The contours of the proposed defence pact are not known, but one wishes that it will have no commitment to force India to go in for a venture like the Indian Peace-Keeping Force of the past, landing the country in a difficult morass. In any case, India has expressed the hope that the LTTE’s response to the defence cooperation agreement as well as the Kumaratunga government’s proposal for an interim administration in the interest of peace will be within the framework of a “united Sri Lanka”.

Many folklores associated with this track survive, as do the old lanterns. One of them says that the line was built exactly on the track suggested by a common labourer, Bhalku, who would march with a long shaft over the hills, claiming that the track had been revealed to him by his devta. Another tale which refuses to die is that Colonel Barog, who was engaged in the construction of the Barog tunnel, committed suicide when the two ends of the tunnel failed to meet. As one goes up and down this track, which is an extraordinary feat of engineering skill, either in the standard slow-moving train or one of the many luxury railcars which have recently been introduced, one cannot help reliving all such events from the past.

The generally subordinate position of women in patriarchal structures makes it difficult to believe that women are less vulnerable to violent crime. On the other hand, it is an illusion to suppose that the emancipatory potential of modernity, which acknowledges the moral standing and equal rights of women will be, by itself, sufficient to overcome the violence women routinely face. Indeed, if the recent spate of horrendous crimes in Delhi is anything to go by, the pathologies of modernity are going to produce new sources of vulnerability for women.

Crimes against women have historically had complex causes. But these crimes are also a function of the ideological positioning of women in particular societies. In traditional societies, women are often vulnerable to crime because they are not acknowledged to have equal moral standing as rights-bearing individuals and can, therefore, be treated with impunity. To be sure, there are various social restraints and conventions that were designed to protect women, but these for the most part were within a paradigm that affirmed their subordinate status and confined them to particular roles.

The process of modernisation unleashes two contradictory tendencies towards women. These tendencies determine that women will continue to be targets of crime. On the one hand, women are often accorded a legal and moral space of equality as rights-bearing individuals, capable of making choices. Ironically, this very fact itself can produce greater violence against women, as men see their status threatened. It’s a peculiar fact that the most educated and ostensibly liberated Indian diaspora is experiencing alarming rates of spousal abuse. Sociologists have attributed this, in part, to the fact that men feel threatened by women claiming rights and undermining their status.

On the other hand, paradoxically, the dominant cultural representations of women made possible in conditions of modernity, in film, books, advertising and art, for example, objectify women even more. The portrayal of women as objects of desire, open to commodification and exploitation contributes to creating an environment in which mistreating women becomes easier. The use of the female figure in advertising, for example, conveys as much a message about women as objects as it does about the product being advertised. For, in effect, the cumulative impact of these representations of women as objects of desire often hides the fact that women are agents in their own right. Rather, it reinscribes the thought that women are not equal and, therefore, can be subjected to mistreatment.

In India, complex social processes are at work that weave together these sources of vulnerability. Traditional patriarchy and subordination of women is still alive and well, and is now reinforced both by the threat and loss of status that many men experience as a result of the empowerment of women, and by the representations of women that they internalise. In the process of modernisation, it is often the case that traditional restraints are thrown away faster than new moral norms are embraced. We are in this peculiar position that while conceptually much of the traditional morality has been discredited, men have not yet internalised norms that are commensurate with our new freedoms.

Arguably, India is going through a silent cultural revolution. The advent of television into millions of homes, that really happened only in the mid-nineties, means that society has to reckon with issues of gender relations and sexuality and deal with the complex images of women that they encounter more insistently than before. What does it mean for a society when representations of women in “Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi” to Baywatch are now part of the same social imagination? What does it mean for society when it seems to, on the one hand, accord women their due rights and, on the other, constructs them as objects of consumption? What does it mean for society when pornography disseminates faster than the recognition of women’s rights? It is a commonplace observation that we often deal with confusions surrounding our roles and identities, or threats to our status, simply by asserting power over someone else, and often violence against women or minorities is simply a way of masculine self-affirmation. Judging by newspaper reports, it is difficult not to conclude that so many of the crimes being reported are a product of complex psychic economies that our current social conjuncture is producing: Criminals, more often than not, seem to be enacting the images around them.

It is often very difficult to have an informed discussion on these issues. Traditionalists often disingenuously use the pathologies of modernity to reassert traditional hierarchies, deny women their due freedom and to often blame victims of violence themselves. Modernists, on the other hand, are blasé in their assumptions that freedom simply takes care of itself. They think that any discussion on the objectification of women in the media is simply a way of opening the door to censorship, or some kind of puritanical hangover. Somewhere in this clash of absolutisms a reasoned and sober analysis of a central social problem is getting lost.

