Wednesday, August 21, 2002, Chandigarh, India





National Capital Region--Delhi

THE TRIBUNE SPECIALS
50 YEARS OF INDEPENDENCE

TERCENTENARY CELEBRATIONS
E D I T O R I A L   P A G E


EDITORIALS

Waiting for Lok Pal
T
HE Supreme Court’s suggestion to the Centre on Monday to appoint a Lok Pal to look into corruption in public life is timely and needs to be pursued to its logical conclusion. The three-member Bench’s advice comes in response to an application by Solicitor-General Harish N.Salve seeking modification in the apex court’s 1996 order on the cancellation of allotments of petrol pumps.

Army: a youthful profile
T
HE Indian Army is greying at the top. Recent studies, including those by the Kargil Review Committee, have recommended that the age of battalion and brigade commanding officers should be lowered (from 42 to 37 and 51 to 45, respectively) so that the officers who actually lead the troops in battle are fitter and younger. There is no doubt that a younger Lieut-Colonel would be in a better position to lead the troops than an older one.

The UTI recast plan
W
hat does the government plan to set up a sponsoring company and another asset management company to take over the schemes of the UTI hold out for the beleaguered investors? Nothing much, if the past experience of the government financial institutions, including the UTI, engaged in the sale and purchase of equities is any indication. Time and again the UTI has lost huge money in the stock markets and let down its investors.


 

EARLIER ARTICLES

 
OPINION

India progressing despite scams
There is nothing to get disenchanted
Joginder Singh
T
he Human Development Report of the United Nations Development Project, released in July, 2002, ranks India as the most democratic country in South Asia. However, India is ranked 124th in the Human Development Index. Its achievements in the field of strengthening democratic institutions, having a relatively free Press and guaranteeing civil liberties, have been undermined by lack of progress in health, education and other social sectors.

MIDDLE

Science and serendipity
Anurag
R
eligion has become the opium of the classes, leave alone the masses. It has become more of a passion than funky fashion to be seen brooding over the spirituality columns of newspapers and periodicals. But one need not be an apologist to accept this factitude, the hips and hypes of science and technology notwithstanding.

NEWS ANALYSIS

The Pakistanisation of al Qaeda
B Raman
A
l Qaeda members are reportedly testing chemical weapons on dogs. U.S. officials see this as evidence that al Qaeda is working on developing the ability to use chemical weapons against humans. Apart from al Qaeda, there are other Islamic organisations, including the International Islamic Front, responsible for various acts of terrorism in Pakistan. Here is an account of these organisations and their activities.


“Face-clawing monster” terrifies UP 
Sharat Pradhan
R
eports of a flashing space creature, or maybe a mutant bug that glows at both ends, have created panic in UP, triggering riots and lynchings that have killed more than a dozen people.

TRENDS & POINTERS

Woman catches fire during operation
A
woman caught fire while undergoing a Caesarean operation at a New Zealand hospital. The woman was on the operating table at Auckland’s Waitakere Hospital on Saturday with the baby still in her womb when the fire broke out, the New Zealand Herald reported.

