E D I T O R I A L   P A G E

EDITORIALS

BJP’s stakes in UP
The BJP is using all the tactics it can think of to win the coming Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh. It is virtually leaving nothing to chance. The list of 309 candidates it announced on Thursday for contesting the poll has led to a storm of protest from among party members because 41 sitting MLAs, including three Ministers, have been denied the opportunity to try their luck again. 

Enron’s end game
The Enron-promoted Dabhol Power Company is gasping for breath. It has stopped generation of electricity since June last, has reduced the staff strength from about 5,000 to just 100, mostly security staff, and has removed vital equipment from the plant, that too without any permission from the authorities or the lenders. 

Diplomatic victory for India
Cost: increased US interest in Kashmir conflict
S. Nihal Singh
One phase of the crisis in Indo-Pakistani relations is over. What follows is a matter of some uncertainty, but it is unlikely that the situation will revert to what it was. In a sense, India has won the diplomatic game, using the American and world outrage over the September 11 events and the December attack on the Indian Parliament to corner Pakistan.

Chinese perceptions in the changed scenario
Sunanda K. Datta-Ray
Like the Chinese owner of a junk moored in the Thames in London’s sleazy East End who turned to at Queen Victoria’s coronation in Westminster Abbey decked out in mandarin robe, pillbox cap and pigtail and was seated with honour between the Marquess of Salisbury and the Archbishop of Canterbury by court officials who thought he might be a special envoy from the Son of Heaven, China today keeps the world guessing.

POINT OF LAW

Anupam Gupta
SYL canal: Supreme Court reopens old wounds
If there was one verdict that was not needed, certainly not at this hour, it is this. Handed down last Tuesday, the Supreme Court’s SYL verdict, lacking in constitutional rigour and even more in statesmanship, has already reopened old wounds and threatens now to jeopardise the youngest and most precious asset of the region: peace.

TRENDS & POINTERS

Eyes are the window to a stroke: Singapore doctor
The blood vessels of the eyes can provide clues to the risks of a person suffering from a stroke, a Singapore doctor has discovered. Wong Tien Yin has found that narrow vessels with weak walls allowing blood and fats to leak into the eyes revealed a person had a higher risk of a stroke, The Straits Times has reported.

• A gene that holds human life in balance

1980, Physics: CRONIN & FITCH

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

EDITORIALS

BJP’s stakes in UP

The BJP is using all the tactics it can think of to win the coming Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh. It is virtually leaving nothing to chance. The list of 309 candidates it announced on Thursday for contesting the poll has led to a storm of protest from among party members because 41 sitting MLAs, including three Ministers, have been denied the opportunity to try their luck again. The BJP is also not prepared to concede more than 78 seats to its allies even at the cost of being charged with deceit. Any step is considered worth taking so long as it helps improve the party’s chances of recapturing power in Lucknow. The stakes are too high. UP for the BJP is Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s state as he represents Lucknow in the Lok Sabha. If his party fairs poorly, there is every likelihood of the outcome impacting his position within the BJP. This may also erode the party’s bargaining power in the ruling coalition at the Centre because UP sends the maximum number of members to the Lok Sabha even after the creation of Uttaranchal. Any disturbance in the composition of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance may weaken the government from within at a time when the country needs a strong Centre with the border tension showing no sign of abating early. More than anything else, a change in the ruling dispensation in the state may weaken the BJP-led government at the Centre. Hence the party’s total concentration on UP.

