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PM’s vision Saving the daughter |
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Sex and statistics
A convert’s fanaticism
Of quirks and quakes
Common man’s President Tony Blair’s authority diminished Delhi Durbar
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PM’s vision WHAT Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said at Chandigarh on Wednesday deserves to be accepted as a vision document for the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), scheduled to begin its much-awaited meeting in Dhaka tomorrow. In his view, the idea behind SAARC can become a reality once all the countries of the region accept that being in a single geographical area, they have a common destiny. They are faced with the common challenges posed by poverty, disease, natural disasters and terrorism. They must adopt an approach based on inter-dependence for “collective security” and “collective prosperity”. The truth is that SAARC came into being mainly because of a collective urge for making use of the growth potentials of the region by functioning as an economic bloc. The ultimate objective was to evolve into an economic union on the pattern of the European Union or the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN). However, the progress towards that laudable goal has been very slow because of several problems bequeathed by history. The problems are not insurmountable provided there is the honesty of purpose and the will to tackle them, howsoever difficult these may be. After all, South Asia has never been the initiator of world wars, as is true about Europe, which now has the European Union — an idea nurtured by statesmanship and patient pursuit of a common European goal. As Dr Manmohan Singh has pointed out, SAARC has, no doubt, started moving towards an economic union with the agreement over the South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA), to be implemented in 2006. The next steps can be an accord over a SAARC investment area and a customs union. But these should lead to better physical connectivity in the near future by having SAARC communication networks like roadways, railways, shipping lines and airlines. There is no dearth of natural and human resources in the region. The SAARC countries must give top priority to building bridges of economic growth together. Future generations will never forgive the leadership of today if it fails to reap the advantages provided by geography. It should not lose time, which is of essence for the well-being of one-fifth of humanity.
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Saving the daughter AT last, religious leaders have chosen to come together and speak up against female foeticide. This is a welcome step against the widespread and pernicious practice that has become a blot on society. God resides where women are revered, say scriptures, but there are a large number of parents who kill their daughters before they are born — simply because they are daughters. Influential leaders of various faiths—Alhaj Syed Kiberia of Dargah Ajmer Sharief, Jathedar of Akal Takht Giani Joginder Singh, head of the Pejawar Math in Udupi Vishvesha Teertha Swami, the Brahmakumaris and representatives of the Christian Medical Association — sat in Delhi on Thursday and chose to throw their moral weight behind a campaign to save the daughters from parental brutality. They met at a joint platform provided by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar of the Art of Living and the Ved Vigyan Maha Vidyapeeth, in collaboration with the United Nations Population Fund, as a part of the campaign against female foeticide. There is no doubt that various religious leaders have condemned female foeticide earlier also. Jathedar Vedanti issued a hukamnama against the practice and Swami Agnivesh has been campaigning against it in Haryana. But most religions leaders have not been vocal against what is both sin and a crime. Punjab and Haryana — two prosperous states — have been front-runners in killing the girl child in the womb. The gender ratio has already severely become adverse in the two states. Studies have shown that education alone is not the answer, since the demand for sons transcends economic, educational and religious differences. It is precisely for this reason that this threat to the social and moral fabric of society needs to be met on all fronts. Religious leaders must continue to use the hold they have over their followers to condemn female foeticide. Individuals, too, have a role, in both rejecting female foeticide at their level and in using their power of persuasion to ensure that no daughter is denied the right to live. The NGOs also need to chip in to save the unborn daughter. The state governments and other authorities must take steps to check sex-determination tests which have been made illegal. The doctors who carry out these tests must be severely punished. Would they like to do to their daughters what they are doing to other people’s daughters?
