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Friday,
November 22, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Interlinking rivers Plunder of Aravalli hills |
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Aims, gains and traps in Kashmir — I
Another Indian star on banking horizon
The mistakes they commit in history Disputed chemical allowed in cosmetics REGULATORS from within the American cosmetics industry voted on Tuesday to allow the use of a chemical ingredient in perfumes and beauty products which critics have linked to birth defects in animals.
Eat fish, plants to protect heart
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Interlinking rivers JAWAHARLAL
NEHRU, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi between them shaped the industrial, educational and technological profile of India. Mr P. V. Narasimha Rao became the first non-Nehru-Gandhi to play a substantial role in recasting the economic priorities of the country. Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee is now set to become the first non-Congress leader to make an equally substantial contribution for helping India realise its industrial, economic and agricultural potential. The network of superfast highways, work on which is in progress at a breakneck speed, and the promise to make available the necessary funds for the interlinking of the rivers should help him earn a place of respect in the post-Independence history of India. Of course, the record of all the “full term” Prime Ministers was not without blemish. The betrayal of trust by China showed the soft side of Nehru as a politician. The single act of imposing the Emergency undid the splendid work Indira Gandhi had done in taking the nation forward on the path of economic development. Sending troops to Sri Lanka was a monumental blunder that tarnished the image of Rajiv Gandhi. Mr Narasimha Rao’s economic reforms were buried under the debris of a controversial mosque that was demolished by frenzied kar sevaks in Ayodhya. Mr Vajpayee’s singular failing is his inability to make the members of the Sangh Parivar heed to his voice of reason. But successful leaders are remembered by the substantial contributions they make in taking their country forward, than by the odd error of judgment for which the nation, of course, has to pay a heavy price. Mr Vajpayee’s dream of a network of roads and rivers linking the entire country is both grand and magnificent. It is a dream that India must translate into reality for realising its full economic potential as an important member of the global village. While replying to the adjournment motion on the drought situation in the country, the Prime Minister spoke like a true statesman. His detractors say that the blueprint for linking the country through a network of roads and rivers was already available when Mr Vajpayee assumed office. But the moot point is what stopped others before him in giving to the projects the priority they deserved. No country can move ahead without the political will of the party in power to act. On hindsight, it can be said that earlier governments, both Congress and non-Congress, at the Centre simply lacked the vision to appreciate the benefit of linkiing the country through river and road networks. As a result, important projects continued to gather dust in the overflowing cupboards of the secretariat. Mr Vajpayee’s enthusiasm when he launched the superhighway project linking the four metros and the North with the South and the East with the West had to be seen to be believed. Money, he said, would not be a constraint in building the network of roads. The network of uncluttered highways is about to change the way most Indian businesses used to cart their products to sales outlets to the remote corners of the country. The interlinking of the rivers will play as dramatic a role in changing the agrarian profile of India. That the Prime Minister means business is evident from the fact that a task force has already been set up to remove the dust from the earlier studies and give a feasibility report to the Centre within a specified time-frame. Various governments have toyed with the idea of linking the river water systems of the country for banishing the demon of drought and famine from the country. But the constant squabbling between various states, particularly Tamil Nadu and Karnataka in the South and Punjab and Haryana nearer home, over the fair sharing of the important resource, may have played a part in making Mr Vajpayee promise the necessary funds for the interlinking of the rivers. The Supreme Court’s periodic intervention too egged the Centre to find a permanent solution to a problem that has often resulted in violence. The sooner the project is implemented the better it will be for both the agriculturists and common citizens who have to trudge long distances for meeting their domestic water requirement. |
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Plunder of Aravalli hills THE Supreme Court has banned all mining activity in the entire Aravalli range falling in Haryana and Rajasthan. Welcome as it is, the order will hurt the well-entrenched business-political interests, particularly in Haryana where the government had not just failed to stop the widespread mining, much of it being illegal, but actually defended it. The reason was the mining mafia engaged in the cash-generating business included powerful politicians of all shades. A large part of the Aravalli area has forests protected by the Environment (Protection) Act. The Act provides that the forest land cannot be put to any non-forest use like mining. The mine-owners used to get permission for mining in a small part free from forests and then ransack the entire area in the absence of any monitoring agency. From New Delhi to Mount Abu the Aravalli hills have been denuded of vegetation and plundered indiscriminately for sand and silica, which are used in construction activity. In the Gurgaon-Manesar-Faridabad area a boom in construction activity had fuelled stone and sand mining. A concerned Supreme Court had on May 6 this year slapped a similar ban on a 5-km stretch in the Delhi-Gurgaon area and appointed a committee to study and repair the damage to the hills and the environment. The SC-appointed Bhure Lal committee recommended “tighter and constant monitoring of the area by a central government agency” as highly placed and powerful individuals were