What can cause the maximum harm to the BJP’s prospects is the anti-incumbency factor. Despite having won only 158 seats in a House of 403 in the 1996 Assembly poll, it has retained power by resorting to such unpopular methods as engineering defections from opposition groups. In the process, however, its image as a party of non-corruptible disciplined cadres got blurred. When Mr Kalyan Singh left and Mr Ramprakash Gupta took over the reins of government in November, 1999, most political pundits saw the party’s sure defeat in an election. Its fortunes, however, began to reflect a clear change after Mr Rajnath Singh became the Chief Minster. After shifting from Delhi (where he was a Minister in the Vajpayee government) to Lucknow he took three major decisions. He introduced reservation within reservation for the most backward castes (MBCs), released Fifth Pay Commission scales for teachers and increased the procurement prices of agricultural produce. This has substantially increased the party’s following in the three significant sections of voters and reduced the chances of a major negative fallout of the incumbency factor. The Chief Minister has also been conscious of refurbishing the party image as far as corruption is concerned. The removal of Loktantrik Party chief Naresh Aggrawal from the government some time ago and the denial of the ticket to his own party’s three Ministers are part of his drive to come to the voters with a clean image. Mr Rajnath Singh’s efforts plus the tension at the border with Pakistan (which has recharged the strong nationalist feelings of the people benefitting the BJP) have brought his party to a position when it is expected to win between 144 and 154 seats against the earlier projections of not more than 100. However, with Mr Mulayam Singh’s Samajwadi Party (SP) emerging as the major challenger with a projection of 150-160 seats, the BJP government in Lucknow still faces a serious threat to its survival.

Enron’s end game

The Enron-promoted Dabhol Power Company (DPC) is gasping for breath. It has stopped generation of electricity since June last, has reduced the staff strength from about 5,000 to just 100, mostly security staff, and has removed vital equipment from the plant, that too without any permission from the authorities or the lenders. Its dispute with the Maharashtra government, the state electricity board and even the Centre is pending before the Bombay High Court, and the Maharashtra Electric Regulatory Authority and an arbitration tribunal in London. It will take months, if not years, to secure a final verdict. Enron cannot wait because its parent company in Houston is in deep trouble and has filed for legal protection against bankruptcy. There are two hard blows against the oil and gas trading company. One, it heavily contributed to the campaign fund of both major parties and US law-makers are returning the money to dissociate themselves from the mess. Even US Vice-President Dick Cheney has intervened with Indian leaders on behalf of Enron and so must have others. More than the financial collapse, it is the skullduggery that has blackened its reputation. Enron has heavily manipulated its accounts and recruited its reputed auditing firm Arthur Andersen (one of the five top such companies in the world) to destroy incriminating documents. The crude trading major is in deep trouble and this will cast a shadow on the Dabhol plant.

Dabhol plant is for grabs to anyone who can offer $ 1.2 billion. That is not its net worth but the value of investment from the parent company and US financiers. Another about $ 2 billion has come from Indian financial institutions and their guarantee of foreign loans. Right now there are five bidders to take over the DPC. Three of them are Indian companies, Tata Electric, BSES (Bombay Suburban Electric Supply), GAIL (Gas Authority of India Limited), Shell and a French firm. There are thus potential buyers but not at the price Enron demands. It has two serious handicaps. Its Houston-based promoter is in desperate straits and it has no buyer for the very costly power it produces at Dabhol. The second is more vexing as no power plant can sustain itself unless it has an assured market. There is a whole lot to be learnt from the Enron experience, but it is difficult to imagine if the Indian bureaucracy will do it.

OPINION

Diplomatic victory for India
Cost: increased US interest in Kashmir conflict
S. Nihal Singh

One phase of the crisis in Indo-Pakistani relations is over. What follows is a matter of some uncertainty, but it is unlikely that the situation will revert to what it was. In a sense, India has won the diplomatic game, using the American and world outrage over the September 11 events and the December attack on the Indian Parliament to corner Pakistan.

But the Indian victory has come at a price. Diplomacy can camouflage facts but cannot eradicate them. Whatever New Delhi’s posture, Americans have become actively involved in the Indo-Pakistani conflict. It was, in fact, India’s employment of the new American campaign against terrorism that led to Washington’s pressure on Pakistan to make a beginning in stemming cross-border terrorism. And the deliberate massing of troops along the border was an essential ingredient in letting the USA know that New Delhi was serious in joining issue with Pakistan.

