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Tuesday,
August 14, 2001, Chandigarh, India   |
Washing dirty linen in public Dress code panic in Kashmir By George, it’s
Amma! |
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Fruits of economic fundamentalism
The inescapable cap
Lessons from the Enron
burst
Wealth is health at the top
A tiny camera that can be swallowed
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Washing dirty linen in public CERTAIN
recent developments not only point to an unseemly ego clash among the various wings of the defence forces, but also have the making of an extremely embarrassing situation for the country. Because of a disagreement over the structure of the strategic command to be responsible for India's nuclear weapons and related issues, the army and the air force are taking pot-shots at each other instead of targeting the common enemy. Most of these are aimed below the belt. A book on the 1999 Kargil war goes so far as to allege that the air force could not hit even a single target in its ground support operations. That the book has the blessings of the army is obvious from the fact that it was released by Army Chief Gen S. Padmanabhan. Not only that, its foreword has been written by Gen V.P.Malik (retd), the army chief during the war. In fact, the foreword is even more explosive than the book. Speaking about the political directive to the army not to cross the LoC while evicting intruders from Kargil, the General reportedly writes: "Even though the political term of reference was justified, my colleagues in the Chief of Staff Committee and I never considered it as unalterable." That is as good as admitting that the army was willing to defy the government of the day. Even if there was such feeling of insolence among the top brass, why should this be made public, that too through a book written by an active politician (Punjab Congress chief Capt Amarinder Singh)? Supposing now the IAF blesses the publication of a similar book that gives out its side of the story belittling the role of the army instead, won't it be a national embarrassment? As it is, inspired leaks about what role the army and the air force want in the strategic command for themselves are causing ripples. Washing dirty linen in public does not behove uniformed forces, whatever the provocation. Equally embarrassing for the government is the confession by certain Punjab police officials that they did take part in "encounters" while they were engaged in wiping out terrorism. The disillusioned officers who have many cases pending against them say that they did so in accordance with the wishes of the then DGP, Mr K.P.S. Gill, SSPs, DCs and senior officers. They want that either these senior officers should be booked like them or they too be exonerated. The anger and disillusionment of these middle-ranking police officers are palpable. They are being hounded while senior officials and even terrorists are being feted. The form of protest they have chosen (returning the police medals) may not be justified, but they do have a point. Prosecution cannot be selective. The government has a messy situation in its hands. It has to enforce a culture of restraint and a system of apportioning responsibility all the way to the top. Otherwise, what is happening in Punjab now can have ramifications in Jammu and Kashmir and other states. |
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Dress code panic in Kashmir THE
Kashmir valley is in the grip of a new kind of fear. This is the result of incidents of acid attacks on women for not being burqa clad. The situation took a turn for the worse when posters appeared on Srinagar's walls in the name of dreaded terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Toiba that women not observing purdah would be punished as it happened with two girls on Friday. Those who indulged in the highly condemnable act of throwing acid on the face of young women claimed that they were members of an organisation called Lashkar-e-Jabbar. Now, however, the Hurriyat Conference and the major militant organisations like the Hizbul Mujahideen, the Lashkar-e-Toiba and the Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen have come out openly against this dastardly act, saying that the attempt at disfiguring the faces of non-burqa-clad women is meant "to malign the ongoing movement" in the valley. The Lashkar-e-Toiba has denied its hand in the gory development, and it is being said that there is no outfit called the Lashkar-e-Jabbar. Whatever the truth behind the acid attacks on women, it is a clear indication that militants are desperate to convince the people that they can do anything they want despite the government's efforts to strengthen the hands of the security forces. But in their foolishness they have indulged in such acts as show them in their true colours. They are enemies of the peace-loving people of Kashmir and should, therefore, be prepared to face public wrath, notwithstanding their statements to dissociate themselves from the forcible