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Sex and statistics MORE does not mean many, at least for Indians when it comes to sex. And therein the sexually active Indian finds both comfort and safety. In a global sex survey by a condom brand, Indians emerge as the safest, and healthiest, lovemakers. Only 4 per cent of Indians were found to have had sexually transmitted infection. This is the lowest, given the global average of 13 per cent. While the world average for unprotected sex is 47 per cent, for India it is a low 21 per cent. More Indians also root for sex in marriage: 49 per cent favour abstaining from sex before marriage whereas worldwide it is 8 per cent; Indians also have less sexual partners, just 3 per cent which is a third of the global average. The best news is that 46 per cent of Indians are happy with their sex life, which is 2 per cent more than the average. Who says quality of life is poor in India? What more can you ask for? After all, sex not only sells but also tells a lot about life and living. And for anyone who thinks, Indians have a dull sex life, here’s the clincher: Only 3 per cent suffer monotony in sex compared to the world average of 7 per cent. When it comes to sex, what is concealed is more important than what is revealed. It is no different for sex surveys, especially when it is an online survey. It is interesting to know that the Turks have the maximum number of sexual partners and the Greeks do it more than others. However, the survey covered only 41 countries and 3.17 lakh people who have access to the Net. What about the rest of the world beyond that of netizens? Or the vast majority who don’t let it all hang out in the open waiting for condom manufacturers to ask their opinion and probe their “private practice”?
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A man of action forced into a state of thought is unhappy until he can get out of it. — John Galsworthy
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A convert’s fanaticism IT is often said that no one is more fanatical than a new convert to religion and in recent times one has come across some of the terrorists hailing from the recent converts to Islam. China is also proving the above adage. On October 28, 2005, the Chinese Communist Party paper, Renmin Ribao, came out with an article headlined “Who is promoting nuclear proliferation?” It was highly critical of the Indo-US agreement of July 18, 2005, in which the US promised to take steps to lift the ban on the supply of nuclear technology and materials by the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group and to amend its own laws prohibiting the transfer of nuclear technology to India. The Indo-US agreement on the transfer of civil nuclear energy technology to India has been welcomed by Russia, France, Britain and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). In other words, the original formulators of the Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1968 (the US, Russia and the UK) which determined the criterion for a nuclear weapon state (one which had conducted a nuclear explosion by January 1, 1967) are all agreed to make an exception in favour of India, which is one of the three countries that never joined the NPT, to treat it as a responsible nuclear power with advanced nuclear technology. They are doing this after India conducted its first nuclear test in 1974, 31 years ago, assembled its nuclear arsenal in 1989, 16 years ago and had not been guilty of any proliferation. Let us look at the record of China which objects to the exception in favour of India. China joined the NPT in 1992, 22 years after it came into force and was admitted to the Nuclear Suppliers Group only last year. In the sixties, China opposed the NPT as an imperialist conspiracy and argued vigorously that all nations had a right to have nuclear weapons. China became the first proliferator in the world after the NPT came into being when it concluded a treaty with Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1976 to transfer nuclear weapon technology to Pakistan. China supplied to Pakistan weapons grade enriched uranium, the bomb design, and tritium for the trigger. They used Dr A. Q.Khan as their agent to proliferate to other countries such as Iran, Libya and North Korea. The Chinese bomb design was recovered from Libya to whom Dr Khan had supplied nuclear weapon technology, equipment, materials and bomb design. In spite of such a record on its part, the other nuclear weapon powers have not taken China to task for violation of Article 1 of the NPT, but had extended the privilege of exceptionalism in respect of its proliferation activities. Though it joined the NPT in 1992, China continued its proliferation