involved. This was a well-deserved indictment of the Haryana Government. The Haryana claim that the ban on mining will cause it immense financial loss is based on short-term considerations. The social and environmental costs of mining are no less significant. A study of the Central Pollution Control Board has found that mining has lowered the watertable in the affected Delhi and Haryana areas. The shrinking forest area of Aravalli will disturb the environmental balance. The quality of air goes down, affecting the health of the residents in the area. The noise pollution caused by stone crushers and blasters is beyond tolerable limits. Besides, trucks carrying
construction materials like sand and stones and driven by ill-trained drivers are serious traffic hazards. So indifferent has been the state administration to the environmental and health aspects of mining that it sleeps over reports of massive mining going on right under its nose in the Ghaggar river bed. The minimum that the state government can do is to undertake without delay water-harvesting measures in the areas where the watertable has declined alarmingly. |
Aims, gains and traps in Kashmir — I WITH our habit of running ourselves down, we took little time to declare that all the good that had been done by the courageous elections in Jammu and Kashmir had been undone by the jostling between the Congress and the People’s Democratic Party of Mufti Mohammad Sayeed for the post of Chief Minister. Some distress over the squabbling was justified, but those who said this had defeated the aim of the elections or betrayed the bravery of the voter misunderstood what this election was about. Its aim was much higher than only to decide who should rule the state for the next few years. The aim was nothing less than to rehabilitate the whole electoral process. The earliest elections in the state had not only introduced it to the ways of democracy. They had also vindicated faith of the first Chief Minister, Sheikh Abdullah, in the secular future of the state and his economic vision. But the process soon became a prisoner of the political exigencies imposed upon the state by the perfidy of Pakistan and the cold war objectives of the USA. This cloud was lifted for a time in the late 1970s and the early 1980s, when democratic commitments re-asserted themselves both in the country and in the state, and in Kashmir it was lifted further when Dr Farooq Abdullah, standing on a secular platform, battled successfully against so formidable an opponent as India’s Prime Minister then, Mrs Indira Gandhi, whose platform had strong communal overtones in that campaign. This success, and the affront to her power which was implicit in it, was perhaps one of the reasons why she dismissed him and his government soon afterwards. But thereafter democracy began to be undermined again when the National Conference in Srinagar and successive governments in New Delhi, each pleading its own political compulsions, derailed democracy in the state. In the mid-1980s Dr Farooq Abdullah first created and then destroyed the chance of recovery, and a weak leadership in Delhi could do little to prevent him. Communalisation of electoral politics had always been a danger in the state, and as it seemed at the time it raised a threatening head when the state began to prepare for the last election of the 1980s. An able and effective leader of the frankly communal party, Jamaat-i-Islami, Ghulam Mohammad Bhat, succeeded in bringing communally inclined voters together under the umbrella of a Muslim United Front ( MUF) and posed what looked like the biggest electoral threat the National Conference had faced till then. But instead of facing it with his own well proven electoral strength, Dr Farooq Abdullah manipulated the electoral process to deny the Front even that much space to which it was entitled by the support it was able to muster by legitimate electoral means. As subsequent events were to show, neither the MUF was strong enough to defeat the National Conference nor was G.M. Bhatt’s personality or programme entirely inimical to the state’s larger interests and its accession to India. If Farooq had not cheated MUF out of its due share of seats, which was in any case much less than the legitimate share of the National Conference, the contribution of both leaders and their parties to the politics of the state probably would have been very different from and much better than it came to be. Taking full advantage of the prostrate people of the state and their disenchantment with New Delhi’s and Srinagar’s professions of democracy, and playing instead upon the religious sentiments of the Muslims of the state, Pakistan succeeded in sidetracking the admirably secular political and economic struggle begun in Kashmir in the early 1950s by the National Conference. Instead, the state became embroiled in a competition between India and Pakistan to show who could create more havoc, and MUF slipped into the fold of the separatists in the Hurriyat