imposition of an Islamic dress code. Militants had taken to similar tactics a decade ago also, during the early phase of militancy, with the Dukhtaran-e-Millat being on the forefront. Though acid was not used at that time, it led to much revulsion among sections of Kashmiris, and the dangerous drive died in its infancy. Today when some religious zealots have again tried to bring into focus the Islamic dress code through coercive methods, they need to be told by non-controversial Islamic scholars that the resort to methods like throwing acid on the face of somebody's daughter, sister, mother or wife not wearing a burqa is an act deserving the harshest punishment possible. No civilised society can tolerate such behaviour. In a secular democracy as India is, everybody is free to choose a dress of his/her liking, of course remainig within the limits of decency. No one has got the right to force a certain code on any section of society. |
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By George, it’s Amma! THE
gospel according to Mr George Fernandes always makes interesting reading. He is an honest soul, and much of what he says on important national issues comes straight from the heart. That his plain speaking often becomes a source of embarrassment for Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and the National Democratic Alliance seldom makes him hedge his bets. As Defence Minister he had the courage to describe China as the country's enemy number one. As Samata Party leader he absolved Ms Jaya Jaitley of any intended or inadvertent act of wrong-doing as exposed by the infamous Tehelka tapes. And now, as NDA convener he has given a totally new twist to the UTI scam. Before Mr Fernandes made the "startling revelation" during his visit to Tamil Nadu the accusing fingers pointed in all directions except the Finance Minister and the NDA. Yes, the outspoken Shiv Sena Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Nirupam did offer to produce "mobile phone" evidence to link the name of the all-powerful PMO to the US-64 fiasco. But after the purpose of embarrassing the NDA and making Mr Vajpayee offer to resign had been served his boss in Mumbai asked him to retract his statement. The disgraced former UTI chief P. S. Subramanayam too somehow managed to give a clean chit to the PMO. So on the basis of Mr Sinha's statement in Parliament, the Congress in general and former Finance Minister Manmohan Singh in particular were held responsible for the sinking of US-64. But now the name of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalitha would have to be added to the UTI's rogues gallery. Why? Because, according to Mr Fernandes, she insisted on the appointment of Mr Subramanayam as the UTI chief. So what if she has denied the charge of having prevailed upon the Prime Minister and the NDA to carry out her command when she was on business terms with them? Implied in Mr Fernandes' statement is the indirect admission that the government was aware of Mr Subramanayam’s questionable integrity, but was helpless in the face of pressure from Ms Jayalalitha. In a manner of speaking, he confirmed that the public perception about the NDA headed by Mr Vajpayee was not wrong. It would be unfair not to deduce from his statement that corrupt officials can manage to get themselves appointed to key posts by the leaders of the parties in the alliance. This was a point which had emerged from the playing of the Tehelka tapes. Mr Fernandes has merely confirmed that the worst fears of the people about the integrity of most alliance partners may be true. Now that he is at it, he should do the country another good turn by releasing the list of officers appointed to key posts not because they deserved to be there on merit, but merely to keep the alliance from falling apart! |
Fruits of economic fundamentalism Seattle, Washington, Davos and now, last month, Genoa. Some 70,000 men and women from all over the western world gathered in this Italian city where leaders of the eight richest countries (the original G-7 which became G-8 after the reluctant induction of the poor cousin Russia) for their annual caviar-and-champagne get-together. No, those multitudes had not come to welcome Messrs Bush, Blair and company; they were there to vent their anger and indignation at “the global injustice” perpetrated by these global fat cats on the rest of the world and particularly on the deprived masses in the developing countries — directly by arm-twisting individual governments and indirectly and even more potently through the exploitative prescriptions handed out to poor nations by their handmaidens — the World Bank, the IMF and lately the WTO. The demonstration was again front page stuff for the media of the developed countries. It also stirred the simmering debate in academic and other intellectual circles there on the morality and motivation underlying the politics of the new economic order. Thanks to the efforts of conscientious individuals and groups, mostly in the West, as well as to the exertions of