President George W. Bush maintained the fiction that the terrorists trained and armed in Pakistan and sent across the Line of Control in Kashmir were “stateless” actors. President Pervez Musharraf, on his part, maintained the fiction that the steps he announced on television in his landmark speech were solely to put his own house in order, rather than to comply with American and Indian wishes. And he laced his dramatic series of steps with emotive rhetoric on Kashmir.

So far so good. US Secretary of State Colin Powell can pat himself on the back for avoiding the pitfalls — he succumbed to them the last time he came — while serving as his President’s envoy and something of a go-between, interpreting the assurances of each side to the other. For India, the war clouds had lifted somewhat after President Musharraf’s Saturday television address.

In the longer term, if President Musharraf is serious about what he said on reforming the Pakistani polity and can begin implementing his agenda, it would be the dawn of a new era for Pakistan and the region. If words mean anything, the President is turning his back on several decades of his country’s tryst with religious extremism and fighting proxy wars in Afghanistan and India to begin to build a modern, moderate Islamic state, its ken unblinkered by a hate-India psychosis. The Kashmir issue would not be resolved overnight but could be discussed in an entirely different context.

Before letting hopes outpace reality, it is essential to enumerate the necessary incremental steps needed to bring relations between India and Pakistan to a less contentious level. It would not take a Sherlock Holmes to discover when Pakistan stops sending terrorists across the Line of Control, the intensity of terrorist activity in Kashmir will decline in proportion to Pakistan turning off the tap. Second, India must receive some satisfaction on the repatriation of the 20 terrorists, most of them Indians, enjoying Pakistani hospitality. Posturing on these and other issues is only to be expected but Pakistan can hardly hope to win friends and influence people in Washington if it were to turn a blind eye to legitimate Indian demands.

In the USA and the West, President Musharraf is being given credit for displaying courage in setting out a new agenda for Pakistan. At the tactical level, his Saturday address has been a great success. In India, there are different degrees of skepticism about his sincerity although there is greater belief in his ability to enforce his writ, should he would want to. Even assuming that General Musharraf is sincere and willing to reform Pakistan, the goal cannot be achieved overnight.

India can have no quarrel with President Musharraf maintaining the fiction that his new blueprint for the country is inspired entirely by Pakistan’s domestic circumstances. Indeed, the benefits of a Pakistan free from the scourge of extremists and terrorists would be immense. It is no secret that all the goodies Islamabad received from America, Saudi Arabia and others to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan came at the expense of spawning a drug and Kalashnikov culture.

General Zia-ul-Haq used his country’s frontline status to tilt it to becoming a theocratic state, making it all the easier for elements in the Army and the state within a state, the Inter-Services Intelligence, to prop up the Taliban in Afghanistan and export terrorism to Indian Kashmir. The sectarian violence caused by Pakistan’s espousal of religious extremism and the wages of narco-terrorism the people suffered are pockmarked on the country’s body politic.

Perhaps the best construction that can be placed on President Musharraf’s Saturday address is that circumstances and American pressure placed him in a situation in which he could make a virtue of necessity. A man India holds responsible for the Kargil misadventure has thus become a proponent of a moderate and modern Pakistan. Perhaps he can learn to rein in his anti-India proclivities sufficiently to begin a reasonable dialogue, once the armies of the two sides have returned to their peacetime stations.

Given the new American role in the Indian subcontinent, it stands to reason that a dialogue between India and Pakistan will be resumed. The incentive for Pakistan will be to demonstrate to Americans that it has indeed stopped the supply of armed terrorists to harry Indian security forces and kill civilians in Kashmir. General Musharraf is wise enough to know that sponsoring old style terrorism is becoming counter-productive in the post-September 11 world. (Somewhat picturesquely, Home Minister L.K. Advani had made the point in Washington that not even a dog can cross the Line of Control in Kashmir without the acquiescence of one or both armies.) Islamabad is thus being forced to employ other methods to pursue its policies on Kashmir.

