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From minister to lifer Mamta the spoiler |
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Business of agriculture Agro Tech should not ignore farmers THE seventh biennial agriculture fair, Agro Tech 2006, organised by the CII in Chandigarh could have been a greater success had the involvement of farmers been a little better and fair taken closer to villages. Though essentially the fair is all about agri-business where companies display and sell their latest products and technical knowhow, the farmer need not be kept at the periphery since he is the ultimate user of products.
DRDO’s delayed projects
As effective as the DC
Self-financing higher education A blame game China ought to avoid Defence notes
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From minister to lifer THE sentencing of former Union Coal Minister and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha supremo Shibu Soren to life imprisonment and a fine of Rs 5 lakh by the Delhi Sessions court for his involvement in the murder of his private secretary Shashinath Jha in 1994 is well-merited. Four others have also got the same punishment with varying fines. The fact that the conviction has come after 12 long years should send a clear signal to all political parties that no government — at the Centre and in the states — can afford to keep criminals as ministers in its fold or allow them to enter the political mainstream. The quantum of punishment awarded to Mr Soren cannot be considered light. True, the CBI pleaded for death sentence. Special CBI Prosecutor A.K. Singh cited certain judgements, including the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, the Parliament attack case and the Priyadarshini Mattoo case. He said even though Mr Soren did not play any direct role, he was still involved in hatching a conspiracy to commit such an offence and, therefore, he deserved the maximum sentence. Mr Soren’s advocate, Mr R.K. Anand, pleaded for lighter punishment in view of Mr Soren’s key role in the creation of the tribal state of Jharkhand, no previous conviction against him and his state of health. However, Additional Sessions Judge B.R. Kedia awarded life imprisonment to Mr Soren as Jha’s murder reflected the brutal nature of the offence. Mr Soren is entitled to go on appeal against the sentence to the Delhi High Court and, if necessary, the Supreme Court. However, his conviction and the quantum of punishment are bound to act as a deterrent and a benchmark. Tainted ministers and criminalisation of politics have vitiated the political system so much that questions are raised on the quality of the world’s largest democracy. Coalition compulsions and the support enjoyed by splinter groups like the JMM in the ruling UPA are no excuse to induct tainted men like Mr Soren in the Union Cabinet. His conviction, belated though, will serve its purpose if it acts as a check on all the political parties and the powers that be against accommodating them in the politics of the ruling party or the Opposition. |
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Mamta the spoiler THE gathering protests against the West Bengal government’s acquisition of farmland in Singur for a Tata Motors venture is entirely misguided and unless checked in time will only further retard the industrial development of the state. The stir launched by Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee has now widened with BJP President Rajnath Singh also pitching in to heighten the disruption. The barracking of the auto company’s project is a signal disservice to the people of the state, which is in dire need of business and industry for generating jobs. While the Trinamool Congress and the BJP are leading the disruptive protests to frustrate the project, the Congress and several other parties are not far behind in their opposition to the Left Front Government’s long overdue effort for revival of industry in West Bengal. The anti-business policies of the ruling Left Front, combined with the militancy of the naxalites to be followed by trade unionism of the CITU, kept major investments and industry out of West Bengal for more than two decades. And now, when Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya is taking the first, hesitant steps towards economic reforms and encouraging capital to come back to the state, the Trinamool Congress, the BJP and some other elements are determined to wreck the process. This is extremely irresponsible, especially on the part of the BJP which during its six years in office at the Centre was pushing for economic reforms, including in the Marxist citadel of West Bengal. It is immaterial whether the Congress and other parties join hands or not on this issue when their common objective is to stonewall the project in the name of protecting the farmers’ interests. The Left Front government appears to have provided the best deal to the farmers whose land has been acquired. If that is not the case, then it can be renegotiated in a civilised manner; and protests, even if warranted, should be within limits. The bottom line in the case of this project is that it brings investment with the promise of employment, and the state needs these more than the self-serving antics of the politicians who are playing spoilers for their own ends. |
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Business of agriculture THE seventh biennial agriculture fair, Agro Tech 2006, organised by the CII in Chandigarh could have been a greater success had the involvement of farmers been a little better and fair taken closer to villages. Though essentially the fair is all about agri-business where companies display and sell their latest products and technical knowhow, the farmer need not be kept at the periphery since he is the ultimate user of products. The biggest problem farmers faced was of communication as the show was conducted mostly in English. As media reports suggest, farmers could not elicit much information or have their queries answered by urban, English-speaking boys and girls manning various stalls, although efficiently. The CII has been doing a commendable job over the years by putting on display latest farming practices with experts from abroad sharing their valuable experiences with local participants in a bid to rejuvenate agriculture and improve productivity. This time 4,000 business leads became possible and some 100 new products were launched