  • Protein that enables stronger muscles

  • High intake of fats hike Alzheimer risk


SPIRITUAL NUGGETS


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Waiting for Lok Pal

THE Supreme Court’s suggestion to the Centre on Monday to appoint a Lok Pal to look into corruption in public life is timely and needs to be pursued to its logical conclusion. The three-member Bench’s advice comes in response to an application by Solicitor-General Harish N.Salve seeking modification in the apex court’s 1996 order on the cancellation of allotments of petrol pumps. Having maintained that scams have become an everyday feature nowadays, the court was only voicing its helplessness in tackling the flood of litigations filed by the affected parties for justice. The Bench may have sounded optimistic when it said that once a Lok Pal was appointed, a “major headache” will be over as it would first go into the issue rather than litigants rushing to courts. However, if the parliamentary debates on the issue during successive governments in the last 34 years is any indication, it is doubtful whether the country will really have an ombudsman in the near future. Ironically, the issue has been hanging fire for one reason or the other since 1968. Of course, one could hardly expect an institution such as the Lok Pal during Indira Gandhi’s regime. Her government made occasional noises about it but the matter rested there. Rajiv Gandhi too dithered on this count and did not show the political will required to push through the Bill. In 1985, the Rajiv Gandhi government hastily withdrew it. During the governments of Mr P.V. Narasimha Rao, Mr H.D. Deve Gowda and Mr I.K.Gujral, too, there was no earnestness on their part to go ahead with the Lok Pal Bill. A careful study of successive governments’ intentions on the issue would suggest that whenever the government of the day felt itself inconvenient or differed with suggestions on the scope of the Lok Pal Bill — whether the Lok Pal should be a single-member or multi-member body, the institutions to be covered under its ambit, to include or exclude the office of Prime Minister, the composition of the selection panel and so on — it chose to refer it to a Joint Select Committee of Parliament and, consequently, put it on the backburner.

Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee showed some foresight when he took the initiative last year and included the office of Prime Minister in the ambit of the Lok Pal for investigation and examination. However, most unfortunately, the issue did not make headway because of the NDA government’s lack of majority in the Rajya Sabha. As the Lok Pal is necessary to check the mounting corruption at various levels of the administration, it would be in the fitness of things if the Vajpayee government showed pragmatism and enterprise and took steps to enact legislation in this regard as soon as possible. Referring the Bill to the Standing Committee or the Joint Select Committee of Parliament in a routine manner will not help. If the Centre chooses to adopt this practice once again, it will only demonstrate its lack of will and diversionary tactic, given the past experience. It is nobody’s case that members should not have differences over the provisions of the Lok Pal Bill. Such differences can better be tackled and resolved through debate and discussion in Parliament. All political parties in both Houses of Parliament need to extend a helping hand to the government for the smooth passage of the Bill. As the Lok Pal Bill will be the test of sincerity of the Vajpayee government and its professed commitment to provide a clean government, it should be accorded top priority on the agenda of the next session of Parliament.
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Army: a youthful profile

THE Indian Army is greying at the top. Recent studies, including those by the Kargil Review Committee, have recommended that the age of battalion and brigade commanding officers should be lowered (from 42 to 37 and 51 to 45, respectively) so that the officers who actually lead the troops in battle are fitter and younger. There is no doubt that a younger Lieut-Colonel would be in a better position to lead the troops than an older one. The problem is what to do with the older ones? Though the organisational pyramid in the Army is very steep, with more than 82 per cent of the officers in the ranks of Captain, Major or Colonel, the number of senior officers at the top has also swelled over the years, in part due to cadre reviews during the 1980s. This has had the effect of the age of commanding officers going up. The ranks have been downgraded, with Colonels doing what Lieut-Colonels did earlier, or even Majors, and so on down the ladder. There is no doubt that the Army has a problem of plenty as far as senior officers are concerned. One proposal, by Lieut-Gen H. S. Bagga, to reduce frustration among junior officers was to increase the number of Generals, Brigadiers and Colonels, thus enabling faster promotions for junior officers. Currently, the Army has 257 Generals, including the Chief of Army Staff, and the Bagga report recommended for 432 new Generals. Expectedly, this has been met with opposition.

