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Saturday,
November 23, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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J and K “no” to POTA Musharraf’s man Friday Shocking conduct |
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Aims, gains, and traps in Kashmir-II
Kite flying in Dhaka
Recast education system in J&K
Satire
without Lipstick
Caring for the terminally ill
Dogs evolved from
East Asian wolves
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J and K “no” to POTA THE declaration by the Jammu and Kashmir Governor, Mr Girish Chandra Saxena, that POTA would not be implemented in the state is in keeping with the soft approach adopted by the Mufti Mohammad Sayeed government. The new Chief Minister is striving hard to appear not only people-friendly, but also not militant-unfriendly, if one may use a double-negative. Since several other states too have given the thumbs-down to POTA on the plea that the existing laws are sufficient to deal with every situation, the Jammu and Kashmir stance will not raise too many eyebrows. But the way the new government is going about releasing arrested militants and promising to review cases of detentions made without “specific” charges, there is considerable concern not only at the Centre but also among security agencies. There are apprehensions that in his zeal to be different from the previous Chief Minister, he might end up surrendering all the gains made by the security forces at a considerable cost to the ongoing war on terrorism. While there is no denying the fact that Kashmir badly needs a healing touch, it is also true that the state cannot afford to lower its guard. A relapse will be unpardonable. Every attempt in the past to bring militants into the mainstream through the use of carrots has proved counter-productive, thanks to the Pakistan factor. As soon as a group of gun-toting men decides to mend its ways, alarm bells start ringing in Islamabad. A concerted attempt is made to either discredit the few men or eliminate them. That has been the experience with the new band called the Jammu Kashmir Sujat Conference also. Pakistan has done everything in its power to project it as a bunch of “sarkari” agents. Even if it is assumed that they are genuine insurgents, there is still the possibility that they will be replaced by more fanatic men by the bosses across the border. Mr Sayeed will have to take into account all such factors if he has to make any real progress. For the time being he has put the onus on the Centre. Addressing the joint session of the state legislature, the Governor urged the Centre to start a serious and result-oriented dialogue with the militants without any pre-conditions. The ball, as they say, is now in Delhi’s court. Implicit in this exhortation was the deduction that the initiatives taken so far lacked seriousness or vision. The previous National Conference government was also criticised good and proper in indirect ways. |
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Musharraf’s man Friday IN Pakistan democracy does not mean the expression of the will of the people. If it did, India's troublesome neighbour would not be what it is today — a nation without a goal. The so-called elections held last month did not mark the return of democracy. The election of General Pervez Musharraf's loyalist Mir Zafarullah Jamali as the new Prime Minister too should not be mistaken as the beginning of the process of letting the people chart their destiny with the help of the elected representative. He knows that he must follow the script cleared by the military establishment for him to survive in office. The only silver lining, in the context of the link between fundamentalism and terrorism, is the defeat of the religious hardliner Mr Fazal-ur-Rahman of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal. Of course, President Musharraf himself must have received instructions from his patron saint in Washington not allow the Islamists to head the new government. Mir Jamali's election means that the threat of ordering fresh elections will be put on hold. Looking at the voting pattern, it would be foolhardy to predict the new Prime Minister remaining in office for long. A victory by one vote provided enough evidence that Mr Fazal-ur-Rahman's party is down but not out. A minor revolt within Ms Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party may have proved futile if the Islamists had done their homework with the kind of precision that is needed for winning close contests. Be that as it may, on paper Mir Jamali's appointment is meant to represent the restoration of civilian rule in Pakistan for the next three years. Independent or even involved observers cannot miss the irony of the situation that gives President Musharraf another two years of his self-manipulated five-year term when chapter one of the so-called return to civilian rule will end. Mir Jamali's pro-Musharraf Pakistan Muslim League will govern