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Friday,
September 28, 2001, Chandigarh, India  
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Dominant thinking in USA Crude price crash Drugs and sports |
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Hari Jaisingh
Bringing a bad name to Islam
Digital facial recognition Oxford University’s status under
threat
Thais to dress down to save energy
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Dominant thinking in USA WHEN
an angry America reacted to the horrendous happenings on September 11, it was guided more by passion than by logic. This is understandable under such circumstances. But as the time passed, reasoning began to dominate the thinking of a section of the US leadership, sharpening the divide between what we call the soft-liners and the hard-liners. Today when there is world-wide support for taking on terrorism, the US administration, it seems, has begun working on the strategy advocated by the soft-liners led by Secretary of State Colin Powell. This group is opposed to an all-out war against Taliban-controlled Afghanistan or any other country even remotely promoting terrorism. It stands for relying more on diplomacy than on force to prevent the world from falling into the trap of international subversives like Osama bin Laden. Perhaps, President George W. Bush too now realises the consequences of going by the advise of the hawks. This, however, does not mean that there will be any let-up in the campaign to bring to justice terrorist mastermind Osama and his collaborators. The anti-terrorism drive will, under the changed strategy, aim at eliminating the infrastructure of terrorists and plugging their sources of funding but without antagonising the civilian population in Afghanistan or any other country. The USA's interest in financially and militarily supporting the Northern Alliance, led by former Afghanistan President Burhanuddin Rabbani, shows that it has decided to use Afghans against Afghans to prevent the Taliban regime or the pro-Osama elements from getting any propaganda advantage. The Bush administration may help any group of Afghans which works for the overthrow of the hated Taliban regime led by Mullah Omar because that will serve the purpose of destroying Osama's Al-Qaeda network root and branch. As there is a strong opinion emerging in Washington against a ground assault by American troops, the Northern Alliance has come handy to it. But it has certain in-built weaknesses besides its being highly pro-Russia. The Tajiks and Uzbeks opposed to the Taliban regime are in a hopeless minority in Afghanistan and hence unable to manage a country with strong tribal loyalties. That is why efforts are on to finalise a formula for a "broadbased" regime comprising different segments of Afghan society. The USA is also looking for a faction in the Taliban which may be against Osama bin Laden, having grudges against Mullah Omar. Such a group, though difficult to be identified when anti-US feelings are running high, may be more effective in changing the present profile of Afghanistan as an ideal ground for breeding terrorists. So long as anti-Osama elements within the Taliban are not identified, the Northern Alliance is bound to get the maximum attention from the USA and other anti-terrorism coalition partners, Pakistani reservations notwithstanding. But Islamabad must be working overtime on this aspect of the anti-Taliban drive. And if it fails to find a desired group, Pakistan's ISI is capable of creating one. India should play its card in a cool and calculated manner. Its interests in Afghanistan will be served by giving all-out support to the Northern Alliance, irrespective of the perceptions of the Americans. |
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Crude price crash OPEC (the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, the most successful Third World cartel) is in utter confusion and disarray. The 11-nation outfit – Iraq is out for the time being and for obvious reasons – is miffed that crude price has crashed to its lowest level in 11 years, $21 a barrel or thereabout. It was more than $ 31 a barrel a day after the September 11 attack on New York and the Pentagon. Two things are responsible for this steep slide. One, the USA suspended all civilian air flights for four full days and that increased the petroleum stocks (inventory) to a record level. There is a sharp fall in air travel booking as a logical aftermath of the hijacking of three planes and using them as airborne suicide bombers. The USA is literally a gas guzzler and an unprecedented fall in the demand for aviation fuel has dampened the market. OPEC can still keep the prices up by drastically cutting output. After all, it meets 40 per cent of the global demand for petroleum products and has successfully adjusted the output quota to stabilise prices. Its preferred price range is between $ 22 a barrel and $ 28 a barrel for different kinds of crude with an ideal average pegged at $ 25 a barrel. This time around it cannot slash production to shrink supply and boost the price for two reasons. One, the USA is in the midst of an economic slowdown and costlier petrol