E D I T O R I A L   P A G E

EDITORIALS

Mumbai blast
When the 10th anniversary of the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts had passed off peacefully on March 12, there was smug satisfaction in official quarters that they had managed to keep troublemakers at bay. But the nightmare unfolded a day later with a blast aboard a suburban train at Mulund in North-East Mumbai killing 11 persons and injuring 86.

Marandi in trouble
On the face of it, Jharkhand Chief Minister Babulal Marandi has no locus standi to continue in office following the resignation of seven non-BJP ministers from his government on Thursday. Democracy is a game of numbers and a close look at the composition of the 80-member State Assembly (effective strength 79) suggests that Mr Marandi has lost the majority support.

Don’t stop cheques
In a significant judgement the import of which got lost in the rush of events, the Supreme Court has ruled that stopping the payment of a post-dated cheque before the due date for payment should be treated as an offence and the offender is liable for penal action under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act.

OPINION

China’s hard-sell commercialisation
Profit motive is all-pervasive
Sunanda K. Datta-Ray
China reminded me of the Bengali saying that a Hindu convert to Islam gorges on only beef. The cities are certainly impressive, but the razzle-dazzle of Beijing’s Chang’an Avenue — Paris’ Champs Elysee, London’s Piccadilly Circus and New York’s Times Square rolled into a blaze of light — suggested that in their great leap forward from communism to capitalism, the Chinese have lost sight of the middle way of socialist democracy of which the outgoing premier, Mr Zhu Rongji, spoke at the opening of the National People’s Congress.

MIDDLE

Closer Indo-US ties
S. Raghunath
The Bush Administration is claiming that the increasingly frequent visits to Delhi by high-ranking US officials, key Senators and Congressmen and influential private citizens is a positive sign of a “thaw” in bilateral Indo-US relations and greater cooperation in defence, trade and commerce and science.

How long will UN remain relevant?
Kiran Krishan
The improbable has happened. A vertical split among those who have presided over the Security Council for more than 50 years appears imminent, and a division in the vote over the war on Iraq can hasten the passage of the organisation into history like the League of Nations. 

SIGHT & SOUND

Gurcharan Das's walkabout
Amita Malik
Very rarely are broadcasters born and not made. Which is why it was so exciting to welcome Gurcharan Das striding on to the screen as if to the manner born. Of course one had got an idea of his enviable authority, discernment, wit and sophistication by his writings — both books and columns.

TRENDS & POINTERS

Bigger lips better 
Having an hourglass figure or manly muscles is not the only factor that attracts the opposite sex towards each other. Instead, these days it is all about luscious lips, says a 15-year study. Prof Michael Cunningham, from the University of Louisville, Kentucky, has found that couples are attracted by the size of each other's lips. 

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

EDITORIALS

Mumbai blast

When the 10th anniversary of the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts had passed off peacefully on March 12, there was smug satisfaction in official quarters that they had managed to keep troublemakers at bay. But the nightmare unfolded a day later with a blast aboard a suburban train at Mulund in North-East Mumbai killing 11 persons and injuring 86. The powerful bomb planted inside the train is believed to be similar to the one used in the Ghatkopar bus blast in December last, for which six persons associated with the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) are among the accused. No one has claimed responsibility for the latest act of terrorism but one can put two and two together. It is quite obvious that many cells of antinational elements are active all over the country to spread mayhem. The sinister dimension becomes clear when one relates the latest incident to the death of a terrorist in NOIDA and the Army hunt for another near India Gate. Vital installations and top dignitaries are on their hit list. Mumbai itself has had four blasts in the last four months. First came the explosion inside a stationary bus near the Ghatkopar railway station on December 2 in which two persons were killed. What is galling is that one of the accused in the case managed to flee from police custody on January 8. Just four days later another powerful bomb exploded at the Mumbai Central railway station, injuring 25 persons. On January 28, another bomb exploded outside the Vile Parle railway station injuring several persons. All this has been happening despite the city continuing to be on high alert.

The first priority is to prevent the recurrence of such carnage. There are reasons to suspect that Thursday’s blast - which was of greater intensity than the previous three - was connected with them. Such an elaborate conspiracy cannot be hatched without the help of a well-knit network. To ferret it out, it is necessary to have better coordination among the police forces of various states. That, however, remains a tall order. Leave alone cordial relations between the police of various states, even those belonging to different districts display such acute hostility that all well-laid-out plans come to naught. It is high time a concerted drive was launched all over India because the piecemeal approach has been a resounding failure. While there is no denying the fact that the ISI is fomenting communal trouble through such misdeeds, implicit in this statement is the expectation that the Indian security agencies must be one step ahead of them.

