E D I T O R I A L   P A G E

EDITORIALS

Musharraf's belligerence
IN his eagerly awaited televised speech on Monday evening Pakistan ruler Pervez Musharraf did not utter a single word which could be interpreted to mean that he wanted to live in peace with India. He fully exposed his belligerence.

Telco leaves Bihar?
BEFORE the creation of Jharkhand the Tatas provided the industrial spine to Bihar. Even after Jamshedpur went to the new state the Telco, the vehicle manufacturing unit of the Tatas, had a sizeable presence in what is now known as Lalooland.

Antony’s troubles
EVEN as Kerala Chief Minister A.K.Antony has successfully completed his first year in office, he is confronted with too many problems during his second year. His first year was no smooth run for him. He had inherited an almost empty treasury, a public debt of nearly Rs 24,000 crore and a liability of Rs 6,000 crore.

OPINION

Critical look at vigilance process
A case for prior screening in anti-corruption drive
P.H. Vaishnav
IN any serious consideration of vigilance procedures, the responsibility of the government and the Vigilance Bureau to safeguard the reputation and morale of the honest and upright must rank on a par with their duty to bring expeditiously to book the corrupt public servants.

MIDDLE

The trap of titles
Darshan Singh Maini
I’VE been in the business of writing for over 50 years now, and for hundreds of articles and scores of essays and “middles”, I always was careful enough to hunt for a suitable title. At times, it came, suddenly, like an abrupt but welcome shower of rain, and in some few cases, the titles in question had to go through the Karma of re-births before they could meet the requirements of my imagination.

FOCUS

Lurking hazards from landmines
N. K. Pant
IN the first week of May, seven Army personnel were killed and four injured in an accidental landmine blast at a firing range near the Indo-Pakistan border in Rajasthan. Likewise in the first week of January, 18 persons, including 15 soldiers, lost their lives while unloading mines on the Attari-Chabbal border near Amritsar.

Drink more water to keep heart healthy
WANT to lower your risk of having a heart attack? Drink more water, and less of everything else, new research reports. Researchers at Loma Linda University in California found that people who drank at least five glasses of water each day were less likely to die from a heart attack than those who drank two or fewer glasses per day.

Depressed women live longer
MILDLY depressed older women tend to live longer than those who are not depressed at all, a surprising new study suggests. The findings are contrary to most other studies on the link between depression and mortality.

TRENDS & POINTERS

Now a rain-making wind turbine
IN what could come as a boon to rain strapped regions of the World, a wave-power pioneer has claimed that wind turbines could be turned into rain-making machines. Stephen Salter, an engineer at the University of Edinburgh, became famous in the 1970s for inventing the “nodding duck” wave- power device, which spawned many of the designs now under development and in trials.

• Even a little smoke hits kids

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

EDITORIALS

Musharraf's belligerence

IN his eagerly awaited televised speech on Monday evening Pakistan ruler Pervez Musharraf did not utter a single word which could be interpreted to mean that he wanted to live in peace with India. He fully exposed his belligerence. He appeared non-committal on the core issue of cross-border terrorism, which has led to an atmosphere of war between India and Pakistan. The ruling General did not categorically ask the international community to do everything possible to prevent an imminent military conflict in the subcontinent. It seems he hoped to prove with the help of his 25-minute "address to the nation" that it was India which should be held solely responsible for the current crisis. Of course, he cannot be expected to spare India under the circumstances, but in the process of uttering the lies that he did he exposed his nasty role in the building up of tension in the region.

In India, it is difficult to find an instance of killing of people busy with their religious practices in places of worship. But such incidents are regularly reported in Pakistan. It has the worst record of treating its religious minorities, particularly Hindus and Sikhs. The General should understand that Pakistan cannot succeed in diverting the international community's attention from the real issue by referring to things which have nothing to do with cross-border terrorism. Obviously, the responsibility for the consequences of Islamabad's destructive Kashmir policy lies on the regime there. The crisis can be defused only when the Musharraf government displays the necessary willingness. So far one does not notice any such signal coming from that side.

Telco leaves Bihar?