This discussion urgently needs to take place. If we are to make full use of our freedoms we need to educate ourselves that freedom ought not to be confused with impunity. If we encounter demeaning and subordinating images of women, there ought at least to be a counter ideology that grants them due moral recognition. And if we encounter a complex amalgam of desires and images we at least have the resources to deal with them rather than express them in violence.

While better law enforcement is certainly required, we ought to recognise the fact that crimes against women are a function of deep and embedded ideological constructions within which they are placed. Will we be a society that embraces the emancipatory potential of modernity? Or will we resign ourselves to accepting its pathological dark side, a side whose costs women are most likely to have to bear?

I was asked during my interview how sugar came to be known as “chini”. I was much versed in sugar technology as I was in the emotional life patterns of truffles. Inspired guess is the name of the game in such moments. “Sugar was first crystallised in China, sir, and that’s why we have “chini” for “sugar”, I replied with a poker face.

The person, who asked the question, obviously did not have a clue. The question had occurred to him as he stirred sugar in his cup of tea. But he acted well and gave the further information that it was Fa Hsien who had brought the first crystals to India! The other members of the interview board were impressed. Thanks to Fa Hsien, I got on the sugar train of the civil service!

A friend was not so lucky. He was a student of statistics — The discipline which maintains that each second a man dies and one and one tenth is born. An inquisitor showed him the ceiling fan and asked him the statistical probability of the fan falling on his head! My friend, not a keen student of diplomacy, answered, “The same sir, as the other fan crashing on your head”. Statistically he was correct, discounting, of course, the fact that the Plunder Without Danger department had constructed the building. However, the interview board did not relish a fan following and failed him! He now runs an institute which coaches students how to be interview savvy. He does a roaring business.

Well, I saw a wall collapse at an interview! As this officer was pointing out at a huge chart hanging on a wall and striking at it with his baton, with a little more force than was strictly necessary to demonstrate the role of responding credit in departmental proforma accounts, the wall could not take it any more. It lost its shirt at this questioning by the baton, and the whole plaster and the chart came down. All of us were covered knee deep in rubble along with responding credit and proforma debit!

It was proved beyond doubt that even walls have conscience and would not stand being interviewed. Ask the Great Wall of China — how did “chini” originate!

Besides researching for more potent generic drugs, the institution is also nurturing young talent to serve the growing pharma industry in the country, as distinguished alumni of the NIPER. Within nine years of its inception, it has emerged as the premier centre for education and research in pharmaceutical sciences.

NIPER has earned the distinction of being one of the two institutes in the world to have been granted World Health Organisation (WHO) accreditation to undertake human trails in bio-availability studies for fixed dose combination of anti-tubercular drugs. The only other institute in the world, assigned with this important task is located in South Africa.

Being the first national level institute in pharmaceutical sciences with an objective of becoming a centre of excellence in advanced studies and research in the filed, it has been able to win international laurels. Having been declared an “Institute of National Importance” in June 1998, it is an autonomous body under the aegis of the Union Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers. What sets NIPER apart from other institutes is the revision of the curriculum every year by the Academic Committee to keep the faculty and students updated with the latest trends, faculty assessment by the students and regular courses and training for the teachers to overcome obsolescence, something which sets in fast in the field of generic sciences.

“The NIPER, which was conceived as early as 1953, when AIIMS and other national institutes of learning were established, took more than four decades to come up, but today it has taken the lead in providing the right kind of scientists for the pharma industry,” says Dr C.L. Kaul, Director NIPER. Unfortunately, more than 50 per cent of the positions in the pharmaceutical sector in India are lying vacant for want of trained people with calibre, he remarks.

The thrust area projects being undertaken at NIPER include major research in diabetes and tropical diseases including leishmania, tuberculosis and malaria. The latest addition to the list of achievements and awards won by the NIPER faculty is conferring of the prestigious Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar award for the year 2003 in medical sciences on Prof Chimoy Shanker Dey for his contribution in the area of diabetes. Dr Dey initiated a strong research programme in the area of diabetes in understanding the disease progression and thereby developing novel targets for new drug discovery. It is estimated that by 2025 there will be approximately 300 million people affected by diabetes worldwide, with India being the diabetic capital of the world.