Marandi in trouble

On the face of it, Jharkhand Chief Minister Babulal Marandi has no locus standi to continue in office following the resignation of seven non-BJP ministers from his government on Thursday. Democracy is a game of numbers and a close look at the composition of the 80-member State Assembly (effective strength 79) suggests that Mr Marandi has lost the majority support. The BJP-led ruling coalition has 43 members. Of them, the BJP has 36, the Samata Party three, the Janata Dal (United) two and the Vananchal Congress two. The dissident group is led by Speaker Inder Singh Namdhari. He belongs to the Janata Dal (United) and if his vote is taken into account in the case of a tie, technically, Mr Marandi is eight short of the majority. Mr Namdhari has been eyeing the chief minister’s post for quite some time and it is no secret that he has been trying to oust Mr Marandi and catapult himself into the chair. He was the brain behind the cut motion moved by the Opposition that was carried in the House on Thursday. Mr Marandi has claimed that his government has not been reduced to a minority and that he would seek a vote of confidence “at the appropriate time” to prove his majority on the floor of the House. But his continuation as Chief Minister has become untenable as he is heading a minority government. Apparently, there is a constitutional vacuum in the state. In fact, the drama witnessed in the State Assembly on Thursday — from the approval of the cut motion up to the adjournment of the House sine die — is reminiscent of the scenes witnessed in states like Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.

The ball is in the Governor’s court and he should promptly convene a special session of the State Assembly so that Mr Marandi could prove his majority on the floor of the House and not in the corridors of Raj Bhavan. Any delay on his part would only encourage horse-trading and exchange of money bags. This would also lead to an infraction of the constitutional principles. The Samata Party has demanded President’s rule in the state as it felt that an alternative government would be a product of defections. As the Speaker himself is in the race for the Chief Minister’s post, the Governor should play his constitutional role in a free and fair manner, without giving room for suspicion or bias. The political situation is likely to reach a crescendo in the days to come if Mr Namdhari and his henchmen succeed in poaching BJP ministers or MLAs. There is chronic dissidence in the state BJP and many ministers/ MLAs have been demanding a change in the leadership. The dissidents feel that Mr Marandi has been ruling the state with a coterie and neglecting the interests of the party and the people. Very recently, the party’s Central leadership ruled out Mr Marandi’s replacement and directed them to cooperate with him. But will they fall in line now in the changed political scenario?

Don’t stop cheques

In a significant judgement the import of which got lost in the rush of events, the Supreme Court has ruled that stopping the payment of a post-dated cheque before the due date for payment should be treated as an offence and the offender is liable for penal action under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act. The object, explains a two-member Bench comprising Mr Justice M.B. Shah and Mr Justice Arun Kumar, is to ensure credibility in business transactions. By countermanding the payment of a post-dated cheque, a party should not be allowed to get away from the penal provision. “If we hold otherwise, by giving instructions to stop payment of a cheque after issuing the same against a debt or a liability, a drawer would easily avoid penal consequences”, observes the Bench. The judgement comes on a batch of appeals filed before the apex court following a number of cases in which persons entering into various transactions issued post-dated cheques and then stopped their payment, misusing a legal protection to their advantage. The bouncing of a cheque for want of the desired cash in the account is a punishable offence. But if the person issuing the cheque stopped its payment, he could escape penal action, defeating the very purpose of Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act.

With the opening up of the Indian economy and the ongoing process of integration with the global economy, the country cannot afford to have an outdated financial system with a tremendous scope for manipulation. To avoid complications, unnecessary litigation and harassment to the parties entering into global or domestic trade and business deals, it is important to maintain the sanctity of financial instruments. A person issuing a cheque should normally be able to honour its payment unless, under certain circumstances, he detects some fraud or misrepresentation of facts and has a valid reason to stop the payment. Frequent scams and scandals in financial dealings have tarnished the reputation of this country. A legal violation can take place anywhere, but it is the urgent corrective/response mechanism that distinguishes one system of governance from the other. An over-worked judiciary, procedural complications and delayed justice tend to discourage foreign investors from doing business in this country. A few dishonest persons cannot be allowed to rubbish the image of the country. A fool-proof, dependable financial system is a necessity if business is to flourish, both nationally and internationally. The Supreme Court’s latest judgement is a laudable attempt to restore the sanctity of the country’s financial instruments.

