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Thursday,
November 7, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Jaguar crash
India and ASEAN New signs of hope |
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Pakistan and SAARC issues
HP’s first woman Chief Secretary
Humility & gratitude
are self-enlarging
Chinese in India feel
marginalised, migrate
Putin storms into pop charts
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Jaguar crash WHILE the focus so far has been on the unreliability of MiG-21, which has been dubbed as a flying coffin, Jaguar casualties too are mounting. Tuesday’s crash in Ambala was the loss of the 21st Jaguar in as many years. That is too high and unacceptable a figure, particularly in light of the fact that MiG-21 is even more accident prone. Worse, there has been increased incidence of air accidents involving IAF aircraft of late. This year alone, the IAF has lost 23 aircraft, including two Jaguars and 15 MiGs. As far as Jaguars are concerned, the worst year has been 1999 when as many as four of them tumbled out of the sky. The tally for this year is already two and one would have to keep one’s fingers crossed that it does not mount any further. This accident ratio is certainly not among the lowest in the world. That is just a polite way of saying that it is far too high for comfort. Besides the human tragedy that such accidents cause, they are a big drain on the national exchequer and affect the defence preparedness of the country. Powers that be owe an answer to the taxpayer as to why so many accidents are taking place. Blaming the planes does not wash, because several other countries are using similar planes without similar problems. Perhaps, it has a lot to do with the training of the pilots and the maintenance of the sophisticated planes. While the absence of a suitable advanced jet trainer has been widely commented about, the quality of spare parts and the standard of maintenance are not getting the attention they deserve. In many of the recent accidents, the blame has been put on “technical snags”. Apparently, the high-performance machines are not in the shape these should be. The enquiries that are going to be ordered into the causes of the latest crash should try to affix blame where it lies without fear or favour. The spotlight should be on related issues also, such as the mushrooming of the civilian construction in areas close to airports. Similarly, only an experts’ panel can assure the civilians that the pilots involved in the accidents have been doing everything possible to ensure that the aircraft did not fall on populated areas at least. Another common complaint has been that the rescue operations have been tardy. That leads to the loss of precious lives which could otherwise have been saved. The question of suitable compensation for the victims has also become very vital. When a defence plane is involved, it becomes all the more difficult for the sufferers to get adequate relief. It will be unrealistic to expect any air force to be totally accident free. But the lessons learnt from every mishap must be utilised to avoid a similar incident in future. More important, the nation must be reassured that such exercise is being diligently undertaken. Right now, the tendency is to keep things under wraps on the pretext of national security. |
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India and ASEAN THE
first India-ASEAN (Association of South-East Asian Nations) summit in the Vietnamese capital, Pnom Penh, on Tuesday was a historic development in many ways. One, the most influential regional grouping in the globe’s eastern part has finally realised the significance of India as a major player with a definite potential to propel economic growth. Two, India now finds itself almost in the coveted club of ASEAN-Plus, which includes Japan, South Korea and China. This is a result of ASEAN’s policy of tracking promising economies in its immediate neighbourhood for developing mutually beneficial relationships. It first put its seal of approval on China from this angle. Now it has identified India after observing it for a long time on its radar screen. Three, India has won ASEAN-wide admiration for proposing the creation of a free trade area within a 10-year time-frame. There is general realisation of the potential of increased economic activity that Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s well-calculated proposal offers. When the idea is translated into a reality, the India-ASEAN free trade area will be a giant-sized entity, with all others looking like pigmies in front of it. Though India has still to work hard to formally become part of the ASEAN-Plus caucus, it has succeeded in ending the resistance of the grouping towards New Delhi. A full-fledged status is not far away with an understanding to hold an India-ASEAN summit every year. India’s primary interest in developing a China-like relationship with ASEAN is linked to the inability of SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) to emerge as an economically beneficial regional forum owing to Pakistan’s presence as a stumbling block. Hence New Delhi’s