international bodies like the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), gone are the days when the Bank-Fund duo could successfully camouflage their machinations under a benign mask of friends-in-need of the Third World. They are of course still not deterred from carrying out their dubious doctoring of ailing economies, but their prescriptions are now being seriously questioned — unfortunately still not as widely and concertedly as these should be. The triple vaccine of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation has made no difference to the condition of the countries in poor economic health. If anything, their overall condition has worsened over these many years of the invasive medication. The UNDP’s Human Development Report 2001 brings out the ground realities in broad relief. While a few countries have improved their rating on the Human Development Index and some others (including the post-liberalisation-privatisation Russian Federation!) have slid several steps down the ladder, the world as a whole remains as lop-sided as ever, the chasm between the handful of the very rich and the masses of the very poor as gaping as ever. The quality of life is not a function of stock market indices, or even of industrial growth rates. Their buoyancy need not and in developing countries does not reflect the condition of the masses. The quality of life for them is determined by the availability or absence of jobs and incomes, food and healthcare and drinking water, education and shelter, and other such basics. On all these scores, it has been and continues to be a very dismal scene. The facts and figures in the UNDP report speak for themselves. Even after half a century of Bank-Fund “treatment” and two decades of globalisation, 1.2 billion peoples in the developing countries live on less than one dollar a day, and nearly three times as many on less than two dollars a day. One billion people have no access to potable water and two billion are without basic sanitation. There still are one billion illiterate adults in the Third World and 325 million children have never stepped inside a school. Over 163 million children under five are underweight and 11 million die every year from easily preventable causes. What these figures portray is not only the extreme inequality among nations but abject deprivation in absolute terms of entire chunks of humanity. What is true between nations is equally true, and in some cases even more so, within nations — including our Bharat Mahan. Indeed, even as the Establishment in India has become an ardent votary of the globalisation-privatisation philosophy, the masses have become its worst victims. More than a decade after we started genuflecting to the market as the sole tutelary deity, 40 per cent of our people are below the poverty line; one out of every three Indians is malnourished; 53 per cent of our children are seriously underweight; half the population has no access to essential drugs; we have the second highest cases of HIV in the world, lakhs of women still die in childbirth and lakhs of babies born never get to live a year. Forty million jobless people are registered with employment exchanges. Include the educated and those only seasonally employed who don’t register and the figure will double. Throughout the nineties, the decade of “reforms”, employment grew at less than 1 per cent a year. And into the twelfth year of reforms, the manufacturing, services and agricultural sectors are all witnessing a decline in growth. Domestic savings have fallen and exports have grown slower than imports despite the steady devaluation of the rupee. Foreign direct investment, the alleged harbinger of great and good things, stands at a measly $2 billion (10 per cent of the figure in the case of China). Both regional and class inequalities have widened, and corruption and crime have exploded in the reforms decade. So, is all this causing any concern here? Is there any assessment of what is happening and what ought to be done to stem the rot, re-think the policies? Given the selfishness and lust for power of our political parties and the instant subalternism of those who come to power, one has come to be almost terminally sceptical of any reassessment of the new economics at the political level. But what about our intellectuals and economists and sociologists — don’t they feel concerned about the plight of the wretched of the earth called India and the havoc the new policies are playing with their fate? What about our liberal bleeding hearts who get so worked up about the human rights of the militants in Kashmir? Never mind other deprivations, is the right to live, to have two square meals a day, not a human right? Above all, what about the media, the “voice of the people”, “the watchdog” of their interests? It pains me to say this but barring some exceptions among journalists and editors who continue to look upon their profession as a high mission, those who lead the professional and call the shots today are so steeped in their own cushy circumstance