A recent proposal is to have an attractive early exit policy. This could be a constructive move, provided it also includes the role of the government in finding alternative employment for the officers who accept the package. A large number of officers take voluntary retirement after completing 20 years of service as they are entitled to pension after that. Since most of the officers know what their career graph is going to be like after 16 years of service, it is worth examining if they could be given the option of voluntary retirement with pension. Proper, effective and prompt help has to be made available to the officers who retire early. Efforts have to be made to equip them with marketable skills so that they have proper, dignified employment after they leave. Since Army men, owing to the nature of their calling, are often unable to look after their family and property interests, the government needs to go the extra mile for them. The fighting force has to comprise younger officers who can look up to a good career. After all, it is their job requirement that they lay down their lives for the country, if the need arises.
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The UTI recast plan

What does the government plan to set up a sponsoring company and another asset management company to take over the schemes of the UTI hold out for the beleaguered investors? Nothing much, if the past experience of the government financial institutions, including the UTI, engaged in the sale and purchase of equities is any indication. Time and again the UTI has lost huge money in the stock markets and let down its investors. The government has frequently thrown good money after bad to rescue the UTI without any long-term solution. During 2001-02 the government gave the UTI Rs 300 crore. Another Rs 500 crore has been made available to the UTI during this fiscal year, apart from a Rs 1,000 crore guarantee to raise funds from the debt markets. The UTI, according to media reports, needs at least Rs 13,739 crore to meet the redemption requirements of all its 21 guaranteed returns schemes. The real picture of the UTI’s financial standing will emerge after May, 2003, when the US-64 unit holders are expected to exit the scheme by disposing of their units at the promised price of Rs 12 per unit. The UTI is expected to face a shortfall of Rs 5,522 crore due to the difference between the assured repurchase price and the net asset value of US -64. That too if the NAV does not change significantly by then. Going by the current thinking in the Union Finance Ministry, the government will extend full support to the UTI and also encourage US-64 investors to stay on with the scheme.

Although full details of the government’s recast plan are not yet available, the proposal to set up two companies to take over the UTI schemes also suffers from the same basic handicap that has inflicted the UTI, that is, the government ownership. Government officials, even if honest and competent, function in a constricted environment that discourages individual initiative and dynamism. That puts them at a disadvantage in the present highly competitive and demanding work culture which requires quick and intelligent decisions. For instance, the UTI recently failed to cash in on the boom in the prices of PSUs listed for disinvestment. No wonder, some of the private mutual funds made hefty gains. The Joint Parliamentary Committee that looked into the 2001 stock market scam came out with the recommendation that the UTI should be converted into a mutual fund and the SEBI guidelines be made applicable to it. Earlier, the Malegam committee had recommended privatisation of the UTI. By repeated acts of bungling, the UTI has lost the faith of millions of investors, who have been put to a heavy loss because of its mismanagement. Whether the government succeeds in restoring the investors’ faith in the UTI can be seen only after May, 2003. There is a vast majority of investors who hesitate to hand over their life’s savings to any private mutual fund and prefer to invest in a house or keep these safe in a bank, even if that means lower returns. The savings rate is happily up. But that does not augur well for money managers — whether in the government or the private sector. 
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OPINION

India progressing despite scams
There is nothing to get disenchanted
Joginder Singh

The Human Development Report of the United Nations Development Project, released in July, 2002, ranks India as the most democratic country in South Asia. However, India is ranked 124th in the Human Development Index. Its achievements in the field of strengthening democratic institutions, having a relatively free Press and guaranteeing civil liberties, have been undermined by lack of progress in health, education and other social sectors.

Sri Lanka is ranked 89th while China is 96th. We lag behind Sri Lanka and even Pakistan in some aspects. India has a very high rate of infant mortality and the number of people suffering from starvation. The annual survey was confined to 173 countries and this year’s theme was “Deepening democracy in a fragmented world”. This ranking is a fall from 115 last year. According to it, India has 23 per cent of the population suffering from under-nourishment. Both China and Pakistan fare better, with 9 per cent and 18 per cent rates, respectively.

In our country, 26 per cent of the newborn babies are underweight as compared to 21 per cent in Pakistan and only 6 per cent in China. Nearly 15 lakh Indian women and 170,000 children live with HIV/AIDS compared to 16,000 women and 2,200 children with HIV/AIDS in Pakistan. More than 193 people in every 100,000 suffer from malaria. This number is 58 for Pakistan, 19 for Sri Lanka and just one per lakh for China. Over 123 people per 100,000 suffer from TB in India. This number is just 14 for Pakistan and 36 in China.