Judging by Mr Powell’s performance, the USA is sensitive to the demands of the Pakistani constituency in how General Musharraf dresses his arguments. India also has a domestic constituency but is not circumscribed by the stark choices Pakistan faces. Apart from Islamabad meeting minimal conditions for a dialogue with India, the initiative is in Washington’s hands.

Chinese perceptions in the changed scenario
Sunanda K. Datta-Ray

Like the Chinese owner of a junk moored in the Thames in London’s sleazy East End who turned to at Queen Victoria’s coronation in Westminster Abbey decked out in mandarin robe, pillbox cap and pigtail and was seated with honour between the Marquess of Salisbury and the Archbishop of Canterbury by court officials who thought he might be a special envoy from the Son of Heaven, China today keeps the world guessing.

The interloper counted on surprise. So did Mr Zhu Rongji, the first Chinese Prime Minister to visit this country in 11 years, as he kept his hosts — and the world — wondering about where he stands on crucial questions affecting southern Asia. Historically, China has been a disruptive force in the subcontinent. But there are signs that it might now be willing to play a constructive role. Agreements and memorandums notwithstanding, however, it is too early to judge the true significance of his visit - a comment that Zhou Enlai famously made about the French Revolution, though with far less justification since that event had taken place nearly 200 years earlier.

Nevertheless, the welcome Mr Zhu received at a time of critical transition should have sent a twofold message. First, India takes foreign policy decisions in its independent judgement and not as a panic reaction to what Pakistan is up to or out of deference to American imperatives. Second, the possibility of adverse intent on the other side will not discourage India’s own efforts to lay the basis of economic cooperation with the only other major country that has escaped the impact of global recession.

This is not to minimise the challenge of China or deny the need for firmness. On the eve of the recent South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit, China’s Foreign Minister, Mr Tang Jiaxuan, had the effrontery to advise Mr Jaswant Singh that “as a big country” India should “play a more positive role” in the subcontinent. I hope Mr Tang was told that India’s neighbourhood ties are none of his business. He should also have been asked what positive role huge China made by seizing the Paracel islands that Vietnam claimed, or by arbitrarily and unilaterally taking physical possession of Mischief Reef in the Spratlys that the even more vulnerable Philippines claims.

But firmness is justified only when it reflects New Delhi’s own mature assessment of its long-term needs. For now, a policy of circumspection must keep options open until southern Asia shows signs of settling down to a stable pattern. That would also appear to be the view of Mr Zhu whose utterances here and before coming recalled the dictum of Talleyrand, the 19th century French statesman, that speech was given to man to conceal his thoughts.

General Pervez Musharraf’s recent policy address offered some evidence that relations within the region are undergoing adjustment. No less important, the subcontinent’s two principal countries are taking a long hard look at ties with the lone super power President George W. Bush’s nuclear missile defence policy and Operation Enduring Freedom, with all their military and political ramifications, suggest a more interventionist phase of what the present US President’s father used to call the new world order. In this evolving concert, India must not allow the prospect of winning points from Washington over Kashmir and terrorism to stampede it into closing any of its options.

It is no secret that while the Republican administration might now seek to coopt China, its long-term aim, determined by its commitments to Taiwan, South Korea and Japan, is containment. Cooption is a temporary phase dictated by the war on terrorism. China supported operation Enduring Freedom because it seeks legitimacy in its own campaign against the secessionist Uighurs of Xinjiang. When the gloves are off in this still subdued confrontation, India should not find itself in the position of American surrogate.

One indication that the USA might expect this was apparent when General Colin Powell sought India’s help in opposing the “no action” motion with which the Chinese have frustrated 10 American moves since 1990 to condemn their human rights record at the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva. The External Affairs Minister gave several reasons for declining to reverse a stand that traditionally supports China: India does not believe in country-specific condemnation, it has recently exchanged maps of the central sector of the Line of Actual Control with the Chinese and is trying to mend political and economic fences, and it has enough problems with Pakistan not to wish to open a second front.