that they have lost all sense of reality and fellow-feeling. I wonder how many of them have even glanced through the UNDP report. Even the reporters assigned to do a story on the report almost invariably dig out the same piece of “news” and just that, to the delight of their seniors as evidenced in the banner headline that a leading national daily gave it: “Quality of life: India improves by 13 notches.” This concerned the HDI listing of 162 countries in which India figures at No. 115, against 128 last year. Praise be to globalisation and economic reforms! This is the feel-good propaganda at work, a sentiment aimed at telling the people that we are getting better and better, that their poverty, their suffering, their hardships are illusory — after all, we have jumped up 13 rungs on the HDI! Never mind that this “improvement” is entirely due to a sprint in the IT lane. Never mind also that there is today a major crisis even in this sector. And never mind if in spite of the “improvement”, we are way behind such countries as Bolivia, Botswana, Equador, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Maldives, Mongolia, Myanmar, Namibia, Vietnam, Thailand, Samoa, Lebanon, Indonesia — and a hundred others! Instead of seeing things in the right perspective and calling for correction in policies, this feel-good choir is urging a willing government to go for “the second generation reforms”. In other words, more of the same — more reckless disinvestment, more scams, more privatisation, more inflation, more globalisation, more bankruptcy of cottage and small enterprises and thus more unemployment, more imports of farm (and dairy) products and, therefore, more hardship to and suicide by small farmers. On the other hand, more conquests and more profits for the rapacious MNCs and more choice of Western goodies, more luxuries, more prosperity for the indigenous fat cats, old and new. As for the suffering masses and squeezed middle classes, “not to worry”, next year we will climb a couple of more rungs on the HDI! |
The inescapable cap THIS is the true story of a cap that refused to give me up even as I did my best to discard it. It is an old corduroy cap, purchased long ago but is still in good condition because it has not been in regular use. At some stage I felt I must have a change. The opportunity was provided by a visit as a member of a group of delegates to the United Nations Centre for Regional Development at Nagoya in deep winter. I was advised to get a woollen cap, which I picked up at Hong Kong. But Nagoya was not at all that cold. The corduroy cap, therefore, remained with me. So one evening as I was going for dinner to a friend, I managed to leave it in my taxi and disappeared in the huge apartment complex in which my host had a flat. As I returned late to my hotel, I found the driver of the taxi waiting for me. He bowed in the manner of an ambassador presenting his credentials to the Head of the State of his accreditation. He conveyed in Japanese his elaborate apology, interpreted by the boy at the hotel desk who, despite limitations of his English, was able to tell me how deeply sorry the driver was for “having omitted to remind the worthy guest to look for things when he alighted from the taxi and for the discomfort it must have meant during the return journey for want of the cap. He and his firm, therefore, expressed a fervent hope that the esteemed guest would overlook this lapse.” He also managed to match his well-chosen words with a suitable expression on his face — one of distress and guilt. Distress for my inconvenience and guilt for having shortfallen on customer attention. He bowed again and disappeared noiselessly, leaving me dumbfounded at this extraordinary consideration. It was a happy experience of the Japanese work culture but as I recovered from it, I realised that the cap remained with me. Undaunted, I took another opportunity, which presented itself on our group’s return journey from Kyoto. The Mayor of Kyoto hosted a three-day stay for our group of delegates. At the end of it, he arranged an elegant mini bus with an escort for our return journey. The escort was a Japanese young lady whom the Almighty had blessed with the gifts of beauty, brains and charm, which were enhanced by her good command of the English language — something uncommon for the Japanese. She had a musical voice and kept our group entertained with songs and amusing stories. We lost count of time. As we approached our hotel in Nagoya, she got up to go to the exit door to say goodbye to all of us. It was then that I thought of leaving my cap on the seat. As I arrived at the exit door, she gave me a smile but as if in a flash she pointed out if I had forgotten my cap for when I boarded the bus at Kyoto, she had seen one on me. She rushed to get the cap and brought it to me. My second attempt was thus foiled. I thought of a third attempt on my way from Nagoya to Tokyo but on careful consideration gave up the idea. I had given my contact address at Tokyo to the Japanese domestic airline and they would surely have traced me there. The cap still remains with me and I do use it when I occasionally go to a gurdwara for attending obsequies of departed friends. As much as the cap, the memory of the Japanese corporate spirit and their Total Quality Management (TQM) associated with the cap stays with me. |
