E D I T O R I A L   P A G E

EDITORIALS

Web of terrorism
The gunning down of dreaded terrorist Imam Ali and four of his colleagues in an encounter in Bangalore on Sunday is a major success for the police because he was the man behind the serial blasts in Coimbatore on February 14, 1998, in which 65 persons were killed. In fact, he had been eluding arrest since 1993 when he masterminded the bomb blast in the RSS office in Chennai. The police managed to nab him in 1997 but he made good his escape in March this year.

Crucial third phase
Pakistan is desperate. And so are the ISI-trained militants because of the impressive voter-turnout in the first two phases of the assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir. So far it has also been bad news for self-styled leaders of the Kashmiri people, including Mr Shabir Shah and members of the multi-party Hurriyat Conference. They were mouthing Pakistan’s line that elections were not the solution to the Kashmir dispute.

Auto fuel policy report
The Mashelkar Committee’s Report on National Auto Fuel Policy (NAFP) submitted to the Union Government on Saturday is unique in many ways, compared with the interim report. In its final report, the committee has made wide ranging recommendations to check vehicular pollution in major cities and towns. Over the years, there has been an exponential rise in the number of vehicles. This has brought in its wake an alarming increase in the pollution levels.

OPINION

Self-appointed guardians of peace
Palestinians’ plight and American games
Sunanda K. Datta-Ray
We cannot but ask in these troubled times whether the dangerous villain who must be eliminated, as the Americans constantly din into us, before he can exterminate mankind, also masterminded the massacre in Gandhinagar’s Swaminarayan temple and the shooting at the Institute of Peace and Justice in Karachi.

MIDDLE

Buddy in Tighthouse!
Gopal Kaith
My wife loves animals. No stray cat and dog can leave our house without a crumb or two. Her love for animals is reinforced by our two children’s passion for pets. Two years ago, they brought home an ailing stray pup. A weakling. My wife nursed it like her own child. The children doted on him. They overfed him.

Advani alone can frustrate Pak design
P. Raman
Union Home Minister L.K.Advani was widely off the mark when he said that the terrorist attack on the Swaminarayan temple in Gandhinagar showed the Pakistani desperation over the successful elections in Kashmir. The Pakistani desperation is too obvious. But what has happened in Gandhinagar has been part of a diabolical plan to turn the once peaceful Gujarat into a hotbed of Islamic terrorism.

Nasal spray for women who are sniffy about sex
LONDON: It is the seducer’s ultimate dream: a potion that will turn a woman’s cold indifference into warm sexual interest. Sounds improbable? Not any more. Scientists revealed they had successfully tested a nasal spray, PT-141, that sent ‘healthy, normal women’ into states of high sexual arousal.

Doctors warn 22 million kids are too fat
As many as 22 million children throughout the world are overweight, according to the World Heart Federation, which warns that obesity is laying the ground for a ‘pandemic’ of heart disease.

• Corsican magic flower comes to India
  
  
  

EDITORIALS

Web of terrorism

The gunning down of dreaded terrorist Imam Ali and four of his colleagues in an encounter in Bangalore on Sunday is a major success for the police because he was the man behind the serial blasts in Coimbatore on February 14, 1998, in which 65 persons were killed. In fact, he had been eluding arrest since 1993 when he masterminded the bomb blast in the RSS office in Chennai. The police managed to nab him in 1997 but he made good his escape in March this year. A special team was formed to trace him and Sunday’s operation was the culmination of more than six months’ dogged manhunt. He had been tracked to a house in a middle-class locality, and the final assault was launched only after thorough preparations. The success came their way only because of close cooperation between the Tamil Nadu and the Karnataka police. That the police failed to catch any of the terrorists alive is proof enough that they were well-trained and motivated. They had already spread much mayhem in the country and were preparing for more. According to details that are now coming out, they had planned to assassinate Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani, Human Resources Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi and VHP chief Ashok Singhal in Allahabad in July this year. The group had also plans to bomb temples in Tamil Nadu to ignite communal clashes. One shudders to think of the consequences.

