10,000 so far, will be tax-deducted at source. If you are not liable to income tax you have to regularly file the exemption forms; in short, more harassment, more paper work and more waste of time for both the savers and the banks. The idea (applaud, applaud!) is to widen the tax net. Widen the net to catch the shrimp even as sharks swim freely and devour unrealised revenues! There are hundreds of crores of rupees in identified tax arrears which remain uncollected for years together, but if your lifelong savings earn interest of Rs 2,500 you have to pay the tax even before the interest is paid to you! This is patently discriminatory and most unfair. Even if some small savers did evade the tax, the government’s resolve to nab them though mega-evaders are not touched shows how caring the dispensation is and towards whom! Any government with a minimal sense of equity would exempt interest on small savings altogether. The loss of revenue could be made up if even 5 per cent of big evaders are honestly pursued and made to pay, or if big agriculturists are taxed even at the lowest rate. But given the “reform” psychology, such as it is, such ideas are sacrilege! The buzzword is growth rate and investment, and all policies have to be geared to that unmagnificent obsession. That the growth rate in the decade of reforms has been lower than earlier does not embarrass the reformers. Nor does the anatomy of the so-called growth. Growth of what? For whose benefit? Similarly, investment in what and to whose benefit? If the country produces 10 million luxury cars and 20 million home theatre systems, it will boost the growth rate, but would that be national progress, would it benefit the common man? Policies and investments that would benefit him are either conspicuous by their absence or confined to long-term promises — areas like employment, education, health care, housing. Thus, while benefits and bonanzas for the rich and corporates are measurable and immediate, things that would make a qualitative change to the lives of the teeming millions are confined to the provenly treacherous trickle-down notions. Intrinsic to these notions is the equally spurious theory of ultimate benefit. Disinvestment (selling off public sector units) is ostensibly aimed at releasing resources for the social sector. But is there any evidence of this alleged connectivity? Similarly, the hire-and-fire policy will, we are told, ultimately increase employment! In fact, these policies along with opening the floodgates for imports have or will hit people hard. Already, according to one report, liberalised imports have caused the closure of seven lakh small (and several thousand larger) units, rendering an estimated four million people jobless in the last three years. With hundreds of more items slated to come on the free import list — items including food products, fruits and vegetables, and a range of engineering goods made in the small sector — unemployment and destitution is set to increase further. But who cares? Certainly not the rich and the powerful, and it is they who call the shots in our republic. They influence government policies and decisions and when these are actually as per their wishes and diktats, as in all the “reform” budgets and as in Mr Sinha’s latest proposals, the result is euphoria in teak-panelled boardrooms and posh drawing room. An editorial in this newspaper hit the nail on the head: This budget is “the delight of industrialists and fundamentalists among reformers and odd economic thinkers”; the common man “has much to worry about”. The writer is a veteran commentator. |
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Australia’s problems: lesson for India Australia is right now beset with problems akin to those India faces so far as its politics and economic situation are concerned. There is an extreme right-wing backlash that is gaining ground and growing despair over the impact of globalisation. Elections to two State assemblies of West Australia and Queensland have witnessed the emergence of Pauline Hanson’s ultra-rightist One Nation Party. Even though the party has won only two and three seats, respectively, in the two States, in the elections held over the first fortnight of February, the media has gone overboard in investing it with serious consequences for the present ruling coalition government led by Prime Minister John Howard. Even in the two States the party is in no position to influence State parliamentary politics nor play a decisive role in Cabinet formation and yet even prominent newspapers have devoted pages after pages to portray her as a significant factor in national politics. Ms Hanson won the seats on the strength of the current anti-Howard feelings all over the country over the imposition of a 10 per cent general Sales Tax (GST), a rise in petrol prices and the preparation of a Business Activity Statement to be filed by small businesses for the first time. Last year’s Olympic euphoria has evaporated by now as hard realities surface. The two elections have given an edge to the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Kim Beasley and his Labour Party, which has won resounding successes in Western Australia and Queensland. He is now headed to become the next Prime Minister, when elections to the federal Parliament are held by the end of the year. The elections in Queensland were influenced by the Auditor-General’s report which found that $2.9 billion collected through fuel-taxes (petrol, natural gas and diesel) for funding the maintenance of roads, had been spent in other areas. The government also committed the folly of putting the sale of the telecommunications giant, Telstra, on the national agenda just before the elections. Beasley capitalised on both issues. It was clear that he was