E D I T O R I A L   P A G E

EDITORIALS

Meet the challenge head-on
The December 13 attack on the Indian Parliament was a turning point in the ongoing battle against terrorism. The January 22 attack on the American Information Center in Calcutta is all the more momentous, considering that it targets the USA and India at the same time. Not only does it send a ringing message that the scourge is alive and kicking, it also mocks at the world.

NCERT’s saffron syllabus
Revision of the school syllabus has been a long-felt need, but the way the NCERT has gone about doing it may leave many dissatisfied. First, its credibility is in doubt. The widely held view that the exercise has been undertaken as part of the BJP agenda of what is called “saffronisation of education” makes the changes in the school syllabus less acceptable.

Improvident fund
There is a bitter but unstated battle between the Labour and Finance Ministries on the rate of interest to members of the employees provident fund, numbering about 34 million. 

OPINION

War of words, battle of lists
What next from General Musharraf?
Inder Malhotra
On the night the US Secretary of State, General Colin Powell, completed his second mission to the subcontinent, hopes had begun to rise high in New Delhi. It seemed at least to some in the ruling establishment and the strategic community that Pakistan’s military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, under intense American pressure, was about to deliver on the promises he had made in his famous January 12 address to his nation.

IN THE NEWS

How academics treat India’s Missile Man
It is a sad commentary on the state of affairs in the country's academic institutions that the dons there behave like the big babus in the government departments. How else should one look at a recent development at the Bangalore-based Indian Institute of Science.

• Top honour for Kissinger

Desireless way to divine reality
Tejambra
It is easy to say that we are religious while we might be full of desires. We might be slave to our passions, whims and fancies. We may say that, this or that is allowed. But a religion that does not prohibit indulgence in desires is no religion.

Don’t crib, act
Kuljit Bains
The Congress Captain has charged the Akalis with touching “new heights (or depths)” in corruption. (Maybe that’s considered worse than “normal” levels.) The Akalis had accused the Congress of a similar phenomenon when it was in power the last time around.

TRENDS & POINTERS

Family meals are good for mental health: study
Quality time with the family was linked to good mental health in young people. Youngsters who used mental health services had less than five family meals a week on average, while healthy peers dined or lunched with the relatives six times, a Spanish study has found.

• Vegetable oil for running diesel engine

1983, Physiology or Medicine: BARBARA McCLINTOCK

EDITORIALS

Meet the challenge head-on

The December 13 attack on the Indian Parliament was a turning point in the ongoing battle against terrorism. The January 22 attack on the American Information Center in Calcutta is all the more momentous, considering that it targets the USA and India at the same time. Not only does it send a ringing message that the scourge is alive and kicking, it also mocks at the world. The pointed provocation will certainly have reverberations all over the globe. It is now for India to mobilise international opinion so that everyone can perceive the pain and anguish that India has been suffering for decades. The challenge has been specifically mounted against the USA through this country. That it occurred during the visit of US FBI chief Robert S. Muller to Delhi was no coincidence. The venue was carefully selected. First, it was an American centre and that too in Calcutta, the seat of the Left Front government. The desperados sprayed bullets on unsuspecting policemen when there was a change of guard and they were at their most vulnerable. In any case, it has been proved yet again that the policemen are just not prepared to take on the threat posed by AK-47-toting terrorists. Armed with antique 0.303 rifles, they could not fire even a single shot to reply to the terrorists' hail of bullets. The lack of preparation thus stands fully exposed, tall claims notwithstanding. The tragic event has a grim lesson for every state.

Equally important is the fact the killers came at a time when they were certain that there would be no Americans on the premises. Obviously, they were interested in provoking India directly and the USA tangentially. The close ties the two are developing are the sore point. Perhaps that is why the FBI chief was initially reticent about branding it as a terrorist attack. It was left to President Bush to call a spade a spade. The provocation is a chilling reminder to the civilised world that there is no dearth of soft targets in various nooks and corners. Nor is it difficult to hire men to carry out such bloody assaults. And the killers have to be lucky only once to grab the world attention. The blood of policemen shed on that grey Tuesday morning should not go waste and the anti-terrorist drive should be given further momentum. This is one incident which even committed America-bashers cannot endorse. The USA must also realise that gaining control over Afghanistan only amounted to cutting one arm of the octopus. The head of the monster is still intact. The longer Washington takes to acknowledge its actual location, the harder it would be to sever it. 