with the support of the dissident members of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's PPP and independent MPs. However, it is doubtful whether the pro-Taliban and anti-US Maulana Fazal-ur-Rahman will remain quiet for long. Yes, President Musharraf has armed himself with the undemocratic power to sack the Prime Minister and dissolve the National Assembly. Why should the Maulana worry about the consequences of bringing down Mir Jamali's government? Playing political spoilsport will be the better option for him than the role of a toothless opposition leader. The MMA has made it clear that it is not going to give up its demand for withdrawal of US troops from Pakistan. Such rhetoric may make the General squirm, but at the ground level sustained anti-Americanism will increase the MMA's popularity among the people. And that is what is going to matter whenever President Musharraf decides to order fresh elections. |
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Shocking conduct THE manner in which a Samajwadi Party member conducted himself in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday is shocking. The incident is also unprecedented in the annals of the country’s parliamentary history. The member in question, Mr Devendra Singh Yadav, throwing all norms of decency and decorum to thin air, pushed around senior Bahujan Samaj Party member, Mr Rashid Alvi, when he disagreed with his views over the developments in Uttar Pradesh, particularly the role of the state Governor. What is shameful is that the unsavoury episode occurred in the full glare of a visiting parliamentary delegation from Canada, which was witnessing the proceedings of the House from the special gallery. Admittedly, timely intervention by Union Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pramod Mahajan did help prevent the situation from deteriorating further. Both the senior ministers separated the two members and brought the situation under control. What impression the Canada team would have carried with it about the standard and quality of our members is not difficult to guess. But then, what is amazing is the fact that Speaker Manohar Joshi, instead of taking strict action against Mr Yadav, let him off with a mild warning. The problem with our parliamentary proceedings is that the presiding officers refrain from acting tough against some members when it is extremely necessary. The result: recalcitrant members take advantage of their soft approach and refuse to follow the code of conduct. It is time the presiding officers enforced the code of conduct for members scrupulously during the parliamentary proceedings. Mere expression of regrets won’t help. Nor would statements like “his behaviour has lowered the prestige of the House”. It would be better if the Speaker suspends members who are guilty of misconduct. Only then it will act as a deterrent and have a salutary effect on the conduct of the members and in the overall functioning of Parliament. Wednesday’s incident is a sad reflection of the class to which some of our representatives belong. Clearly, not all of our members are bad, but a few bad eggs do spoil the entire basket and this is what is exactly happening in our representative institutions. Decency, decorum and etiquette have long disappeared from the portals of our representative institutions for which the voters themselves are responsible. For restoring the dignity of Parliament and the very survival of democracy, our members need to learn a lesson or two on how to behave and act accordingly. |
Aims, gains, and traps in Kashmir-II AFTER the election it was argued by some that the result should not be seen as an endorsement of the state’s accession to India, because people had voted only to unseat an unpopular government. Up to a point this is true. But beyond that it is not. First, no organised group or party or prominent independent candidate campaigned even for a review of the terms of accession, let alone question the act of accession. Second, most of those known to be opposed to the accession were defeated. Third, the largest number of seats in the new House have been won by the National Conference though it has lost its majority, and the NC remains firmly committed to the accession. The second biggest bloc is that of the Congress, which is not only a supporter of the accession but a part author of it in the sense that it was the party in power in India when Srinagar asked for accession and New Delhi agreed to it. Fourth, these two parties between them have the majority in the House, with or without counting those who are members of these two parties but stood as independents because they were denied the party ticket. Fifth, the third largest party and the largest from the valley, the People’s Democratic Party, is not opposed to the accession but only to ways in which the government has handled the militancy. But most important is the last and sixth reason. While no one directly raised the issue of accession, it emerged quite