feeding the grievances of those left behind by globalisation. This will fuel the anti-incumbency factor for Mr John Howard, now at the end of his second term in office. The media continues to overreact to Ms Hanson despite the fact that her vision for Australia “remains paranoid, ungenerous and unworkable”, as The Age editorialised. Queensland is Ms Hanson’s home State. Even though elected to the Queensland parliament in 1998, she did not contest this time. Today she provides a touchstone for all elements disillusioned by the politics and policies of the major parties — the Labour, Liberals and Democrats and the National Party. Ms Hanson has fully exploited voter dissatisfaction. Her strategy has been to unseat sitting MPs. She stands, among other things, for the return of capital punishment, free issue of firearms, end to any commercial or industrial reforms, opposition to any concessions to the Aboriginals, taking education out of any national compulsory agenda, and opposition to all non-White migrants. Today Australia has a quota system for allowing migrants of brown, yellow and black pigmentation. Some of these aspirations would look quaint in the 21st century. True, many of them centre on economic considerations, but the solutions offered by Ms Hanson are not what even sane political considerations would sanction. Till now it has been the contest for the marginal seats that has sustained the hopes of One Nation. The lessons Australia’s neighbour, New Zealand, learnt from hurried privatisation in the wake of globalisation are dawning upon Australians. In a few years in the mid 1980s, New Zealand brought in deregulation, cut taxes, sold off State-owned industries allowing market forces to prevail with a vengeance. All this was done in the background of New Zealand’s long record of setting global trends. After all, it was the first country to give women the right to vote, first to create a welfare State, first to ward off all nuclear powers and first to pull down the State in favour of the market. The results were disastrous. The country was soon reduced to a branch office economy. The current trend was initiated by a left-wing Alliance Party in a new kind of a Labour government. In a year, the government led by Mrs Helen Clark, is fast moving away from the effects of globalisation. During the year it has been in power, it has escalated the top rate of income tax for the high-income groups, increased pensions, reduced student fees and debts and conceded trade union rights. Some of these could have the effect of reversing the global trends towards privatisation. It has already re-nationalised industries and seeks to do it with the railways, sold of a decade ago. The privatised rail service, Tranz Rail, has invited severe criticism for declining safety standards and failure to extend rural services. Tranz Rail is not even owned by New Zealanders, but by a company in Wisconsin in the USA. Along with the railways everyone of the country’s major banks, including the Bank of New Zealand, is in foreign hands. The Alliance Government has now proposed setting up a new bank, the People’s Bank, offering cheap services and low cost loans, owned and operated by the government, via the post office (the only service the government did not sell off, unlike in Australia, where it is privatised.) All this is open admission by Mrs Clark that market fundamentalism has failed. Not only was business performance at rock bottom, but growth was also slower than anywhere else in the developed world. Labour called a halt to the mad race to privatise more and more “until eventually the government would tax nothing, regulate nothing and do nothing,” as Mrs Clark says. The new Government has kept market forces out of health, housing and education to “rebalance” the economy and society. In Australia, petrol prices are among the highest — going up to 99.9 cents a litre during weekends. Oil companies make a profit of $330 billion a year. (The Australian dollar is about Rs 25) Mr Beasley has not yet revealed how he will unroll the GST, having opposed it. He has criticised the GST on sanitary products, books, nappies, funerals, children’s clothing, gas, electricity, heating, shoes and eczema ointments. Mr Howard on March 1 announced reduction of excise by 1.5 cents a litre of petrol, amounting to a loss of $2.6 billion a year in revenue. Mrs Hanson has not revealed what she would do with the GST if ever in power. Except for extreme right-wing rhetoric. One Nation has little to its credit since it made its mark in Australian politics in 1998. It has not yet enunciated any firm policies or preferences. In the last Queensland elections 11 One Nation candidates were elected. Within weeks, all of them deserted the party, contributing nothing to better government. Six of them formed the breakaway City Alliance Party, four sat as Independents and one resigned. All six City Alliance party members have been defeated in the recent elections. The only member elected in Western Australia also left the party. From the ashes Mrs Hanson has risen once again. The one common cry of Labour, Democrats and Liberals against Mrs Hanson is to urge the people to concentrate on policies, not personalities. The Labour opposition has said the Australian economy is on the down slide, drifting towards international irrelevance. Australia is only 12 per cent of the global economy. Almost all Australian companies doing business with Europe and North America are taking their headquarters nearer their areas of business. The only alternative for Australia to survive economically is to change the bulk of their activities to Asia, which offers prospects of scale, markets and capital that can sustain Australian-based multinational corporations. The writer is on a visit to Australia.