difficulty in securing attractive deals with powerful Western blocs like the European Union and the North American Free Trade Area. The problem may come to an end with a close partnership with ASEAN, which has a combined might of $ 737 billion in GDP terms. India’s trade with ASEAN nations today stands at $ 10 billion, showing a 30 per cent increase during the past three years. It is believed that the free trade area concept will bring considerable gains to India as there will be greater engagement between the two sides in the fields of trade and commerce, investment, technology transfer (including biotechnology and space technology) and pharmaceuticals. The benefits accrued in this manner may be more than what India will have to sacrifice by way of bringing down its tariff levels. India’s confidence stems from the experience it has acquired after an arrangement with Malaysia. India is helping the ASEAN member in the expansion of its railway network while the latter is involved in a big way in highway projects here. The Indian proposal has its own attraction as at the initial stage it has offered to concentrate on less-developed nations like Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar. The advantage lies in being realistic and the demonstration of confidence. India has been successful at Pnom Penh from both angles. |
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New signs of hope SIGNS of optimism were visible at the end of the second round of direct talks between the Sri Lankan Government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) at Nakhon Pathom in Thailand. The LTTE’s willingness to work in joint committees along with the Lankan government to sort out thorny political, military and development issues holds out the promise of a better tomorrow for the war-ravaged island nation. The joint press conference addressed by the LTTE’s chief negotiator, Mr Anton Balasingham and the head of Lankan delegation and Minister for Constitutional Affairs, Prof. R.L.Pereira, should reassure all sections about the sincerity and earnestness of both sides to pursue things to their logical conclusion. The LTTE’s reiteration of its commitment to enter the democratic political mainstream, accept the legitimacy of other political parties and allow them to participate in the democratic process in the embattled North and the East of the island are significant pointers to a peaceful resolution of the three-decade-old ethnic conflict that claimed the lives of over 60,000 people. The Norwegian government, which brokered the negotiations under the aegis of the Thiland government, maintains that both sides demonstrated a “positive, pragmatic and conciliatory approach” in discussing a wide range of issues, including present challenges and matters relating to long-term issues. Clearly, this is a welcome sign because four earlier attempts to end the war failed for one reason or the other. Significantly, the LTTE doesn’t talk of Ealam anymore. Remember LTTE chief Velupillai Prabakaran’s reluctance to give up this demand during his historic press conference? The LTTE’s readiness to look at “federal and confederate” type solutions to turn a new leaf in the larger interest of the island is a distinct shift in its stand and approach to the problem. This is not to suggest that an expeditious resolution of the ethnic conflict is on the cards. Both the Sri Lankan Government and the LTTE will have to cross several hurdles on the road to ever-lasting peace. Keeping in view the many imponderables in the arduous path, one should not be carried away by the early gains registered in Nakhon Pathom. There are doubts and apprehensions in the minds of the people on the commitment of both sides to cease hostilities and restore peace in the region. People specifically talk about the continued clashes between Sinhalese and Muslims in Colombo, the seizure of weapons in the east coast, the Colombo High Court’s verdict sentencing Prabakaran to a 200-year jail term for reportedly masterminding the 1996 bombing of Colombo’s Central Bank, and the continued confrontation between Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and President Chandrika Kumaratunga. However, what the latest round of talks suggests is the fact that both sides understand the ground realities of the situation and consider peace as the only effective instrument for rebuilding the North and the East and promoting socio-economic growth in the country. Both seem to be convinced that hostilities must cease if concerted efforts towards demilitarising and rebuilding the war-torn region are to succeed. There is no alternative to peace and this seems to be the message from Nakhon
Pathom. |