significantly as the election campaign developed into a combat between unarmed voters who were determined to vote and the heavily armed militants who were determined to prevent them from doing so. Most of those who boycotted the election by political intention, and all of those who tried violently to intimidate others into boycotting them, were groups and parties known to be against the accession. All those who voted or campaigned in favour of voting were either declared supporters of the Indian connection or were declaring that they were more interested in good governance than in the colour of the government. The declared supporters of the accession have gained a clear majority in the new Assembly, and the remaining seats have gone to those who were demanding better governance, not secession. As the coalition between the Congress and the People’s Democratic Party emerged, it showed several other gains as well. It is not only a coalition between two parties but also between the two most important communities and regions of the state. The Congress won more votes and seats in the Hindu majority province of Jammu, and the PDP in the Muslim majority province of Kashmir; and the third province, Ladakh, has never been against the accession. Second, the PDP brings to the new government a sharper awareness of the sentiments and grievances of the people of Kashmir and of internal threats to security, and the Congress a broader understanding of the longer-term economic and external security needs of the state and the contribution New Delhi can make to meeting them. That the two are partners in the new government should make it easier for both to understand where the balance should be struck from time to time between, on the one hand, easing political and security restrictions in the state for making life easier for the people, and on the other hand enforcing them for meeting their security needs. A particular illustration is the popular demand in the state that movement of goods and people across the Line of Control in Kashmir should be made easier. It should be. But so long as the Pakistan side of Kashmir has an open border with Pakistan and the Indian side with India, any gates opened between the two sides in the LoC will also become gates between India and Pakistan. Therefore, a loose LoC is incompatible with a hard Indo-Pakistan border. The two should be relaxed in matching steps. But there are also some traps here which must be flagged. The most important among them is the issue of “autonomy”. This pit has been dug with equal zeal by the governments in Srinagar and New Delhi. In one of his fits of indiscretion, Farooq Abdullah appears to have gone back on an assurance he had given to the Government of India that while the State Assembly must discuss the popular demand for “autonomy”, it would not raise any very specific demands until he had consulted New Delhi. Instead he confronted New Delhi with a fully worked out and overloaded charter of demands which had already been adopted by the State Assembly. New Delhi’s response was also ill-tempered and shortsighted. Instead of reasoning with him and explaining what could be considered and what could not be for the time being, an approach to which he has never failed to respond when his ego and temper have cooled, New Delhi brusquely rejected the report and, as it were, asked him to find his
home. In the process, both sides overlooked the fact that in 1975-76 Sheikh Abdullah and Mrs Indira Gandhi had signed an agreement, however craftily phrased by clever people around both leaders, that if requested by the State Assembly India would review any extensions of New Delhi’s jurisdiction over the state which had been effected during the years that the Sheikh was in prison. Both governments have to find a way out of that pit, dug by both in competitive bad manners. Otherwise both sides will lose the gains they have made and the aims desired by them. A way out exists through three gates. First, Srinagar must realise that the bigger the autonomy it demands from New Delhi the bigger will be the autonomy demanded by Jammu and Ladakh from Srinagar. Second, New Delhi must respond to the new situation created by the recent elections. Just as the Indian military has shown Pakistan can never wrest the state by force, the voters have shown Pakistan cannot get it by political subversion either. Therefore, both can revert to the wisdom of the remark by a former Prime Minister of India, Mr Narasimha Rao, that short of secession the sky is the limit for the powers the state can have. Third, both should revert to the enhanced “devolution” envisaged in any honest interpretation of the Indira-Sheikh agreement. That word is limitlessly flexible, and also free of the room for squabbling which exists, and which interested third parties might wish to exploit, over the precise meaning of “autonomy” in a given situation. Such squabbling can re-awaken the ghost of “plebiscite” which the United Nations itself, not India, buried in 1957.