at the fair. Bringing together 80 experts, including some from abroad, and 650 delegates at one platform in a city of babus and pensioners is no mean achievement. Since the event gets a good media coverage, public interest is aroused in agricultural issues. The focus of speakers at various conferences organised on the sidelines of Agro Tech was on forging public-private partnerships to build agricultural infrastructure, the use of latest farm machinery and equipment and application of biotechnogy to raise farm production. It was felt that the annual farm output growth at 1.6 per cent has not kept pace with the population growth rate of 1.9 per cent. Some foreign firms offered to improve the quality and production of Indian fruits and vegetables. It was suggested to prepare farmers for globalisation as there were pressures under the WTO to open up further the Indian markets to imports from the US and the EU. One hopes suggestions of international experts will help in policy formulation both at the Centre and in the states. |
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One leak will sink a ship, and one sin will destroy a sinner. — John Bunyan
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DRDO’s delayed projects
THE unprecedented FIR by the CBI against a former Navy Chief on the Barak missile issue a few weeks ago ignored the omissions and commissions on the part of the government and the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). Last month the DRDO came under the most vicious media attack it ever faced, reviving derisive comments like DODO and the Department of Too Little Too Late. In a rare comment, DRDO chief M Natarajan said: “I get 5 per cent of the defence budget and 95 per cent of the blame.” The frontal assault on the Navy Chief provoked the normally reticent Service Chiefs to take potshots at the DRDO through the media. The history of Service Chiefs being forced to go public is so brief and rare that few may recall it. The tradition of silence was broken in the mid-1990s by Army Chief Gen S Chowdhry when he spoke out against the nexus in the North-East between politicians and insurgents. His example was emulated by other officers in the Eastern Command. The negative fallout this might have had on the morale of soldiers fighting the insurgency was never explored. It certainly made no impression on the Central government as the malaise persists till this day. After General Chowdhry, Army Chief Gen Ved Malik made much noise about there being no money for modernisation and devised a homegrown formula which would yield Rs 500 crore by suppressing the intake of 50,000 soldiers. But it was Admiral VS Shekhawat who, close to his retirement, indignantly announced that the declining naval fleet strength and drying order books in dockyards together had undermined the Navy’s operational capacity. Admiral Shekhawat’s public outburst drew immediate remedial measures from the government. As soon as Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal SPS Tyagi returned from Israel on the eve of the 74th anniversary of the IAF, he found his staff in a tizzy. A classified letter he had written about the diminishing operational strength of the IAF to Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee in July had been then leaked to the media. The ministry went hopping mad and ordered an enquiry into the leak which had reportedly taken place at their end. What Air Chief Marshal Tyagi had written was nothing new. In 1999 his predecessor, Air Chief Marshal A.K. Tipnis, had warned the government that IAF squadron strength was on the decline and this would alter the military balance in the region against India. The squadron strength today has reduced to 31 and, according to Air Chief Marshal Tyagi, will decline further to 27 by the end of 2007 against the sanctioned strength of 39 squadrons. Air Chief Marshal Tyagi briefed the media soon after sending the letter about strategic deficiencies and the need for immediate corrective action. He was referring to the request for proposal (RFP) for 126 multi-role aircraft which had been pending with the government for nearly two years. When asked at the October Press conference how long it would take the government to send out the RFP, he said: “For two years, I’ve been saying ‘soon’ .” And added, “I hope soon, I can stop saying ‘soon.” The IAF knows best how soon “soon” is. The saga of the AJT is a classic case of “coming soon”. Seven Air Force Chiefs had come and gone, all saying AJT “soon”. But the contract materialised only in 2002. The dithering spanned 20 years. Here was a chance for Air Chief Marshal Tyagi to take the bull by the horns, but he clammed up when confronted by journalists. It is difficult but necessary for Service Chiefs to draw and cross the red lines in national interest. Military commanders in the West have not shied away from plain-speaking and being sacked consequently. Gen Douglas MacArthur’s threat to cross the Yalu river during the Korean war or British Generals repudiating government policy was done at the risk of losing one’s job. The most recent case is that of British Army Chief Gen Richard Dannatt who devastated his government’s Iraq policy and said troops should come home within two years, a flat contradiction of Prime Minister Blair’s insistence that they will stay “as long as it takes”. General Dannatt not only survived these comments but also got an endorsement from his Prime Minister. Air Chief Marshal Tyagi’s woes shared by his counterparts are sourced in the DRDO. Its failure to operationalise Trishul and Akash missiles, among other tall promises, prompted him to say: “The delay in Akash has upset our air defence plans.” At the root of the DRDO ‘s intellectual arrogance is a veto right on making indigenously military hardware which the Services otherwise opt to buy from the international market. This doggedness goes beyond the policy decision of 1996 by the Self-Reliance Implementation Council (SRIC) to raise the level of indigenous equipment from 30 to 70 per cent by 2007. Ten years on, the increase in the indigenous content is just 10 per cent. The SRIC was chaired by President APJ Abdul Kalam, father of the partially successful Indian missile programme. Only two of the five missile systems, Prithvi and Agni, are operational. DRDO projects not fructifying despite time and cost overruns has seriously dislocated the Services’ long-term reequipment plans. Government monitoring