However, India gets 9 points in a range between zero and 10 in the “polity score”, meaning institutional factors necessary for democracy are still in place here. China (-7) and Pakistan (-6) lag far behind. The Press in our country has been ranked as “partly free” with a score of 42 compared to China’s “gagged” Press at 80 and Pakistan’s at 57 points (where 100 is least free).

The report also refers to the rampant practice of female infanticide: “Around the world, there are 100 million “missing” women. 50 million are in India alone, who would be alive, but for infanticide, neglect or sex-selective abortions.” The report gives instance of a recent survey in India that found 10,000 cases of female infanticide in a year in India. A study of a clinic in Mumbai found that 7999 of 8000 aborted foetuses were female”, the report says. So stark is gender inequality in India, says the report, that it is one of the 43 countries, in the world, where male literacy rates are at least 15 per cent higher than female rates.

As compared to others, we may not be as ahead as we should have been, but compared with ourselves, we have moved ahead. Only the past generations can vouch for it. In the post-Independence era a telephone was a rarity. In small towns, there used to be only one telephone in the local post-office. Right upto 1970 there was no such thing as STD or straight trunk dialling. Even for speaking from the state capitals like Bangalore to Delhi, the Telephone Department first introduced dialling on demand. That is to say that while you were holding the phone, the telephone operator would dial the number asked for and then ask you to speak. I can testify that from my personal experience as district police chief of Bidar district, even on a lightning call (It was the most important category) I had to wait for hours to speak to the state police chief when communal riots were going on.

Despite the scams, the progress in the country has been commendable. Till the middle of the eighties the consumer had no choice in the matter of vehicles. He had to choose between an Ambassador and a Fiat. I have owned both brands. My experience of them was that even the brand new vehicles, which were fuel guzzlers, constantly needed mechanics to tend to them. In fact, in the first 300 kilometres my brand new Ambassador conked off and I sold it off within two years because the mechanic told me that it was a factory-defective piece. I am sure the purchaser would have cursed me and the car a number of times after acquiring it.

I had another car, a two-door Standard Herald, whose axle would break after 70 to 80 kilometres. To top it all, there was no dearth of purchasers for even those cars. Fiat had a waiting list of 20 years and Ambassador about five years. For a government official it was slightly easier because the government had a small percentage of quota not only for cars but also for two-wheelers like scooters.

Though we have moved to the car age, we make 13 million bicycles every year. In fact, the prosperity can be gauged from the fact that when my late father, Mahant Kartar Singh, bought his bicycle in 1951, he was the first owner of this machine in Jalalabad, a town of 11000 people. TV and radio, which were a rarity, made their first appearance in Jalalabad and the owner, my uncle, received his letters as Mahant Harbhajan Singh Radiowala.

India also joined the small nuclear nations club on May 11, 1998, which has made every Indian proud. Nearly 20 million Indians are living abroad. They are called non-resident Indians or NRIs or PIOs or Persons of Indian Origin. Some of them have taken up local citizenships, but they are basically and at heart Indians, who keep on returning to the mother country. They account for nearly $500 billions there and a large source of foreign exchange to our country. Our foreign exchange reserves stand at $60 billions, which is all-time high.

It is true that people are disenchanted with the rulers of the country, irrespective of the party in power. Having tried different parties, they are faced with a Hobson’s choice, as to whom to entrust with the power. A similar question was posed to me at a seminar. One of the participants said the voters had no choice between the criminals and thieves contesting elections on tickets of different parties. I jokingly said that in that case vote for the least corrupt and least dishonest. I was told that after the election the thief (chor) becomes chief thief (maha chor).

It is true that we have a long way to go. It is true we have very few heroes on the national scene. People become heroes when they get a chance to exhibit their mettle. If there was no war between Kauravas and Pandavas, Arjun would not have become a hero and the great scripture Gita might not have been born. Each freedom fighter was a hero in his own right. The same fervour is missing now.