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Kite flying in Dhaka THE dozen or so kids who came to my four-year-old granddaughter Gungun’s birthday party in Dhaka loaded her with gifts. They bought her toys and games, color boxes and storybooks. Some even brought hairpins and dresses. One child gave her a colourful paper kite. She understood the uses of all other things, but she did not know what to do with the kite. She knew that it flies in the sky, she had seen many of them flying. But she had no clue how to do it. She carried it to her papa and mama in turn and asked them if they could make it fly. Her papa, a Bengali, made a candid confession that kite flying had never been his hobby, although there were some in his office who indulged in kite flying of the figurative kind. Jyotsana, her mother, told her that she too had never done it, but had heard me say that I used to fly kites as a boy. “When Nana comes to stay with us in Dhaka”, she told Gungun, “you ask him to fly the kite for you.” Gungun was at the airport to receive us with her parents, and as I lifted her and held her tiny frame in my embrace, she looked at me with breathless expectation, and asked: “Nana, you know how to fly a kite?” “Kite? Why, yes, I know it very well.” I could see joy course through her body. “Will you fly my kite? I have a kite,” she asked. “Of course, darling, we will fly your kite. It’ll go high up in the clouds”. She clapped her hands in excitement. They lived in a large flat in a six-storey building in the posh Baridhara area not very far from the airport. We had barely settled in the sofas in the drawing room when Gungun brought her kite to me. It was a beauty with a yellow crescent moon in the centre and blue stars around it. “You fly it now” she said. Her mother chided her. “Let Nana rest awhile, Gungun.” I could see that Gungun had been waiting for me all these days anxiously to come and fly her kite. It would be heartless to delay it any longer. Everything else had to wait. I asked Jyotsana if there was a kite shop somewhere nearby to buy some string from. Anupam said the kite shops were in old Dhaka; it would take hours getting there. I asked Jyotsana to let me have some stitching thread. She brought me a reel. The stitching thread is not the right string to fly a kite. It was not strong enough and may snap under wind pressure. But Gungun’s impatience brooked no consideration of such finer points. A kite like Gungun’s cost one anna when I was a boy. It was the standard size, about a square foot in dimension. Larger kites could be had for two or four annas, but they were too heavy or unwieldy to fly. You could also have smaller two-paisa or one-paisa kites, but they were for little kids. I had carefully learnt the technique of tying strings through its ribs with a double thread. The lower string had to be about an inch larger than the upper for correct balancing. Stringing done, Jyotsana, Gungun and I went up the lift to the terrace. The Dhaka sky was overcast and a gentle eastward wind was blowing. Holding the string in my hand, with some trepidation I asked Jyotsana to take the kite to the eastern corner, hold it high and then let go to help me fly it. She did as directed. The kite rose a little, and then collapsed to the floor limply. Gungun watched the proceedings transfixed. I asked Jyotsana to do it again. A brief flutter, and it fell down again. I changed the strategy. There was a chimneystack with a broad top. I went up on it and asked Jyotsana to come a little nearer. This time the kite seemed to respond to my manoeuverings. It straightened up, asking for more string. It was going up now, spurred by the wind. Jyotsana was mesmerised by my feat. “Wow” she said. “Papa you’ve done it”. Suddenly Gungun cried out: “Nana, no. Bring me my kite back. Please, Nana. I don’t want my kite to go the clouds.” She thought the kite would never come back. I came down from the chimneystack, and gave the string to Gungun to hold. Her little hands felt the kite’s gentle tug and she was enthralled. “What does it say?” she asked. “You hold me. It says,” I told her. I taught her how to pull the string if you wanted the kite to come back. She was reassured. Jyotsana too took the string in her hand, and tried her hand at it. She felt awkward to begin with, but soon got the hang of it, and wanted to release more string and take it higher and higher. I advised against it, as the thread was weak. Gungun would be heartbroken if the kite was to break loose and fly away. An airliner was coming from the direction of the airport and seemed to be heading towards the kite. Gungun was apprehensive. “Nana, the plane will hit the kite.” I made a mock protest shooing away the plane. “Let’s bring our kite down”, I said. Jyotsana wound the thread on the reel as I brought the kite down. “It’s become big again”, Gungun exclaimed as she took the kite in her hands, most pleased. Her face was lit up by a beatific glow as we came down to their flat. “Can we fly the kite again tomorrow, Nana?” she asked. “Yes, darling”, I said, “after you come back from school”. I had never realised my vagrant hobbies would earn so much dividend in later life.
