E D I T O R I A L   P A G E

EDITORIALS

Questionable response system
THE Akshardham Temple clearing operation has ended with the elimination of the heavily armed terrorists by the elite National Security Guards (NSG). But it has left certain unanswered questions relating to the government’s house-keeping and response system. The terrorists, whose exact number is still a mystery, were able to have a free run of the temple complex, spread over 22 acres, for quite a long time. 

INLD show
YOU have to hand it to the Haryana Chief Minister, Mr Om Prakash Chautala. He knows how to organise massive rallies, just as his father, the late Devi Lal, did. At the same time, it is also true that while putting up these spectacular shows, official machinery is used freely and people are ferried to the venue, possibly forcibly, if they are not willing to come on their own. Even schools are told to have a holiday so that their buses can be used for rally duty.

FRANKLY SPEAKING

MIDDLE

Moving up in the family
Gurbachan Jagat
NATURE'S cycle of seasons continues year after year, decade after decade, century after century — spring, summer, autumn and winter follow each other unfailingly. Each season brings its own peculiar flavours, its own joys and pangs — each season lasts for a short while and then the next one enters and we learn to savour the new flavour.

COMMENTARY

Let’s begin afresh with Sri Lanka
M. S. N. Menon
AFTER two decades of conflict, the Sinhalese and the Tamils have realised that it was all a mistake to go to war with each other. And Sri Lanka is discovering that India is not only a good neighbour but also a true brother. We all live and learn. But let us keep the cost of our follies as low as possible. Asian wisdom? Yes. So be it.

Marrying late: wife begins at 40
UNTIL recently, women were informed with alarming regularity that they were likelier to die in a terrorist attack than marry for the first time beyond the age of 40. It was a phrase that almost entered the lexicon. It is, as American writer Nancy Wartik points out, ‘a comparison that seems even less amusing now than it did then’.

TRENDS & POINTERS

‘Stay mobile during childbirth’
PREGNANT women should move around more to ease the process of labour and childbirth and not go through it lying down, a British charity has advised. The National Childbirth Trust (NCT) has said 40 per cent of pregnant women in Britain are not advised to sit, stand or squat during labour even though it could reduce the pain and speed up the birth.

• How kids can have a healthy heart

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

EDITORIALS

Questionable response system

THE Akshardham Temple clearing operation has ended with the elimination of the heavily armed terrorists by the elite National Security Guards (NSG). But it has left certain unanswered questions relating to the government’s house-keeping and response system. The terrorists, whose exact number is still a mystery, were able to have a free run of the temple complex, spread over 22 acres, for quite a long time. The incident occurred around 4.45 p.m. on Tuesday, but BSF and CRPF jawans reached the scene around 6.30 p.m. to take charge of the situation. No doubt, the saboteurs had chosen a soft target, where there was no proper security arrangement. But the sprawling temple is located within half a kilometre from the zone having the residences of the Governor, the Chief Minister and ministers. It is also hardly 4 km from the complex having a large presence of Army, BSF and CRPF jawans. More than this, even the NSG commandos, who were airlifted from Delhi along with Deputy Prime Minister L. K. Advani, were asked to take the land route to reach their destination. This resulted in the avoidable loss of nearly an hour. In such an emergency situation, was it not possible to fly the commandos from the airport to the exact scene of action in Gandhinagar with the help of helicopters? As security experts would agree, time is of the essence in dealing with such situations. Even the political-bureaucratic machinery did not react swiftly in response to the grave threat to peace and security. The terrorist storming of a major place of worship could have had serious repercussions, had the incident taken a turn for the worse. Since it was being emphasised by the electronic media that the terrorists were armed to the teeth. No time should have been allowed to lapse. There was the possibility of the government’s double quick reaction leading to early results.

Now take the training aspect and the question of visualising what could happen under the circumstances in riot-torn Gujarat. There has been constant talk of Pakistan’s ISI being active in Gujarat as elsewhere in the country. Such subversive networks thrive on the kind of climate that was seen in post-Godhra Gujarat. What did the government of Chief Minister Narendra Modi do to prevent the ISI from taking advantage of the vitiated atmosphere in the state? The terrorists, believed to have come from Pakistan, could not have stormed the Gandhinagar temple without establishing local links. If the intelligence warning was available and the state government did not wake up from its “Gaurav Yatra” slumber, it is more guilty of dereliction of duty. It is learnt that the state government was not at all prepared to effectively handle the kind of situation it was faced with on Tuesday. It has a strong police commando force, but not trained to deal with terrorists. As was logical, the state government should have arranged the necessary training for its commandos in view of the developments since February this year. But Gujarat is not alone in this area of neglect. The Central Government too has been ignoring the demands of the NSG commandos at great risk to the nation’s security. These questions must be answered now to strengthen the country to meet future terrorist threats effectively and with a minimum loss of human lives.