One outfit has been smashed; many more are very much in operation, changing their names every now and then. Direct support being provided by the ISI is obvious. And yet, Pakistan has the cheek to ask India to come to the negotiating table. You cannot hold a loaded gun to one’s head and make him engage in peace parleys. It should now be realised once and for all that Pakistan is not going to change its stripes, its pleadings of innocence notwithstanding. India is a large country and wherever there is a bit of laxity, the place becomes a soft target for the unholy warriors sent in by the notorious neighbour. We will have to be perpetually on our guard. It is not just a scare story that the ISI has spread its web all over the country. The way Imam Ali and others of his ilk had moved from Tamil Nadu to Kashmir to Karnataka, Kerala, Bangladesh and back shows that they had branches and sympathisers everywhere. Well, if they can have such a network, India has no option but to be one up on them. It is a shame though that two neighbours who were born of the same womb should be wasting their resources on fighting each other rather than progressing together. But as the saying goes, you cannot choose your neighbours and you cannot make a serpent eschew violent means. Unless you defang it, that is!

Crucial third phase

Pakistan is desperate. And so are the ISI-trained militants because of the impressive voter-turnout in the first two phases of the assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir. So far it has also been bad news for self-styled leaders of the Kashmiri people, including Mr Shabir Shah and members of the multi-party Hurriyat Conference. They were mouthing Pakistan’s line that elections were not the solution to the Kashmir dispute. But the positive response of the voters under extremely difficult circumstances created by the militants has exposed the lies that Pakistan is in the habit of telling at international forums. The people of Kashmir want democracy and not a Pakistan-imposed agenda for restoring to their land the deserved status of heaven on earth. That was the verdict, for which votes need not be counted, in the first two rounds. Poll pundits expect a heavier turnout when the third phase polling gets underway today in 27 assembly segments of the state. The presence of foreign journalists and diplomats has closed the option for Pakistan to claim that the people were coerced into participating in the elections. The positive report from Washington on the first two rounds must have been a personal source of annoyance for Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf.

What is more important is the role of the Election Commission in ensuring free and fair elections. It has come in for high praise from the voters and the politicians in Jammu and Kashmir. The three-member EC had received complaints about the Special Operations Group and the Special Task Force. It was alleged that they were being used by the National Conference for improving its chances in segments where its popularity has plummeted because of bad governance. In the past, in the pre-T. N. Seshan era to be precise, the ruling party in most states used to brazenly abuse the official machinery for influencing voters and winning elections. That was the reason why the Election Commission drew up an elaborate code of conduct for providing a level playing field to both the ruling party and Opposition candidates. In the present case, the National Conference was reportedly trying to make up for the lack of performance in the past five years by directing the SOG and the STF to browbeat the people into voting for it. However, the EC responded promptly and positively to the plea of the Opposition to prevent the two state-level outfits from interfering in the election process. Now the personnel of the SOG and the STF will remain in the barracks until the closing of polling in the third phase on October 1. It is now up to the voters to turn out in even greater numbers than they did in the earlier rounds, because of the threat of dire consequences from militants. A fair ballot will give a powerful blow for democracy in Kashmir and to General Musharraf’s vile campaign against India.

Auto fuel policy report

The Mashelkar Committee’s Report on National Auto Fuel Policy (NAFP) submitted to the Union Government on Saturday is unique in many ways, compared with the interim report. In its final report, the committee has made wide ranging recommendations to check vehicular pollution in major cities and towns. Over the years, there has been an exponential rise in the number of vehicles. This has brought in its wake an alarming increase in the pollution levels. The inability of the Centre and the state governments to check the rapid growth of vehicles — government, commercial and private — and, more important, their failure to enforce appropriate automobile emission norms have led to increased pollution of air and the environment around us. While the interim report had recommended the introduction of Euro III norms in the entire country for all new vehicles (except two- and three-wheelers) by 2010, the final report has called for the introduction of Euro IV norms in 11 Indian cities (including the four metros) by the same year. It has identified Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Pune, Kanpur, Surat and Agra where the next stage of vehicular norms should be introduced. Significantly, the Mashelkar Committee has examined the problem of two-wheelers and three-wheelers for which Euro II equivalent norms have been fixed for 2005 and Euro III norms for 2010 (with the option of introducing them a couple of years earlier). It has also chalked out a road map for them. The interim report did not touch this vital segment of vehicular population.