conglomerate. This gave the “Farooq family” further scope for convincing Delhi that it was India’s only hope in Kashmir, and, therefore, New Delhi must not look too closely at how the National Conference won elections. The result was as bad as could be expected. It is from this pit that the electoral process in the state had to be lifted this year before the voter could be persuaded to believe that the Indian Constitution gave him all the full right of a voter in a democracy to elect a government of his choice. The task, difficult in any case because of the communal frenzy Pakistan had whipped up, was made much more so when the Pakistan-based militants turned their well proven prowess as terrorists upon voters. Before polling began in October, they declared that anyone found taking part in the election would be shot, and they backed up the threat with deadly attacks on polling stations and staff. No one was left in any doubt that the staff could hold elections and the people could vote only at serious and clear risk to their lives. Yet both chose to face the risk. Assisted, no doubt, by the elaborate security at hand but driven mostly by their desire to assert their democratic rights, the people came out in appreciable numbers to vote. Unfortunately, they could not do so in some urban concentrations, particularly in Srinagar, which had become the strongholds of armed militancy, and since these were densely populated areas, the overall turnout of voters was affected in parts of Kashmir. Yet the overall turnout was a respectable 45 per cent, and even in Kashmir there were areas which registered above 60 per cent polling. The result was the stunning phenomenon, seen for the first time in the state, that the government fell because it had lost the confidence of the people. This restoration and vindication of the electoral process was the first and main aim of the election, and it was met. In an election which was free enough to have brought the government, the voters gave themselves a House of their choice for the first time in 20 years. (To be concluded) |
Another Indian star on banking horizon
Mr Bindra, 42, will relocate to Singapore after he assumes his new responsibility early next year. A Chartered Accountant and an MBA, his career as a professional banker began with the Bank of America before job hopping to the Union Bank of Switzerland. He joined Stanchart in August, 1998, as the head of corporate and institutional banking. Two years later he was appointed Chief Executive of Stanchart’s India operations and under his stint the bank witnessed a major restructuring exercise involving the mega-merger of Grindlays with Stanchart. Mr Bindra himself was responsible for executing the smooth merger of both global entities in India. Early this year he was appointed to the executive committee of Stanchart — the think-tank of the organisation which lays the roadmap of the group’s strategic agenda. While officially his new assignment commences on January 1 next year, he will relocate to Singapore only in March , 2003. He will be in India till his successor Chris Low arrives in this country to take charge of the operations and ensure a smooth transition. In his new role, Mr Bindra will be responsible for the bank’s relationship with corporates, financial institutions and all commercial banking products for all of Stanchart’s global operations. Mr Bindra’s elevation as the head of global banking group coincides with the change of guard in all the three foreign banks in India. While Sanjay Nagar of Citibank has moved over as CEO and area head of the Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal regions, Niall S Booker has taken charge as the CEO of HSBC’s India operations.
A parliamentarian with a difference “It was a wonderful experience. During this period (November 3 to November 8), we got a chance to interact with parliamentarians from Australia, Nigeria, Netherlands and the UK and understand their parliamentary system and procedures. Compared to those in India, constituencies in these countries are small-sized. Phillaur has a population of 13 lakh and has nine Assembly segments,” says Mrs Chowdhary, who was among the five MPs who visited Cyprus in 1995 to attend a meeting of the International Parliamentary Union. A Lok Sabha member for a second term, Mrs Chowdhary belongs to a family of politicians. She joined politics in 1964 as an active member of the Congress. Her father, the late Roshan Lal, was a minister in the PEPSU state in 1952 and was a Rajya Sabha MP from Himachal Pradesh for three terms. Her late father-in-law, Chowdhary Sunder Singh, was also an MLA from 1946 (Lahore) till 1980 from the Narod Jaimal constituency in Gurdaspur district. He was also an MP from Phillaur. Her husband Ram Lubhaya Chowdhary was recently elected MLA from Sham Chaurasi in the Phillaur
parliamentary constituency. The Chowdharys’ first born, Namita, a fashion designer by profession, has also joined the family tradition. She is the General Secretary of the Himachal Pradesh Youth Congress and the Vice-Chairman of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Department, HP. Mrs Chowdhary chaired the Punjab Public Service Commission from 1980 to 1986 and was the youngest in any state to chair the Public Service Commission. A former Secretary of the All-India Congress Committee, she was elected twice as a member of the Congress Executive Committee. She was also a member of the Antony Committee constituted to review the defeat in the polls. Mrs Santosh Chowdhary is presently Co-Chairman of the Relief Committee chaired by CWC member Ahmed Patel. Apart from this, she is a member of the Railway Standing
Committee as well as the Parliamentary Committee on Women.