BEFORE the creation of Jharkhand the Tatas provided the industrial spine to Bihar. Even after Jamshedpur went to the new state the Telco, the vehicle manufacturing unit of the Tatas, had a sizeable presence in what is now known as Lalooland. And there is little to distinguish between Lalooland and lawlessland particularly after Mr Laloo Prasad Yadav's goons went on the rampage in Patna and took whatever they thought would come in handy for making his second daughter's wedding an unforgettable experience. The goons went about picking cars and jeeps and jewelry and furniture with the help of the police. The Telco management has not taken kindly to the acts of lawlessness that saw their jeeps and wagons being forcibly taken away to the Chief Minister's residence. By way of abundant precaution Telco has shifted its staff from Patna and threatened to snap whatever Tata links it has with Bihar after the creation of Jharkhand. Both the administrative office and the local stockyard too have been closed. The head office has reportedly issued instructions that the safety of its staff was important and that no one should report for work until the police registered a first information report against the goons who took away five air-conditioned vehicles from its showroom for the wedding of the daughter of Mr Laloo Yadav and Mrs Rabri Devi. Neither the Rashtriya Janata Dal President nor his Chief Minister wife have cared to express regret over the manner in which their men virtually looted the state capital.

It is not known whether the vehicles were returned to the Telco showroom after the wedding, and if so in what condition. Telco can afford to take a stand against the acts of lawlessness that took place on the day of the mother of all weddings in Patna. However, businessmen and traders with less economic muscle and clout have not dared to lodge formal complaints against the Chief Minister, the RJD President and their henchmen after the police threatened to teach them a lesson if they dared raise their voice against what can be described as the number one family of political goondas in Bihar. Mr Laloo Prasad Yadav indeed provides good copy to the Press because of his overdone rustic style of talking and not because of what he says makes much political sense. The tragedy is that at this point of time there is no leader who can challenge the RJD chief. Mr Ram Vilas Paswan, Mr Sharad Yadav and Mr Nitish Kumar have lost their credibility in what is largely an anti-saffron Bihar after they joined the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance at the Centre. The Congress is struggling to reinvent itself. In any case, whatever remains of the grand old party is in the RJD camp simply because political beggars cannot be choosers. However, there is no doubt that Bihar needs to be saved from the clutches of the crafty Yadav and an ignorant and incompetent Mrs Rabri Devi. The party or the leader who does this would be doing the land of the Buddha a great favour.

Antony’s troubles

EVEN as Kerala Chief Minister A.K.Antony has successfully completed his first year in office, he is confronted with too many problems during his second year. His first year was no smooth run for him. He had inherited an almost empty treasury, a public debt of nearly Rs 24,000 crore and a liability of Rs 6,000 crore. The 32-day-old strike by government employees and teachers did affect the functioning of his government. But he was very firm on dies non (no work, no pay) for the employees during the strike period. And except for two minor concessions to employees, he did not budge from his promise to tame militant trade unionism. Mr Antony’s significant achievement in the first year has been the initiation of structural reforms. His efforts to woo foreign capital and investment might not have succeeded on the expected lines, but there is a general impression that the 61-year-old leader has been sincere and earnest in his plans and objectives. Having realised that labour reforms were necessary to attract the much-needed investment, his United Democratic Front government is trying to put in place a comprehensive policy ahead of the Global Investors’ Meet (on the lines of the one organised at Bangalore by the Karnataka Government every year) at Kochi in November.

Mr Antony is, however, worried about the fiscal health of the state. He is not sure whether the Kochi meeting would help bring him the necessary investment. This is a cause for major concern because the Antony government has fixed an ambitious target of Rs 500 billion as foreign investment during its five-year tenure. Tax collection remains unsatisfactory. Of the total estimated taxes worth Rs 100 billion, his government was able to collect only 50 per cent of it. Above all, his plans to boost economic growth through tourism and information technology do not seem to be making headway. State government officials recently visited London, Berlin and West Asia to sell Kerala as an attractive tourist destination, but the government could not record success on the IT front. Kerala wants to provide world-class infrastructure for investors. In the last fiscal year, its software export was to the tune of Rs 1.5 billion. But reports suggest that none of India’s top 20 software companies has evinced interest in the state. Politically, Mr Antony has no problems. With 100 seats in the 140-member state Assembly, his government is firmly in the saddle. However, how the Chief Minister would be able to tackle the financial crisis in the coming months so as to make Kerala “better and prosperous” is both a challenge to believe and an opportunity for Mr Antony to prove.