NCERT’s saffron syllabus

Revision of the school syllabus has been a long-felt need, but the way the NCERT has gone about doing it may leave many dissatisfied. First, its credibility is in doubt. The widely held view that the exercise has been undertaken as part of the BJP agenda of what is called “saffronisation of education” makes the changes in the school syllabus less acceptable. Second, the syllabus was released without a broad-based consensus among experts, specially historians, who have alleged motives behind the “indiscriminate deletion” of certain portions from books authored by widely respected historians who are ideologically opposed to the Sangh Parivar. The experts have questioned the NCERT’s over-emphasis on ancient Indian history at the cost of medieval and modern history. The limelight that the Mughal emperors have hitherto enjoyed in history books has been curtailed. Third, the most notable as also most deplorable is the lack of transparency. The NCERT’s failure to provide the names of the authors of new chapters on history to the outside experts called by it casts a shadow on this elite institution’s intentions. Its efforts to thrust an overdose of the Upanishads, religion, spiritual and philosophical stuff down in tender minds of children may backfire and create a revulsion among the little ones who are much more aware and assertive in this globalised world.

Against this murky backdrop, even some of the positive changes made in the new syllabus are likely to be viewed with suspicion. If the new syllabus sheds unnecessary fat and weighs less painfully on the child’s back, it is welcome. The integration of science and social sciences subjects sounds sensible . But there may be a difference of opinion whether the children should be taught about terrorism and insurgency. Americans are still debating how children should be told about the terrorist attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon. Teachers find helpless to answer innocent questions like “Ma’am, why do so many people hate Americans?” Are our students and teachers capable of handling such sensitive issues? The NCERT, in its enthusiasm to push through the saffronisation agenda, has perhaps not found enough time to think over all these aspects. That the institution has landed itself in such a messy situation speaks poorly of its leadership. 

Improvident fund

There is a bitter but unstated battle between the Labour and Finance Ministries on the rate of interest to members of the employees provident fund (EPF), numbering about 34 million. There are several million more in those industries and offices which have been allowed to operate their own fund both in terms of investment and in declaring returns. The Labour Ministry wants the rate to remain at 9.5 per cent in the coming financial year, the same as this year. A few years back it was as high as 12 per cent, indicating a cut of more than 20 per cent. The Finance Ministry armtwisted the Central Board of Trustees (CBT) to slash it to 8.5 per cent, as a trigger to bring down the general interest rate, including that on bank deposits, small savings and post office deposits. But the CBT bluntly refused, though leaving a loophole. It described its recommendation made on Tuesday as an interim one and said the final decision would come at a meeting to be held in mid-March. That is after the Union budget is presented. This is crucial for two reasons. One, by then the government would have announced the interest rate on the special deposit scheme (SDS) run by the central government, in which nearly 80 per cent of the total EPF collection of Rs 60,000 crore is invested. Right now the SDS interest rate is 9.5 per cent, enough and slightly more to service the EPF. The Centre, meaning the Finance Ministry, can raise or lower the interest rate, thus forcing the CBT to reconsider its views. Two, Labour Minister Sharad Yadav still retains his socialist credentials and has skilfully skirted the responsibility to take an anti-working class action. He is the chairman of the CBT.

New Delhi is a hotbed of speculation and the EPF decision has spawned its own share. The suggestion to retain the interest rate at 9.5 per cent has an electoral angle. Election to four Assemblies, including Punjab and UP, will be over by February-end and a new, and perhaps a lower, interest rate will come into force in April. Thus it is a feint and quite harmless from the point of view of central finance. The Union Government spends fully one-third of its revenue on paying interest, and one calculation has it that a 1 per cent fall in the interest rate will mean a saving of Rs 1000 crore a year. So, the Centre has fabricated a logical argument of sorts. At the inflation rate of less than 2 per cent, an 8.5 per cent interest on EPF will mean a real return of 6.5 per cent and then there is tax benefit. Economic theory will gel with this but not mass psychology. The small savers are hit hard and no sophisticated academic argument will change that.

OPINION

War of words, battle of lists
What next from General Musharraf?
Inder Malhotra

On the night the US Secretary of State, General Colin Powell, completed his second mission to the subcontinent, hopes had begun to rise high in New Delhi. It seemed at least to some in the ruling establishment and the strategic community that Pakistan’s military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, under intense American pressure, was about to deliver on the promises he had made in his famous January 12 address to his nation.