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Who will gain from Tamil Nadu alliance? Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi and his bitter adversary, Ms Jayalalitha, have firmed up their electoral alliances, led by the ruling DMK and the AIADMK, respectively, for what promises to be one of the closest fights for power Tamil Nadu has witnessed over the past three decades. Both leaders are confident of their alliance “sweeping the polls”, the former by the record of his Government in the area of “pro-poor development”, and the latter by the strength of its constituents and possible anti-incumbency factor. However, notwithstanding the clear battlelines, the campaign for the April poll will bring to the fore charges and countercharges and the embarrassments which the AIADMK-led alliance has had to endure in being put together. Ms Jayalalitha herself faces the prospect of disqualification in view of her conviction in a few of the series of cases of corruption brought against her systematically by the Karunanidhi Government. A major embarrassment for the Congress/TMC, which the DMK will exploit, is that while being part of the AIADMK-led alliance in Tamil Nadu, they will “delink” the alliance for the Pondicherry elections, the Congress having rejected the AIADMK-PMK seatsharing formula in the Union Territory, where the Congress has run the administration. The former Finance Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram’s open disagreement with his party leader, Mr G.K. Moopanar, on the TMC joining the AIADMK-led alliance will also be taken advantage of by the DMK and its NDA associates. It is difficult to predict the outcome at this stage and much would depend on the skills that Ms Jayalalitha could employ as she reaches the people directly in the coming weeks to test whether the “Amma” factor works. Whatever the attributes of Mrs Sonia Gandhi as a vote-gatherer for the Congress, her contribution in Tamil Nadu is bound to be negligible. It is the TMC that could hope to salvage a good number of the 30 odd seats it has held in the present Assembly. The LTTE-factor will also come into play but both fronts have outfits openly supportive of the Sri Lankan Tamil movement for a homeland, the PMK (Pattali Makkal Katchi) of Dr Ramadoss in the AIADMK alliance and the MDMK under Mr Karunanidhi. Dithering the procrastination for weeks preceded the tie-up between the TMC, whose leader, Mr G.K. Moopanar, negotiated on behalf of the Congress, and Ms Jayalalitha. The latter preferred to do business more with the TMC, which could provide some strength and secular character to the alliance. She also calculated that there was no hope for any third front in Tamil Nadu which the TMC and the Congress thought of for a while but without even the Left parties willing to go along with it. In 1996, the DMK in partnership with the TMC inflicted a humiliating defeat on the AIADMK, ousting the Jayalalitha Government. Two years later, the TMC, a breakaway faction of the Congress, parted company with the DMK which was moving closer toward the BJP-led coalition at the Centre. Now, the TMC and the Congress have decided to stand together. The Congress party in Tamil Nadu, which ruled the State till 1967, had to align itself with one or the other of the two regional parties — the AIADMK or the DMK — in order to remain even as a marginal force in State politics. Dissensions in the Congress led to the emergence in 1996 of the Tamil Maanila Congress led by Mr G.K. Moopanar who personally has a loyalty to the Nehru-Gandhi family. The Congress had then aligned itself with the AIADMK although the former Jayalalitha regime stood discredited. After the debacle for both the Congress and TMC in the parliamentary elections of 1999, these two wings of the Congress started moving closer, when the TMC found the going was getting tougher for it to go alone to restore the ‘rule of Kamaraj’, the last Congress Chief Minister of the State. Ms Jayalalitha feels the AIADMK has been fortified by the Pattali Makkal Katchi of Dr Ramadoss deserting the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and entering into an electoral pact with her. The PMK has a strong base in the northern districts of the State backed by the Vanniyar community. The PMK has been allotted 27 seats to contest in the 234-member Tamil Nadu Assembly while the TMC-Congress has been given 47 seats by Ms Jayalalitha (TMC agreeing to 32 and 15 seat-sharing between them). The CPI (M) and CPI form part of the AIADMK-led alliance though the Left parties have not been happy with a total of 20 seats initially offered by the AIADMK leader. Ms Jayalalitha has taken care to ensure that the AIADMK fights on its own in a good majority of the constituencies as she is determined to form a Government of the AIADMK without any power-sharing arrangement as at present.