OPINION

Critical look at vigilance process
A case for prior screening in anti-corruption drive
P.H. Vaishnav

IN any serious consideration of vigilance procedures, the responsibility of the government and the Vigilance Bureau to safeguard the reputation and morale of the honest and upright must rank on a par with their duty to bring expeditiously to book the corrupt public servants. Unfortunately because of the colour of controversy given to this issue, the question of safeguards has been altogether ignored. With wilful inaccuracy, it has been projected that these safeguards are intended to shield the corrupt. Even more inaccurate is the implied projection of these safeguards as meant only for the benefit of the IAS.

To put the record straight, therefore, it is necessary to make it known that the instructions contained in the government letter No. 19/1/98 (4) (V)/3900-4050 dated March 6,2000, are applicable to all public servants and not the IAS officers alone. It is equally important to state the background in which the issue of these instructions became necessary. The data of the Vigilance Department show that on May 31,1998, 2070 cases were pending against government employees, of which 1187 were FIRs and criminal cases, 582 regular enquiries and 306 preliminary enquiries. Fiftyeight of those cases were more than 22 years old, 119 more than 17 years old, 263 more than 12 years and the remaining 927 were between two and 10 years old. In 1999 the total number of cases decided by courts were 174 of which 16 ended in conviction, giving a conviction rate of 9.2 per cent. By implication, the failure rate was 90.80 per cent. As much as for the protection of honest servants as for obviating a high failure rate, it is necessary to ensure that enquiries are not registered without satisfaction as to a reasonable basis for them. In fact, to ensure a higher punishment rate of corrupt civil servants, it would be much better to ensure their removal through departmental proceedings than through the more rigorous and even uncertain routes of criminal prosecution. Removal on the basis of departmental enquiries supplemented by compulsory retirement is a far stronger way for dealing with the corrupt than for taking prosecution without credible evidence.

The cases against public servants fall within two categories. There is one class of cases where the law clearly defines the offence and the corrupt intention is easy to infer. These are cases of illegal gratification, embezzlement, criminal misappropriation, breach of trust, cheating and, above all, the amassing of wealth disproportionate to one’s known sources of income. In all such cases, the ingredients of the offence the precise and the liability of the officers identifiable beyond doubt.

There is, however, another category of cases which gives wide discretion to the vigilance machinery. These are cases under Section 13(1) (d) (ii) and (iii) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, This part of Section 13 reads as follows:

“A public servant is said to commit the offence of criminal misconduct if he by abusing his position as a public servant (ii) obtains for himself or for any other person any valuable thing or pecuniary advantage or (iii) while holding office as a public servant, obtains for any person any valuable thing or pecuniary advantage without any public interest.”

It is in this class of cases, which are of a complex nature, that the scope for harassment, injustice and grave misapplication of the vigilance process exists. The simplest of such cases are those where the lowest tenderer has not been awarded a contract for good reasons such as previous unsatisfactory experience of the party, the danger of the quality of work being substandard because of uneconomic margins, intended only to defeat other tenderers and the consequent time and cost overruns, etc. Likewise, there may be reasons where the highest bids may have to be rejected. Commercial decisions involve multiple choices and the final decision, therefore, depends on which of the choices gives optimal results. Causing pecuniary advantage “without any public interest” is a phrase that gives an undefined power to the police to create an onus against a public servant.

Even where political or other scores are not sought to be settled through vigilance proceedings, police investigation by its nature cannot comprehend the commercial or technical angle no matter how much in-house expert infrastructure may have existed as recommended by the Supreme Court. In consequence, once a case is registered, we are all afraid of talking to the indicted public servant and including the investigative machinery, everybody is under pressure to put up the case for prosecution for fear of being accused of shielding the corrupt. Once the police send up the case for seeking sanction for prosecution, the prosecuting authority is also under fear of media attacks and, therefore, considers it best to leave the final outcome to the courts. In the courts, too, discharge or acquittal at the trial level may not be the end of the case. There would be a whole round of appeals available to the investigating agency. When finally acquitted, the public servant cannot tell the public that he was innocent. In the public mind, therefore, he remains condemned. This is in addition to the heavy damage to his financial stamina.