Lessons from the Enron
burst THE Enron Power Corporation’s controversial plant at Dabhol is in deep crisis. All efforts to put life into this chronically sick project have so far proved futile. Initially, the blame was put on the Maharashtra State Electricity Board’s inefficiency. Then the bitter truth came out — of the hidden clauses that put the power produced by the Enron plant beyond the reach of the Indian consumer. Touted as a showpiece of the multinational miracle — as against the clumsy, mismanaged, bureaucratic domestic power producers — the Dabhol unit was expected to be a catalyst in the power field. Its very presence was expected to induce other public sector power producers and distributors to voluntarily go in for privatisation and reap the benefits. The business bodies and the salmon writers were all so sure of such a silent power revolution. But this much expected FDI glory has turned out to be a colossal tragedy. Now no one, not even the most ardent advocates of the FDI-based growth, seems to have any remedy to overcome the Enron imbroglio. Basically, the problem stems from a hidden clause in the agreement between the multinational, the Centre and the MSEB to impose an uneconomic tariff for the Dabhol power. Apart from providing for a much higher rate, the power purchase agreement also has an escalation provision on the basis of the changes in the rupee-dollar rates. Its rate has already shot up to Rs 8 per unit as against less than Rs 3 charged by our good old domestic players. Even the globalisers admit no Indian consumer can afford such high rates which will go up further as the rupee falls. If the MSEB is forced to pay the contractual rates, it will go bankrupt within weeks. Some futile moves were also made to put the burden of Enron’s inefficiency on the public sector NTPC by forcing the Dabhol power on it. Even some of those corporates who had hailed Enron as the ultimate power solution spurned it as uneconomic because it only increased their cost of production. Then an offer was made to the state governments. However, only four — Punjab, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka — were willing to bite the bait. But they too refused to go beyond the domestic rates. The Enron experience has many lessons for India. First, in an environment of market competition it is efficacy, not foreign tag, that should count. Foreign giants like Enron do not have any special technology to outshine ours and in the final product — which ultimately matters — they have not proved any clear superiority. Our much maligned PSU power producers (not distributors) have shown they could provide power at more affordable rates. Second, why did Enron go in for a technology which could not provide power at competitive rates? In free market global conditions, all non-competitive and non-viable units will go sick and will have to be wound up. This is what has happened to the Dabhol unit. As an eminent economic writer suggested, the only option for Enron now is to suffer a loss, sell their stake at whatever rates applicable to a sick unit and bow out. The Centre did its best to help them out. Even foreign players are not ready to buy the plant. AES, another US energy firm, has its problems with the Orissa government. Third, hidden clauses may prove the smartness of the negotiator. Yet there is always a limit to contractual agreements if they contain unreasonable or unenforceable provisions. True, under the power purchase agreement, the Centre did give project-specific counter guarantees. But no one can expect the Maharashtra government to pay Enron amounts many times its own annual budget. When the penalty is pegged at unreasonable heights, the parties are normally forced to face the consequences rather than endanger their very existence. Fourth, there must be an attitudinal change towards FDI-led development. A decade of experience should make us more mature and balanced in evaluating offers where a more hardheaded approach is called for. Like the Chinese, we should also learn to strike bargains with investors without scaring them away. Business is not charity, and no investor is a saint. Neither the hunger for FDI nor the tempting nature of the offers should blind us to the need for scrutinising the terms of agreement for their hidden clauses and trade traps. Fifth, the Dabhol Power Corporation’s biggest blunder has been the secrecy surrounding its negotiations and the terms of agreement. Though protracted negotiations continued for some time, the final documents were signed in undue haste. Genuine criticisms were dismissed as prejudice towards FDI. Motives were attributed to all those who had doubted the foreign investor’s tall claims. Aided by our own foreign lobby, many