The final report makes an important observation that even though the use of compressed natural gas (CNG) is important to reduce air pollution, it is not the only factor. The committee examined the use of CNG and LPG in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and other cities in all its ramifications, including the safety aspect, while coming to the conclusion that the government should reduce its “overdependence” on these fuels. It maintained that the liquid fuels of specified quality should be declared as the main auto fuels throughout the country. Stressing the need for a balanced auto fuel policy, the report also recognises the fact that while addressing the environmental concerns, the government needs to take into consideration the supply, security and strategic requirements emanating from the global trends, the regional demand-supply balance of auto fuels and the internal factors. Interestingly, a joint study conducted by the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute, the Indian Institute of Petroleum and the Central Road Research Institute has demolished the myth on the use of CNG as a “clean fuel”. This study found that 84 to 88 per cent of the reduction in the auto exhaust particulate matter load since 1996 was due to the improvements in vehicle technology and fuel quality and that only 12 to 16 per cent reduction was due to the use of CNG. The report also dealt with safety-related issues and suggested ways to enforce emission norms, certify in-use vehicles, test fuel quality and monitor the implementation of regulations.

OPINION

Self-appointed guardians of peace
Palestinians’ plight and American games
Sunanda K. Datta-Ray

We cannot but ask in these troubled times whether the dangerous villain who must be eliminated, as the Americans constantly din into us, before he can exterminate mankind, also masterminded the massacre in Gandhinagar’s Swaminarayan temple and the shooting at the Institute of Peace and Justice in Karachi. If not, self-appointed guardians of the world’s peace should surely be looking for the miscreants responsible for such murderous orgies instead of distracting international attention by raising and chasing an irrelevant Iraqi hare or indulging in acts of brigandage like aerial strikes on Basra and Al-Kufah.

Neither Iraq nor Israel is the main culprit so far as world peace is concerned. But they are linked in another dire drama. Everyone, including Mr Chandra Shekhar who was then Prime Minister, scoffed 11 years ago when Saddam Hussain cited the plight of the Palestinians to justify marching into Kuwait. This time round the connection can hardly be more glaring as Mr Ariel Sharon dares to tighten the noose around Mr Yasser Arafat only because US President George W. Bush is doing the same to Saddam.

There is a twofold lesson here. First, the monster of terrorism against which the United States of America is supposedly waging a desperate battle (a fight that deserves to be delinked from Bush’s seemingly personal blood feud against Saddam) does not lurk in any of those sprawling presidential compounds where Saddam led the United Nations inspectors such a merry dance. Even the ever-obliging Tony Blair’s voluminous report (which the Russians have dismissed as “propaganda”) did not care to repeat incoherent but laughable American meanderings about Al-Qaeda “becoming an extension of Saddam.”

The monster is more likely to be nourished by some of America’s closest partners in the great good fight. But it also feeds and fattens on injustice and inequality, especially when race and religion determine oppression.

Thence follows the second lesson. For all the vicious depredations of the person who has been exalted as Prime Minister of Israel and whose evils have drawn stinging rebukes from leaders of global Jewry (including Jonathan Sacks, Britain’s chief rabbi, and the veteran Manchester MP, Gerald Kaufman), the answer to West Asian peace does not lie in Jerusalem or Baghdad. It is to be found in Washington whose pusillanimous prevarication in the face of the UN Security Council’s latest feeble attempt to persuade Israel to be less barbaric shocked and shamed the civilised world.

Peace is threatened only because the gamekeeper on whom the world’s hopes are focused has turned poacher. Even if he is restrained from visiting his full vengeance on Iraq, there is no checking the lethal impact of his reckless example on Sharon who should long ago have been arraigned for war crimes. As Kaufman notes, four times as many Israelis have been killed since Sharon took over what has become “a pariah state”.