Pakistan and SAARC issues THE External Affairs Minister, Mr Yashwant Sinha, has shown a remarkable degree of clarity and firmness in recent days in ensuring that even though General Musharraf may enjoy the warmth and understanding of Mr Colin Powell, the world community is not going to ignore or condone his undermining and strangulation of democracy in Pakistan. Mr Powell and his mandarins were keen that in view of the services rendered by their favourite General, Pakistan should be honoured by being granted observer status at the forthcoming meeting of the Community of Democracies in Seoul. This was firmly resisted and the proposal dropped. But more importantly, Mr Sinha skilfully ensured that the suspension of Pakistan from the councils of the Commonwealth is not revoked, merely because General Musharraf had held a fraudulent and rigged election in his country. Mr Sinha made it clear that despite General Musharraf’s “referendum” and “elections”, that country did not fulfil the conditions laid down in the Harare Declaration or the Milbrook Program of Action that are essential pre-requisites for re-entry into the Commonwealth. India should not forget that as long as the Pakistan Army headed by the likes of General Musharraf wields effective power, low intensity conflict would be waged against us in some form or another. It is, therefore, imperative that there should be no let-up in the diplomatic pressure on Islamabad till a leadership and government emerges there that is prepared to mend its ways. New Delhi has, however, not shown the same measure of deftness in dealing with the question of agreeing to the dates of January 11-13, 2003, proposed by Pakistan for hosting the next SAARC Summit in Islamabad. The Junior Minister for External Affairs, Mr Digvijay Singh, suddenly announced that the Prime Minister would participate in the summit. External Affairs Spokesman Navtej Sarna promptly contradicted the junior Minister’s statement. The Defence Minister, Mr George Fernandes, then joined the fray by endorsing the statement of his Samata Party colleague by asserting that the Prime Minister would indeed travel to Islamabad. All this is rather odd, because SAARC issues are not a part of the charge or allocation of work of Mr Digvijay Singh. And it is strange that the Defence Minister should make pronouncements on an issue that is handled by his Cabinet colleague, the Minister for External Affairs. Similarly, while the Prime Minister has made it clear that there will be no resumption of talks with Pakistan till there is an end to cross-border terrorism, the Jang newspaper has reported that in an interview the Chairman of the Kashmir Committee, Mr Ram Jethmalani, had stated that dialogue with Pakistan would commence in November or December this year and that a summit-level meeting was expected next year. General Musharraf is reported to have concluded after the Agra Summit that the Indian establishment was indecisive and confused. His perceptions on this score will only be strengthened when he observes that New Delhi is akin to a Tower of Babel. The entire attention of the media during the SAARC Summit in Kathmandu on January 4-6 this year was focused on General Musharraf’s resort to a melodramatic handshake with Prime Minister Vajpayee. What was, however, not noted was that there were certain far-reaching decisions on trade and economic cooperation taken in Kathmandu. SAARC can become a meaningful forum in South Asia, and the entire region can move towards accelerated economic growth and prosperity if these decisions to promote economic cooperation and integration are sincerely implemented. The Kathmandu Declaration specifically stated: “Recognising the need to move quickly towards a South Asian Free Trade Area, the summit directed the Council of Ministers to finalise the text of a Draft Treaty Framework by the end of 2002.” It was also agreed that the next summit in Pakistan would be held in “early 2003”. No specific dates were set. Thus, there was a solemn agreement among the Heads of Government in Kathmandu that the text of a Free Trade Agreement would be finalised before the next summit. Pakistan has, on one pretext or the other, scuttled moves to finalise this draft treaty that would widen trade and economic cooperation in South Asia. Similarly, Pakistan has also not extended any meaningful trade concessions to India despite the agreement in Kathmandu that action would be taken to remove tariff and non-tariff barriers and structural impediments to trade. It is obvious that General Musharraf intends to use the SAARC Summit in Islamabad primarily as an occasion to repeat his hackneyed clichés about relations with India and focus attention on bilateral issues. But to counter this, New Delhi needs to move far more effectively in explaining to other SAARC members and indeed to the entire international community, how Pakistan has sabotaged the efforts for economic integration in South Asia. The SAARC member-states have endorsed the “SAARC Vision beyond the Year 2020” document that envisages the establishment of a Free Trade Area in South Asia by 2008. This document also seeks the establishment of a Common Investment Area in South Asia. New Delhi should now work pro-actively with other South Asian states to expeditiously implement the steps that have been recommended and agreed upon to make South Asia an economic community by 2020. It will find SAARC members other than Pakistan ready to cooperate in this effort. But even while moving ahead in this direction we will have to respond positively to concerns that neighbours like Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have