of whom nursed an innate contempt for things Indian, even seeking normal transparency became economic blasphemy. The new brand of misplaced media hype has a tendency to misguide the administrators. It has been revealed how the media stepped up a passionate campaign in favour of firms like Cyberspace just before the UTI’s controversial decision. The same sections had championed the cause of full convertibility of the rupee in mid-90s and blamed it for the slow pace of reform. Soon after the Asian Tiger’s meltdown, the same writers admitted India could come out unhurt due to the absence of full convertibility. Sixth, born in controversy, Enron had always caught itself in more political controversies. It was Narasimha Rao who had invited Enron in 1991 and an MoU signed next year. Allegations of kickbacks surfaced almost immediately after the Sharad Pawar government finalised the project in 1993. The BJP-Shiv Sena government which had in August, 1995 cancelled the project, changed its mind and within three months renegotiated it, adding more pernicious terms and hence inviting more allegations. Though the Godbole panel had recommended a judicial probe into the allegations, the state government has not done so. Enron figures on the top of those who have funded US President George Bush’s election campaign. After he took the oath, there were renewed pressures from the USA for honouring the Dabhol agreement. If India failed, they warned, it would inhibit further foreign investment and hurt trade with the USA. However, the project’s non-viability seems to have influenced public opinion against Enron. Now its President Kenneth Lay himself has offered to quit Indian operations. There is every possibility of an agreement with Enron for an honourable exit. It knows that the outcome of long drawn-out international litigation is always uncertain. Since neither foreign nor Indian private firms are keen on taking such heavy liabilities, the only option for the government will be to work out an arrangement between the MSEB and Indian FIs and banks for running the project under the MSEB. If this happens, as it is bound to, the irony of all ironies will be that an MNC project that was to act as a catalyst to pave way for privatisation of the power PSUs, will itself be turned into another virtual PSU. It is not just a case of indigenisation of an MNC. It will also be a case of virtual state takeover of a foreign private firm. Instead of disinvestment, circumstances will force the government to reinvest in an MNC-turned PSU. |
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Wealth is health at the top PEOPLE who rise to positions of power may reap more than a corner office with a view. According to recent study findings, men and women in high-level jobs outlive their rank-and-file counterparts. The researchers followed more than 4,700 women and more than 14,000 men employed by the federal government as managers and professionals over 15 years and compared mortality rates with rates in the general population. Overall, men in high-level jobs were 50 per cent less likely to die than men the same age in the general population. Women in these jobs were 38 per cent less likely to die compared with other women. There was no difference in the rate of death due to heart disease between sexes in the study, but for males, the rate of death from cancer was markedly lower than for females, possibly due to higher rates of smoking among women in high- level jobs, the authors suggest. “Since lung cancer was the leading type of cancer mortality among women in our study, we can only speculate that women in these high-level jobs may have been particularly likely to have been smokers,” Kevin E. Kip, a study author from the University of South Florida, said. Women were less likely to die over 15 years than their male counterparts in similar jobs, the researchers report in the American Journal of Epidemiology. And for both men and women the survival benefit of high-level jobs was most pronounced among non-white workers. “In summary, high-level employment is associated with substantially reduced mortality in both men and women,” Katherine M. Detre, from the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, concluded. In the USA and other developed countries, women tend to outlive their male counterparts. But as more women move up the corporate ladder into traditionally male roles, taking on more responsibility and stress along with greater prestige and income, their changing roles may affect their health, the authors point out. Indeed, women in high-level government jobs had less of a survival advantage over men in similar jobs, compared with the survival advantage of women over men in the general population. Reuters |