Israel’s demands on the hapless Arafat seem to grow by the hour. It is insisting on the names of the 250 Palestinians who have stuck to their leader in his beleaguered redoubt so that they can be killed or banished. The 20 additional heads that Israel earlier demanded have swollen to 50. But Israel has already imprisoned thousands of Palestinians without charge or trial, making a complete mockery of the justice process for which it says it wants another 50. Among them are senior Arafat aides whom even the Israelis do not accuse of terrorist activities but who provide the Palestinian President with security, intelligence and the authority of a chain of command.

Murder would make a martyr of Arafat. Sharon’s cunning calculation is that he can be reduced to a cipher by killing those around him, ravaging his country, despoiling his people and blasting away the physical props of comfort and even safety. Life without water and electricity with loudspeakers blaring in his ears and arc lamps blazing into his eyes all night are intended to deprive the Palestinian leader of the last shreds of dignity. It is exactly what Bush hankers to do to Saddam.

Paradoxically, in adversity Arafat has regained much of the popularity that he had lost in power. Far from being cowed, Gaza and the West Bank are again in ferment. They might desire democratic transparency, but they do not want reforms forced down their throats with a bayonet held by two ruthless bullies who hold the world to ransom.

Paul Wolfowitz seeks to indict Iraq by warning that “the authority of the United Nations is at stake” but he might as well be speaking of Israel. It was Israel that invaded Gaza in 1956, sent tanks across the Suez Canal in 1973, bombed Iraq’s nuclear reactor in 1981 in another act of brigandage and occupied southern Lebanon in 1982. With the largest and most powerful army in West Asia, with F16s, Apache gunships and probably nuclear weapons, Israel has no intention of ever honouring the Oslo accords.

Its propaganda reiterates that there never was a Palestine state and that there are no such people as Palestinians. There are only Arabs who should be accommodated in the 14 Arab states instead of being allowed to despoil the sanctity of their Biblical Judea and Samaria. The million or so Israeli Arabs should follow them.

All this may yet come to pass. Trust those who have themselves suffered the bitterness of the diaspora to know how to inflict its pain on others with exquisite sadism. Bush alone can control Sharon but he is caught in his own reckless war game, trying to force the world into obedience with a mixture of the carrot and the stick. Thus did his father mobilise the UN against Bangladesh in 1971.

There are several reasons for hoping that the son’s bellicosity might still be thwarted. As British analysts point out, Blair’s evidence is as ill-founded as Bush’s rhetoric. Speculating that Iraqi missiles can reach Cyprus where there are British bases, the dossier concludes that Saddam is about to attack Britain! The Germans have repudiated Bush’s fantasies, the French are sceptical and Mr Vladimir Putin wants the UN to operate through existing resolutions. Many European governments hope for pickings from Iraq’s oil deposits, the world’s second largest.

Moreover, Saddam’s Arab neighbours dismiss American charges against him. Prince Nayif bin Abdulaziz, Saudi Arabia’s Interior Minister, believes that a US attack on Iraq will create problems “faster than any Iraqi operation against its neighbours.” There may not be a Saudi handout this time to pay for the war.

So, who does Bush pretend to be fighting for? He makes much of Saddam’s chemical weapons. American human rights agencies admit that Iraq used chemical weapons some 40 times in the late eighties to liquidate about a hundred thousand Kurds but also say that the senior Bush abetted the crime and supplied Saddam with money and arms. Iraq was then America’s weapon against Iran.

Not that this is the first time that an American President has been economical with the truth in order to justify militarism abroad. Lyndon B. Johnson did the same with the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964. He exaggerated, misrepresented and even invented events because he wanted an excuse to expand the Vietnam war.

The election due in six weeks is not Mr Bush’s only compulsion. He has other problems at home. Noting the increase in the number of Americans below the poverty line, reduced wages and the fall in household incomes, the US Census Bureau admits that the decline is widespread. “With the exception of the north-east, where incomes were unchanged, all regions experienced a decline, as did each of the racial groups.”

A nice little war would both restore and divert. Meanwhile, the terrorists who stalk temple and school go scot-free because the world’s policeman has nothing to gain from bringing them to book. Asia’s simple concerns are not America’s. 

MIDDLE

Buddy in Tighthouse!
Gopal Kaith

My wife loves animals. No stray cat and dog can leave our house without a crumb or two. Her love for animals is reinforced by our two children’s passion for pets. Two years ago, they brought home an ailing stray pup. A weakling. My wife nursed it like her own child. The children doted on him. They overfed him.