about some of our protectionist practices. Mr Sinha may well find that the bureaucrats at Udyog Bhavan would be as obstructionist in efforts to promote equitable free trade in South Asia as the military establishment in Pakistan! Responding to India’s accusations that Pakistan is subverting moves to make SAARC a forum for meaningful economic cooperation in South Asia, Pakistan’s urbane, sophisticated and savvy Foreign Office Spokesman Aziz Ahmed Khan has made some interesting observations. He has linked the growth of economic cooperation to the resolution of differences. He has also stated that for a number of reasons Pakistan will move slowly on issues of economic cooperation. Thus, in effect, what Pakistan is saying is that there can be no meaningful progress on issues of regional economic and trade cooperation and integration till the Kashmir issue is resolved to its satisfaction. Prime Minister Vajpayee is, therefore, entirely justified when he asserts that all that General Musharraf is interested in is to use SAARC as a forum to again highlight his differences with India. He has no interest in either observing the provisions of the SAARC Charter that exclude bilateral issues from the purview of SAARC, or in abiding by the commitments he made in Kathmandu on trade and economic cooperation. Pakistan is now going through a period of political uncertainty as General Musharraf and the ISI endeavour to secure a compliant Prime Minister and a rubber-stamp parliament. But the General may find that life is not all that simple once the politicians, however supine, enter the arena. Even the far more astute General Zia-ul-Haq found it not too easy to handle a handpicked non-entity like Mohammed Khan Junejo as Prime Minister. New Delhi cannot divorce itself from these developments. It may soon find that it would be wise to send a new High Commissioner to Islamabad and reopen the routes for people-to-people contacts. |
HP’s first woman Chief Secretary An IAS officer of the 1967 batch, she did a short judicial stint at the Tis Hazari courts in New Delhi and Lucknow. Thereafter, her entire career as an administrator has been spent in Himachal Pradesh. Somewhat reticent, Mrs Bhattacharya has never lobbied for any post and has steadily climbed the ladder. She did not seem greatly enamoured when she was picked up for the Chief Secretary’s post. As the seniormost officer in the hill state, she has less than a year as Chief Secretary before superannuation. Prior to her elevation as Chief Secretary, Mrs Bhattacharya was looking after the crucial Home and Vigilance Department. She is a keen reader of literature in English and Hindi. CBI’s spokesperson After a search for three months, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has finally been able to identify a person for the spokesperson’s job which fell vacant after Mr S. M. Khan relinquished it to join as Press Secretary to President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. The CBI zeroed in on Mr G. Mohanty, a 1982 batch Indian Information Service Officer for the key position. Mr Mohanty, who did his masters degree in applied geology in 1977 from the IIT, Kharagpur, joined the Atomic Minerals Division of the Atomic Energy Department as a Scientist after completing his studies in 1978. Within a year, he quit the job to join as a lecturer in geology in Orissa and taught for two years. Thereafter, he worked as a Mining Officer with the Orissa Government and gained experience in mineral exploration and administration. Prompted by a friend, he took the civil services examination in 1981 and was selected for the IIS. After training, he joined All-India Radio as Assistant News Editor. After working in various positions in AIR and Doordarshan, he shifted to the Press Information Bureau. He handled the publicity of Union Ministries like Surface Transport, Finance, Communications, Defence, Agriculture and Food Processing Industries in the last seven years. Mr Mohanty has a tough task ahead — living up to the expectations of his superiors in the CBI. Solicitor-General with a difference Unassuming and forthright, Mr Raval, 50, is one of the youngest Solicitors-General and the first from Gujarat to hold this high office. He had served as additional Solicitor-General since 1998 and appointed Solicitor-General after Mr Harish Salve decided not to renew his contract. Prior to moving to New Delhi in 1998, Mr Raval practised in Ahmedabad as a senior advocate of the Gujarat High Court. He represented the state government as a senior standing counsel. He specialises in corporate law, public interest litigation and constitutional matters. Noticeable among the PILs was when he challenged the order of mass promotions after the Nav Nirman movement. Undeterred by the threats, Mr Raval got the Gujarat Government order set aside when the state’s High Court maintained that promotions could only be granted by clearing relevant examinations. Having schooled in various parts of the country including Mumbai, Delhi, Kanpur and Ahmedabad as his father was an Income Tax officer, Mr Raval is fond of tennis, reading and music. His wife Kalpana is also a lawyer but is now immersed in social activities and the couple have two children. |