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The General Secretary, Punjab Provincial Hindu Sabha writes: I have been directed by the Working Committee of the P.P. Hindu Sabha to make a formal announcement of the candidate put forward by the Hindu Sabha. The candidates put forth by the Hindu Sabha are: Raja Narendra Nath M.A, Bar-at-Law, Hoshiarpur Rural General(; Sardar Labh Singh MA, Bar-at-Law, Rawalpindi Division cum Sialkot and Gujran; Districts Rural (General; Lala Gulshan Rai, BA LLB, East and West Central Towns, Urban (General); Lala Joti Prashad, BA LLB,South Eastern Towns Urban(General); Lala Gopal Das, Ferozepore cum Sheikhupura and Lahore Rural (General); Lala Durga Das, BA LLB Lahore City. |
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A tiny camera that can be swallowed A
pill-sized camera that is swallowed and snaps pictures as it travels through the digestive system won approval from U.S. regulators for helping doctors spot problems in the small intestine. The disposable camera, made by Israeli company Given Imaging Ltd., is an advance in diagnosing cancer, polyps, bleeding and anaemia. The camera can take pictures of the small intestine, a 20-foot-long section that had been a “blind spot” to current diagnostic tools, said Dan Schultz, Deputy Director of the FDA office that reviewed the camera. “The main advantage is that it traverses the entire length of the small intestine. Current technology we have is pretty much limited to being able to visualize the upper part of the intestine,” Schultz said. Patients swallow the camera, which looks like a pill capsule. It travels through the stomach and small and large intestines before leaving the body through the stool. On its way through, the device shines a light, takes two pictures per second and transmits them by radio waves to a recorder worn on a patient’s belt. Doctors transfer the digital images to a computer. They can view the images as still shots or run them together quickly like a video, the company said. The standard method for detecting abnormalities in the intestines is an endoscope that doctors advance through the mouth to the small intestine. Schultz cautioned that the new camera should complement but not replace endoscopes, x-rays or other traditional diagnostic tools. Battery life on the new device, known as the Given Imaging Diagnostic System, is eight hours, long enough to photograph the small intestine but not the large intestine. The FDA said studies in people and animals showed the camera was able to detect abnormalities in the small intestines and had no side effects. The agency said the camera was not appropriate for certain patients, such as people with intestinal obstructions. Given Imaging is based in Yoqneam, Israel. The product already is on the market in Europe.
Reuters
Lawyer’s bid to divorce them
A Cairo court has dismissed a case seeking to dissolve forcibly the 37-year marriage of the prominent feminist Nawal el-Saadawi and her husband, Sherif Hetataas, a punishment for her alleged insults of the Islamic religion. The civil affairs court judged that the case filed by Nabih Al-Wahsh, a lawyer, against Ms Saadawi, (70) violated existing laws. Ms Saadawi’s problems began in March when she gave an interview to a local newspaper in which she was alleged to have said that the Muslim custom of making an annual pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia was “a vestige of pagan practices”. Mr Al-Wahsh went to court, claiming that such statements “ousted her from Islam”, and meant that she could no longer be married to her 78-year-old husband. Ms Saadawi insisted that she had been misquoted by the little-known newspaper, saying that her words were taken out of context. With the rising political influence of Islamic groups in Egypt, Mr Al-Wahsh is one of a number of lawyers specialising in filing what are known as hisba (society) cases against intellectuals and artists, claiming that their work violates Islamic law. The lawyers have called for courts to ban the intellectuals’ work, imprison them or annul their marriages.
The Guardian |
Advancing age is sounding a warning, Thy rendezvous with death is nigh. Wake up, my mind, be all attention; Strive to attain thy life's objective, Lest thou slip at the last moment and lose all. This is the time to achieve thy aim; Give value to each passing moment. Hold fast to the path leading unto Him; Impervious to the world, Cling to the Sound Divine. — Sant Tuka Ram, Gatha, 2686 * * * * * God is the Seed; The Universe is the Tree, Impulses and passions are the branches, Intelligence is the flower, Pure Consciousness is the fruit, Love is the sweetness in the fruit. * * * * * God is The soul of Life; God is The Granter, the Force, The Sustainer. * * * * * God is worshipped only in pictures, images, idols. He is not recognised in all living beings, In beauty, harmony, melody, truth and goodness. * * * * * God thinks, plans and resolves in all heads, He sees through all the eyes, He eats through all mouths, Hears through every ear. * * * * * God will never disown you, for He is your very core, Your basic Reality. * * * * * God will certainly be pleased if you give water for the thirsty, bread for the hungry and clothes to the naked. — From the discourses of Sathya Sai Baba |
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