This was due more to General Powell’s remarks in his interview to the Star News TV channel than to his statement at the joint press conference with the Foreign Minister, Mr Jaswant Singh. For in it he had hinted that, to his knowledge, General Musharraf had issued “orders” to the Pakistani Army to try to “stop infiltrations” into Jammu and Kashmir. Of course, he had hastened to add that, notwithstanding his own assessment, it was for the “sovereign and democratic” India to decide whether the Pakistani President’s actions were enough.

What had lent greater weight to the American dignitary’s observations was his further hint that the Musharraf regime was also inclined to hand over to this country some at least of the 14 Indian nationals on the Indian list of the “Twenty Most Wanted” given to Islamabad.

Had there been visible progress on either of the two counts in succeeding days, General Powell’s mission would have been applauded as a welcome success and this country would have surely responded to his plea for “de-escalation” of the current tensions followed by a “dialogue” between India and Pakistan. But till the time of writing there has been no sign of this. On the contrary, there has been a clear downturn in the situation as it had existed when General Powell had spoken in New Delhi.

Both the Home Minister, Mr L.K. Advani, and the Defence Minister, Mr George Fernandes, have testified emphatically that there has been absolutely no change in the state of affairs on the ground. Mr Fernandes has stated, on American soil, that Indian troops would stay on where they are “because we are faced with more infiltrators coming in every day”. Mr Advani’s later declaration, that there can be no question of a dialogue with Pakistan in the existing circumstances, acquires a sharper edge in view of his earlier description of General Musharraf’s January 12 speech as “path-breaking”. This praise, it may be added in parenthesis, had taken most Pakistanis and some others by surprise because they consider Mr Advani to be the “principal hawk” in the Cabinet of the “gentle and moderate” Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee.

On the issue of repatriation of Indian terrorists and criminals sheltered in Pakistan, the Musharraf government has gone out of its way to complicate matters and to negate the positive tidings General Powell had tried to convey to New Delhi. The Pakistani military ruler has blandly told CNN that the 14 individuals mentioned in the Indian list “are not with us in Pakistan.” There could hardly be greater irony than that enveloping this curious statement. For, as many Pakistani newspapers and publications have reported extensively, Dawood Ibrahim, the principal accused in the Bombay blasts case, has been openly living in Karachi in an opulent home not far from the house owned by the Pakistani President!

The General’s Foreign Minister, Mr Abdus Sattar, has done one better. He has suddenly and belatedly made the startling discovery that there are Pakistani fugitives in India who must be repatriated to that country immediately. Their list, he says, he would send to Delhi soon.

In short, to the ongoing war of words has now been added a battle of the lists. The belated Pakistani tactic is as churlish as it is disingenuous, but it has its uses. It can confuse and complicate the issue and thus prolong the triangular parleys, with India and Pakistan separately talking to the USA and America conversing with both. The whole question of Pakistan harbouring India’s terrorists for years can thus be either converted into a deadlock or used to insist on an exchange of fugitives by the two countries to give General Musharraf a face-saving.

The matter can indeed be dragged on to the point Washington starts nudging New Delhi into softening its current stand that there can be no talks with Pakistan until cross-border terrorism is ended. In fact, some in the international community — and even within India — have already begun to say that this stance has become “stale”. Evidently, it is in this context that there is speculation about a meeting between the Prime Minister’s Principal Secretary and the National Security Adviser, Mr Brajesh Mishra, and Mr Sattar in Munich where both are scheduled to be at the start of next month for an international security conference. Whether any such encounter would be different from the “informal interaction” at Kathmandu earlier this month remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, the most serious attention needs to be paid to a recent development that, besides being extremely important in itself, has a bearing also on the nuclear scenario in the subcontinent. What I am referring to is the Defence Minister’s most unfortunate and ill-concealed rebuke to the Chief of the Army Staff, General S. Padmanabhan, in the guise of “clarifying” the General’s earlier remarks on the nuclear dimension of the India-Pakistan situation. This easily avoidable discourtesy, to put it no more strongly than that, bespeaks of a far from healthy civilian-military relationship in this country that has persisted for much too long and must be ended once and for all.