OPINION

China’s hard-sell commercialisation
Profit motive is all-pervasive
Sunanda K. Datta-Ray

China reminded me of the Bengali saying that a Hindu convert to Islam gorges on only beef. The cities are certainly impressive, but the razzle-dazzle of Beijing’s Chang’an Avenue — Paris’ Champs Elysee, London’s Piccadilly Circus and New York’s Times Square rolled into a blaze of light — suggested that in their great leap forward from communism to capitalism, the Chinese have lost sight of the middle way of socialist democracy of which the outgoing premier, Mr Zhu Rongji, spoke at the opening of the National People’s Congress.

Perhaps they never did glimpse it as Mao Zedong’s revolution overthrew Chiang Kai-shek’s Guomindang and Deng Xiaoping mobilised more than a billion Chinese with the slogan that it is glorious to be rich. But it is difficult to accept that either Mao or Deng thought only in terms of the world’s highest number of fixed line and mobile telephone subscribers. More than a thousand NPC delegates were invited to gloat on this and other dizzying statistics instead of on the serious challenge of reconciling 5,000 years of civilisation with the demands of modernity.

We had another taste of what progress means in today’s China when our guide would not let us cross the threshold of the house in Shanghai’s French Quarter where Mrs Sun Yat-sen had lived. She was one of the three Soong sisters of whom it was said that May-ling (Mrs Chiang Kai-shek) loved power, Ai-ling (wife of the KMT finance minister, H.H. Kung) loved money, and Ching-ling (Mrs Sun Yat-sen) loved China. I had expected the house to be a museum but that was 10 years ago, said the guide in contemptuous dismissal of the dusty past. “It was state-owned then. Now the economy has opened up and the museum is run commercially. You must buy something there.”

In short, it had become a shop. That posed no ethical dilemma. In fact, he was proud of the transformation. But it was not on the list of shops with which his tourist agency had an arrangement. The guide, the driver of our car and the agency that employed them would get no commission on purchases at Soong Ching-ling’s house. Stopping there would therefore be a waste of time. We were bundled instead into stores that pretended to be jade, pearl and silk factories, handicrafts workshops or traditional tearooms. When we didn’t buy the guides grumbled that they had not earned anything. One agency wanted a list of the places where my wife and I did make our purchases.

If shopping was compulsory, I would have much preferred Shanghai’s basement antique bazaar, the stalls along the winding lane to the Great Mosque in Xian or the vast sprawl of Beijing’s Dirt Market which goes back to the Qing dynasty. But these places were not on the agency’s list. Commission apart, I suspected that our young guides were also slightly ashamed of traditional markets. They were proud of the neon-lit KFCs and McDonald’s and the French supermarket chain, Carrefour’s, which is driving small Chinese grocers and butchers out of business. Mandarin versions of Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse are immensely popular, and it’s difficult to spot a soul in any kind of indigenous attire. Globalisation threatens to turn the Chinese into poor copies of Americans.

Apparently, there is no half-way house between commune and commerce. What then of those essential services that Prof John Kenneth Galbraith called postoffice socialism? You realise his argument’s validity in Britain where the railways are in chaos because rampant privatisation has meant poor coordination between the different companies that own the track and stations. Air travel in China might become even more hazardous if the civil aviation authority makes a habit of its February 10 decision approving the sale of Yichang airport, 30 km from the Three Gorges Dam project, to the private Junyao business group.

Private airlines are not new. But an airport is a different kettle of fish. It calls for a high degree of capital investment in sophisticated equipment, maintenance, training, human skills and round-the-clock coordination, as well as the authority to impose discipline. Can a private firm combine all these qualities?

But it would seem that there’s no stopping the tide of privatisation. The Communist party’s 16th congress recommended further relaxation of restrictions on private capital. The National Bureau of Statistics has disclosed since then that only one-third of the economy is state-owned. So, 10 private banks will emerge this year. Water, electricity, sewage, transport and other urban utilities will be thrown open to private entrepreneurs.

Since the profit motive contributes to efficiency and productivity, there can be no objection in principle. But China being India writ large, even more care must be taken to ensure that licences go only to deserving candidates who are then obliged to run their enterprises for the public good. Despite Mr Zhu’s efforts to promote honest government, the guanxi (networking) system encourages corruption. Moreover, the taizidang or princelings (the children of high party functionaries) comprise a pampered elite.

Observers point to the children of Mr Wen Jiabao, the vice-premier who will soon take over from Mr Zhu. His son, Mr Wen Yunsong, attended Chicago’s Northwestern University and works for a leading Internet company in Beijing. His daughter works for the American firm GE Capital. No one accuses either of malpractice. There is no suggestion of nepotism. But birth and upbringing give them privileges that are denied to others.