The public servant, therefore, especially at the senior level cannot take bold decisions or strong action against his corrupt subordinates or junior colleagues. We see the pathetic picture of the senior officers unable to intervene decisively in favour of the parties coming up before them for fear of proceedings ranging from anonymous complaints to public interest litigation. The least consequence of this devitalisation of the decision-making machinery is, therefore, the tendency to delay decision making, which itself breeds corruption. Apart from this, all power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The vulnerability of the vigilance machinery itself to such a phenomenon can be a cause for further corruption while the stronghold of the Vigilance Bureau over the entire decision-making machinery can be paralysing. This has happened with the functioning of the CBI. There was a time when under distinguished police officers like D.P. Kohli and F.V. Arul the CBI functioned like an institution of the republic, say like the Supreme Court. Its conviction rate, therefore, was nearly 100 per cent because they did not pick up cases where they were not fully satisfied. Today, the CBI cases are getting thrown out on a fairly large scale.

The complexity of vigilance cases arises out of the complex process of decision making in the government, which is based on committees and hierarchies. The result is that all members of the committee or the hierarchy are roped into the investigation. The FIR usually names a particular accused and “others”. These “others” can come under severe pressure of the investigating machinery to depose against the main accused on pain of being joined as accused themselves.

All these point to the need for the prior screening (in cases other than disproportionate assets, acceptance of bribe, embezzlement, cheating, etc). Even the Arjun Sengupta Committee on Public Sector Undertakings of the Government of India took serious notice to this and recommended prior screening. Unlike in other criminal cases where there is immediate danger to the life of the people or their property, the pursuit of a public servant after a prior screening would not compromise the investigation as that person is not likely to run away. At the most where there is the danger of evidence being destroyed, the suspension of the public servant concerned at the explanation stage itself may take care of this matter.

Considering all this, the only point to be kept in view is that a prior screening does not result in defeating the vigilance process through delays so characteristic in the government or on account of sabotage. It is necessary to fix a time limit for such preliminary screening. If the screening is not decided within that time limit, the Vigilance Bureau should be free to deal with the case in such a manner as it deems fit.

The Vigilance Department’s instructions regarding screening are opposed on the ground that they are illegal. The police has the statutory authority to register cases and no one can tell it not to do so. This proposition of the law is not irremediable. About the Station House Officer, there is a hierarchy of police officers going up to the Director-General of Vigilance. They all direct the investigation of the cases even though formally it is the SHO or the DSP who deals with the investigation. Likewise, the Chief Secretary as the Secretary, Vigilance, could be notified as the Director-General of Police with concurrent and overriding powers in the matter of screening these cases. In the absence of these safeguards, we shall increasingly find ourselves in a situation where the honest become dysfunctional and the corrupt go scot-free.

The campaign against corruption is not a matter only for the Vigilance Bureau to cope with. Without the participation of the departments and their senior leadership, the impact of the bureau will be very poor apart from the serious consequence of the lack of accountability.

The writer is a former Chief Secretary, Government of Punjab.

MIDDLE

The trap of titles
Darshan Singh Maini

I’VE been in the business of writing for over 50 years now, and for hundreds of articles and scores of essays and “middles”, I always was careful enough to hunt for a suitable title. At times, it came, suddenly, like an abrupt but welcome shower of rain, and in some few cases, the titles in question had to go through the Karma of re-births before they could meet the requirements of my imagination.

For writers of fiction, philosophy etc., usually there are no aesthetic anxieties, and the pragmatic aspect of the tale or the argument presents no problems. There are exceptions here too, but my theme here is confined to high-tech, high-profile magazines, Sunday magazines of newspapers in particular.

I suppose the first thing a fledgling journalist learns is to recognise the worth and value of the title he’s going to use. For in the title lies almost half the tale, and much of the indirect truth. In poetry which is a sui generis genre, the titles of poems are even more expressive of the contents than the titles elsewhere. Quite a few poems are ruined because a careless, inapt title threw the poet off Pegasus — and, of course, derailed the reader.

Titles have a magic, even a mystery if not a “mystique”. They ought to be not only eye or ear-catching, but also cognitive, able to convey in short-hand what the poems, usually lyrics or short ones, are seeking to convey by way of roused emotions and thought.