INLD show

YOU have to hand it to the Haryana Chief Minister, Mr Om Prakash Chautala. He knows how to organise massive rallies, just as his father, the late Devi Lal, did. At the same time, it is also true that while putting up these spectacular shows, official machinery is used freely and people are ferried to the venue, possibly forcibly, if they are not willing to come on their own. Even schools are told to have a holiday so that their buses can be used for rally duty. The function to mark the 89th birth anniversary of Devi Lal at Jind on Wednesday witnessed all these old tricks and more. But since such things have become a routine in Haryana, not many eyebrows were raised. After all, the Congress and the HVP did exactly that when they were in power. As far as perpetuating a personality cult is concerned, that too has lost its shock value. When Devi Lal was Chief Minister, someone alleged that he was giving all senior posts to his family members. His stinging reply was: “So, what do you expect me to do? Give the posts to family members of Bansi Lal or Bhajan Lal?” That was Haryanavi forthrightness at its sharpest. His son and political heir has launched several new schemes in memory of Devi Lal in a similar cavalier fashion. The projects that have been announced are both ambitious and desirable. These include a Jan Nayak heritage complex at IMT, Manesar, and a Rs 18-crore Japanese hostel-cum-restaurant complex in Gurgaon.

An obliging Centre too has chipped in with more goodies. These have come in the shape of an inter-city Delhi-Rohtak-Hisar-Sirsa-Bathinda train and the conversion of the Rewari-Sadulpur, Sadulpur-Hisar line to broad gauge. The Delhi-Rohtak-Jakhal railway track is to be doubled. Then there is a pioneer scheme to check the growth of population and declining sex ratio. Spectacles, which happen to be the election symbol of the party, are to be distributed to all beneficiaries of the old-age pension scheme. Devi Lal was a tall leader indeed and his admirers will be glad that so much is being done in his honour. But the Opposition is equally right in seeing in this extravaganza the contours of an election campaign. The Chief Minister utilised the occasion to the hilt to have a dig at his opponents. Incidentally, this is not the only rally held during recent days. Nearly every party is on the job holding its own shows. It appears that everyone has suddenly come into the election mode. The display of the ruling party is bound to be the most impressive. But all that expenditure will be meaningful only if the common man gets something out of it.

FRANKLY SPEAKING

Efficient governance & accountable system
National priorities need to be corrected for people's welfare
HARI JAISINGH

A visit overseas is always an eye-opener in the context of the harsh realities back home. It helps in an instant understanding of where we stand in comparison to the developed world and what we ought to be doing to turn the country into a land of opportunities and higher growth. I am making these observations not with a view to decrying the progress achieved so far, as is the general tendency in certain sections who miss no opportunity to debunk the country after getting the best of everything from the system.

There are certainly serious flaws in our policies, postures and practices. Yet I do not wish to talk ill of everything here. One does not have to belong to the BJP or RSS cadre to appreciate the country's civilisational values, cultural ethos and entrepreneurship of the people. Genuine nationalist feelings are not their monopoly as they wish to tell to the rest of the countrymen. This is a pity. The basic problem with one segment of educated Indians is their negative mindset. They tend to be self-centred and reflect their personal failures and frustrations in their sweeping remarks on all that India stands for.

To say this is not to deny that the country has a long way to go to achieve the status of a developed nation as has often been spelt out by President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. In fact, every Indian needs to be committed to doing his bit for the good of society. The question here is not of credit-rating by monetary agencies like the Standards and Poor. We have to draw our own balance-sheet and honestly see how and where we stand in comparison to other countries in today's highly competitive world.

Take the case of China. It will, of course, be unfair to compare the performance of India with that of China because of the nature of two systems. At discount here is a firm commitment, discipline and work culture which can make a difference to the quality of governance and performance.

Why is it so? My simple answer is: we have not been able to create the right atmosphere which should enable people to rise on merit.