will push it into a recession. OPEC does not want to be blamed for creating a global crisis. Two, the USA is in a war-fighting mode and OPEC cannot afford to create fresh problems. It is, rather a majority of its members, is beholden to the USA to the extent that it does not like the idea of displeasing the dollar kingdom. For India, it is a blessing and at the same time a curious problem. Petroleum Minister Ram Naik has been tirelessly saying that the government will not increase the prices of petroleum products even if they go up internationally. He has been silent for the past few days because the situation has turned the other way. The Centre has fixed the price on the assumption of a barrel of crude costing $ 25. Also, it is committed to dismantling the administrative pricing mechanism (the government fixing prices unrelated to the market conditions) by April next year. If the Centre is true to its decision and if the crude prices stay as low as now, the price of petrol will fall sharply and that of diesel and cooking gas will go up. It will be unacceptable in political terms and this government easily panicks when it sees adverse popular reaction. |
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Drugs and sports THE
expression of surprise by the Union Ministry of Sports over the fact that a large number of Indian athletes were indeed taking performance enhancing drugs is itself surprising. It conveys a disturbing message. Cheating in sports in India is not a recent development. Only the Sports Ministry seems to have been unaware of the murky goings-on. Taking performance enhancing drugs is just one of the many forms of unfair means that athletes are made to learn at the junior level itself. The most rampant form of cheating involves fudging of age of the participants in age-group tournaments. That should help explain why teams from India do exceptionally well in international junior-level sports events. Their performance is usually way above that of the teams from countries where such practices as fudging the age of participants are looked down upon with disdain. Once the age-group restriction is removed most Indian medal winners simply disappear into the landscape. It must be understood that fudging the age of participants is as serious a violation of the principle of fairplay as the taking of performance enhancing drugs. Logically, the penalty for fielding overage players should be as severe as is prescribed for dealing with the menace of drug in sports. At the international level most athletes start taking performance enhancing drugs only after the competition at the top becomes tough. They usually don't "do drugs" for selection in the national squad. Not so in India and in many other SAARC countries. Any number of cases have been reported of boys and girls being encouraged to take prohibited substances for improving their performance not in international meets but inter-school tournaments. The menace of all forms of cheating in sports literally has to be nipped in the bud for Indian sportspersons to bloom into healthy and robust athletes, capable of coping with the pressure of international competition. Drawing up a set of guidelines by itself may not be enough for dealing with the problem. The Sports Ministry should encourage the setting up of laboratories in every district for the effective monitoring of the malpractices that are known to afflict Indian sports. The laboratories should have facilities for testing the physical age of sportspersons as also for conducting random tests for detecting the use of prohibited substance. The concept of "catch them young" itself needs to be redefined for making Indian sports competitive and fair. |
Looking beyond Black Tuesday IF
there is one country which has suffered most from terrorism, it is India. For the past over a decade, it has fought a brutal war against sponsored terrorism all alone, with its hands tied at the back. It was unable to strike at the source. Yet today when the world is getting organised to fight global terrorism, India has virtually been pushed to the sidelines. How did we allow this to happen? The answer is simple: we are generally not united politically and otherwise to take on the terrorist monster. We speak in different voices. No wonder, one question which often agitates a section of educated Indians is: why can India not function in a more cohesive manner as one nation? Why is the polity divided all the while on caste, communal and narrow political lines? Why do petty political calculations prevail over the larger national objectives? Why do people lack basic feelings of nationalism? These queries have surfaced sharply in the wake of the September 11 carnage in New York and Washington. Instead of crumbling under the terrorist onslaught, Americans belonging to different backgrounds and races have rallied behind the Bush Administration in an unprecedented show of solidarity. Should we call it American nationalism at its peak? In today’s globalised setting, nationalism must be broadbased, humane, enlightened and liberal in its thrust. Viewed in this light, terrorism has evoked the right response. It has stirred the conscience of humanity, beyond