There is, to my mind, only one major poet who could altogether dispense with titles. The name: Emily Dickinson. In her enigmatic, teasing, mystic little poems, the lines come from her head — singing, singing, singing like a soft-murmuring river stream. Or, to change the trope, they fly like white feathers in the face, leaving their own invisible mark on the spirit. And the poems full of dots and dashes suggest a whole world of transcendental visions. But I may add that any poet save a great genius like the American Puritan-poet could perhaps hazard to publish a volume of verse with no titles. So such examples are fatal, on the whole. Remember Emily’s definition of poetry: “And I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off. I know this is poetry.” This kind of vertical — and vertiginous experience is not given to the purohits and pedlars of verse.

To return, then, to the titles the media use to decoy readers into many a lexical game. Even if the content below does not match the promise of the title, the shapers and coiners of titles in the editorial office would do anything to amuse you, to confuse you, and to keep you hooked. Yes, the words in themselves can be highly sensuous and suggestive, highly poetic — and profligate. The seduction lies in sounds, and in the eye-appeal.

In “ads”, the sexual side is transparently exploited, but in magazine writings, other weapons are available, and they constitute a considerable, corpus of literary ploys. For instance, the ubiquitous use of alliteration has made it a prime actor in the theatre of words. And then there are “internal rhymes”, irony, sarcasm, turns and twists, swopping, parody etc to raise the temperature of the title.

A critical study of the issue, I trust, may yield some interesting quiddities, Freudian “fixations” and “complexes”. “If style is the man” according to the French critic, Buffon, then, the title is the insignia, your “coat of aims”, if you like.

FOCUS

Lurking hazards from landmines
N. K. Pant

IN the first week of May, seven Army personnel were killed and four injured in an accidental landmine blast at a firing range near the Indo-Pakistan border in Rajasthan. Likewise in the first week of January, 18 persons, including 15 soldiers, lost their lives while unloading mines on the Attari-Chabbal border near Amritsar. The majority of mishaps seem to have taken place either while transporting the mines or in the process of destroying the old unused stockpile of mines. Obviously, there seems to be an element of mishandling wherein either the proper safety precautions have not been taken while completing the task in undue haste or the stockpile was old and of substandard quality having defective fuses.

The resultant unexpected casualties in the wake of the massive troops buildup on the Indo-Pakistan border have naturally rung alarm bells in the quarters concerned and justifiably also in the public. In addition to putting unwanted spokes in the military’s defencive measures on the border, the incidents have rightly attracted criticism from the state governments of Punjab and Rajasthan. According to Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, a large number of people have died and got injured because of the landmines. He termed it callousness of the troops for not marking the minefields and demanded compensation from the Ministry of Defence for the civilian casualties in the accidental landmine blasts and the extensive destruction to the crops.

One of the dangerous fallout of mobilisation of ground forces on our western borders in the aftermath of Pakistan-based terrorist attack on Parliament on December 13, 2001, was the inescapable military necessity of laying of landmines on the Indo-Pakistan borders by the troops. This was for the first time since the 1971 Indo-Pakistan war that mine laying has been done in the western sector on such a large scale. But the hurried way in which the anti-tank and anti-personnel mines were laid in order to strengthen the defences and discarding the laid down procedures, ended up in causing avoidable casualties. It is believed more than 200 soldiers and civilians have been killed and maimed due to mine blasts in Punjab and Rajasthan alone. The ongoing insurgency puts the sordid tale in Jammu and Kashmir on a different plane as security forces as well as terrorists use landmines or IEDs, whose victims have unfortunately been mostly the local civilians who become inevitable and not coincidental casualties.

Landmines play a vital role during the conduct of military operations. A carefully mined tactical battlefield thwarts enemy advance and comes handy in causing damage to the hostile forces and armour by entrapping them. The strategic deployment of landmines can help effectively protect military bases and key installations. Landmines are used to protect open flanks, deny routes and strategic positions, restrict the ability of opponents to manoeuvre and force enemy units to deploy in areas where they are most vulnerable.

But this smallest and cheapest weapon of the anti-personnel mine has not only bled the Indian troops and civilians on their own turf but also caused extensive damage to crops. Farmers on the borders have not been able to work in their fields as landmines have been laid on them resulting in loss of crops and fodder worth crores of rupees. Ironically, despite clearly identifiable military applications, the nature, design, and deployment of large numbers of mines have unnecessarily lead to civilian casualties.