Humility & gratitude are
self-enlarging “GREATNESS comes in the cloak of humility”, remarked
Samuel Brown. Eighty kilometres from the city of Shiraz in Iran stands
the tomb of Cyrus the Great, the founder of Achaemenian Empire. The
inscription on the tomb is the epitome of humility and simplicity of a
man who dominated the ancient world, “I am Cyrus, who founded the
empire of the Persian. Grudge me not, therefore, this little earth
that covers my body”. Pride is blinding. It blinkers the vision and clouds the judgement of a person. Pride makes emotional environment toxic. Humility is the open gate through which goodness, sagacity and wisdom flows into the recipient soul. Jesus said, “The greatest man is he who considers himself to be the least”. A real leader is the one who first learnt obedience to others, who feels to be a servant of all who doesn’t put himself on a pedestal. What drew Ho-Chi-Min to Lenin, apart from his genius, was his ‘disdain for luxury, his love of labour, purity of his private life, his simplicity and humility’. The Buddhists tell us, “We are all Buddha but densely clouded.” Upanishads says, “Tamaso Ma Jyoytir Gamaye.” To a large extent our lives are made by thoughts and ideas. We become finally what we think. Our power in life lies in our thought. Thought is the secret key in our mental software. Thought defines our minds’ health. Cells of the body are created and energised internally by thoughts and by biological forces. Life is a sum total of disparate happenings and people at any given point and the point is always changing. The sorrows of ordinary persons neither arise out of conditions of life; nor are they inherent. They are born out of weakness and infirmities of the human mind. Every effect has a cause. There is no going back in life, no second chances. You can’t call a spoken word or an accomplished deed. Little things console us because little things affect us. Life isn’t heroics, but small practical things that come together to give effectiveness. We live in a difficult world full of difficult situations. The inevitable result is stress and anxiety. Stress is the plague of modern life. It leads to depression and despair. Depression and despair have no ally expect one’s own self. For some life becomes an archive of unhappiness. Sometimes anxiety and stress have no visible cause or is out of all proportion to the cause assigned to it. This is neither existential nor situational anxiety. It is neurotic anxiety and stress — and a great deal of unhappiness in the world stems directly from it. As we grow in years, the problems of living become more complex. Discontent is the medium of the age. Anxiety is the murmur of times. This is an era of rising opportunities and increasing uncertainties. To some extent, the weakening of psychological defenses takes place in all of us as the fire and optimism of youth begins to decline. These defenses must be re-enforced and strengthened. Each one of us comes into a situation with certain implicit expectations. Divine law doesn’t enable everyone to everything. We can’t sub-edit our lives. There is only one sure way to accomplish this. In all humility to accept oneself as one is. There are gaps in every individual’s life. Arrogance and pride distort a person’s thinking. A proud man becomes rude. Eric Hoffer remarked, “Rudeness is a weak man’s imitation of strength.” Humility cleans the fog of uncertainty. It opens the doors of wisdom. It comes from realising that God is the doer and not you. The rain of God’s mercy can’t gather on mountaintops of pride, but easily flow into the valley of humility. Humility brings balance between the great internal forces of love and aggression, balance between our hopeful dreams and harsh realities, balance between selfishness and altruism. Humility brings self-knowledge and insight within reach. People change when somebody gives them insight into their own selves. When they begin to understand why they are the way they are and why they act the way they do. Humility gives that insight. When you think everything is hopeless, a ray of light comes from somewhere. Humility acts as a tonic against helplessness. Gratitude revitalises the entire mental process by activating all other attitudes and stimulates creativity. It lubricates mental efficiency. It focuses the whole personality so that you can work better, think better, get along better with people and use your abilities to function more effectively in every respect. We put limitations on our own potential. We shackle and restrict ourselves by our glum and negative thinking. Negative thinking fouls up the best brains. We have to be thankful for many things. Having a thankful attitude develops a huge thankful psychology. Skip the negatives. Accentuate the positives. Face difficulties. They are real, but they have to be dealt with. A positive, thankful psychology has power to make things good, better, best. The art of thankfulness works wonders. We have to be thankful for every new dawn. Theodore Roosevelt made it a point to thank the engineers