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Recast education system in J&K
Born, brought up and educated in Srinagar, Professor Mattoo did his postgraduation in international relations from JNU. The "hunger for more" took him to Oxford University, where he finished his doctoral studies and also took to the profession of teaching. What impressed him the most was the interactive form of teaching and learning followed at Oxford. A former Professor at the School of International Studies, JNU, and a visiting lecturer at Stanford and Notre Dame Universities, Professor Mattoo quit the IPS in 1988 to enter the academic world. A day before leaving for Jammu, he spoke to this correspondent in New Delhi about the new appointment and his priorities. Excerpts of the interview: Q: Your appointment as the V-C of Jammu University has become controversial. How do you plan to handle the resenting teachers ? The main aspersions that are being cast on my appointment are based on my age (40) and my regional hailing i.e. I am not from Jammu (he is from Kashmir). The resenting faction primarily consists of teachers who were either vying for the same job or their respective lobbies, and have received support from parochial politicians. I have been advised by the Governor, among other people, to take over as soon as possible and have also been receiving assurances from various teachers in Jammu that they are supporting my appointment. I think the whole controversy is rather trifling and will just fade away once I formally take over. Q: What is the underpinning priority for Jammu University? The main priority in my opinion is for Jammu University to establish itself as a truly world class university. There is talent which remains undiscovered in the university and it needs to be brought forth. It is imperative to project the quality of education being dispersed and eliminate the notion that talent is not found in Jammu University. Q: Why did you decide to leave the Indian Police Service in 1988? While preparing for the examination I delved deep into the system of the Indian bureaucracy and I started realising the limitations of the system. It constricts the individual from making any real difference or impact. Also, I had taken a break from the service to pursue my doctoral studies at Oxford and before I knew it, I had decided to take up teaching as a profession. Q: The level of enrolment in higher education in Jammu and Kashmir has been dismal. How do you plan to arrest this decline? The whole education system in J&K needs to be seriously looked into. Education in the State is free till the university level but still the literacy level is lower than the national average. There is a need for restructuring of the system to cater to the changing trends. There needs to be an increased focus on primary education as well as higher education. Q: There is a growing level of disillusionment among youth in Jammu due to paucity of jobs after graduation and the growing level of unemployment. What do you plan to do about it? There are close to 1,50,000 educated unemployed in Jammu and Kashmir right now. There needs to be an effective interface of the students, teachers and employers. An increased focus on niche segments such as information technology is a must if we have to really bring about a change in the current situation. It works at two levels - on the demand side we need to organise effective programmes such as campus fairs and placement cells to attract the public and private sectors to absorb our students. On the supply side, we need to imbibe a mix of academic learning and vocational training to cater to the need of the economy in terms of personnel. Q: Are you suggesting a vocationalisation of the higher education system in Jammu University? We need to maintain a balance between academic knowledge and vocational skills being imparted in the university so that we churn out well-packaged students. There must be a mix of those who have the requisite skills to fulfil their immediate economic requirements and those who have the knowledge base to further their intellectual and academic interests. Q: There has also been a shortage of funds due to which the university lacks sufficient facilities. How will you raise resources? The UGC and the state
government remain our main sources of revenue. But apart from these, we
need to generate resources from alternative avenues such as the private
sector. We must invite the sector to invest in the development of youth
and the nurturing of talent in the region. Take the case of the Tatas
who have partnered in various academic ventures and done substantial
work in areas of education. Similar endeavours should be promoted
because a world class university must provide its students access to the
best facilities. |
Satire without
Lipstick I must confess I admire the guts and persistence of the Adhikari brothers and Sab TV. Having got into totally undeserved hot water over their first satire on contemporary political goings-on, Raamkhilawan, they have ventured courageously into another satire, Public Hai Sab Janti Hai, with style. I must confess I enjoyed every moment of the first two episodes for the simple reason that political and social satire based on contemporary life is so rare in this country on the media. Because while politicians seldom protest about the batterings they get in the print media, they seem to be excessively touchy about TV which can reach the illiterate masses as well and expose their shennanigans. If they cannot take the sort of leg-pulling which is everyday routine for politicians in other democracies, then they have no business to be in public life. The one exception for touchy politicians could be a limit on fun about their personal lives. But their public life should be fair game. What I liked about both the programmes I saw were first, their topicality, then the skilful scripting and dialogue and, above all, the sophisticated approach by both producer and cast. Nothing was over-stated the focus being on subtlety. The dialogue was cleverly suited to the characters