(IPA) |
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Pak sympathy for Taliban shows at UN To defend the indefensible should be difficult as well as embarrassing, but for Pakistan with its softcorner, sympathy and support for the Taliban, it is no problem. Pakistan’s representative at the UN was the odd man out during the General Assembly debate last week on the Taliban’s action in demolishing the ancient artefacts in Afghanistan, including two Buddha statues in the Bamiyan valley. Speaker after speaker unequivocally condemned Taliban’s vandalism, but the Pakistani delegate, while joining in the appeal to protect Afghanistan’s cultural heritage, ventured to suggest that the Taliban was driven to extreme measures because of the international community’s hostility to regime. Mr Masmasood Khalid told the General Assembly that if the international community wanted the Taliban to change its behaviour in accordance with established norms, it must use persuasion, not intimidation and must try to convince, rather than rebuff. If the international community condemned Taliban for its misdeeds, it must also commend it for its achievements, as in the case of destruction of poppy crop in Taliban-controlled territory, which had been achieved at the peril of Afghan farmers. Although historic relics were important, so were human lives, Mr Khalid argued, and said Afghanistan was in the grip of a grave humanitarian crisis. After decades of war and drought, sanctions recently imposed by the UN Security Council were, in his view, “the last straw that broke the camel’s back”. The UN, he said, needed to address the present unfortunate situation. It was necessary to consider the “bigger picture” — restoration of peace and reconstruction of Afghanistan. Otherwise, Mr Khalid said, there would be no end to the cycle of misery in that country or indeed to these matters that evoked the consternation of the international community. Representatives of two other Muslim countries participating in the debate — Egypt and Iran — faulted Taliban for its acts of vandalism against ancient artefacts, pointing out that they reflected badly on Islam. The Iranian delegate, Mr Hadi Nejad Husscinian, charged that the Taliban had brought much suffering on Afghan people by refusing to engage in meaningful peace process, by drug trafficking, by terrorism, and by harsh restrictions that were entirely alien to the compassionate teachings of Islam. The representative of the ousted government in Afghanistan, Mr Mohammad Yunus Bazel, (The Taliban is not recognised by the UN), put the onus on Pakistan for the recent actions of the Taliban regime and said the military junta in Islamabad was the main source of religious extremism in that part of the country controlled by the Taliban. He urged the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) to “break its silence” and clearly spell out its position regarding the words and deeds of the Taliban practised in the holy name of Islam. The resolution of the General Assembly, sponsored by Germany and more than 90 other countries, deplored the actions of the Taliban, describing the destruction of the ancient statues as “an act of intolerance that struck at the very basis of civilised co-existence and was contrary to the real spirit of Islam.” The resolution was adopted without a vote, but the general assembly’s response, like many of the past actions of the world organisation in similar instances of defiance of the international community, was too little and too late.