Even this might not have provoked comment if it had not been for the plight of the young men and women without similar connections tramping through Shanghai’s People’s Park carrying bundles of paper. They were the eighties-born McDonalds Generation who flaunt jeans, t-shirts and trainers, devour hamburgers and worship Bill Gates but are unemployed because thousands of Chinese universities are churning out far more graduates than even a booming economy can absorb.

They were on their way to an employment fair, and the bundles they carried were their marksheets and certificates. The low official estimate of 4 per cent jobless excludes hundreds of thousands of unemployed educated youths like them and at least 150 million surplus rural workers. Graduates account for 5 per cent of China’s population. The universities’ annual output of 2.12 million will go up this year by an additional 670,000.

Even if per capita income has also really risen from $1,266 to $1,568 in 10 years, as Beijing claims (a Singapore report suggests a figure of less than $1,000), the average is determined by exceedingly high earnings at the top. It does not reflect the McDonald Generation’s fears. Our guide, himself a young man of their age, explained a trifle smugly that he did not need to join their ranks since tourism is a growth industry.

Perhaps. But there is a strong element of corner-cutting. His English was halting and his knowledge of history scanty. All that mattered to him was the commission he would earn from forcing us to waste time in one shop after another instead of admiring the priceless monuments of China’s past. He claimed that the commission was his only earning. We met less mercenary (or desperate) guides later in Xian and Beijing but the young man in Shanghai epitomised China’s hard-sell commercialism. 

MIDDLE

Closer Indo-US ties
S. Raghunath

The Bush Administration is claiming that the increasingly frequent visits to Delhi by high-ranking US officials, key Senators and Congressmen and influential private citizens is a positive sign of a “thaw” in bilateral Indo-US relations and greater cooperation in defence, trade and commerce and science.

I understand that more visits to Delhi by ranking administration officials are in the offing.

Mr Jeremiah Wastemore is a senior shredding machine operator and washroom attendant in the US defence department and he is slated to be promoted as a janitor if the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee approves his nomination. He reports directly to the US Defence Secretary Mr Don Rumsfeld and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who consult him regularly on a one-to-one basis on vital US national security policy matters concerning optimum use of shredding machines and emptying Pentagon trash cans.

“Yes,” Mr Wastemore responded cautiously when asked to comment on reports on CNN and the wire services that he was planning an early trip to Delhi, “a visit is on the cards and the President is likely to make an announcement in this regard during his next nationally televised address to the American people from the White House.”

“I plan to discuss with temporary Class I peons and second division clerks of the Indian defence ministry the question of transfer of technology for the manufacture in India under licence of 1904 model hand-cranked shredding machines. However at this point in time, information on ways of feeding the machines with waste paper to shred is classified and unless the Pressler and Glenn amendments are waived as a one-time exception thru’ a bipartisan Senate-House vote, it can’t be divulged to the Indian side.”

Mr Wastemore refused to confirm or deny a story in the New York Times and Washington Post that he might look into waste paper baskets in Government of India offices during his stay in Delhi as part of the ongoing normalisation and confidence-building measures between India and the USA saying: “I only comment on reports of substance and not on conjectures and speculations and kite-flying.”

Mr Wastemore also refused to be drawn into substantive discussions on whether he was planning to hold a “deep” backgrounder with select mediapersons on his upcoming trip to Delhi saying “Secretary of State Colin Powell will address the issue at the appropriate time.”

Mr Tom Gross, a high-ranking elevator operator in the US Commerce Department, confirmed reports in the Boston Globe and Christian Science Monitor that he was slated to head a blue ribbon business and trade delegation to India. Speaking in an exclusive interview to India Abroad News Service, he said: “We want to signal to the Indian side that the USA is willing to waive Super 301 and sell India more floor mops, wash tubs and long-handled broomsticks it needs vitally for its ongoing economic liberalisation programmes.

The USA is also inclined to respond positively to India’s request to be granted the Most Favoured Nation status under WTO protocol and import more sadhus, sants, yogis and other holymen, but the chief US trade negotiator is insisting that these sadhus should be god-realised souls having performed penance in the Himalayas for 12 years standing on one leg and I plan to sort out this knotty issue during my discussions with drivers and case workers of the Indian commerce ministry.