and fireman for a safe and comfortable trip. It took but a fraction of a minute of his time, but he made two more friends for rest his life. You can thank even total strangers with a nod of the head, a gesture of the hand, a grateful glance. Give thanks and try to fell thankful. Praise and Thanksgiving are the two most powerful prayers of all. As we grow in years we have to make a new roadmap. This roadmap must include a new and mature philosophy of life, a deeper appreciation of our true selves and our relationships with others. We have talents and powers that we haven’t used. Although courage has a tremendous importance in living, courage along isn’t enough. There must be self-knowledge, because self-knowledge is the key to self-mastery. Combine detachment with discrimination. Detachment is the sharp edge and discrimination is the handle. Gratitude takes you to calm regions of your own self. A grateful heart enables us to find peace and harmony through thoughts and actions that are in harmony with our real self. A grateful heart experiences the ecstasy of a mystic and the rapture of a poet. Life is a gift of nature, but happy living is a gift of wisdom, humility and gratitude. If He is pleased with you, all nature will work in harmony with you. In happy moments, praise God. In difficult moments, seek God. In quiet moments, worship God. In painful moments, trust God. Every moment Thank God. |
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Chinese in India feel marginalised, migrate WILLIAM Yeh’s family has lived in India for generations. Still, the 33-year-old restaurant manager, a member of a small ethnic Chinese community in Kolkata, says he does not feel Indian. “My parents were born in India, so was I. Yet I often feel like a second-class citizen,” Yeh told Reuters.”
I speak Bengali and have worked with Indians but some people still make me feel like a foreigner,” he said. “The police asked extra questions when I applied for a passport. One reason was because I am Chinese.” This rankles for somebody who belongs to a community that has been part of Calcutta’s history for more than 200 years. The first Chinese settler arrived in the city in 1780 during British colonial rule and started a sugar mill. Disillusioned about being marginalised from mainstream Indian society, Yeh plans to move to the West just like hundreds of other Chinese who have left Calcutta and migrated to countries such as Canada, Austria and Sweden. As a result of the exodus over the past 12 years, the number of ethnic Chinese in Calcutta has plunged to about 4,500 people from more than 19,000 in 1990. “When we go to villages, people stare. In cities, some make fun of us because we are different,” said Paul Chung, a former assistant school principal. Calcutta is home to more than 90 percent of India’s dwindling Chinese community, which made a name for itself at the start of the 19th century as carpenters on ships at the city port. Today, while some Chinese run restaurants and tanneries in the city of some 15 million people, others are carpenters or run shoe shops, laundries and beauty clinics. Most of them live in Tangra, Calcutta’s run down Chinatown, where restaurants with names written in Chinese characters sit cheek-by-jowl with old tanneries. The tanneries, which once released untreated effluents into open drains flowing past the eateries, have been closed since the Supreme Court asked them earlier this year to move to a new industrial area with proper treatment plants. “Though Tangra is still quite dirty. It was far worse 25 years ago when the tanneries were functioning. It really used to stink and one had to be very brave to eat there,” said Calcutta businessman Ravi Kumar. The first Chinese settler, Yong Atchew, arrived some about 220 years ago and started a Chinese settlement in Calcutta when he brought more than 100 labourers from China to work at his mill. Many early settlers were also men who had jumped ship. After 1949, Mao Zedong’s communist revolution in China sent a wave of Chinese emigres fleeing communism into Calcutta. Things became difficult for the Chinese when India and China fought a brief border war in 1962, leading to anti-Chinese sentiment in India. Hundreds of people were sent to detention camps in
Rajasthan. Monica Liu, now a partner in a successful chain of Chinese restaurants, was 12 years old when she was sent to a camp. “Along with my family, I was sent to a camp in Rajasthan, a hot desert state. I kept asking why? We weren’t criminals.” “Later, I realised we were sent away because we were Chinese,” Liu, 52, said as customers poured into her smart restaurant. “Even when we were allowed out for a picnic, police followed us. Though things are better now, the suspicion is still there.” Chung, also president of the Indian-Chinese Association, says the Chinese must take some blame for their relative isolation. “They tell me they are harassed, but when I ask them to file a complaint in writing, they don’t want to.” Deputy Commissioner of Calcutta Police Sivaji Ghosh said he had not received any complaint of harassment of ethnic Chinese people but did not rule it out at the lower level.