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The mistakes they commit in history THESE are days of confessions — of regrets over the great wrongs done in the past. Jack Straw, the British Foreign Secretary, is the latest to confess — that the British made “serious mistakes” during the colonial period. Two such British mistakes threaten the world today with nuclear wars — the Arab-Jewish conflict over Palestine and the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan. Both can explode into global conflagrations. Britain can do nothing to prevent them. Are nations responsible for their actions? They are not. They should be. Pope John Paul II was honest. He was the first to apologise for the crimes of the Roman Catholic Church. It has caught on with others. For example, with Bill Clinton of America. But not with all. There are still powers unwilling to confess. For example, Spain and Portugal, China and Japan. Germany was the honest exception. Pope John Paul II admits the horrors committed by the Vatican in the past 2000 years. Among them are: passive connivance with the Jewish Holocaust, the Crusades, the Inquisition, Negro slave trade, genocide of the Red Indians, support to colonialism, discrimination against women and so on. And no less important was his confession on the “use of violence in the name of truth” and for the “hostility against the followers of other religions.” India was not partitioned on the basis of the two-nation theory, but on the basis of the Indian Independence Act of 1947. This Act was full of perfidy, mischief and reprisals against India. It planned to give Assam and Bengal to Pakistan to protect tea and jute interests of the British. Only Gandhiji’s intervention saved Assam. Again, under this Act, 600 or so princes were to become independent. Only the strong protest of the Congress Working Committee closed that option to the princes. Instead, they were to join either India or Pakistan. But the British objective was clear: it was to break up India into hundreds of tiny states so that the country would count for nothing in the world. And the British wanted Andaman and Nicobar to go to Pakistan or to be retained by the British navy. The idea was to provide Pakistan a safe port of call between its two wings. What was more, the Andamans could have served as a British outpost to protect the dominions of Australia and New Zealand. But the most perverse perfidy of all was the way Britain dealt with Jammu and Kashmir. The Northern Territory, the junction of three empires (Russian, Chinese and British), was the most strategic region of the South Asia and it happened to be part of the J&K state. Both Britain and America were keen to bring this region under their sway. When the British Governor of NWFP instigated the British officer of the Gilgit Regiment to seize it in the name of Pakistan, India failed to respond. This was inexcusable. And when the same Governor organised raiders to grab Jammu and Kashmir, India need not have waited for the signing of the instrument of accession by the Maharaja. But this is what Nehru did under Mountbatten’s influence. He waited for the signed instrument. By then the raiders were knocking at the doors of Srinagar. This time Mountbatten tried to prevent India from despatching troops to Srinagar. Had it not been for the timely intervention of Sardar Patel, who over-ruled Mountbatten, Srinagar would have fallen to the raiders. But at the end of it all, Mountbatten won with his viles: he asked Nehru to agree to a plebiscite in the state and to refer the case to the UN. There was no provision for any of these in the Independence of India Act. All these are well-known, and are part of history. But it is worth recalling them on this occasion. India thought that Britain had recognised the accession by the Maharaja. But, no, the British representative in the UN defied the British Prime Minister, Clement Atlee, and presented the case as if the state was under “dispute”. That mischief was the unkindest cut of all. It could not be corrected in all these years. And although the British were privy to this mischief, they did nothing to make amends. Before his death, Mountbatten revealed that his interest was to provide strategic depth to Pakistan. There was more to it. In fact, the British and Americans wanted the region to be in the possession of Pakistan so that they could have access to it. Thus, Britain did its damnedest to hurt the interests of India. And it has continued to do so to this day. The Tory elements still believe that India was responsible for the demise of the British empire. But there are things which Britain did for which India will continue to pay for a very