Of course, it is totally immaterial whether Mr Fernandes spoke off his own bat or at the instance of the Prime Minister, or whether both were influenced by phone calls from Washington. The stark facts are that the Army Chief did not mention even the word nuclear in his statement to the press conference. However, those hypnotised by the motivated western propaganda about South Asia being a “nuclear flashpoint” did raise this question. What was the General supposed to do? To refuse to answer and thus confirm Pakistan in its belief that it has “immobilised” Indian military because of its nuclear arsenal?

He, therefore, gave the appropriate reply that India was wedded to the doctrine of “No First Use” and that nuclear weapons were not weapons of war but only that of deterrence. He went on to add that he didn’t think Pakistan would want to use nuclear weapons either. But if it did, it would be punished more than adequately. It boggles the mind that anyone should take objection to this sound enunciation. Mr Fernandes, in any case, should be the last person to do so. For, only a few days earlier he had said almost exactly the same thing in much stronger words. After all, it is obvious to anyone who knows anything about nuclear realities as distinct from nuclear myths that any Pakistani ruler foolish enough to use atomic weapons against India can devastate only a part of this vast country (unspeakably terrible though that certainly would be). Indian counter-strikes would destroy Pakistan completely.

Was it purely accidental that only a short while ago General Musharraf’s trusted spokesman, Major-General Rashid Qureshi, had categorically ruled out a nuclear war between India and Pakistan, arguing that both are “responsible countries”?

The novices pontificating on the nuclear issue should also remember that one of the main justifications General Musharraf had offered to his countrymen for his 180-degree change in policy on the Taliban was his anxiety to save “our strategic assets”. The meaning of these words was clear even to the meanest intelligence. The Americans, who have hounded every Pakistani nuclear scientist with any link with Osama bin Laden, were carefully watching Pakistani nuclear weapons and were in a position to “take them out”, if necessary.

Since then the USA has deployed four aircraft carriers within reach of Pakistani nuclear missiles and stationed thousands of its troops on Pakistani bases. Will any American Military leader worth his salt take the risk of allowing Pakistan to make its nuclear weapons operational in order to target India? Of course, not. For the simple reason that any jehadi or rogue element in the Pakistani Army could easily launch these weapons also on American assets.

IN THE NEWS

How academics treat India’s Missile Man

It is a sad commentary on the state of affairs in the country's academic institutions that the dons there behave like the big babus in the government departments. How else should one look at a recent development at the Bangalore-based Indian Institute of Science (IISC). It has shown utter disrespect to the father of India's missile programme, Dr A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, by denying him professorship which he richly deserved. Any rule can be bypassed or amended while dealing with an extraordinary case. After all, extraordinary situations require extraordinary rules.

In the USA or any other developed country an institute of science and technology would have been more than willing to invite a person like Dr Kalam to serve as its faculty member on his own terms and conditions. But this is unthinkable in India even in the twentyfirst century.

The painful story began with Dr Kalam's retirement as the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Prime Minister. Since he expressed his desire to enrich the IISc with his enviable experience and accomplishments, he was requested by the Department of Science to nurture the Brahma Prakash Chair as professor at the premier institute. Obviously, he did not require any recommendations. Nor was there an need for looking into his academic background to grant him professorship. Dr Kalam has proved with his achievements that he is above these official requirements.

No, the academics have a different approach. For them rules and regulations matter more than one's accomplishments. So, the IISc Director, Dr Goverdhan Mehta, began to show the rule book to those interested in Dr Kalam's case. It was pointed out that the architect of the country's missile programme was simply a BSc with a Diploma in Aeronautical Engineering. He has no "outstanding research record" to his credit with published papers in academic journals. He holds an honorary PhD.

This meant that the Bharat Ratna was not qualified to serve the institute as professor. It is a different matter that almost every professor serving there or elsewhere will be aspiring to reach anywhere near Dr Kalam in the matter of scientific achievements. Will those running the country's educational institutions ever change their negative, anti-growth mindset? Without this essential change one doubts if India will be able to achieve its second Independence — freedom from the technological dependence on the developed world — by 2020 as envisioned by the Bharat Ratna.