Reuters |
Putin storms into pop charts FEW ex-KGB spies have been immortalised. But Russian President Vladimir Putin, already sure of his place in history, is fast becoming a pop icon — thanks to a racy all-girl band. ‘’And now I want a man like Putin,’’ croons a saucy female voice on Russian radio. Her sticky pop tune — called ‘’A Man Like Putin’’ — can be heard blasting from Moscow’s shops and cars. It suggests a remarkable high point in the President’s career — the country’s top bureaucrat might soon turn into its chief sex symbol. Putin, also celebrated in books and T-shirts, has enjoyed spectacular popularity since becoming president in 2000 for his tough approach to restoring law and order after a decade of political and economic turmoil. Putin is married and the father of two daughters. His image got a fresh boost with his forceful handling of a Moscow hostage crisis despite the deaths of 119 hostages in the raid by security forces that ended the drama. Below is the full text of the song: My boyfriend is in trouble again, He got into a fight and got stoned on something, I am sick of him and so I told him, get out of here, And now I want a man like Putin. A man like Putin, full of energy, A man like Putin who doesn’t drink, A man like Putin who wouldn’t hurt me, A man like Putin who wouldn’t run away from me. I saw him in the news yesterday, He was saying the world was at the crossroads, It’s easy with a man like him at home or out and about, And now I want a man like Putin.
Reuters Workers to donate sperm to pay debt Workers at a Romanian car factory have decided to donate sperm to get the debt-ridden plant out of the red. “Our feasibility study shows that if 1,000 workers donate their sperm for several months, we can get enough funds to pay part of the plant’s debts,’’ Ion Cotescu, trade union leader at ARO Campulung, told a TV channel. A fertility clinic in the city of Timisoara offered donors the equivalent of $ 50 a visit. The monthly average wage in Romania is around $ 150.
Reuters Garlic, onions check prostate cancer A diet rich in garlic, shallots and onions may cut the risk of prostate cancer in half. According to a study appearing this week in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, men who ate about a tenth of an ounce or more a day of scallions reduced their prostate cancer risk by about 70 per cent. For garlic consumption of the same amount, the prostate cancer risk was reduced by about 53 per cent.
AP |
Persons who are habituated to doing sinful deeds never feel any dread of sin. But the good men are terribly afraid of committing sinful.
*** Evil deeds committed for the purposes of obtaining temporary pleasures ultimately result in great misery. Hence sinful acts must be dreaded more than scorching fire.
*** Of all cases of wisdom in appreciating the right conduct, the greatest one is not to cause pain even to one’s enemy.
*** Even forgetfully do not think of causing to others. If anyone does so the God of virtue will certainly think of ruining him.
*** Because of poverty do not commit any evil act to satisfy your want, for such a conduct will surely bring back again poverty and misery to you.
*** One who desires to avoid painful misery should avoid doing injury to others.
*** A person can escape any kind of enemy but the enemy of sin without fail will pursue him till his ruin.
*** Just as a man’s shadow goes with him wherever he goes, so his sinful deeds will pursue him till he meets with his destruction thereby.
*** If a person seeks his own welfare, let him not think evil or do evil towards other living beings.
*** If a person starts shadowing another and doing injury to him, know certainly that he is secure from self ruin. —The Tirukkural
*** Right conduct must be guided by right knowledge. Samyak Jnana is the guiding life of samyak charitra. The function of right knowledge is to discover what course of conduct ought to be pursued and what ought to be avoided...... Of all courses of conduct which the person discovers to be worthy of his adoption, the chief one is to return good for evil. — From Prof. A. Chakravarty’s commentary on The Tirukkural |
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LOW-profile and publicity-shy Rajinder Bhattacharya has earned the distinction of being the first woman Chief Secretary of Himachal Pradesh. A postgraduate from Panjab University, Mrs Bhattacharya has a degree in public administration and social sciences from London. 
Elevated as Solicitor-General, Mr Kirit Raval combines his legal officer’s job at the Centre with a keen sense of management. He started his career as a management consultant and worked in that capacity for nearly two years before deciding whether he wants to remain in the management arena being an alumni of the IIM, Ahmedabad, or take to law. He chose the latter.