One morning the pup’s condition deteriorated. It was Sunday. My children took him to a neighbour’s house. He was a veterinary compounder. “He is sleeping. Come later” said his wife indifferently. They came back sulking. Soon after the pup staggered up to my wife. Looked up in gratitude. Then he closed his eyes. And died. They all wept I could not stand the touching scene. And walked out of the room.

Five months ago, we decided to have another dog. A month-old nameless white mongrel. The brain-racking naming game began in right earnest. I chose a few exotic names from the English and American novels I have read. They were rejected. I made one last offer. I would name the pup after one of the persons I don’t like. “Shame! We won’t allow anybody to insult this little creature!” they warned in unison.

My wife, with an unusual air of finality, announced that she would call it Buddy! She had a historical reason. We had named our two earlier dogs Crony and Chum. But there was a bit of problem now. Buddy is the name of Bill Clinton’s dog.

“Buddy’s kennel in the Whitehouse may be bigger than our Tighthouse. He may eat a thousand times better food than us. But if some parents can name their children after great men, why can’t we name our dog after a famous man’s dog?” She argued. For a husband to overcome his wife’s obstinacy is like trying to scale Mt. Everest. And thus the white pup in our Tighthouse became Buddy!

Buddy’s mistress became his mother. She began to raise him as her third child. She washed and fed him like a newborn baby. Buddy follows her everywhere. He understands every sound and sign she makes. Looks at her intently. Expecting a new favour every moment. Be it an eatable, a caress or an affectionate cooing. The children say that Buddy is also lapping up her quota of milk in addition to his own!

Now Buddy is six months old. Almost fully grown. He still sleeps with us on the same bed. He gets easily flattered and excited. He jumps around and indulges in intricate acrobatics. However, he is scared of the rod. He cowers at the very sound of the rod and returns to his best behaviour. When he finds me scolding the children, he nestles near them and stares at me imploringly.

Our children are not showy in love and respect. My wife sails in the same boat. On my return from office there is none to give me a warm welcome. The children pretend to be lost in homework. The wife pretends to be the queen of the kitchen. Buddy has made up this deficiency in our domestic happiness. He runs to receive me on the road, greets me with his forepaws raised vertically, and escorts me to the house, dancing around me all the way. His dance is a treat to watch. Leaping into the air, wagging his tail continuously in a number of ways, slowly and swiftly, and rhythmically swinging his bottom with superb suppleness!

Dog is a loving and loyal creature. In this Kaliyug, as men decy dogs are better in many ways. This reminds me of what Mark Twain has said in this context: “If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you, that is the principal difference between a dog and a man.” Looking at their greatness and graciousness, they deserve to be deified and emulated. Surprisingly, the word dog conceals an element of divinity in itself. A reverse reading of dog gives him the highest name in this universe. God!

REALPOLITIK

Advani alone can frustrate Pak design
P. Raman

Union Home Minister L.K.Advani was widely off the mark when he said that the terrorist attack on the Swaminarayan temple in Gandhinagar showed the Pakistani desperation over the successful elections in Kashmir. The Pakistani desperation is too obvious. But what has happened in Gandhinagar has been part of a diabolical plan to turn the once peaceful Gujarat into a hotbed of Islamic terrorism.

Every available evidence shows that Gujarat is going to be a special target for terrorist violence and recruitment of the frustrated locals for the job. The sole aim is to convert the state into a Punjab of those troubled years. Sadly, despite solid proof nothing has been done so far to counter this plan. Gujarat does not even figure in the list of most vulnerable region because the bureaucrats in IB know what is sweet for the ears of their political master. Politically, it is the season to project Gujarat as a peaceful state — in spite of the communal carnage — so that elections could be held immediately. This explain the Centre's hesitation to see the realities on the ground.

The state is sitting on a volcano. Its vast coastline and porous border along Kutch were always known for smuggling and cross-border crimes. RDX for Mumbai blasts in 1993 was brought in through Gujarat. Recently, arrested terrorists had revealed that their destination was Gujarat. Rajasthan police had seized three catches of RDX meant for Gujarat.