A number of scams and scandals that the country has seen in recent years in different segments of public life are also part of the drift which has virtually become an integral part of the political culture today. Corruption and corrupt practices, for that matter, like water, flow from top to bottom. The crusading spirit which was once part of the leadership during the freedom struggle has got lost in today's grab mentality.

Everyone wants to gain at the cost of the public exchequer. How can we ensure transparency and accountability in such a vicious atmosphere.

More than anything else, the economy, especially its infrastructure, has to be given the pride of place. The economy is not merely a numbers game. Nor can it be boosted on the basis of official statistics. The challenges before the nation are grim.

Despite the Green Revolution, the policy-makers have failed to set the pace for overhauling agriculture and the industrial sector on modern lines. Keeping in view the WTO regimes, the task is undoubtedly hard and ticklish. What is regrettable is that beyond lip sympathy, our politicians have not attended to the farmers’ real problems. They need special attention and care. There are serious gaps here despite the presence of several agricultural universities in the country.

It will be wrong to think of a higher growth in agriculture and industry unless we develop infrastructure in a big way. This means a modern network of urban and rural roads, bridges, transport, communications, marketing facilities and modern technological tools, etc.

In today's globalised world there are no free lunches. Somebody has to be held accountable for wasteful expenses and non-sustainable misuse of resources. It is no secret that high administrative costs are passed on to ordinary people who happen to be outside the charmed circle — to tribals, farmers, consumers and the poor.

The state provides subsidised power and irrigation facilities which are generally cornered by the privileged classes. Similarly, forest resources are given to cement and other factories which discharge their polluting effluents with impunity.

Look at the environmental degradation in the country's hilly regions, including Himachal Pradesh and Uttaranchal. No one seems to be worried about it. Take the case of electricity. It is produced at a considerable cost and much of it is lost during transmission or stolen by operators without payment.

Amidst this disquieting setting, politicians, as usual, play their power and money games to garner votes. The bureaucratic set-up that manages power, natural resources and their political bosses take full advantage of the loopholes in the system to misappropriate big chunks of the state investment without being held accountable. Interestingly, Rajiv Gandhi had once publicly acknowledged that not even 17 paise of a rupee was getting into the actual development of the people. Things have gone from bad to worse since then.

How can we sustain such a lopsided approach to development? Apparently, the prevailing system of governance is anti-people. It works solely to the advantage of what can be termed the iron triangle of the ruling clique of manipulators, power brokers and mafia-oriented vested interests. Politicians all the while simply thrive on cheap gimmicks of populism and dispensation of state patronage as if the public treasury and natural resources are their fiefdom.

Corrupt bureaucrats manipulate everything — from the organised services, the industries sector, etc, for the benefit of their biradari. Then well-entrenched vested interests operate from the corridors of power to manage men, matters and policies.

It is a sad setting. About a third of Indian people earn just enough to feed themselves and have no purchasing power even to meet essential needs.

Then, the number of job-seekers has been rising fast and faster during the last decade or so. Along with that, the proportion of educated job-seekers has also been increasing. Obviously, India's economic growth has not been commensurate with the employment needs. Nor has it led to equitable distribution of income which could have eradicated poverty and substantially improved the levels of literacy and the availability of minimum health services.

What sort of Bharat or India do we wish to build after 54 years of Independence? Does the conscience of the ruling class prick? Why haven't we been able to thoroughly overhaul the system so that the fruits of development are evenly distributed while ensuing a faster pace of growth?

We are supposed to be living in the age of information. But what is the level and quality of information flow?

It needs to be realised that the process of nurturing and dissemination of information and knowledge can enhance the quality of life, health and education standards. This in turn can help build an informed society and quality democracy.

Politicians exploit the people's illiteracy and ignorance for their vote bank. We ought to make our rulers accountable for their non-performance and hold them responsible for their sins of omission and commission.

We have also to create a viable transparent system. All that ordinary people want is freedom from wants, diseases, unhygienic environment, illiteracy, faulty communications, unfair practices and exploitation. They desperately look for safe drinking water. This is not a tall order.

It is up to the people to fully exploit the power of their vote. Panchayati Raj is only the first phase of their struggle for quality democracy. We ought to question the wider economic logic of the system and work towards evolving a healthy infrastructure of governance from the grassroots upwards.

There are no shortcuts to the hard road to faster growth which alone can take the country forward as a viable people-oriented developed nation.