Mr Jaswant Singh did not say that India does not use human rights as a cover for other political objectives. When the UNHCR met, the USA lost out once again. There may come a time when India might also find it necessary to oppose China at the UNHCR and other international forums, but that should be for India’s own national reasons and not to further any global game plan. That would be in keeping with Jawaharlal Nehru’s wider interpretation of non-alignment which went beyond keeping away from the two power blocs to act independently and in India’s own best judgement on each issue instead of from a pre-determined doctrinaire position.

True, there are disturbing reports about Chinese economic dumping, supplying F-7PG fighter aircraft to Pakistan and helping the Pakistanis to enhance the capability of Hatf missiles. General Musharraf’s three visits to China within a fortnight indicated that the Chinese were not averse to sending their own signals. Their subsequent clarification that the General went uninvited the third time, and that India and Pakistan should solve the Kashmir problem bilaterally reveals a pragmatism that could explain why Dr Henry Kissinger, whose realpolitik was not constrained by any consideration of ideology, so greatly admired the Chinese.

They sold heavy water to India when the USA would not, and sent a business delegation even while ferociously attacking India from every international pulpit for Pokharan-II. Both actions conveyed recognition of India’s present and potential strength as well as an acknowledgement of China’s willingness to do business providing its turf is not threatened.

Therein lies the rub. Like the Chinese at Victoria’s coronation, China keeps the world guessing. Though theories and speculation abound, no one is quite sure about Beijing’s perceptions of the USA, India and Pakistan, or even its self-view in relation to Asia and the world. Is it, for instance, still the Middle Kingdom which divided the world into tributaries and barbarians, recognising no country — not even George III’s England — as its equal?

Anxious to buy from and sell to China, the Clinton administration called it a strategic partner. With less interest in commerce, the Bush administration sees it as a strategic competitor. Informed opinion seems to be that the Chinese regard the US military presence in Asia — nearly 100,000 troops in South Korea, Japan and on warships before Pakistan ceded four military bases in Sindh and Baluchistan to the USA — as a constraint on the legitimate exercise of its own power.

It will be some time before China formulates its global position. It will take India longer for the process is contingent on economic growth, which, in turn, decides military power. No hasty political decisions can be taken before then. But India did well to make it clear to Mr Zhu that close partnership with the USA does not preclude an Asian consensus. China can play a positive role in bringing that about by eliminating some of the factors that now prevent a cooperative association of India and Pakistan.

POINT OF LAW

SYL canal: Supreme Court reopens old wounds
Anupam Gupta

If there was one verdict that was not needed, certainly not at this hour, it is this. Handed down last Tuesday, the Supreme Court’s SYL verdict, lacking in constitutional rigour and even more in statesmanship, has already reopened old wounds and threatens now to jeopardise the youngest and most precious asset of the region: peace.

“It is indeed a matter of great concern,” ruled the authors of the verdict, Justices G.B. Pattanaik and Ruma Pal, on January 15, “that while huge amount of public exchequer has been spent in the construction of the canal and only a few (sic) portion of the canal within the territory of Punjab has not been dug, the canal is not being put to use on the mere insistence of the State of Punjab. The attitude of the State of Punjab, to say the least, is wholly unreasonable, dogmatic and against the national interest.”

That is a strong rap on the knuckles, if not a slap on the face, and occupied as Punjab always has been in its own parochialism, whether on this issue or any other, not entirely undeserved.

Language, territory or water, and Parkash Singh Badal or Capt Amarinder Singh, it is time this border state woke up to the realities of today’s globalised world and learnt to accept the equities of inter-dependence, at least within the country.

It is time the state realised how immense a damage to its reputation the mindless rhetoric of separation and militancy has caused and continues to cause even though the sound of gunfire is no longer heard in the state.

For lurking behind the Supreme Court’s verdict and the strictures that it has passed on Punjab is precisely such a negative image of the state, nurtured by decades of provincial and group behaviour.

“In a matter like this,” says the verdict, “it is true that a decree of a Court in either way is not that effective, as it is the political will of the authorities and the will of the people that matters.”