the geographical boundaries of the USA. True, Americans react and act only when they are hurt, not otherwise. For decades, India has been suffering from terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir and other parts of the country. But most democratic countries have looked the other way while Pakistan-sponsored jehadis and foreign mercenaries have played havoc with the lives of innocent citizens. The Indian leadership, of course, makes lots of noise about the menace but it has not picked up courage to hit back at the terrorist outfits and their hideouts and training camps across the border and in PoK. This brings to the fore the first glaring weakness of Indian nationhood: poor quality of leadership. An exception was Indira Gandhi in the early seventies. It is very unfortunate that the country has mainly suffered at the hands of second and third rate leaders who have pursued their personal and partisan interests in the name of caste, community and religion. Like hashish peddlers, Indian politicians have used every needy trick to gain votes. The modus operandi has been simple: excite the voter, offer inducements to a caste or community group, use backward classes for a communal divide and develop political clout in the process. This leads to a steady creaking of the fabric of Indian society. Do we have any answer to this drift? Perhaps, we need to rethink the bases of our polity and formulate some rules for the processes of politics and governance which can help us to curb the ongoing self-destruction. Take the case of Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav, who was once Defence Minister. This position, however, hardly changed his outlook and thinking for better. He has remained wedded to his vote bank politics surrounding Muslims and backward classes. Then we have the classic case of Mandalisation of the polity by Mr V.P. Singh in 1989-90. The former Prime Minister targeted the electorate comprising the underprivileged castes to dilute the Congress and the BJP’s middle class support. Indeed, nothing is more tragic than to see politicians at the national level playing dirty games for personal and partisan gains. In the process, they may gain power but the system and related democratic institutions are damaged beyond repair. Any number of examples can be cited to show how these national leaders have surrendered themselves to the intricacies of manipulative politics. Nothing wrong in nursing backward classes and Muslims. However, a liberal leader is expected to groom and guide them in an enlightened manner for their better tomorrow. What is tragic is that most leaders thrive on people’s backwardness, poverty and ignorance. They crudely exploit them as their vote bank to capture power. What is true of Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mr V.P. Singh also holds good for other caste and community leaders. Social scientist and scholar A.R. Saiyed explains how the absence of modern education has deprived the Muslim community of the capacity to strike “a balance between changing secular conditions and consequent reinterpretation of religion”. He states: “The ulema as abstract theologians live in the ivory tower of the seminary unconcerned with the needs of modern existential circumstances, wanting and waiting for the world to adjust to the madrasa, rather than adjust the madrasa to the changing world. .... And in the madrasa type of education, not only thought but time is frozen.” I have highlighted the observation to underline the nature of challenges Indian society is faced with in the face of the dubious role of our politicians. The problem is that though we talk of rationalism, nationalism and secularism, we make the worst kind of compromises with the forces of obscurantism. This has been the bane of the country’s social and political life. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, one of India’s greatest Muslims, concluded in his autobiography (India Wins Freedom): “It is true that Islam sought to establish a society which transcends racial, linguistic, economic and political frontiers. History has, however, proved that after the first few decades, or at the most after the first century, Islam was not able to unite all the Muslim countries into one State on the basis of Islam alone. This was the position in the past and this is the position today.” Large sections of Muslims are actually afflicted with insecurity and anxiety that feed a religiosity which is in tune with the ulema world-view. For any change to become possible, it is necessary that social and political leaders along with the educated liberal Muslims get involved in community welfare and uplift. Otherwise, the world would only see more of the likes of Osama bin Laden. And we must not overlook the harsh realities of the Bin Laden phenomenon. The world has changed. Marxism too has undergone a radical transformation. But the mindset of most Indian politicians of all shades and hues are still rooted in the old trappings which have lost relevance and, therefore, ought to be discarded. Ironically, the fear of minority alienation and “vote bank” considerations have made most political parties either underplay or give up