There are heroes in every walk of life. As many as 85 per cent legislators and members of Parliament still travel in buses. I know an MP, who has been elected since 1962, who still lives in his mud house in Bidar district. Obviously, the political class and the nation have not thought of recognising such people and so they remain only unsung and unknown heroes. In all fairness, it is up to us to respect and recognise our role models.

Now what is happening is that money has become the measure of judging the status of a person in society. A cricketer may have been involved in match-fixing or as a captain or manager not taking action when he should have known that something underhand was going on, he still remains a hero, and all the focus is on him. His misdeeds are forgotten. A politician may have confessed right in front of the TV cameras his actions of bribery and corruption, he still gets into the legislature through men, muscle and money.

The explanation for this strange phenomenon is that there is nothing completely black or white. There is a shade of the other in it. Every country, including the USA and the UK, has passed through such phases. Dr L.M. Singhvi, a distinguished parliamentarian and constitutional expert, rightly says in his book, “Democracy and Rule of Law”; “We need the leadership to respond and good citizens to inspire.” It is for each one of us to inspire and play our part in life. Carlyle said; “Make yourself an honest man and then you may be sure that there is one rascal less in the world.” Harsh words indeed, but worth pondering.

The writer, a retired IPS officer, is a former Director of the CBI.
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MIDDLE

Science and serendipity
Anurag

Religion has become the opium of the classes, leave alone the masses. It has become more of a passion than funky fashion to be seen brooding over the spirituality columns of newspapers and periodicals. But one need not be an apologist to accept this factitude, the hips and hypes of science and technology notwithstanding.

How many of us would pause to ponder that the career of the organised knowledge we know as “science” is less than five hundred years old? Contrast this with over five thousand years old human civilisation which had been dominated by alchemy, astrology, magic, spirits and the like. Five hundred years ago, hardly anyone believed in the Copernican planetary laws, optical combinations were not discovered, circulation of blood, weight of air, conduction of heat, laws of motion et al were unknown. Thermometers, pumps, electricity, motors, were non-existent. Religion has been in our genes, so to say. If this does not explain the hold of religion on human lives, what will?

Bertrand Russell, the maverick of his times, had this to say for science “Although this may seem to be a paradox, all exact sciences are dominated by the idea of approximation. When a man tells you that he knows the exact truth about anything, you are safe in inferring that he is an inexact man.”

The history of science is replete with instances of many valuable discoveries having been made by accident. In 1786, Luigi Galvani noticed the accidental twitching of a frog’s leg and discovered the principle of electric battery. In 1822, the Danish Physicist Oersted, at the end of a lecture, happened to put a wire conducting an electric current near a magnet, which led to Faraday’s invention of the dynamo. In 1858, a 17-year old named William Henry Perkin trying to make artificial quinine, cooked up black looking mass, which led to the discovery of aniline dye. In 1895, Roentgen noticed that cathode rays penetrated black pepper and thereby discovered X-rays. In 1929, Sir Alexander Fleming noticed that a culture of bacteria had been accidentally contaminated by a mold. He said to himself, “My, that’s a funny thing.” He had, through accident, discovered penicillin.

Isaac Newton discovered the law of gravitation after seeing an apple fall from a tree in his orchard. But these accidents would have been meaningless if they had not happened to Galvani, Perkin, Roentgen and the others, or to such men possessing equal powers of perception and insight. If fortune favours the brave, chance favours the prepared mind.

Where do we go from here? We need to explore both outer and inner spaces. It was Henry Adams who believed that the day was not far off when some future generation would be able to tinker with the rotary motion of the earth so that every zone would receive in turn its due portion of heat and light. Shall we then be saved from the vagaries of weather? I am afraid science throws up more questions than answers.