long time. For instance, the Westernisation of our polity. If India is even today suffering from the colonisation of the mind of Indians, we have to thank Macaulay for it. He taught not only English to Indians, but also made Indians think like the British. In the process, he made zombies of millions. Is there nothing then on the credit side? There is: the British scholars discovered India for Indians. Even Sanskrit: It is this which made us conscious of our proud heritage. Today the world is facing America, a greater menace. It, too, will realise one day that it had committed serious mistakes. But then these mistakes will perhaps bring human history to sorrowful end. America wants to export its civilisation to the world. It wants humanity to have no other option. No other choice. It refuses to see that civilisations are products of experience. They are unique. American experience need not be relevant to others. And they are not free from errors. Today it is terrorism which is the scourge of the world. Who brought it into being? Why, America and America alone. And yet its experience of terrorism was the most traumatic. Today America is on a macabre mission — to take away the freedom and sovereignty of nations, to prevent them from thinking for themselves and to reduce them to zombies. It is no use telling the world (As Jack Straw has done). “We are sorry!” Mazzini, one of the greatest exponents of nationalism, describes democracy as “the progress of all under the leadership of the wisest and the best.” Is America the wisest? No.
Is it the best? No. And the same must be said of the Vatican when it proclaims its resolve to convert the world into Christianity. Even today the American baptists say that pagan Hindus live in darkness. And yet a thousand years before Jesus Christ, the composers of the Upanishads were saying: “Tamase ma Jyotir gamaya” (Lead us from darkness to Light!) No wonder, India is called the Light of Asia. |
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Disputed chemical allowed in cosmetics REGULATORS from within the American cosmetics industry voted on Tuesday to allow the use of a chemical ingredient in perfumes and beauty products which critics have linked to birth defects in animals. The Cosmetic Ingredient Review panel ruled that three phthalates, chemicals used to make fragrances last longer, posed no health threat to cosmetics wearers. Their decision angered health advocates who say phthalates, which can be inhaled or absorbed through the skin, contribute to male birth defects and should be banned from beauty products sold to women. Beauty products such as perfume, deodorant, hair spray, skin cream and nail varnish often contain phthalates. The chemicals are also found in plastic products such as food containers, medical devices and food wrap. Phthalates are rarely included in the ingredient list of beauty products because they are among hundreds of components which are grouped together under the name “perfume.” Critics say that makes it difficult for consumers to avoid the chemicals. “Even if you are the kind of consumer who reads every label in the store before you buy it, you can’t find out if there are phthalates in there,” said one. Industry leaders said perfumes have up to 600 ingredients, making it impossible to list them all on packaging. Concerned consumers should call manufacturer to check whether phthalates are included. Some cosmetics companies have voluntarily withheld phthalates from their products pending further research.
Reuters |
Eat fish, plants to protect heart HEALTHY
people should consume more fish and certain types of plants rich in omega-3 fatty acids to protect their hearts, according to the American Heart Association. “Omega-3 fatty acids are not just good fats; they affect heart health in positive ways,” said Penny Kris-Etherton, Ph.D., lead author of a report published in Circulation, a journal of the association. They make the blood less likely to form clots that cause heart attacks and protect against irregular heartbeats that cause sudden cardiac death. Since 2000, the American Heart Association’s dietary guidelines have recommended that healthy adults eat at least two servings of fish per week, particularly fish such as mackerel, lake trout, herring, sardines, albacore tuna and salmon. These fish contain two omega-3 fatty acids — eicosapentaenoic and docosahexaenoic acids. A third kind, alpha-linolenic acid, is less potent. It comes from soyabeans, canola, walnut and flaxseed and oils made from those beans, nuts and seeds. For middle-aged and older men, and postmenopausal women, the benefits of eating fish far outweigh the risks within the established guidelines.