to Pakistan in spite of the assurances given to the Americans. In 1995, the US intelligence discovered that China had exported 5000 ring magnets to Pakistan to sustain that country’s centrifuge programme in violation of Article 1 of the NPT. Without Chinese help, Pakistan will not be able to sustain its nuclear weapon programme. There are reports of Chinese help in Pakistani nuclear tests. The IAEA has reported on China’s supply of nuclear materials to Iran’s clandestine programme in violation of the NPT. China was caught red-handed when its bomb design and drawings were recovered from Libya in 2003, 11 years after it joined the NPT. China has not only proliferated to Pakistan but also through Pakistan to Iran, Libya and North Korea and possibly to a fourth Arab country as well. This record proliferator today questions US motivation in enabling India to acquire civilian nuclear technology under safeguards. China has no free Press. Renmin Ribao, the paper that published the article, is owned by the Communist Party and, therefore, this is clearly the official view of the Chinese Communist Party. China, of all countries in the world, has hurt India’s security most by proliferating nuclear weapons to Pakistan to countervail India and to exercise its own hegemony over South Asia. China is transferring civilian nuclear technology to Pakistan by setting up Chasma light water reactors. When it joined the Nuclear Suppliers Group a little more than a year ago, it retained the right to set up nuclear power reactors in Pakistan and now objects to others supplying civilian nuclear technology to India. This is the country recommended to the Indians as a friend by some ideologues. Some others argue that along with Russia, China would form a triangle with India to counterbalance US hegemony. The NPT was destabilised by China with the help of Pakistan, particularly with the help of Dr A.Q. Khan. The comparison between the reckless behaviour of China and its ally Pakistan and that of India would highlight how responsible India has been, though it is not a member of the NPT. That is the reason why the US is projecting India’s case as an exceptional one of a country that has behaved with utmost sense of responsibility in spite of its not being a member of the NPT. The US is motivated by the fact that with very high energy demands that would arise because of the anticipated fast economic growth of China and India and the US’s own growing demands these countries should go in for large-scale nuclear power generation. There is an attempt to construct a IVth generation nuclear reactor which will be safer and proliferation-proof. There is also international thermo-nuclear energy research project. The US is espousing India’s case in these research projects. The US is of the view that unless India and China have access to clean civilian nuclear energy they will be compelled to go in for coal and hydrocarbon-based energy sources which would aggravate the problem of greenhouse gas emissions and push up the oil price. The US attitude is, therefore, supportive of India’s fast development. The Chinese, by opposing India’s access to civilian nuclear power, have revealed themselves in their true colours as being opposed to India’s accelerated development. Access to clean energy is the key to development and this is where China has declared itself openly as standing in the way of India while the US, the UK, France and Russia are supportive of India. Who is today’s hegemonist? This lesson should be made clear to not only the supporters of Chinese hegemonism but also to the American Ayatollahs who are tolerant of Chinese proliferation and Beijing wrecking the non-proliferation regime but are concerned about the harm that will allegedly be done to the NPT if India is made an exception. Where were they when the Western companies supplied nuclear technology, equipment and materials to Pakistan and Iraq’s Saddam Hussein in the eighties? That exceptionalism, extended covertly to the companies in Western Europe, is not being talked about. The exceptionalism, extended to Dr A. Q. Khan by the CIA, revealed by Dr Lubbers, the Dutch Prime Minister, has not been discussed in the US Congress by the American Ayatollahs of non-proliferation or in the columns of Renmin Ribao. Since 1976, when Bhutto signed his proliferation agreement in Beijing, the NPT has been torn to shreds. The US Ayatollahs and, above all, the great proliferators of China are now talking about the NPT as though it remains an inviolate regime, and giving India access to civilian nuclear power through a formalised exceptionalism will damage it more than what the Chinese, western companies and Dr A. Q. Khan, under the permissiveness of the CIA, have already done.