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Smoking, drinking proving fatal in USA Smoking, drinking and illicit drug use cause “more deaths, illnesses and disabilities than any other preventable health problem in the United States today,” says a news report. The document, entitled “Substance Abuse: The Nation’s Number-One Health Problem,” commissioned by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, says treatment for addicts in the United States is “severely underutilised,” despite the fact that “the economic cost of substance abuse is staggering, estimated at more than $414 billion in 1995.” Of the more than two million deaths each year in the USA, one in four is attributable to alcohol, tobacco and illicit drug use, it says. It says early use of alcohol, tobacco or illicit drugs is often a strong risk factor for addiction. Substance abuse by young people under the age of 20, and particularly by those under the age of 15, increases the likelihood of substance abuse problems later in life, the report says. While the report characterises addiction as “a chronic, relapsing health condition” that often requires prolonged and repeated treatment, it nevertheless advocated treatment, citing benefits, including reduced crime rates and enhanced productivity. Overall, “treatment — even with multiple treatment episodes — is less expensive than the alternatives of incarceration and untreated addiction,” it says.
IANS
New look at olive oil New studies that cast doubt over current healthy-eating beliefs make great stories — papers love the headlines. The latest study which could cause chaos, published in The Lancet, suggested that olive-oil-producers and food manufacturers have been making misleading claims about olive oil’s health benefits. This critical report draws our attention to the fact that campaigns aimed at supporting the olive-oil-producing farms of southern Europe have been sponsored by the European Union to the tune of more than £ 130m over the past 10 to 12 years. It goes on to suggest that the assertions used to promote olive oil — including the claim that a diet rich in olive oil can reduce levels of total cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein (LDL, or the ‘bad’ sort of cholesterol) and hence reduce the incidence of heart disease — have painted an unjustifiably rosy picture. It also stresses that a diet rich in olive oil can just as easily lead to obesity as one that contains an equal amount of another type of fat. The report’s findings are that other monounsaturated vegetable oils, such as sunflower oil, may reduce LDL and total cholesterol levels slightly more than olive oil.
(Observer)
State as drug producer Thai bureaucrats are not known for their ingenuity, but a statement emanating last week from a senior police officer indicates that they seem to be changing their ways — for the worse. Sunthorn Saikwan, the Deputy National Police Chief, has told the city Police Superintendents that the state should start producing and selling metamphetamines. Known as “ya ma and ya ba” in Thailand, these are the two drugs that most young people are addicted to. Presently they are smuggled in from Myanmar and the government has been unsuccessfully attempting to stop the trade for years.
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75
YEARS AGO The unveiling ceremony of the portrait of Sir Shadi Lal at Gurgaon Senior Sub-Judge's Court house was performed by the Hon'ble Diwan Tek Chand, ICS, OBE, Commissioner of the Ambala Division on March 6, 1926. This was in commemoration of the new building of the Senior Sub Judge's Court erected by the sanction of His Lordship An interesting programme was chalked out. L. Khan Chand Janmeja, Senior Sub-Judge's was very tastefully and artificially decorated and transformed into a beautiful garden. |
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Brahman, khatri, shudra and vaish make the four castes, out of the four castes, he who remembers God is exalted. Khatri, Brahman, Shudra and Vaish, the teaching is the same for all. **** The work one does, is his caste and his birth - By the name of God salvation is attained, An escape found from the pain of birth and death. —Sri Guru Granth Sahib, Asa M.1; Bhairon M.I; Soohi M.5; Prabhati M.I **** I have crossed this ocean of life; What I had resolved upon has been fulfilled. Thy Name alone I cherish in my heart; I have severed all links with wordly life. Naught can affect me now, O Tuka, And nothing remains to be achieved. —Sant Tuka Ram, Gatha, 763 **** The moral life of man may be likened to a distant place; one must start from the nearest stage. It may be likened to ascending a height of public responsibility; one must start from the lowest step, one's family. —Doctrine of the Mean, 15:2 **** Not those are true husband and wife that with each other (merely) consort: Truly wedded are those that in two frames, are as one light. —Adi Granth, Var Suhi, M.3 **** He has created spouses for you and planted affection and mercy between you. —The Holy Quran, 30:21 **** The wicked man burns by his own deeds, as if burnt by fire. **** He whose wickedness is very great brings himself down to that state where his enemy wishes him to be. He himself is hie greatest enemy. Thus a creeper destroys the life of a tree on which it finds support. —The Dhammapada, 10, 12, 14, 17, 20, 26, 27 |
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