There are two basic kinds of landmines — anti-tank or vehicle and anti-personnel. In all, one can identify over 200 different types of landmines, manufactured in over 50 countries. Such mines range from a crude wooden box loaded with dynamite to sophisticated “magnet-sensitive” mines that can be calibrated to explode under the weakest part of a vehicle. Mines are designed to be hand-buried, dropped from aircraft, or fired from a cannon-like “mine projector,” which can hurl mines up to 36 metres.

The Indian Army uses anti-personnel mine AP NM M-14, a copy of US M14 which is pressure initiated, blast anti-personnel mine. It weighs 100 gms, which includes 28 gms of explosive in its lower portion. When pressure is applied to the top of the mine, a belleville spring is inverted, snapping the striker into the detonator and setting off the mine. It has a safety clip that must be removed before employment. It is difficult to detect due to its plastic casing and low metal content.

Another type of mine in use in India is the M16A1 weighing 3.57 kg , also of the US origin. It is a bounding fragmentation mine with a cast iron fragmentation sleeve inside a sheet steel outercasing. The mine can be activated either by pressure or tripwire. When the fuze functions, the cast iron sleeve is propelled into the air by a black powder charge. At the same time two delay charges are ignited and they in turn ignite the main charge when the mine approximately 1 metre in the air. The main charge expels cast-iron fragments in all directions.

Anti-tank mines, of course, are larger and have more powerful charges — up to 10 kg of explosives as compared to the few grams of explosive material found in most anti-personnel mines. An anti-tank mine can weigh up to 15 kg. It is the anti-personnel mine, however, that causes most harm to the civilian population.

Landmines are usually laid by the Corps of Engineers but the infantry units are also competent to do the job, which is a tedious and dangerous process. The laying and subsequent neutralisation of mines requires specialised peace time training. But the frequent deployment of the Army units in the recent years in anti-insurgency operations in Kashmir and the parts of the North-East, seem to have affected this vital aspect of training.

The avoidable loss of military and civilian lives in landmine blasts is certainly a distressing factor and affects morale. Though now nothing much can be done as mines have already been laid but the real problem will have to be confronted while the process of de-mining starts at the time of troops’ withdrawal to their peacetime locations. Since this is going to prove to be a much more complicated operation, the soldiers engaged on the task will need proper supervision and ample time to accomplish the herculean task.

Drink more water to keep heart healthy

WANT to lower your risk of having a heart attack? Drink more water, and less of everything else, new research reports.

Researchers at Loma Linda University in California found that people who drank at least five glasses of water each day were less likely to die from a heart attack than those who drank two or fewer glasses per day.

In contrast, people who drank a lot of other fluids were more likely to die from heart attack than those who drank less, with high levels of non-water drinking in women associated with a more than twofold increased risk of death.

The results are based on lifestyle surveys sent out in 1976 to people living in California Seventh-day Adventist households. The analysis is based on responses from 8,280 men and 12,917 women, who were all aged 38 years or older in 1976.

The authors, led by Jacqueline Chan, followed the participants for 6 years and noted their rates of coronary heart disease. A total of 246 respondents died from heart disease during the follow-up period.

Chan and her team found that women who drank more than five 8-ounce glasses of water each day were 41 per cent less likely to die from heart attack during the study period than those who drank two or fewer glasses daily. In high-water consuming men, that risk decreased by 54 per cent.

But when they looked at consumption of other fluids, including coffee, tea, juice, milk and alcohol, the risk were reversed, with heavy drinking women exhibiting a more than two-fold higher risk of dying of heart attack. Heavy non-water drinking in men was associated with a 46 per cent increase in risk of heart attack death.

Chan explained that researchers believe that when people drink water, it becomes absorbed in the blood, which decreases blood thickness. This lowers the risk of developing a heart attack-triggering blood clot. Other fluids can thicken the blood because in order to be digested, they need to contain the same concentration of particles as the blood. If upon digestion, the fluids need to be diluted, water gets pulled into the gut from the blood.

Can added that these results should be confirmed by subsequent studies, and that there are certain differences between the study participants and the population as a whole. All participants were White, and most reported healthy diets and levels of exercise, with very few respondents saying they drink alcohol or smoke. However, Chan said she didn’t expect there to be any substantial racial differences, and that her team used statistical tools to eliminate the effect of other factors on heart attack. They found that water itself still seemed to protect people.