the nationalist ideal. Even the goal of national integration is pursued so seriously. Of course, when faced with external dangers, India has stood firmly as one for a brief period. But there is always a lack of intensity. Look at the American response to their present tragedy. There is a lesson to be learnt. Perhaps, our people do not yet know what it is that unites us and what common values we are defending. This will apparently require some silken bonds of the past. According to Jawaharlal Nehru, India was bound together for ages by inner unity. It was not political but cultural. (Perhaps, he should have said civilisational). Nehru was well aware of Indian complexities as well as possible wayouts. In his address to Aligarh Muslim University students, he declared: “I have said that I’m proud of our inheritance and our ancestors who gave intellectual and cultural pre-eminence to India.” He asked the students: “How do you feel about this past? Do you feel that you are also sharers in it and inheritors of it and, therefore, proud of something that belongs to you as much as to me? Or, do you feel alien to it....?” There has never been a definite answer to this question. Here it will be worth recalling the words of Nehru. He states: “Conversion to other faiths does not deprive one of his heritage,” and gives the examples of Greeks and Romans who, after their conversion to Christianity, did not lose their pride in the mighty achievements of their ancestors. Of course, the issues are not simple. They are complex. There is so much to study. There is much to discuss. It is for want of clarity on what constitutes nationalism that India speaks in different voices and narrow angularities. Even on issues like the threat of terrorism to this country voices and responses vary. Rabindranath Tagore says that we can buy our true place in the world only with our inheritance, not with the inheritance of others. Surely, this is not possible with the present ambivalence to our past. Unfortunately, politics and politicking have created new mental barriers and suspicions in the polity. Still, there is scope for cultural synthesis and common causes like fight against terrorism that could be part of the Indian spirit encompassing all communities. The basic essence of Indian tradition can be inculcated without inviting religious intolerance. It need not be politicised. Here, the main challenge before the leadership is how to widen and consolidate the polity’s secular base as well as national commitments to common causes, including the fight against terrorism. And the spectre of terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir falls exactly in this category. |
Bringing a bad name to Islam NOT long ago, one thought that the world of Islam was coming up. Today, one is not so sure. The confrontation with America is no “civilisational conflict” as is made out, nor is it a conflict with Islam. Can we call these terrorists the vanguard of an Islamic renaissance? Nothing can be more absurd. They are mercenaries of a wayward world. They are only bringing a bad name to Islam. The seeds of this tragedy were sown years ago — in the partition of Palestine. It was the handiwork of Britain. It took the side of the Jews. The Jews wanted a state of their own. But the Arabs were opposed to the creation of Israel. They swore to dump the Jews in the sea. Britain, in the meantime, washed its hands off the crisis that followed. No partition can ever be satisfactory. So war became inevitable. It, in fact, got aggravated. What was a simple conflict between Palestinians and Israelis became a war between Islam and Zionism. For this we must thank the Palestinians. How did the Muslim countries react? Did they work for moderation? No. They took the side of the Palestinians. The Umma failed to emerge as a beneficial influence in an otherwise volatile and violent Islamic world. The war against Zionism created a number of extremist Muslim organisations. They refuse to die although the Jews and Palestinians are in the process of an amicable settlement. Perhaps there is no surprise in this: the IRA (Irish) and the Basque rebels (Spain) still refuse to lay down their arms. As they say, history repeats itself. The Taliban was a creation of the American and Pakistani secret services. These students of Pakistani religious seminaries were trained to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan, when the Afghan warlords were found intractable. But when the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan, the question arose: what was to be done with these thousands of Taliban soldiers? Ready came the reply: why not use them in Kashmir? Why not use them in Chechnya? Why not use them in the Philippines? Some even thought of using them to advance the idea of Greater Pakistan! But won’t they be dismissed as mercenaries? Why not give them a religious cloak? That is how these cut-throats came to wear an Islamic cloak. As they say, man proposes, but God disposes. Osama bin Laden was not in the original script of the Taliban play. But he appeared on the scene and impressed everybody with his “missionary” zeal. Bin Laden too was a creation of the CIA. But he saw America as