To achieve our goals, our highly complex social setting demands that we go beyond the narrow ideological parameters to a larger canvas of consensus with a view to ensuring that people's resources, information, knowledge, public concern, ethics, development norms, transparency, accountability get the rightful place in governance at all levels.

MIDDLE

Moving up in the family
Gurbachan Jagat

NATURE'S cycle of seasons continues year after year, decade after decade, century after century — spring, summer, autumn and winter follow each other unfailingly. Each season brings its own peculiar flavours, its own joys and pangs — each season lasts for a short while and then the next one enters and we learn to savour the new flavour.

Similar is the cycle in the affairs of men — you enter different phases and then exit. This is especially so for those who join a service — they serve for a while and then it is time to say goodbye. This time came for us in June this year and brought in its wake the usual farewell functions. This schedule took us through June and July gradually, as we basked in the glow of friendship and camaraderie built over three decades, we began to look forward to the big change in life that was upon us.

However, the full reality was yet to dawn on us and it dawned finally last week when the Punjab Police (the cadre to which I had belonged) hosted our final farewell. I had been away from Punjab on deputation for the final six years of my service and hence, when we were received by fresh looking, eager youngsters, the mind failed to put a name to those cherubic faces. This was soon corrected as we got introduced to a large number of youngsters, who had joined the service in the recent years.

I looked around for familiar faces from the middle years of my service — the raw youngsters who took the first onslaught of militancy in the eighties — Izhar, Suresh, Sumedh, Sanjeev, Rajinder and countless others. I looked around and saw them now as mature high ranking officers, mellowed by time and experience.

I further searched the sea of faces and sought out those “youngsters” with whom I had begun the journey — I searched and located Bhatnagar, Aswal, Lal, Gurdial the Aulakh brothers, Mahal Singh and a host of others — and I saw greying beards, balding pates, serene faces, silent resolve — they were the Generals now, approaching their peak, the seed sown a long time ago was ripening into fruit — their time had come.

I continued my search to locate the Masters under whose benign guidance, I took my first stumbling steps in the department — I found them in a quiet corner, a calm harbour where these giants of yore appeared to have put anchor after sailing the rough seas for long decades. I moved quickly towards them — Mr J.S. Bawa, Mr C.K. Sawhney, Mr Surjit Singh (there were others I really missed) and sat by their side and felt at peace — a peace that they radiated.

It was not for me the time to talk and discuss, not the time to drink and be boisterous — it was moment for reflection, a small interlude in the perpetual movement of life. I closed my eyes and saw the generations represented in that room — from Mr J.S. Bawa to the 1998 entrants — I saw change, I saw continuity, I saw the peace of the harbour and I saw the enthusiasm of the youngsters preparing to set sail, and I saw in the middle generations the quiet, solid determination and resolve — men who were tempered steel.

This panorama of the Punjab Police flitted across the minds eye — a thousand images formed and dissolved, a thousand faces appeared and disappeared — I opened my eyes and one image remained — the image of a vibrant, dynamic, resolute, Punjab Police. In this room I had glimpsed its glorious past, present and future and I was happy to have been part of this ongoing process. After all those years away from Punjab, I had come back to the family which took me back into its fold — I was both happy and content to be back home with this large extended family. What about the big change that I had mentioned in the beginning? Change — Yes! Change — No! The family will always be there — only I have joined the ranks of the elders!

COMMENTARY

Let’s begin afresh with Sri Lanka
M. S. N. Menon

AFTER two decades of conflict, the Sinhalese and the Tamils have realised that it was all a mistake to go to war with each other. And Sri Lanka is discovering that India is not only a good neighbour but also a true brother. We all live and learn. But let us keep the cost of our follies as low as possible. Asian wisdom? Yes. So be it.

India was the successor state to British India. It was, therefore, natural for India’s neighbours to suspect it of imperial ambitions. The Sinhalese thought that India would one day use the Tamils of Indian origin (Sinhalese are also of Indian origin) to advance its great power ambitions. No thing could have been more untrue. So, when the Tamils were disfranchised in 1948 by Don Stephen Senanayake, the first Prime Minister of Ceylon, the seeds of mischief were sown in relations between India and Ceylon. The feeling of hurt among the Tamils was so great that they perforce took to arms. There was no scope for dialogue.