Religion is about revelation and realisation. But where do you place serendipity? Somewhere in between inquisitiveness and revelation. It is all about the journey of mind through the inner space and the outer space. A la the inner eye seeing within. Science and religion no more contradict each other than light and electricity, opined William Hiram Faulkes. One needs to have different eyes to experience each.
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NEWS ANALYSIS

The Pakistanisation of al Qaeda
B Raman

Al Qaeda members are reportedly testing chemical weapons on dogs. U.S. officials see this as evidence that al Qaeda is working on developing the ability to use chemical weapons against humans. Apart from al Qaeda, there are other Islamic organisations, including the International Islamic Front, responsible for various acts of terrorism in Pakistan. Here is an account of these organisations and their activities.

Osama bin Laden wears two hats. He is the head of the al Qaeda and, simultaneously, of a united front of like-minded Islamic terrorist organisations called the International Islamic Front For Jehad (also called Crusade) Against the USA and Israel.

The al Qaeda is a Saudi-centric organisation consisting exclusively of about 500 to 600 Arabs, mostly Saudi and Yemeni tribes plus some Egyptians, Algerians, Moroccans, Palestinians and others. Its objectives are the overthrow of the Saudi monarchy, the withdrawal of the Western troops from Saudi territory and assistance to the Palestinians in their struggle against Israel. It is also responsible for the physical protection of bin Laden.

The over-estimation of its strength occurred because of the failure of US analysts to make a clear distinction between the al Qaeda and the International Islamic Front, which is a united front of the al Qaeda, the Taliban, five terrorist organisations of Pakistan, three of Egypt, two of Uzbekistan and one each of the Philippines (the Abu Sayyaf) and Xinjiang. Other nationalities, which were fighting in Afghanistan such as the Chechens, the Rohingya Muslims of the Arakan State of Myanmar, the Bangladeshis, the Thais, the Malaysians, the Indonesians, the Americans and the West Europeans, were doing so as members of the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM) and the Harkat-ul-Jehad-al-Islami (HUJI) and in some cases of the other three Pakistani organisations and not of the al Qaeda.

Past reports had estimated the strength of the united front at about 20,000 plus, but latest reports indicate that all the components of the Front together had an estimated strength of nearly 60,000, of whom 40,000 plus were Pakistani nationals serving in the Taliban as well as in the five Pakistani organisations — namely, the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), which was designated by the USA as a foreign terrorist organisation in October, 1997, the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET), which was designated by the USA as a foreign terrorist organisation in December, 2001, the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM), which was also designated by the USA as a foreign terrorist organisation in December, 2001, the Harkat-ul-Jehad-al-Islami (HUJI), which has not yet been so designated despite its being the most active and the most ruthless of the Pakistani terrorist organisations born in the 1980s and the closest to the Taliban and the al Qaeda, and the Sipah-e-Sahaba, a Sunni extremist organisation.

Of these, the HUM was a founding-member of the International Islamic Front and its leader Fazlur Rahman Khalil had co-signed bin Laden’s first fatwa against the USA and Israel in 1998. The other Pakistani organisations joined the Front later. During the most active phase of the fighting in Afghanistan, these five Pakistani organisations sustained fatal casualties of about 8,000, with the HUJI suffering the largest number.

No definitive estimate is available of the number of Pakistanis taken prisoner by the USA and the Northern Alliance, but tentative estimates indicate their number at about 1,000. Excluding the fatal casualties and those taken prisoner, the surviving Pakistani nationals in the five Pakistani organisations, according to the latest reports, are estimated to be about 30,000 plus.

No estimate — definitive or tentative — of the number of survivors in the al Qaeda, the Taliban or other constituents of the International Islamic Front are available. However, over 75 per cent of the senior leadership of the Al Qaeda and the Taliban are believed to have survived, including possibly bin Laden himself and Mulla Mohammad Omar, the Amir of the Taliban.