and, mercifully, the canned laughter was within control and used judiciously. The first episode related to Jayalalitha and her alleged communications with Veerappan. The cast was the same in Raamkhilawan, and Sanjay Mishra, as usual, took off Veerappan with gusto, moustache and all. Sushmita Mukherji, if possible, was even better as Jayalalitha, in a severe black cloak and with a severe voice to match, but with smug smiles when she is being clever. Vineet Kumar gave good support, avoiding all temptation to overplay. It was all light-hearted fun which could be understood at the level of every viewer and if those involved cannot take a joke I repeat, they have no business to be in public life. The second episode was about VIP hit-and-run drivers with Hero Banian Kumar obviously a take-off on Salman Khan, with some details from the BMW case thrown in. Sanjay Mishra again played the role to the hilt, including what happened in prison (the police detained him for more days than stipulated because they wanted his autograph). The Rs 950 bail and the police turn-around was done with an equally light touch, even if close to the bone with Sushmita as the victim’s mother all weeping and wailing until she got the compensation. And even more cleverly there was a wonderful take-off on the media, the newscaster and the reporter a clear leg-pull of Aaj Tak, which should be flattered at being given top treatment. Equally rough treatment was given to the social activisit NGOs, not one shot being missed about their craving for publicity while pushing away the starving young man with his ribs showing at the very moment they are expressing their concern for the poor. In other words, two clever satires, one political, one social with Ashwini Dhir’s script and dialogue and Vijay Krishna Acharya’s direction adding up to delectable half-hour viewing. I never cease to wonder at the titles of TV’s soaps (forgetting for the moment the mutilation of the letter K). So when I tuned in to Lipstick I expected something about female intrigues at a younger level, but not the sort of ham-fisted Mumbai style melodrama which followed. Its music was so loud and its acting so poor that I thought nothing could get worse. Then I watched Kittie Party, wondering why they have to spell well-known words wrongly. It has always been Kitty in any context. Here I did not expect a whole team in white mourning, obviously intrigues amongst the Upper Ten and a clear poor relation of Shyam Benegal’s classic of the 70’s with an all-star caste. Here, bar one or two mediocre professionals, the acting was terrible and the music as deafening as it was irrelevant. I certainly got no pleasure, professional or otherwise, from either serial, but in the process of checking on their titles found I had not missed much by coming in late. TAILPIECE: I owe a belated apology to cartoonist Irfan, who has enlivened our weekends for some time now on Zee TV and who has held a very successful exhibition of his cartoons in public. In combining interviewing with live sketching, he is following in the distinguished footsteps of famous cartoonist Abu Abraham who did a similar but half-hour programme in the early days of Doordarshan. I am glad Irfan has revived the practice, which he does with style. |
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Caring for the terminally ill OF course we look to doctors to keep us alive for as long as possible, but when the moment comes when no more can be done, we assume that priorities will change. We believe that doctors will know instinctively when to halt painful treatments and concentrate on comfort and pain relief. Above all, like the heroine of a Hollywood weepie, we expect to be given an accurate answer to the question: How long have I got, doc? Then, armed with an accurate schedule, we’ll have time to confront our mortality — to say our final farewells, make arrangements for the kids and decide when, if ever, it’s appropriate to say, `I’m sorry’ But a recent conference at King’s College London - part of ‘The Art of Dying’, an innovative year-long programme involving historians, philosophers and social scientists as well as artists and film-makers - drew attention to the fact that most deaths don’t happen this way. The course of the long, degenerative diseases that normally precede death today remains hugely
uncertain and there is growing concern that the failure of both the medical profession and the public to address this uncertainty contributes to ‘bad deaths’. Doctors who specialise in terminal illness are divided over the best way to deal with the problem. Recent research shows that the main problem is not that doctors give up too quickly but that they are over-optimistic. With cancer, doctors averagely predict that the terminally ill will live more than five times longer than they do. For heart failure, it’s even worse. Half of patients who die of the disease within three days had been told that they had six months left. Even physicians working in palliative medicine are able to predict accurately in fewer than half their cases. The result, says academic Nicholas Christakis, is that the terminally ill ‘seek noxious chemotherapy rather than good palliative care, or reassure loved ones that it is not yet time to visit, only to lapse into a coma before having a chance to say goodbye.’ This doesn’t have to happen, says Christakis, who has identified the pressures that skew doctors’ judgment. ‘Doctors avoid prognostication...because they don’t want to deal with its unpleasant aspects or to think about the limits of their ability to change the future.’ Faced with the risk of withholding potentially lifesaving treatment or hurting patients by thrusting unwanted information at them, doctors develop ‘ritualised optimism’, the `when in doubt, suspect recovery and act accordingly’ approach. Above all, he says, doctors need to ‘stop viewing the death of their patients as a personal or professional failure... and in changing their thinking, they might realise that there is much that patients can hope for even when death is inevitable.’