Yet, “when the political authority becomes dogmatic,” it adds, repeating the charge, and “unreasonable and indicates an attitude of irresponsible nature and when the Court finds that nothing is moving......., the Court must pass appropriate orders and directions.”

“What really bothers us most,” the Bench goes on to say, “is the functioning of the political parties, who assume power to do whatever that suits and whatever would catch the vote-bank.”

It is anybody’s guess as to whom this is directed at.

“The decisions taken at the government level (the Bench continues) should not be so easily nullified by a change of government and by some other political party assuming power, particularly when such a decision affects some other State and the interest of the nation as a whole.”

In the matter of governance of a state or in the matter of execution of a decision taken by a previous government on the basis of a consensus, which does not involve any political philosophy, holds the court, “the succeeding government must be held duty-bound to continue and carry on the unfinished job rather than putting an end to the same.”

“The state governments (of Punjab and Haryana) having entered into agreements among themselves on the intervention of the Prime Minister of the country,” it concludes on the point — having earlier traced, and twice over, the history of the SYL dispute and referring to the Darbara Singh-Bhajan Lal agreement of 1981 presided over by Indira Gandhi and the Rajiv-Longowal Accord of 1985 — “cannot be permitted to take a stand contrary to the agreements arrived at between themselves.”

While the 1981 agreement, to which Rajasthan was also a party, resulted in the withdrawal of their suits then pending in the Supreme Court by both Punjab and Haryana, the 1985 accord led to an amendment of the Inter-State Water Disputes Act of 1956.

Unexceptionable as all this is on the merits of the SYL dispute, it is, I am afraid, without jurisdiction on the part of the Supreme Court.

The manner in which the court has assumed jurisdiction over the matter, rejecting Punjab’s preliminary objection to the maintainability of Haryana’s suit, is visibly unsatisfactory.

“Notwithstanding anything in this Constitution,” reads Article 262, Clause (2) of the Constitution, “Parliament may by law provide that neither the Supreme Court nor any other court shall exercise jurisdiction in respect of any such dispute or complaint” referred to in Clause (1) of the Article.

Article 262(1) empowers Parliament to enact legislation for the adjudication of any dispute or complaint with respect to the “use, distribution or control” of the waters of, or in, any inter-State river or river valley, and this legislation is the Act of 1956.

Except by the most niggardly interpretation, the kind of interpretation adopted by the Supreme Court by taking recourse to Section 14 of the 1956 Act, there can be no manner of doubt that the SYL canal dispute between Punjab and Haryana is a dispute relating to the use or utilisation of the Ravi-Beas waters and thus beyond the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court.

Apart from other things, both the 1981 agreement between Punjab and Haryana and the Rajiv-Longowal Accord of 1985 show this to be so.

“Now, therefore,” reads the 1981 agreement (after six prefatory “whereas”es), “we the Chief Ministers of Haryana, Rajasthan and Punjab, keeping in view the overall national interest and desirous of

speedy and optimum utilisation of waters of the Ravi and Beas rivers and also having regard to the imperative need to resolve speedily the difference relating to the use of these waters in a spirit of give and take, do hereby agree as under”.

Clause (iv) of the agreement, dealing specifically with the SYL canal and its implementation in a time-bound manner subject to a maximum of two years, states that it is to enable Haryana to “draw its allocated share of waters”.

Is not “drawing” water a part of the process of “using” or utilising it?

The Rajiv-Longowal Accord goes a step further and treats the construction of the SYL canal as part of the problem or dispute of “sharing of river waters”.

For that — “sharing of river waters” — is the common heading or rubric of Paragraph 9 of the Accord, comprising clauses 9.1 to 9.3. Clause 9.3 provides that the construction of the SYL canal shall continue and the canal shall be completed by August 15, 1986.

How can the “sharing” of river waters be distinguished from their “distribution”, the expression used in Article 262(1) of the Constitution and in Section 2, the definition clause of the 1956 Inter-State Water Disputes Act?

Set up under Section 14 of the 1956 Act, the Eradi Tribunal’s award of September 30, 1987, would dispel all doubt, if any still remains.