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Of quirks and quakes WHEN the earth shakes, it can sometimes uncover whims and fancies that otherwise lie buried deep within the human core. The recent quake thus brought to the surface many a quirk. As our neighbourhood was stirred into action by this shifting ground reality, many people went digging for the VIPs (Very Important Possessions). Out rushed a devout neighbour, cradling the thing that she held most sacred in that moment. An idol of Lord Krishna. When the earth was mercilessly shaking all and sundry, it was only her faith in the Lord that was unshakeable. As the floor of her top-storey flat shook, Govind gave her the only ground for hope. If calling out to her beloved deity was foremost on her mind, calling up their beloved ones was the others’ priority. Most people made a dash, not for credit card or cash. They moved swiftly to get mobile. When death nearly came calling, they lunged for their mobile phones to do some of their own calling. As the chandeliers rocked and pots got knocked, these people were first cell-shocked. Then they got cell-stocked. And finally, cell-blocked. So, while some instantly connected to divinity in the other world, some couldn’t even connect to their kith and kin in this world. Fear, they say, is the key. The threat of aftershocks had a key figure in our locality all keyed up. Fear made this septuagenarian grab at the key. The key whose absence could unlock extreme anxiety. And which kept locked an old box that contained certain prized possessions. In subsequent weeks too, every time the earth showed signs of doing another rock ‘n’ roll, this aged resident jived for the key. That certainly was bracing up for an earth-shaking situation lock, stock and barrel. If such an upheaval had older people retrieving objects close to their hearts, could little ones have been far behind? At the first signs of the tremors, whilst I was set to launch myself as a sprinter, my son would’ve gladly done a marathon for his launcher. No, this launcher is not a contraption that would’ve enabled his speedy exit from the building. Nor is it any kind of launching pad for a future career. Instead, as most parents of market-savvy tinytots know, it’s a device that comes with a spinning top, which is none other than the good old ‘lattoo’ in improvised form and bears the stylised name of ‘bey blade’. And retrieving this top was my little son’s top priority when Mother Earth went for a spin. Thank God, the mother in me tossed him outdoors before he could indulge a fancy that was clearly over the
top.
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Common man’s President But I was not prepared to return without the interview, either. When I approached him, he remembered our telephonic conversation and asked me to start “firing” questions. “No, Sir, can’t we sit somewhere so that Mr Sudhir Tailang can sketch you also?”, I hesitantly asked him. He saw the cartoonist clutching his portable drawing board and a thick sheaf of paper. Narayanan asked us to wait for five minutes so that he could find a suitable place for us to sit. The interview and sketching lasted longer than he expected. As he told us, he had to leave for Parliament House to resign from the Lok Sabha before he submitted his nomination for the post of Vice-President. As we left the house, we could see Narayanan leaving for Parliament House. It marked the end of his parliamentary career and the beginning of his journey to Rashtrapati Bhavan. It was in 1984 that Narayanan first contested elections from Ottapalam, until then a Marxist bastion. He won the seat with a comfortable margin and retained it in the next two elections also. He was never found wanting in whatever assignment he got. Unlike many others in public life, Narayanan had an abundance of deprivation to begin with. His greatest strength was his father, an ayurvedic practitioner, and his elder brother who realised the importance of education and sent him to school and college even if they themselves had to starve in the process. There were occasions when he did not have money to pay his fees. It was the munificence of some well-wishers that helped him to tide over such problems. Narayanan’s first disappointment was when the authorities refused to give him the job of a lecturer, though he had topped in the university. Instead, Sir C.P. Ramaswamy Iyer, who ruled the state, offered him a clerical job, which he politely declined. At the time, he must have recalled Swami Vivekananda’s famous description of Kerala as “a lunatic asylum” because of the wretched practice of casteism in the state. As it turned out, his failure to get a lecturer’s job in the university was the stepping-stone for his eventual success. A disappointed Narayanan left Kerala to try his luck outside the state. A stint in journalism showed he had higher ambitions than pushing files. The turning point in Narayanan’s life came when a fellowship from the house of Tatas enabled him to enrol for B.Sc (Economics) at the London School of Economics where he became a favourite of Prof Harold Lasky. When he passed out from LSE with a first class, Lasky gave him a letter of introduction to Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Nehru was at the time busy setting up the External Affairs Ministry. He immediately recruited him for the IFS. It was while he was posted in Burma that he met his future wife, petite Usha. He had a brilliant career as a diplomat. When India re-established diplomatic relations with China a decade after the Indo-China war, it was Narayanan who was sent to Beijing to build bridges. A voracious reader, he returned to the world of books and academics when he was nominated Vice-Chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University. He excelled there, too. It was this reputation that stood him in good stead as political parties cutting across their ideological divides found in him a consensus candidate for the post of Vice-President and, then, President. As President, Narayanan showed he had a mind of his own and the courage of conviction to express it. One might consider it bad etiquette but he did not mind telling President Clinton at a state dinner in Rashtrapati Bhavan what he thought of a unipolar world where one nation arrogated to itself the power to discipline others. He showed the same candour when he deviated from government-prepared speeches while addressing the nation. He described himself as a citizen President, who would gladly join a queue and exercise his franchise. Narayanan knew the limits of his power as President and was not scared of exercising it even if it caused tremors in the government. He did not mind sending proposals back to the government for review while summoning ministers and officials for a better understanding of the issue at hand. He was as much an activist President as he was a textbook President. History will judge his Presidency, particularly his alleged “silence” during the Gujarat riots. He was pilloried and his caricature-like photograph was put on the cover of a leading English news journal when he gently suggested to the then Chief Justice of India that preference should be given to candidates from underprivileged sections if they fulfilled all other criteria. But that did not deter him from expressing his concern for the poor and the disadvantaged to whose benefit he has bequeathed his property in Kerala. Today one of his daughters, Chitra, lives in Turkey in the same house and in the same capacity he occupied it as India’s Ambassador four decades ago. A few years from now, people would scarcely believe that a man who did not have enough even to eat could become the President of the country and leave a lasting impression on the people.