It stands to reason that a country which had just rejected the two-nation theory of the Muslim League was unlikely to support the course Ceylon had chosen. In fact, India, the most multicultural and multiracial nation on earth, was unlikely to support either the separatist ambitions of the Tamils or the theocratic ambitions of the Sinhalese. But the two communities misunderstood the logic of India’s position.

These were not the only misunderstandings. The Sinhalese thought that India (i.e. the Hindus) was opposed to Buddhism. The fact was: it was Nehru, a Buddhist at heart, who initiated the special celebration in connection with the 2500th birth anniversary of the Buddha. Today any enlightened Hindu is also a Buddhist.

As the Ceylon authorities thought that India had hegemonic ambitions, they entered into a defence agreement with Britain and ceded the seaport of Trincomalee to the British navy. With that one act, the leaders of Ceylon destroyed all the goodwill that Ceylon had in India. And they did this after K.M. Panikkar had pointed out in his book that Ceylon had to be an integral part of India’s Indian Ocean defence! This was yet another folly of the greatest magnitude.

In 1964 Lal Bahadur Shastri and Sirimavo Bandaranaike signed an agreement to resolve the problem of Tamils of Indian origin. But it was never implemented sincerely. Let us be clear on this: India could not have welcomed these Tamils to India with open arms because that would be a bad precedent. It would have given the wrong signal to the countries with Indian immigrants. Perhaps it would be no secret to the Ceylonese that India had received people from abroad throughout the ages. The latest to come are the Tibetans. And today there are at least ten million Bangladeshis living illegally in India.

India’s neighbours never understood the logic that compelled India to liberate East Pakistan. It was not to promote democracy or to liberate the Bengalis from the clutches of the Punjabis. It was to put the ten million or so Hindus, who had crossed over to India, back in East Pakistan. That was Mrs Gandhi’s way of telling the world that India would not accept if Indians were driven out of any country. No doubt, India was not ready to accept such a huge refugee population because of its social and economic implications.

In 1974 Mrs Gandhi visited Ceylon. She gave away the island of Katchchativu to Ceylon. She had the best of relations with Sirimavo.

But with the advent of J.R. Jayavardene, everything went wrong. The man was cussed. Everything he did gave cause for offence and concern to India. For example, he opened the Ceylon economy to the West at a time when the developing countries were engaged in an epic battle in the UN against the advanced countries, authorised the VOA broadcasting against the Soviet Union and offered naval facilities at Trincomalee to America. In short, he gave up non-alignment, and created a major security crisis for India.

Mrs Gandhi was not the person to take these things lying down. She encouraged Tamil militancy against the Sinhalas, gave the Tamil Tigers funds, training and arms. Now, whose fault was this? Surely, Mr Jayavardene’s. He was to be blamed for this entire episode. India had always thought of the Tamil problem as a domestic matter of Ceylon. It is true rising Tamil nationalism had brought the DMK to power in Tamil Nadu and the DMK was a partner of Mrs Gandhi at the Centre. But that was only part of the explanation for her strong reaction.

As a result, the people of Ceylon — both Tamils and Sinhalese — suffered. Let us never again repeat such follies in the future.

One might ask why am I silent on India’s follies? Not for want of will. But let that pass.

It was during the regime of Premadasa (1990-91) that India-Sri Lanka relations touched the nadir. He joined forces with the LTTE to oust the Indian armed forces from Sri Lanka. But this was our folly. We paid heavily for it with 1400 lives of our soldiers.

If the LTTE has now come to its senses, it is because the world is against what LTTE stands for. Terror is no more acceptable as a method to achieve political and economic ends. In a world which is getting more and more integrated through globalisation, there is no scope for the spirit of separatism. And when more and more nations are going multi-cultural, there is no scope for theocracies and mono-cultural societies.

Let us, therefore, compliment the LTTE leaders for realising these facts. I say this, for there are still forces which have not realised these facts. For example, the Muslim radicals.

Today, Mrs Kumaratunga says: “Friendship with India must, therefore, be for us, not just a conscious and soundly judged policy, it is a natural and vital ingredient for our national well-being.” If only Ceylon had realised this in 1947!

Now that the Tamils have given up the claim for Eelam, the world must turn to the reconstruction of Sri Lanka. In this India must play the leading role. Sri Lanka is ready to go along with India in creating a free trade area in South Asia. SAARC or no SAARC, India and Sri Lanka must work together to create a new economic destiny for South Asia.