“Though the primary objective with which NIPER was set up remains toning up the level of pharmaceutical education and research by training future teachers, research scientists and managers for the industry and profession, organising continuing education programmes has also been taken care of,” says Dr Kaul. Pharmaceuticals is a fast growing sector, second only to information technology, having a 15 per cent annual growth rate, with exports worth Rs 12,000 crore, he adds.

In August, a workshop and personal contact programme on cultivation of medicinal plants was organised for 500 farmers from the entire region, so as to enable transfer of research from laboratory to the field through effective extension services. Apart from having a database for 250 traditional medicinal plants at the institute, more than 10 such plants are available for Re 1 each to those keen on taking to its cultivation. The medicinal plant garden here, with a wide variety of exotic herbs, is spread over an area of 30 acres.

“The programme primarily aims at providing technological know-how and planting material for four plants, brahmi, shatavar, antamool, shatavari bhed and few species of Tulsi to the farmers of Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, as they can get very good return from cultivation of these medicinal plants, much in demand,” informed Dr K.K. Bhutani, Dean and Head of Natural Products Department.

The other areas where pioneering work has been done at NIPER is research in molecular biology, traditional medicine standardisation, stability studies of anti-tubercular drugs, impurity profiling of important pharmaceutical drugs, traditional medicines in modern doses form for diabetes and natural remedies for tuberculosis apart from the synthetic drugs.

Attention is also being paid towards the study of sociological aspects of drug “use and abuse” and rural pharmacy and conducting programmes on drug surveillance, community pharmacy and pharmaceutical management. “We will shortly have a good laboratory practices (GLP) centre, so that we can audit the various protocols before they are taken to human beings,” revealed Dr Kaul. He said in India, the cost of medicines was almost one-tenth of the prices in most of the countries as the cost of production was very low, making them very affordable to the masses.

Given the quality research capabilities NIPER has, consultancy services are being offered not just to national pharmaceutical agencies but also some international companies, bringing revenue, which is expected to touch Rs 5 crore, this year. The officials point out that thrust is towards self-sufficiency, so that dependence on government for financial help can be reduced. At present a total of Rs 23 crore is being received by NIPER, annually.

The masters as well as doctorate pass outs from the institute, for which an all-India entrance examination is held, are occupying very good positions as industry scientists. “Though we have cent-percent campus placements by the best names in the pharmaceutical industry, to ensure even better packages for our pass outs, we are in the process of setting up a placement cell in the campus,” said Dr Bhutani.

At present 45 students are enrolled here for the doctorate degree, while 100 others are pursuing their masters course. A large number of pass outs from NIPER, are occupying senior positions in the corporate sector in the US and are being picked up by the top 30 pharmaceuticals like Novaritis, Ranbaxy, Dr Reddy's and others.

Not merely restricting itself to academic and research programmes, another important thrust area is the interaction with the pharmaceutical companies. “Being a nodal agency, we are frequently approached by both small scale and medium scale companies and international pharmaceutical giants to solve their problems," informed some faculty members.

Not willing to compromise in any sphere, surprisingly, as against 75 sanctioned faculty posts, only 28 have been filled up. “It is but natural that manpower in a specialised field like this is scarce, so this puts additional responsibility on us to fill this gap of trained professionals for the pharmaceutical industry,” opined Dr Bhutani.

The institute has a total of 10 teaching and research departments of medicinal chemistry, natural products, pharmacology and toxicology, pharmaceutics, bio-technology, pharmaceutical analysis, pharmaceutical technology, pharmaceutical management (MBA), pharmacy practice and pharmacology informatics. A new addition to be made next year is a masters course in traditional medicines.

Every department has a separate specialised instrument laboratory to fulfill individual needs, based on the research programmes, equipped with hi-tech gadgetry and equipment. The institute has a Central Animal Facility, built with state-of-art technology where different species of small laboratory animals like mice, rat, gerbils, hamster, guinea pig and rabbits. The building is designed as a two-way corridor system to minimise cross contamination. Separate building for holding of infective and non-infective experimental animals is available.

For the last five years NIPER has been hosting a course for the Ministry of External Affairs, which is attended by participants from almost 30 countries. The three-week course this year was organised on “Modern Analytical Techniques in Quality Control of Drugs and Pharmaceuticals” last month. The institute has successfully completed and is pursuing several sponsored projects from various international agencies like WHO, CONRAD, CSIR, ICMR and Department of Science and Technology.