Captured terrorists in Kashmir had revealed the new thrust to seek ‘vengeance’ in Gujarat for the murders of Muslims there. Last month, a terrorist gang owing allegiance to Lashkar-e-Taeba was held. This had led to higher security for Narendra Modi and VHP firebrand Pravin Togadia. Two weeks before, one Basir Joya, who was trained in ISI camps, was arrested. Shahid Bakshi, another terrorist, was held soon after. Both had the brief to scout for ISI recruits from among the frustrated Muslim youth in Gujarat.

In another case, a two-member gang suspected of being Pakistani agents, had escaped the police net. There has also been evidence of fund flow for the operation in Gujarat. Bursting of a hawala gang in Delhi two months back led the investigators to Gujarat as destination of the fund. The arrested men admitted that the money had come from West Asian sources.

Revelations made by Shahid Bakshi should have been a eye-opener. He belonged to Ahmedabad but was working in Kuwait when the ISI operatives spotted him and motivated him to fight the war for ‘Islam’s honour’. His ‘holy’ mission was to quietly go back to Gujarat — for which he had been provided with enough funds — and scout for the Muslim youths ready to revenge the killings. No one knows how many more Bakshis are out on the task of misguiding the youth with a deadly mix of religious frenzy, easy money and offer of job in the Gulf.

The scoutings for agents in the Gulf, the UK and such countries to be sent to Gujarat for raising local teams should no more be ignored. At the moment, more blasts and attacks are not the priority for them. Instead, the handlers across the border want to turn the present anti-BJP/anti-VHP ire among the minorities into anti-India hysteria. Modi says Gujarat camps are factories for producing babies. But for the constant vigilance on the part of the Muslim elders and saner elements, the camps might have been turned into recruiting ground for prospective youth terrorists.

In Punjab, it has been the misguided youth of another religions. In Gujarat religious identity can be an additional saving factor for the saboteurs. There is all reason to fear that the sheer frustration, continuous humiliation and threats to life and property may have already pushed some of them into the vicious net. If this happens, the blame should go to Narendra Modi and his patrons in Delhi who have jointly created a fertile ground for the enemy recruitment. Modis and Togadias have a common ground with Musharraf. Both sides, for different reasons, are working on heightening the atmosphere of religious hatred — Modi to ensure his vote bank through polarisation and Pakistan to use it to get a foothold among the persecuted.

Credit goes to Advani and Vajpayee for promptly defusing a highly explosive situation following the commando operation. The VHP diehards and at one stage Modi himself were itching for a retaliation on the innocent local Muslisms. Fearing a repeat of the carnage, many of them had rushed back to the camps for protection. However, Advani had put his foot down and directed Modi to take prompt actions to prevent more massacres on the streets. Modi himself realised that he count not make any more political capital out of further riots and killings because the polarisation had already reached the optimum level.

Moreover, with the question of election already before the Supreme Court, Narendra Modi knew that fresh violence and massacres will delay the election further and make his own caretaker status in jeopardy. Meanwhile, the corporates and local business moved fast to warn the state and central BJP leaders against creating further disruption which would have disastrous repercussions from the foreign investors and the investing public. They had lost business for about three months after post-Godhra violence.

As a result, many of them could not keep their export and domestic supply commitments. Over 23 per cent of the total 2,059 medium and large units in Gujarat were shut. In Ahmedabad city alone, 68 out of 254 units closed due to the carnage. This has pushed thousands of workers — potential voters — out of job. A whole array of shopkeepers, supply contractors, financiers, etc had moved to pressurise the ruling politicians. Gujarat-based corporates specially urged Modi and Advani to insulate the temple incident from bursting into further disturbance.

Once again, the Gujarati’s innate pragmatism and business acumen along with its latent intellectual indignation worked as a massive bulwark against the VHP revengists. The world over, Gujarat is known as a symbol of Indian enterpreneurship, dynamism and prosperity. The riots had greatly damaged this image. The prolonged chaos had also hit the state’s economy with the deficit reaching as high as Rs 8,430 crore. Once Gujarat had a reputation of being the best managed government.