Unlike aspirin and alcohol, which reduce heart attack risk but can potentially cause other health problems, Chan said water is a cheap, easy, and harmless way to help your heart. Water “can only do you good,” she said.

Commenting on the link between raised risk of heart attack and drinking juice, which is a healthy drink, Chan said she doesn’t want people to stop drinking juice, but they should monitor their intake. “It is very healthy, it’s just that you need moderation.” she said. Reuters

Depressed women live longer

MILDLY depressed older women tend to live longer than those who are not depressed at all, a surprising new study suggests.

The findings are contrary to most other studies on the link between depression and mortality.

Those studies have generally shown that depression increases the likelihood of death within a certain time period.

“This is totally counterintuitive to what you expect to see,” said Dan G. Blazer, a Duke University professor of psychiatry and behavioural science.

“We know that depression in younger populations is very clearly associated with mortality. It’s not so clear in older populations.”

The results might support the theory that mild depression is a survival mechanism, he said.

The Duke study, published in the May-June issue of the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, is the first known examination of mild depression and death, Blazer said. Other studies looked only at people with severe depression.

The study was based on a group that started with 2,401 women and 1,269 men, all older than 65. Researchers took into account age, chronic illness and other factors in calculating the mortality rate.

The researchers found that depression had no influence on the mortality of men. “We don’t want to make too much out of this except that it’s a very interesting finding,” Blazer said.

Blazer said the study may support a theory advanced by University of Michigan psychiatrist Randolph M. Nesse that says mild depression may allow people to cope more easily with their problems and remove themselves from dangerous or harmful situations.

According to Nesse, humans may need “low mood” or mild depression to deal with failure and disappointment.

People who don’t have it waste their whole lives trying to do things they won’t ever do,” he said. Agency

TRENDS & POINTERS

Now a rain-making wind turbine

IN what could come as a boon to rain strapped regions of the World, a wave-power pioneer has claimed that wind turbines could be turned into rain-making machines. Stephen Salter, an engineer at the University of Edinburgh, became famous in the 1970s for inventing the “nodding duck” wave- power device, which spawned many of the designs now under development and in trials.

Although this design can generate electricity, it is not as efficient as the horizontal-axis machines. But Salter plans to use the centrifugal force generated by the rotating blades to pump water droplets into the atmosphere. ANI

Even a little smoke hits kids

Just a little bit of smoke can damage a child’s learning ability, affecting reading, maths and reasoning, researchers have said.

More than 13 million children breathe in enough secondhand smoke to be affected in this way, said the researchers from the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.

“This study provides incentive for states to set public health standards to protect children from exposure to environmental tobacco smoke,” Kimberly Yolton of the Children’s Environmental Health Center at the hospital, who led the study, told a conference. Reuters

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

Everybody says regretfully, "There is so much misery in the world. We have prayed so much to God but still there is no end of misery." But misery is only the gift of God.

It is the symbol of his compassion.

— From Swami Tapasyananda, Sri Sarada Devi - The Holy Mother

***

Humble yourself very much before God in recognition of your own nothingness and misery.

Call upon God and beg comfort of Him.

Go to your confessor; open your heart to him; display to him all the recesses of your soul; take the advice he will give you with utmost simplicity and humility.

After all this, there is nothing so profitable, nothing so fruitful, in such states of dryness and sterility as not to long for or too strongly desire to be delivered from them. Not that we must not even wish for deliverance, but that we should not set our heart upon it.

Finally... in the midst of our spiritual dryness and sterility, let us never lose courage but wait with patience for the return of consolation, continuing always on our accustomed way. Let us not admit any of the exercises of devotion, but if possible, let us multiply good works.

— St. Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life

***

When fortune comes men feel satisfaction. But when evils come why should they complain?

What is more powerful than the destined effect of former works? It anticipates even thy thoughts while considering how to avoid it.

—The Tirukkural

***

If destiny favours what has gone beyond the ocean comes back. But if destiny is unfavourable, what is within one's grasp is lost.

—A Sanskrit quote.

***

It is destiny alone that bears fruit, not education or human effort.

—A sanskrit quote

***

Whatever is destined to happen, happens and whatever is destined not to happen, does not happen.

—A Sanskrit quote