Ms Belah Nixon, a grade-18 window washer and janitor in the US National Science Foundation, reached on the telephone at her Bethesda, Maryland home said: “Yes, I’d be definitely heading a science delegation to India in the fall. I plan to discuss with my Indian counterparts greater scientific cooperation in areas like washing test tubes and laboratory re-agent bottles and preparing frogs and cockroaches for dissection.”

How long will UN remain relevant?
Kiran Krishan

The improbable has happened. A vertical split among those who have presided over the Security Council for more than 50 years appears imminent, and a division in the vote over the war on Iraq can hasten the passage of the organisation into history like the League of Nations. There is a strong sense of déjà vu in the way the President of the United States of America is hurling challenges at the United Nations to allow it to invade Iraq or the USA would go its way with or without the UN authorisation. The United Nations today finds itself in the shoes of its long dead spiritual predecessor, the League of Nations.

In 1931, the League failed to prevent Japanese aggression against China in Manchuria. When condemned by the League for the violation of the Covenant, Japan withdrew from the organisation. In 1935 the League failed to rescue Abyssinia (modern-day Ethiopia) from Italy when the latter invaded and occupied it. Both Japan and Italy were permanent members of the Council of the League of Nations. Germany joined the League in 1925 and left it in 1933, probably, in preparation for its subsequent ventures. Rhineland was re-occupied by Germany in 1936. The Franco rebellion that began in Spain in 1936 was backed by Germany and Italy. The League could not prevent Germany from the annexation of Austria in 1938 and the occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1939.

The League withered away because one of its parents, the USA, abandoned it at birth. President Woodrow Wilson’s messianic zeal at the Paris conference was not matched by political influence at home. The US Senate, dominated by the Republican Party, did not ratify the agreement to be okayed by a Democratic President. The League died because it was unable to harmonise the twin impulses of the existing nationalism and the new-found internationalism. The founding nations were careful not to insert any clause which might place any special obligations on them. The League was a great constructive idea capable of becoming a grand instrument of peace. Unfortunately, the idea was never allowed to work by powerful nations.

The irrelevance of the League was apparent in less than 15 years though it formally passed away only in 1946. If measured by the standard of longevity, the UN has done considerably better, having lasted over 50 years. The UN came into being on October 24,1945. The first meeting of the General Assembly was held in London on January 10,1946. Three months later the last session of the League of Nations Assembly was held for winding up the League. The “Purposes” of the UN are stated in Article 1 of the Charter. The UN is primarily an organisation for maintaining peace and security, with the additional functions of developing friendly relations among nations.

It has been said that the decision-taking mechanism of the League of Nations was defective and hence the main cause for its failure. All decisions of the League required unanimity. Under the UN Charter, decisions are taken by a majority vote although in the Security Council decisions, except on procedural matters, must have the concurrence of the five great powers, who are the permanent members and have the veto right. The central theory is that since the big powers have to underwrite the organisation, no one permanent member should be compelled by a vote of the Security Council to follow a course of action with which it disagrees. In effect, it has created an aristocracy of the great powers above the rule of law. Though veto caused its share of problems, it was the mutual distrust and intense competition among the super powers, the USA and the former Soviet Union, which were at the root of all problems.

The UN started haemorrhaging soon after its birth. The Korean conflict (1950-53) provided a significant testing ground for the Security Council. At the time the North Korean troops crossed into South Korean territory in June, 1950, the then Soviet Union was absent from the Security Council. Subsequent resolutions recommending assistance to South Korea by a Unified United Nations Command under US direction were passed without the Soviet Union’s concurrence. The Soviet Union challenged the validity of the resolutions on the ground that any such vote required its concurrence. It was ruled that a permanent member’s abstention from voting on a substantive matter could not be regarded as a veto. There was also a sense of unreality about the permanent membership of China and veto right being exercised by Taiwan till the USA made its peace with the Peoples Republic of China. Stratagems and tactics to score points and not vision and cooperation have been the hallmarks of the UN passage through history.

It is the concept of collective security, as contained in the UN Charter, that if peaceful means fail the measures provided in Chapter VII should be used, on the decision of the Security Council, to maintain or restore international peace and security in the face of a “threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression”. In theory, the initiative to take military action must emanate from the Security Council. In the instant case of the U S-Iraq face-off, the forces for attack on Iraq have already been massed and all that the US wants is a fig leaf of the UN approval.

The UN today is on a slippery slope like the League. The US arrogance is reminiscent of the League dramas of the 1930s. The UN from the very beginning was an arena for the two main antagonists of the Cold War. Today the sole super power rules over this arena. How long will the UN retain its relevance?