Now public debt has gone up to Rs 24,013 crore from Rs 3,648.22 crore in 1999. Thus each of the five crore Gujarati has a debt burden of Rs 10,000 on his or her head. The Union Home Minister was specially worried about the adverse international reaction. During his UK tour, he had a tough time explaining the situation. Further chaos will invite the ire of the international community as well as rating agencies who have already downgraded the country.

Post-Bhindranwala experience shows a close correlation between the level of religious hatred within the country and incidence of cross-border terrorism. If Modis had been in power in Hyderabad, Kolkata or Kerala those pockets with high minority concentrations might have been fertile ground for the foreign agents. At the moment, Advani alone can frustrate the Pakistani design to open another front in Gujarat by restraining Modi. 

Nasal spray for women who are sniffy about sex

LONDON: It is the seducer’s ultimate dream: a potion that will turn a woman’s cold indifference into warm sexual interest. Sounds improbable? Not any more. Scientists revealed they had successfully tested a nasal spray, PT-141, that sent ‘healthy, normal women’ into states of high sexual arousal.

The women given placebos hardly reacted while those on PT-141 had pronounced increases in blood flow — results that demonstrate the drug has potential that goes well beyond its use only as a medical aid, though Spana counselled caution. “The drug can only be administered as a nasal spray — which isn’t good for seducers. You can’t put it in a drink and sticking it up a girl’s nose is hard to do surreptitiously, after all”. The Guardian

TRENDS & POINTERS

Doctors warn 22 million kids are too fat

As many as 22 million children throughout the world are overweight, according to the World Heart Federation, which warns that obesity is laying the ground for a ‘pandemic’ of heart disease.

According to the World Health Organisation, about one billion people are now overweight or obese. This is linked to the Westernisation of diets. Fruits, vegetables and whole grains are being replaced by junk food, high in saturated fat and added sugar. The Guardian

Corsican magic flower comes to India

It’s a tiny, golden, sun-like flower that grows wild on the cliffs and paths of Corsica. The Chinese brew it in their teas to heal stomach ills. And it’s come to India in a range of French luxury soaps, gels, balms and lotions promising everything from wrinkle free skin to long lasting youth.

“We have evidence that the extract or the oils of the Immortelle flower reduce the oxidation process and heals the skin,” said Andre J. Hoffman, managing director (Far East), L’Occitance in New Delhi. The products in shiny, translucent blue, green and yellow bottles and thick slabs and bars look more like magic potions from a Harry Potter book than a luxury cosmetic, but Hoffman promised that they could work magic. “You just have to feel the product on your skin to know that its truly soothing and enriching,” Hoffman said, as a company official went around putting drops of Immortelle oil on the palms of reporters. IANS

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

The turtle lays thousands of eggs without anyone knowing, but when the hen lays an egg, the whole country is informed.

— Malay proverb

* * *

The mind is like the lake; it is constantly being set in vibrations which leave an impression on the mind; and the idea of the ego or personal self, the “I”, is the result of these impressions. This “I”, therefore, is only the very rapid transmission of force and is in itself no reality.

—The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Vol. VI. Introduction to Jnana Yoga

* * *

One who indulged too much in ego is reduced to dust in no time.

— Sri Guru Granth Sahib

* * *

Scriptural discipline can hardly

restrain one’s mind from sensual pleasures even as the fibre of a lotus stalk cannot rein in an elephant in rut.

Like an armour that affords protection to a coward, whose mind is not steady, austerities that only distress the body are of no help.

Like mercury bubbling when heated on fire, a person distracted can never remain steady even for an instant for meditation.

* * *

A group of aspirants during their practice of austerities, will find it who found to difficult to bring their mind away from sensual thoughts like bringing a herd of elephants away from the forest.

— Somaprabha Suri, Yashastilaka-Campu (10th century C.E.)

* * *

The turtle lays thousands of eggs without anyone knowing, but when the hen lays an egg, the whole country is informed.

— Malay proverb

* * *

Severe austerities were performed on the body.

But the mind ran in all the ten directions.

— Sri Guru Granth Sahib

* * *

The best of austerities is the service of the Guru

— Sri Guru Granth Sahib