the root of all evils in the Muslim world. More so in his own home state, Saudi Arabia, the seat of Islam. He was ready to take on America’s might. No less! And he wanted to reach succour to every Muslim in want of his aid. Naturally, he saw in the Taliban a ready instrument to advance his causes. The attack on the US embassies in Africa, on the US navy ship and now on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, which killed more Americans than what the Japanese were able to accomplish at Pearl Harbour, showed to the world that here was a menace in the making. A new Hitler! Citizens of 80 countries are said to have perished in the collapse of the World Trade Center. This has caused world-wide anger. Like Hitler, Laden has made a fatal mistake. It is not easy to out-smart Uncle Sam, for he nearly controls the world. He has control of the oil supplies, too. He can make it difficult for the Arabs, who live by oil revenue. But oil could have saved the Arabs if they knew how. It could have promoted Islam, too. But the Arabs knew not how. Before the first World War, there was nothing which could be called an “Arab economy”. Discovery of oil in the twenties was the first break. Next came with the hike in oil prices in 1973. The Arab oil producers came to possess enormous wealth. Did they put it to good use? Yes, they built palaces for their royals and lived in high style. But uncle Sam planned to take away what he was giving. The Arab-Zionist conflict came in handy. The Arabs invested heavily in arms. America supplied them at enormous costs. Thus, what the Arabs got by selling oil, Uncle Sam took away by selling arms to the Arabs. It was said that 50 per cent of the US arms sales went to the Arab world alone. Does this speak well about Arab perspicacity? I do not think so. Not one Arab country has been able to achieve a high level of industrialisation. Not one Arab country has freed itself from its total dependence on America. But did the Arabs win the goodwill of the developing countries? Yes, a few million workers of the developing countries are working in the Gulf. But most of the developing countries are in huge debt because of the rise in oil prices. Only one country has thus benefited from Arab oil — the USA, the arch enemy of Bin Laden. What is worse, the Arabs have put away all their savings in Western banks. If Islamic resurgence has gone astray, the Muslims can only blame themselves. They failed to produce leaders of vision. I cannot see a tall one among them, however, much I may look over the wide world today. There is a good explanation for this: want of democracy in the Muslim world. Yes, there is a lone star: Mahathir Mohammed. But there is no other. |
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Digital facial recognition THE US authorities are set to introduce digital facial recognition systems at airports in an attempt to weed out suspected terrorists before they can mount attacks. In a development which has alarmed civil liberties campaigners, a government committee, established after the September 11 attacks to review airport security, will recommend the deployment of facial recognition software linked to airport security cameras, according to the Washington Post. The system being considered, called FaceIt, uses a technique known as biometrics to create a digital map of a person’s face, translating the contours into mathematical formulae. According to the manufacturers, Visionics, this unique
"aceprint’’ is as distinguishing as a fingerprint. In a briefing last week, Joseph Atick, Visionics’ president, told the committee that his software could be used to turn security cameras across the US into a ``national shield’’ against future terrorist attacks. The software, which can pull individual faces out of crowd scenes, automatically compares the faceprint against a database of photographs of suspected terrorists. If a possible match is found, law enforcement agencies can be alerted within seconds. But the system relies entirely on a database of known suspects, so terrorists unknown to the authorities - the majority of the September 11 hijackers - would not be picked up. Image quality is also crucial to the system’s accuracy, but Mr Atick said almost any security camera - in underground stations, sports grounds or bank autotellers ``It’s a technology that holds a tremendous amount of promise,’’ a committee official told the Washington Post. But civil liberties campaigners are concerned that such systems could undermine privacy rights. David Sobel, general counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Centre, in Washington, said officials were in danger of rushing through measures without considering the full implications. ``There are obviously legitimate concerns about terrorism and we need to find effective means to meet the challenge. However, once this type of potentially invasive technology has a foot in the door for the immediate goal of fighting terrorism, its use will expand for other purposes.’’ That the US authorities are even considering introducing new surveillance technology underlines how far the American public are now willing to give up individual liberties to fight terrorism.