Amongst the foreign nationals who fought in the International Islamic Front as members of the Pakistani organisations all of them had been recruited by HUM and HUJI teams, which went to these countries posing as preachers of the Tablighi Jamaat (TJ), brought to Pakistan and trained in the various madrasas with funds provided by the TJ and then taken to Afghanistan to get jehad inoculation.

Before October 7, 2001, the International Islamic Front’s infrastructure was based partly in Afghanistan and partly in Pakistan. The Afghanistan-based infrastructure, which consisted of the trained cadres of all the constituents of the Front, focussed on operations against the Northern Alliance, the USA and Israel. The Pakistan-based infrastructure, which consisted essentially of the trained cadres of the five Pakistani constituents of the International Islamic Front, concentrated on operations against India.

Since the beginning of this year, the surviving dregs of the entire Afghanistan-based infrastructure have moved over into Pakistan, with the knowledge/connivance of the ISI. Initially, they moved into the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan and have since spread out from there, with many of the Pakistani elements moving over to the Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK), including the Northern Areas (Gilgit and Baltistan), and some Pakistani elements and most of the non-Pakistani elements, including the Arabs of the al Qaeda, moving over to Karachi, which has a large number of Pashtuns, Balochis and Yemeni-Balochis who have been providing them shelter. Many of the Arabs have taken shelter in the madrasas of Sindh, particularly in the Binori madrasa of Karachi. Some have also taken shelter in Punjab.

All the terrorist incidents since January in Pakistan — the kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl, the American journalist, the grenade attack in an Islamabad church, the murder of French experts who were mistaken for Americans and the explosion outside the US Consulate in Karachi on June 14, 2002, — carry their signature and not that of bin Laden. – ADNI
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Face-clawing monster” terrifies UP 
Sharat Pradhan

Reports of a flashing space creature, or maybe a mutant bug that glows at both ends, have created panic in UP, triggering riots and lynchings that have killed more than a dozen people.

Victims report being scratched by something flashing blue, red or green that strikes only at faces and only at night. The creature has been dubbed “Muhnochwa”, or “face-clawing monster”.

Some policemen in Uttar Pradesh have declared that Muhnochwa is an extra-terrestrial being. Others say it is a “technologically developed special insect” that glows red from the front and blue from its rear, let loose by foreign “anti-national elements” — a euphemism for Pakistani agents.

And scientists say they have found no evidence that it exists at all.

The police has said that at least two people have died and scores have been injured in Muhnochwa attacks that began a month ago at the start of the monsoon. Details of the reported deaths, such as the injuries found on the bodies, were not available.

Terrified villagers have killed people suspected of being a Muhnochwa and one person died on Sunday when the police fired on a crowd storming their village post 70 km from Lucknow.

The crowd accused the police of not doing enough to protect them.

“At least a dozen persons have been lynched by irate mobs of villagers who mistook them for Muhnochwa over the past month since the queer incident was first reported,” state Home Secretary Dipti Vilas told Reuters.

In some areas, public gatherings of more than five people have been banned. Some villages are virtual ghost towns at night.

The attacks began in isolated villages but have spread to Lucknow, a bustling cultural centre of two million people.

“I was sleeping on my terrace when around 2.45 a.m. on Tuesday I woke up with a start to find a bright red blinking object attacking my face and trying to pull me away,” said Asma, who lives in Lucknow’s old quarter.

“I screamed, but no sooner than my husband got up, it vanished into the thin air, leaving a couple of scratches on my face.”

Witnesses describe the Muhnochwa variously as a creature or an object, shaped like a football, or a tortoise.

The attacks come a year after parts of neighbouring Bihar reported attacks by a mysterious “monkey-man”, black and ape-like with large claws and, some witnesses said, sparkling red and blue lights.

Those attacks in turn came exactly a year after a similar creature terrorised New Delhi.

The U P government has called in a team of scientific experts to investigate. But PTI quoted an Indian Institute of Technology team saying it had found no evidence of the Muhnochwa’s existence.