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Tony Blair’s authority diminished BRITISH lawmakers on Wednesday rejected a tough new policy for detaining terrorism suspects, the first major parliamentary defeat suffered by Prime Minister Tony Blair during his eight years in power. Blair, following the deadly July 7 bombings on the London transit system, had called for terror suspects to be held without charge for up to 90 days — and had rejected any compromise on the measure. The House of Commons voted instead to double the detention period from 14 to 28 days, a rebuff that observers said raises questions about how long Blair may be able to hold onto power. Blair’s political enemies were quick to claim that the defeat — by a margin of 31 votes, including 49 rebels from Blair’s own Labor Party — proved that the prime minister’s heyday was over. “Mr Blair’s authority has been diminished almost to vanishing point,’’ said Michael Howard, leader of the Conservative Party. “This vote shows he is no longer able to carry his own party with him. He must now consider his position.’’ Former Labor minister Claire Short, who resigned in protest of Blair’s unpopular decision to go to war in Iraq, said: “His judgment is being called more and more into question. It’s hubris that comes from staying in power for a long time . . . It would be good for him and certainly for the Labor government if Tony were to move on.’’ Blair had staked his personal authority on the proposed anti-terrorism law radically extending the power of the state to fight attacks such as the summer bombings in which 52 people were killed. Blair said lawmakers of all parties had a “duty’’ to support legislation formalizing the change to 90 days. Blair’s defeat on the proposal came a week after parliamentarians temporarily withdrew the measure for further negotiation because of concerns it would mark a retreat from traditional British human rights rules. Blair, however, proceeded to ignore his Home Secretary Charles Clark’s attempts to forge a cross-party consensus with lawmakers reluctant to see suspects detained for more than 28 days. “Sometimes it is better to lose and do the right thing than win and do the wrong thing,” Blair told Parliament. It was clear that he expected Wednesday’s vote to be an unusually close call when his two top ministers, Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Blair and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, were abruptly ordered back from visits to Israel and Russia. Yet the scale of the defeat — following weeks of political reverses for Blair including open squabbling among normally loyal Labor supporters over a controversial smoking ban and hospital reform and the resignation last week of a key ally, former pensions minister David Blunkett — came as a surprise. After the results were announced, Blair left the chamber shaking his head. He later told Sky News he would not quit his post and rejected accusations from Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy that he was now “a lame duck.’’ In coming days, however, Blair will have to play a more sensitive political game, said Philip Cowley, a political analyst from Nottingham University: “On future legislation, Tony Blair is going to have to compromise with backbenchers. He’s not going to be able to railroad things through.’’