— The writer is a retired Brigadier

SIGHT & SOUND

Gurcharan Das's walkabout
Amita Malik

Very rarely are broadcasters born and not made. Which is why it was so exciting to welcome Gurcharan Das striding on to the screen as if to the manner born. Of course one had got an idea of his enviable authority, discernment, wit and sophistication by his writings — both books and columns. But TV is an altogether different ball game and it is precisely because Mr Das is something of a rarity on our screens (so obsessed are all channels with the usual suspects on his kind of subject, hopping like champion athletes from studio to studio), that one seldom sees a new face.

Gurcharan Das opened the innings for a new BBC programme India: The Road Ahead in its regular Sunday slot, India Business Report so ably anchored by Manvi Sinha and produced by Swati Thyagarajan. The series of four programmes has an interesting idea behind it. Four people from different ideologies have been asked to speak on different approaches and suggestions for how to set India going in the future. After Gurcharan Das whose interests hardly need repetition, there will be Mohan Guruswamy, who can be loosely described as a rightist thinker from the Swadeshi Jagran Manch, there is Chief Minister Digvijay Singh of Madhya Pradesh and Prof Prabhat Patnaik from Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Gurcharan Das chose to speak mostly during outdoor walkabouts and the only comparison I can think of in terms of style, a totally relaxed and assured manner, precision of speech (not spoken too fast but with thoughtful deliberation) and that undefinable quality known as style, is with the BBC's other walkabout star, Simpson of Simpson's World, who walked without batting an eyelid into Afghanistan before the Taliban left Kabul and also spoke to the erstwhile unhappy bits and pieces of Yugoslavia and Palestinians and other underdogs. Gurcharan Das chose to speak to Anil Dhawan of Ventura Capitalist Spectramind, then with a staff member of Thumbs up. and sundry people in the outdoors, he reminisced and explained while walking, forgetting the camera, which is the first sign of TV expertise. And he spoke of such hopes for the future as bio-technology, G D knowledge, economy and software. He made things simple for everyone by also stressing the role of the Indian middle classes, so long inert as also neglected by governments, as extremely important. The programme comes in the routine BBC 10 p.m. India-based slot and is repeated the next morning at 11 a.m. Very much worth watching for both presentation and content.

Cricket, it seems, has won over all other programmes in terms of ratings and when DD claims to lead the race one must not forget its head start and its advantage because it is a terrestrial channel and the welcome refuge of the humble black-and-white terrestrial viewer. Except for my mali, all my household helps, part-time and full-time, have their own BW TV sets in their servants' quarters and discuss more cricket than work with me.

There has rightly been much discussion about the media causing unnecessary controversies and creating high emotions among fans which led to such extreme outbursts against our best players after our defeat by Australia. Some of the phrases used by commentators like Sidhu were not only unkind but unparliamentary and insulted our top players including the captain, in front of world TV audiences. I think the criticism is justified. In fact, I got into very hot water with some Bengali colleagues of mine when I passed on that, I think, innocent joke about the difference between God and Ganguly — that God does not think he is Saurav Ganguly. They said, and I thought about it a lot later, that many sections of the Indian press and media simply doesn't like Ganguly because he doesn't suck up to them and is certainly arrogant. And then, scanning the papers ad the media, I did find that while all the bowlers and batsmen and fielders were being given high praise for their recent upswing, very few seemed to name Ganguly's merits as a captain who has stuck to his players even when down, encouraged young talent and shown no sign of parochialism at any stage, or played politics. That is a lot to merit high praise, and I think it is time our media gave due credit to Ganguly's outstanding merits as a captain. I am making a humble beginning but I think professional sports writers can do this far more expertly than me.

TRENDS & POINTERS

Bigger lips better 

Having an hourglass figure or manly muscles is not the only factor that attracts the opposite sex towards each other. Instead, these days it is all about luscious lips, says a 15-year study.

Since the mid-1980s, Prof Cunningham has devoted much of his working life to the science of attractiveness. Much of his work involves carrying out minute adjustments to the size of parts of the face to find out how changes to the fullness of the lips or the width of the nose alters people's attraction towards another person. "Lips can certainly enhance the attractiveness of an attractive face," he said. "But they can't always salvage a face that is unattractive," he added. ANI

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

Take the precept to abstain from killing.

Take the precept to abstain from stealing.

Take the percept to abstain from adultery.

Take the precept to abstain from lying.

Take the precept to abstain from liquor.

— Panchashila (five precepts). From Thus Spoke the Buddha.