“This canal”, it says, referring to the SYL canal, “is the lifeline for the farmers of Haryana and unless it is expeditiously completed, Haryana will not be in a position to utilise the full quantum of water allocated to it thereunder.”

How is “utilising” water any different from “using” it?

Yet the Supreme Court exercises jurisdiction where none is permitted, holding that the matter of construction of the SYL canal is “not in any way related” to the use, distribution or control of the water from the Ravi-Beas project!

More next week.

TRENDS & POINTERS

Eyes are the window to a stroke: Singapore doctor

The blood vessels of the eyes can provide clues to the risks of a person suffering from a stroke, a Singapore doctor has discovered.

Wong Tien Yin has found that narrow vessels with weak walls allowing blood and fats to leak into the eyes revealed a person had a higher risk of a stroke, The Straits Times has reported.

Wong, a medical doctor and university assistant professor, made the discovery from a study he led while working on his doctorate at Johns Hopkins University in the USA.

The study covered 10,000 people, all caucasians aged between 45-65, who had their eyes photographed and monitored for three-and-a-half years to find out if any of them had had a stroke.

He explained that same carotid arteries supply blood to the brain and the eyes. Any damage to the blood vessels of the brain is also reflected in the blood vessels of the retina, the lining at the back of the eyeball. The damage can be seen in the photographs of the eyes, and can indicate that a person has a higher chance of getting a stroke, he said.

“We found that if you have high blood pressure and retinal changes, you are almost six times as likely to develop stroke than if you had neither,” he was quoted as saying. But Wong said that much more research needed to be carried out to bolster the findings.

He is planning to conduct the next phase of his research later this year involving 6,000 people aged 45-80, and of different races. AFP

A gene that holds human life in balance

A gene named after one of the Greek Fates seems to indeed hold a person’s life in the balance, cutting short one’s allotted time on this planet.

One version of the gene, called klotho, is much more common in newborns than in 65-year-old, which suggests it does something to reduce lifespan, a team at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, working with a group in Czechoslovakia, said on Tuesday. “It seems that carrying two copies of this gene is detrimental to survival,’’ Dan Arking, who is studying human genetics and who led the work, said in a telephone interview.

“We found that infants that have two copies of the variant, one from each parent, have a frequency of about 3 per cent in the populations we looked at.’’

Klotho was one of the three Greek Fates — goddesses who controlled each person’s lifespan. Klotho, whose name meant “spinner’’, spun the thread of life, Lakhesis measured the thread and Atropos cut it. Reuters

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

A peace is of the nature of a conquest;

For then both parties nobly are subdued

And neither party loser.

— William Shakespeare. 2 Henry IV

***

O Mother,

here is sin and here is virtue;

take them both and grant me

pure love for Thee.

Here is knowledge and here is ignorance;

I lay them at Thy feet.

Grant me pure love for Thee.

Here is purity and there is impurity;

take them both and grant me pure love for Thee.

Here are good works and here are evil works;

I lay them at Thy feet.

Grant me pure love for Thee.

— M. Sri Sri Ramakrishna Kathamirita, Vol. II

***

Lover’s body is the string,

his mind its knobs,

and the heart, the guitar.

In every pore dwells the hope

of meeting the beloved

And notes of His remembrance

are always heard.

Every fibre is playing the music of love.

Even if the lovers lie asleep,

the music still goes on without interruption.

Their sleep is veritably worship of the beloved.

— Shah Latif (1689-1752), a sufi saint

***

Watch, O my Comrades!

What has my beloved done with me!

He has taken away my heart...

and turned me into a pilgrim of the Path....

O Love, halt!

Why play pranks with me!

Dost Thou want to hang me

like Munsur Al Hallaj?

— Bullah Shah (1680-1752)

***

Love is giving and forgiving; selfishness is getting and forgetting.

Love all; serve all.

Love is a bridge over the sea of change. Do not build a house on it.

— From the discourses of Sathya Sai Baba