Guardian |
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Oxford University’s status under threat LONDON'S Oxford University will have to charge students top-up fees to stop the UK’s oldest academic institution sinking into a steady decline, a leading official has claimed. The university risks no longer being able to keep up its international profile in research as well as offering top quality teaching. In a book, ``The Oxford Tutorial’’, introducing first year students to the tutorial system in Oxford, David Palfreyman, director of the university’s centre for higher education policy studies, says: “Unless `top-up’ tuition fees are charged and/or extra endowment capital found, they (the Oxford colleges) will simply, slowly, collectively, sink into a steady decline. “Time will also tell whether Oxford (and Cambridge), in the absence of an ability to determine the level of tuition fees and given that neither has anywhere near the endowment assets of their premier league US rivals, can in the longer-term remain internationally competitive in research while at the same time trying to continue to offer a premium-product teaching system for undergraduates.’’ Mr Palfreyman believes that Oxford will eventually have to charge US-style tuition fees, which could be as much as US dollars 21,000 a year for high-cost courses, such as medicine. These could be deferred until after graduation, and would generate funds for bursaries for poorer students, as with the US Ivy League
institutions. Guardian |
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Thais to dress down to save energy Tropical Thailand is to ask workers to stop wearing suits as part of the country’s latest bid to conserve energy, a senior government official said in Bangkok. This is the latest brainwave of Prime Minister Thaksin Shihawatra, who said over the weekend workers should turn up in shirt slereves and then they wouldn’t need airconditioners turned up so high. At its weekly meeting, the cabinet passed a resolution asking all public servants not to wear jackets and urging private employees to do the same, Wissanu Krea-ngam, secretary-general to the cabinet, told reporters. And he said only four of six air-conditioners in the cabinet room had been turned on. ``Initially it was not hot in the room, but if a meeting lasts a long time, the temperature might need to be lowered a bit,’’ he
said. Reuters
Every eighth Indian adult is diabetic One in eight adults in urban areas in India is diabetic. And every fourth person is a potential patient, according to a recent survey by the Naional Urban Diabetes Society (NUDS). The survey, conducted by the Diabetes Epidemiology Study Group (DESP) in association with the Novo Nordisk Education Foundation, is by far the largest epidemiology study on diabetes in India. The study, covering 11,216 individuals in six major cities of Bangalore, Chennai, New Delhi, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Mumbai, found prevalence of diabetes in adults to be 13.2 per cent, while an additional 14.2 per cent were found to have impaired glucose tolerance (IGT). IGT is considered to be a pre-diabetes condition wherein the glucose level is high two hours after ingestion of glucose but not yet in the diabetes range. India has the highest diabetic population with an estimated 32 million people suffering from it. India may have more than one-fifth of the world diabetic by
2025. INFA
Men face great risk of high BP Researchers of the University of Glasgow in the USA have identified a marker on the male chromosome that may partly explain why high blood pressure affects more men than women until middle age. The discovery supports the belief that genetics contributes to the risk of developing the condition. The marker is a genetic variation that was found in 51 of 155 men studied in southern Poland, or about 30 per cent of participants. In men who tested positive for the marker, average blood opressure readings were 145/90; a reading of 140/90 is considered
high. AP |
What ought to be done is neglected, what ought not to be done is done; the sins of unruly, thoughtless people are always increasing. Whatever place a faithful virtuous, celebrated and wealthy man chooses, there he is respected. *** Good people shine from afar, like the snowy mountains; bad people are not seen, like arrows shot by night. *** He who without ceasing, practices the duty of eating alone and sleeping alone, he subduing himself, alone will rejoice in the destruction of all desires, as if living in a forest. *** Better it would be to swallow a heated iron ball, like flaring fire than that a bad, unrestrained fellow should live on the charity of the land. *** Four things does a reckless man gain who covets his neighbour's wife — a bad reputation, an uncomfortable bed, thirdly, punishment, and lastly, hell. *** As a grass-blade, if badly grasped, cuts the arm, badly-practised asceticism leads to hell. *** An act carelessly performed, a broken vow and hesitating obedience to discipline, all this brings no great reward. — From the Buddha's Dhammapada or Path of virtue (F. Max Muller's translation *** It is useful to keep one room reserved, or even the corner of a room, no matter how small it may be, as the place where you will regularly practice your meditation. If you can do that you will build up an invisible but real mental atmosphere within its walls. Every time you enter that room your mind will automatically revert to the tendency to turn back on itself. The room becomes your shrine, as it were. Every entrance raises your mental vibration without any conscious effort on your part. — Dr Paul
Brunton, The Inner Reality |
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