Top honour for Kissinger

OF LIFE SUBLIME

Desireless way to divine reality
Tejambra

It is easy to say that we are religious while we might be full of desires. We might be slave to our passions, whims and fancies. We may say that, this or that is allowed. But a religion that does not prohibit indulgence in desires is no religion. If we are serious in our quest for self-realisation and communion with God, we have to empty ourselves of all desires and become absolutely desireless. The desire for God is sattvic desire. This will not bind us to the world and will help us attain perfection in our sadhana.

Desires can never be satiated or cooled by enjoyment or indulgence. As a fire blazes more where it is fed ghee and wood, so does desire grow when fed on objects of enjoyment. If all the foods, precious metals, lands and assets, animals, and beautiful women were to pass into the possession of a man deluded by desire, they would fail to give him satisfaction.

Desire which is born of the quality of rajas is man’s enemy. Rajasic ways of living and rajasic foods ignite the desire for money, women, sex, fame, property and all related sins. Bad thoughts such as anger and hatred emanate from unfulfilled desires. An angry man commits all sorts of sins. He does not realise what he is doing. All evil actions and evil qualities emerge from anger.

When desire gets hold of a man, it hides the knowledge of his true nature from him. Desire shrouds wisdom, just as smoke shrouds fire. Man becomes egoistic. He gets deluded. He becomes a slave of passion and gets miseries of all kinds.

Desire is born out of ignorance. It arises from a sense of imperfection or the limitation of identifying our-selves with the finite body, mind and ego. Desire is the seat from which sproud ceaseless births. As is your desire, so is your will, as is your will so are your acts. He who is desireless has an absolutely free will. He is not bound by acts or karmas, a desireless person is above the law of karma. Kamini (lust), kanchana (gold) and kirti (fame) are the three obstacles to God-realisation.

An unfulfilled desire turns into anger or hatred, which are the main enemies of spirituality. The best way is to reduce your wants and desires. You can easily root out desire with viveka and vairagya i.e discrimination and dispassion.

The world is carried in the torrent of desire. In its eddies there is no soil of safety. Wisdom alone is a solid raft and meditation a firm foothold.

So long as man has not thrown from him the load of worldly desires which he carried with him, he cannot be at peace with himself. So, let us live happily without desires among those who are given to covetousness. In the midst of men full of desires, let us dwell empty of them.

Desire is the profoundest root of all evil. It is from desire that the world of life and sorrow has arisen. Like burning coals, our desires are full of sufferings, full of torment. No living being possessed by desire can escape sorrow. Those who have understanding of the truth, have a hatred for desire. The fruit of coveting and desire ripens into sorrow. It is pleasant at first, but soon it burns the person, as a torch burns the hand of the fool who does not cast it from him in time.

The indriyas or senses bring man in contact with external objects and desires created. But the senses are not all. If the mind cooperates with the indriyas, only then the mischiefs wrought. The mind is more powerful than the indriyas. But more powerful than the mind is reason. Even if the mind brings a message into the mental factory by its association with the indriyas, pure reason can reject it. Behind reason is the self, who is the director and who is superior to reason. Desire is of a highly complex and comprehensible nature. Therefore, it is difficult to be eradicated or conquered. But with the help of reason all desires can eventually be destroyed.

By practising discrimination and dispassion and regular meditation, one can slowly and steadily annihilate all desires and achieve nirvikalpa samadhi, a superconscious state where there is no medification of the mind or tripti. One will have God-realisation.

And with the shedding of desires, the idea of man’s identifying himself with his finite body, mind or ego also drops. He becomes videha. Then he has the true knowledge of the atman or ‘self’, which brings immortality and supreme peace. Man attains the timeless state of perfect and eternal bliss.

Don’t crib, act
Kuljit Bains

The Congress Captain has charged the Akalis with touching “new heights (or depths)” in corruption. (Maybe that’s considered worse than “normal” levels.) The Akalis had accused the Congress of a similar phenomenon when it was in power the last time around.

People seem to agree with both. But what the voters have done about it and are doing seems to be taking them nowhere. Making the same parties go in and out only makes the sad merry-go-round turn without reaching anywhere. The options are not many — it’s only a few bands (parties, if you insist) of people hurling mud at each other, hoping to stick more on the other. Only if one refreshing group would come out with a few feasible proposals for progress, apart from free power and loan waivers.

One may wonder, Will a politician’s promise of removing corruption work? Well, can a virus’ promise of curing cold work? This disease has wormed in so deep that a cynic might think of a politician as merely corruption personified.