— LA Times-Washington Post
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Delhi Durbar INFORMATION and Broadcasting Minister Jaipal Reddy who is the chairperson of the organising committee of the 36th International Film Festival of India, kept his appointment with the members of the committee earlier this week despite a fracture. As the physically challenged minister arrived in a wheel-chair, he greeted the co-chairperson and Goa Chief Minister Pratapsingh Rane with a smile and remarked “this is a minor fracture, but a major plaster.’’ Later, while briefing the media on the deliberations of the committee, Jaipal Reddy observed: “As a spokesman of the Congress for years, I have followed one rule — I will not tell the truth but I will also not tell a lie.’’ Recasting press gallery Former Deputy Chairperson of the Rajya Sabha Najma Heptulla wants the press gallery of the House of Elders to be repositioned. At a recent orientation programme in the Parliament House annexe for journalists, Najma said that she finds the press gallery stifling like a jail with poor ventilation. The steps are so steep that one fears one would fall into the House from the top. Mediapersons should be able to see facial expressions of members during debates. Demotion is ‘no action’ Former HRD Minister Murli Manohar Joshi appeared amused on learning about Natwar Singh’s demotion. In a chat with scribes, Joshi pointed out that the decision to retain Natwar Singh in the Cabinet was “no action at all’’. That everybody is interested in protecting his own interests first. When another scribe remarked “self preservation is the first law of nature’’, the senior BJP leader promptly admitted “you are right.’’ As the oil-for-food scam came to light in the Volcker report, the country’s self-proclaimed moral guardians — the Left parties — gave Natwar Singh a clean chit. Since the report gave the Communists an opportunity to bash Washington, they did not want to miss the chance. That was the public stance. Behind the curtain was the deal that India would abstain from the IAEA-Iran issue later this month Yet another channel Yet another channel was started this week. The new channel, Janmat, claims that it is the country’s first viewers’ channel. Another channel in the pipeline for launch is Times Now, which will focus on urban India, especially the GenNext Grapevine has it that the US-based Fox News plans to enter the country by launching several regional language channels, thereby leading to stiffer competition in this arena.
***** Contributed by Tripti Nath and R Suryamurthy.
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From the pages of To fame through cricket
Some few years ago, Indian Princes, who had taken to cricket, invited and gave not a few Indian sportsmen lucrative appointments in their State. The Parsi cricketer, Mistri, for instance, was employed by the Maharaja of Patiala to teach his subjects how to play cricket. Mistri now holds the title of Major and is Private Secretary to the Maharaja and is drawing a fat salary of Rs 1,000 a month. But no sportsman, perhaps, has met with such success in life as the present Governor of Bombay. Earl Brassey-and he ought to know, for he is Lord Willingdon’s father-in-law-says that his son-in-law owed in a considerable degree his success in life to cricket, lawn tennis and other games. When he was called upon to take office as lord-in-waiting, the kindly relations in which he was privileged to be placed with the Sovereign were due, at least in some degree, to the fact that he played a rattling good game of tennis and was a favourite partner of the King at the game.
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Each soul has absolute free will. Its only boundary is karma. Gods do not dictate the experiential events of our lives, nor do they test us. And there is no cosmic force that moulds our lives. — Sanatana Dharma Death is at any time blessed, but it is twice blessed for a warrior who dies for his cause, that is, truth. — Mahatma Gandhi No bath can purify a body defiled by falsehood. Ablution is acceptable only if one lives truthfully. — Guru Nanak A preceptor learns as much from the student as the student from the — The Upanishads Men do not become saints or sinners by being called so; it is by their deeds which leave. — Guru Nanak
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WOULD he grant an interview? I was a little sceptical as his name had just been announced as a candidate for the post of Vice-President. Not only did Kocheril Raman Narayanan come on the line but asked me to come straight to his house. When cartoonist Sudhir Tailang and I reached his house that morning, politicians, journalists and friends were trooping in to congratulate him.
Workers were busy putting up a shamiana to accommodate the visitors while technicians from MTNL were installing new telephone lines. Dressed in spotless white kurta and pajama, Narayanan was flitting in and out of the house welcoming his guests or seeing them off. His wife Usha was constantly beside him. It was unfair to ask for an interview in these circumstances.