Instead, a team member, Prof Ravindra Arora, said he believed the most likely explanation in the drought-stricken state was lightning balls, common during prolonged dry spells. Reuters
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TRENDS & POINTERS

Woman catches fire during operation

A woman caught fire while undergoing a Caesarean operation at a New Zealand hospital. The woman was on the operating table at Auckland’s Waitakere Hospital on Saturday with the baby still in her womb when the fire broke out, the New Zealand Herald reported.

The medical staff smothered the flames but the mother — who had been given an epidural partial anaesthetic — suffered burns to the lower part of her body. Her baby boy was delivered unharmed. Investigations into the cause of the freak accident are centring on an alcohol-based swabbing solution used to sterilise the woman’s abdomen for the surgery. Equipment used to cut through skin and cauterize bleeding may have ignited the swabbing solution, investigators told the Herald. A spokeswoman for the public hospital, Caroline Mackersey, said the hospital had switched to a non-alcohol swabbing solution while the accident was being investigated.

“We do extend our deepest sympathy to the mother and her family. It must have been extremely distressing,” Mackersey told the Herald.

“What happened was outside the experience of anybody in that operating theatre and there was a very experienced anaesthetist and specialist.” Reuters

Protein that enables stronger muscles

Researchers from UT Southwestern Medical Centre at Dallas and Harvard Medical School have discovered a second protein found in skeletal muscle that can transform sedentary muscles into energy-producing, exercised muscles.

“When you exercise, your muscles change fiber type specificity, switching from type II fibers to type I fibers. When we expressed this protein in the mouse model, we found that the muscle switched from a type II muscle to a type I muscle. The presence of this protein alone switched the muscle type”, said co-author of the study Dr Rhonda Bassel-Duby, associate professor of internal medicine at UT Southwestern. ANI

High intake of fats hike Alzheimer risk

A report published in Archives of Neurology has found that consuming more calories and fats may contribute to an increased risk of Alzheimer disease (AD) in some people.

Researchers believe that the relationship is a result of the production of fewer free radicals, destructive molecules formed during the breakdown of food and oxygen in cells. Free radicals damage cells and may increase the damage done by beta amyloids, the glue-like particles found in the brains of people with AD. The authors said that “Calorie restriction may also decrease [nerve cell] death and increase expression of neurotrophic [nerve-protecting] factors in the brain. Reduced calorie intake can increase the brain’s capacity for plasticity and repair in neurodegenerative disorders, including AD.” ANI
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Problems are never solved.

One has only to rise higher in consciousness.

— Osho, God is not for sale.

***

Problems are only opportunities in work clothes

— Henry J. Kaiser, maxim

***

No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.

—John F. Kennedy, Address at the American University

***

Life is a rugged journey,

over hills and plains and dreary deserts, But say not “die” in struggle of life, Be brave and cheerful all through the battle.

Husband your strength and resources, Be valiant in the battle of life, keep calm in the hour of adversity....

—Yogi M.K. Spencer, How I Found God.

***

Greater than the sacrifice of animals is the sacrifice of the Self.

He who offers to the gods his sinful desires will see the uselessness of slaughtering animals at the altar. Blood has no cleansing power but the rooting out of lust will make the heart pure.

—The Buddha, Kutadanta Sutta.

***

I beseech you, therefore, breathren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God which is your reasonable service.

—The Holy Bible, Romans

***

If a man for a hundred years sacrifices month by month with a thousand, and if he but for one moment pays homage to a man whose soul is grounded (in true knowledge), better is that homage than a sacrifice for a hundred years.

Whatever a man sacrifices in this world is an offering or as an oblation for a whole year in order to gain merit, the whole of it is not worth a quarter (a farthing); reverence shown to the righteous is better.

—Khuddaka Nikaya. From the Minor Anthologies of the Pali Canon (Translator F.H. Woodward)

***

Better than the sacrifice of any objects is the sacrifice is wisdom, O Parantapa....

—The Bhagavadgita
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