The “garibi hatao” slogan of the 70s, credited to late Indira Gandhi, got the country nowhere. It was only the “amiri lao” effort of non-politician Manmohan Singh, under the silent Narasimha Rao, that actually moved things-and that was never really a slogan. Actions, and not slogans, work. The only lesson is that the jingoistic noises against corruption by the very perpetrators of it are not going to get us anywhere.

Our democracy was not always so unhealthy. We set out with a decent set of leaders, who may or may not have been good administrators-after all, they didn’t have any experience-but the integrity of most of them was beyond doubt. Things did not get bad one sad morning. The disease set in gradually, and won. Who are the losers then? The people, the good people. And whom do we blame for that? Both, the bad as well as the good. After all, why should not the bad prevail if the good let them. What do we, who call ourselves good, do about the situation apart from grumbling? We vote. Who for? Well (grin)....

It’s not that our country has run out of good solid men who can be depended upon. But where are they? They are there in the ISRO, NASA, Army, universities, farms, factories, anywhere but politics. An optimist might point out a few in Parliament, but their plight only makes one feel sadder. No self-respecting middle-class father of a competent son lets him join politics, “that’s not for sharif people,” he tells him. It never will be if we keep saying that. The “good” have to stand up and snatch power from the bad. Do not expect today’s leaders to solve the problem, be the leader yourself and solve it. I am rambling, someone might say. Hey, if our leaders can do it, why can’t I?

TRENDS & POINTERS

Family meals are good for mental health: study

Quality time with the family was linked to good mental health in young people. Youngsters who used mental health services had less than five family meals a week on average, while healthy peers dined or lunched with the relatives six times, a Spanish study has found.

The research, published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, centred on 259 youngster living with their parents, 82 of whom were seeking treatment. Anxiety and depression were the main problems.

“Sharing daily meals is a unifying ritual that promotes adolescent mental health,” the study concluded.

The healthy youngsters were also more likely to take part in family parties, excursions and other activities. However, both groups spent about the same time watching television.

Although most of those questioned felt loved by their families, those with mental health problems were more likely to view their family as dysfunctional.

One in five of the ill participants was rarely satisfied with the support received from relatives, compared with under seven per cent of the healthy children.

Factors such as the level of parents’ education, their employment status and family size, which could have affected the research, were similar in both groups. Reuters

Vegetable oil for running diesel engine

Vegetable oil is not only required for cooking - it could now also be used to run a diesel engine.

Scientists at the Salt Lake-based Institute of Engineering and Management (IEM) have invented an alternative fuel, modifying a popular vegetable oil, to run a standard diesel engine.

Demonstrating the prototype engine of 5 HP at the institute on Monday, IEM Director Satyajit Chakraborty said within few months they would be able to design bigger engines for heavy vehicles, which would run by vegetable oil.

Mr Chakraborty said IEM had been working since 1994 to replace petroleum products with renewable vegetable oil and the research was supported by many other institutes and universities across the country. UNI

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

The sun which set today will necessarily rise tomorrow but most people cannot wait for the coming day.

Be large of heart and succeed. Be small of heart and fail.

Change yourself and your life will change on its own.

When fate hands us a lemon, let us try to make a lemonade.

If you are patient in one moment of anger you will escape a hundred days of sorrow.

Bring your hearts together but keep your tents separate.

Never fear shadows; they simply mean that there is a light shining somewhere nearby.

Do not change with the change;

but change before the change.

Never break a person’s rice bowl

or let him lose his face.

Wisdom lies not in the amount of knowledge acquired but in the degree of its application.

Write your injuries in sand and your advantages in marble.

No man can make you feel inferior without your consent.

— Promod Batra, Management Thoughts, 937, 940, 941, 952, 970, 999, 1033, 1112, 1134, 1161, 1189, 1220.

***

Whatever suffering arises, it is because of sensation — this is the first anupassana (constant observation). With the complete cessation of sensation there is no further arising of suffering — this is the second anupassana.

Whatever sensations one experiences in the body, pleasant, unpleasant or neutral, inside or outside, all are suffering, all are illusory, all are ephemeral. A meditator observes that wherever there is a contact in the body, sensations pass away (as soon as they arise). Realising this truth with the extinction of sensation, the meditator is freed from craving, fully liberated.

—The Buddha. Dyayatana —sutta of the Suttanipatta.