But is not Sri Lanka destined to play a greater role in history? Is it not destined to bring the Buddhist world together? This was the purpose of India’s “Look East” policy — to bring India and the Buddhist world together to provide a new focus to the world.

Marrying late: wife begins at 40

UNTIL recently, women were informed with alarming regularity that they were likelier to die in a terrorist attack than marry for the first time beyond the age of 40. It was a phrase that almost entered the lexicon. It is, as American writer Nancy Wartik points out, ‘a comparison that seems even less amusing now than it did then’.

It is not only unamusing, it is no longer true. Women are marrying later than ever - even the most unlikely candidates are relenting. Candace Bushnell, author of Sex and the City, made her name as a single woman who was glad to stay that way. She once described marriage as ‘a male invention’, adding that ‘statistically, married women and single men are the unhappiest’. But this summer, at 43, she caved in and married. She said: `It just happens to be the right person, and the right time.’

The `right time’? How could 43 be the `right time’?

As a `wizened veteran of single life in New York’, it takes Wartik a while to realise she has secured a prize: `I didn’t allow myself to get too optimistic. The idea that you could meet a man... realise you liked each other; and discover he wasn’t seriously in need of psychiatric help was a lovely one, but then all the fairy tales I’d devoured as a little girl were lovely too.’

Disarmingly, she makes no attempt to edit any of her pre-marital, nervous twitches. `How’, she asks of long-suffering Dennis, `can I stay in this relationship when you can’t remember if I like anchovies?’ Wartik marvels at people who, like her own parents, married young and stayed married. ‘I don’t know how they do it -it is such a hard thing. When young people say they are getting married, I quake for them inwardly. We have more options now and are so much more mobile, it is harder to be able to grow together.’

She would not have made the right choice when young, she thinks. But why not settle for cohabiting with her partner now? `Our society is really hard on single people - but I can’t give you rational reasons. I just found I wanted to do this thing I had always scorned and envied.’ The Guardian

TRENDS & POINTERS

‘Stay mobile during childbirth’

PREGNANT women should move around more to ease the process of labour and childbirth and not go through it lying down, a British charity has advised. The National Childbirth Trust (NCT) has said 40 per cent of pregnant women in Britain are not advised to sit, stand or squat during labour even though it could reduce the pain and speed up the birth.

“It seems crazy that so many women are having longer, more painful and more difficult labours than they need to — just because they aren’t aware of the benefits of being active during birth,’’ said Belinda Phipps, the group’s chief executive.

Being upright during labour and birth reduces the length of the first stage of labour. It also decreases the need for epidural anaesthesia and the chance of getting an infection in the womb. Upright labour and birth is also associated with fewer assisted or caesarean births.

“Many women think that lying down is the usual way to give birth, but getting up and walking around is not only more comfortable, it can also shorten the length of labour,’’ Phipps added.

When the woman is upright the weight of the baby’s head pushes on the woman’s cervix and speeds up labour. It also reduces the risk of distress in the baby because it improves blood flow.

The charity said that for thousands of years women have been upright or crouched during childbirth, but women in Western countries have been advised to give birth lying down. Reuters

How kids can have a healthy heart

It may come as a surprise to many, but the heart disease can start in children as young as three years old. Therefore, doctors say that it is important to focus on children now in order to reduce heart disease in adults later.

“Kids look so healthy that you don’t really think about whether they have risk factors for cardiovascular disease later in life. But it’s a process that begins very early in childhood. You can begin to see fatty streaks in the aorta as early as three years of age. The battle’s often lost in the first few years, and it can be very hard to undo the damage,” Dr Christine L Williams, director of the Children’s Cardiovascular Health Centre at Columbia University in New York, was quoted as saying by Health Scout.

The American Heart Association recently published new guidelines for doctors that emphasise education and information on healthy heart habits for young patients and their families. Among the recommendations are: Get a family history of heart disease and stroke when the child is still a newborn. Between the ages of two and six, begin cholesterol screening for children whose parents have high cholesterol. Start checking the child’s blood pressure at age three. Encourage active physical play and discourage sedentary behaviour.

“By kindergarten, it’s nice to know which children have a tendency to be on the high-risk side. With a lot of them, all you might have to do is switch them to low-fat dairy products,” says Dr Williams. ANI

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedth out of the mouth of God.

— The Bible

***

— Russian proverb