Reuters Obesity lawsuit against McDonald’s A lawyer for McDonald’s Corp. argued on Wednesday that consumers know that hamburgers and French fries are fattening and urged a federal judge to throw out a suit blaming the company for obesity and diabetes in children. His arguments were made at the first federal court hearing in the controversial case aimed at holding McDonald’s responsible for children’s health and weight problems. Although other suits have been filed over the issue, lawyers said this is the only one that is actively being litigated. U.S. District Judge Robert Sweet said he would decide later whether to dismiss the suit. “The plaintiffs’ lawsuit asks the court to abandon common knowledge, common sense,” said Bradley Lerman, a lawyer representing McDonald’s. He said that the law does not require that restaurants warn customers of the “universally understood” fact that common foods contain fat, salt, sugar, cholesterol and other basic ingredients. Lerman said that reasonable people know what products are in hamburgers and fries and what excessive eating of those products does to one’s waistline over a prolonged period. “People don’t wake up one day thin then wake up the next day and are obese,” he said. The suit, argued Lerman, does not allege that McDonald’s products are defective or contaminated but instead tries to hold the company responsible for telling people something that is commonly understood. He said that McDonald’s has never billed their Big Macs or fried foods as being as low in calories as a “spinach salad.”
Reuters Bizarre punishments for drug addicts Separatists in India’s Northeast have launched a war on drugs, meting out bizarre and not-so-bizarre punishments to addicts and peddlers — piercing padlocks in ears, sprinkling itchy herbs or simply executing them. At least half a dozen rebel groups in Meghalaya, Nagaland and Manipur states have vowed to root out the scourge of drugs from the region that is home to an estimated 200,000 addicts. In Nagaland the outlawed National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN), throws addicts and peddlers into cages while its members rub itchy herbs on the bodies of the victims. The cage is placed in the middle of the village or town. If the person repeats the crime, a padlock is pierced through the earlobes and the key is handed over to a village elder, who cannot give away the key until the person promises never to touch drugs again. In Meghalaya, the Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council (HNLC) makes addicts and peddlers kneel in town squares from dawn till dusk.
IANS |
If you have pure devotion you will feel the pull of God and will find Him. But again, there are two poles in this path also, two forces pulling you — devotion to God and devotion to matter. Even death tries to remind us that it is foolish to be lured by material attractions. The miser is devoted to objects of matter and remains attached to them to the end, even though he at last has to leave everything behind. Yet to his final breath, he is just as devoted to material things as the yogi is to God. But the yogi reasons: “Matter is external and possession of its objects is shortlived. Why should I concentrate on the little temporal things and exclude eternity? Devotion to God alone is the only way to everlasting fulfilment. — Swami Yogananda
*** (Monologue from Uddhava), “I wish I would have been any of the shrubs, creepers or herbs in Vrindavana obtaining the dust of the feet of these (Gopis) who (through love for Krishna) attained the supreme state sought for by the Upanishads, forsaking regard for their difficulty abandonable kith and kin as well as the path adopted by the noble people. — The Bhagavata Mahapurana, I. 47.61
*** A person may possess evils and sins so long as he has an inclination for the Lord by having exclusive devotion to Him, all his evils and sins are rooted out. — Swami Ramsukhdas, “Suduracharo bhajate mam ananyabhak”, The Kalyana Kalpataru, December 1995
*** Through the devotion of love, the ocean of the world can be easily crossed. — Sri Guru Granth Sahib, Gauri Sukhmani M5, page 290
*** The delusion does not end without devotion. — Sri Guru Granth Sahib, Rag Bilawal, M9 page 830
*** If one rubs even sandalwood with excessive violence the friction will surely produce fire from it. — Shri Ramacharitamanasa, Uttara Kanda |
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ANOTHER Indian has broken through the glass ceiling and made it to head a group of a global corporation. Global banking major Standard Chartered Bank has announced the appointment of Jaspal S. Bindra, CEO, India Region, as the bank’s group head of Corporates and Institutions (C&I) globally. 
Congress MP from Phillaur Santosh Chowdhary has recently returned from Canada after attending the second Canadian parliamentary seminar in Ottawa. She was nominated by Lok Sabha Speaker Manohar Joshi as part of a two-member MP team, including a woman.