The Guardian
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Dogs evolved from East Asian wolves ALL modern dogs have originated from a small number of female wolves living in East Asia some 15,000 years ago, say Swedish scientists. By analysing hair samples from more than 500 different breeds from all over the world, the scientists have discovered that all dogs share the same genetic pool but that East Asian dogs had a higher genetic variation. “This makes it probable that dogs originated in East Asia and spread all over the world,” said Peter Savolainen, a senior scientist at the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology. The main reason why modern dog breeds look so different is the enormous interest in breeding that swept across Europe after the Middle Ages, Savolainen said. The few dogs which still look almost like their ancestors include the Mexican hairless dog, the Australian dingo and the greyhound, which has been found in the pyramids of Egypt. Reuters Elderly Viagra thief strikes again An elderly man has robbed a pharmacy in the southern French city of Marseille for the fourth time in less than a year, each time making off with its full stock of the anti-impotence drug Viagra. Each time he strikes, he appears at closing time armed with a knife and marches the three female members of staff to the cupboard where they keep the coveted blue pills, the Marseille police said. He then leaves quietly with his stash and the day’s takings. The police said it did not know whether the thief was stealing the Viagra for his personal use, or to resell the pills illegally with a hefty premium.
Reuters First royal to plead guilty of crime The Princess Royal had been charged under the Dangerous Dogs Act after one of her dogs bit two children in Windsor Great Park in July. In an ironic twist, the case at the East Berkshire Magistrate’s court in Slough, west of London, was set out as Regina vs. Anne Elizabeth Alice Laurence — a legal battle symbolically pitting mother against daughter. Harold Brooks-Baker, publishing director of the aristocracy’s bible, Burke’s Peerage, told Reuters he could not recall any other more senior royal convicted of a crime since Charles I, who was beheaded in 1649. Anne’s punishment is likely to be less severe — a fine or at most a short custodial sentence, although the latter is extremely unlikely. The dog may have to be destroyed.
Reuters |
When you come to me. I know your name, your degrees your profession, your past, your present and your future, but you do not know me. That is why I, sometimes myself produce my visiting card to prove my identity — something which you call a miracle... *** I did not come uninvited. I have come because the Sadhus and Sadhkas, the sages and saints called out in agony for light and solace and restoration of Sathya (truth) Dharma (righteousness) , Shanti (peace), Prema (love), and Ahimsa (non-violence)... *** The totality of divine energy has come as Sathya Sai unto humanity to wake up the slumbering divinity of every human being. I will not forsake you. I have come to help, to accompany and to carry you. I can never forsake you... *** I am the dweller in the temple of every heart. Do not lose contact and company, for it is only when the lump of coal is in contact with the live amber that it can also become live amber. Cultivate nearness with me in the heart and you will be rewarded... *** He who selflessly renders service (seva) sweetened with Love (prema) to my creatures, he who sees me in every one and in everything, he who remembers me at every moment is the yogi (aspirant), nearest me... *** The Indian culture upholds the principle of Atma in every one. It teaches the principle of the unity of the self to the entire world. It highlights the virtue of truth, righteousness, peace, love and non-violence. —Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba, Discourses. |
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THE appointment of Prof
Amitabh Mattoo as the Vice-Chancellor of Jammu University has been mired
in controversy. Some sections of the local teachers have reacted
strongly to the decision of the Governor to give precedence to a
professor from Jawaharlal Nehru University over senior incumbent
professors of the university.
Princess Anne, the Queen’s only daughter, on Thursday became the first royal in British history to plead guilty to a criminal offence.