of DRDO projects has been so lax that it is tantamount to complicity in failures. When everyone thought the failed Trishul project was being buried this year, it was revived by the Defence Minister, doubtlessly after the promises to make it go to the moon. The two best examples of compounding trial and error with the lack of government direction are the Arjun tank and the Tejas, Light Combat Aircraft. While the Arjun was christened in 1973, the Tejas arrived on the drawing board 10 years later. The Arjun has made it to the Republic Day parade but the Tejas seem still in the realm of a technology demonstrator. As the Arjun never made it on time, the Army had to buy the Russian T 90 tank which will become the Armoured Corp’s workhorse. The story of the LCA (Tejas) is quaint. The project Director of the Arjun was promoted to become the Scientific Adviser to the Defence Minister. He is also the DG of the ADA (Aeronautical Development Agency which manages the Tejas project. Rs 6000 crore and 22 years later, the Tejas, which was expected to be operationalised in 1995, will now get its initial and final operational clearance around 2009-11 for it to join squadron service by 2015. The government has only recently taken critical decisions to go ahead for the production of the first two squadrons with Israeli fire control radars and American engines as the indigenous projects on the engine and radar are stuck. ADA has commandeered the role of funding, managing and monitoring the LCA project. HAL, which will eventually produce the aircraft is currently without a project director and the IAF, which is the customer, has little role in the project, so bizarre is the project management. Thanks to the failure of the LCA to deliver, Air Chief Marshal Tyagi’s boys are breathless waiting for the RFP for 126 multi-role aircraft. Four conclusions can be drawn from the events emerging out of the Barak disclosures: One, besides letter writing, Service Chiefs need a more robust method to assert their concerns, including doing a General Dannatt. Two, services need not have to wait till doomsday for the DRDO to deliver. Further, they should not be captive clients for products which compromise on quality and cost. Three, the DRDO must reform and perform. Four, the government must monitor defence preparedness, provide policy guidance, retire non-performing defence public sector units and chivvy up the DRDO through the culture of project leadership and performance management. All of this is nonexistent
today.
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As effective as the DC
IT was a Sunday morning about four years back. After the morning drill and bath I had slipped into my favourite old T-shirt, knickers and sandals, walked to my relatively small and oldish Camp Office and settled in the office chair. An hour spent on Sunday attending to important papers keeps your week light as you can start with a clean slate on Monday. This is a habit most officers in administration have to wily nily adopt. Ramesh, the telephone attendant, came in and handed over a visitors slip with a name and the village’s name scribbled in Punjabi. As I had not started reading the files I said promptly “Send him in”. A man six inches taller and six inches wider than me walked into the room and stood across the table. With a salt and pepper beard, big knotty hands and a bony frame he was a typical figure from the interiors of an agricultural district, where the light of civilisation had not fully shone yet. “I am very aggrieved. I had bought a piece of land two and a half years back but the patwari refuses to make the entry in the revenue record. He turns me away on one pretext or the other every time I go to him. He actually wants a hefty amount, which I refuse to pay. The tehsildar is no different. I have met him also.” he blurted. “Hand me your petition.” I told him. Hesitantly, he handed over the paper from his big, rough hands. I took the paper and as tradition demanded, scribbled my prescription in one corner, and asked him to see the Sub Divisional Magistrate the next day. “I know it is a Sunday, but can’t you let me meet the DC? I am really distressed.” he said looking into my eye. “I am the DC!” I said barely pushing the words out of my throat. He looked at me stupefied, then very slowly turned and walked towards the door with lead heavy steps. Then he paused near the door, turned and mustered the courage to say “Please let me meet the DC.” “You please go and see the SDM tomorrow!” I said. He went out. A couple of weeks went by. It was another Sunday morning and he was there again. The attendant allowed him in without a visitors slip. “Hmmm!”, I mumbled, looking up from the file at hand. He looked cleaner, less wrinkled and much happier this time. “Mera kamm ho gaya janab. (My work is done sir).” he said handing over a box of sweets, bearing the name of a sweets shop in Punjabi. “Good!” I exclaimed. “I know the DC is a busy man. Anyway, my work was done even without meeting him. You are as effective.” He congratulated
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Self-financing higher education MOST states have passed acts for the creation of private universities. There is a Bill pending before Parliament enabling the private sector to launch universities. Government-run universities have introduced self-financing courses that are supposed to be organised primarily within the funds collected as fee from students. Many foreign universities have knocked at the doors and are waiting for the Union Government’s nod to enter the field of higher education. The Ministry of Commerce recently advocated FDI in higher education. It feels this sector should not receive subsidy and may be left for market forces. Many states have invited the private sector to create facilities for providing education and training in professional and technical education. Haryana has invited letters of intention and offered prime land for such entrepreneurs in the vicinity of many towns. Students and teachers of colleges and universities have exhibited a mixed response to the new developments. In principle there is an expression of strong protest against commercialisation of higher education. At the same time, more and more students are seeking admissions to private universities and colleges and also in the self-financing courses. Teachers are also shifting to private institutions as they get better opportunities and packages. Many academicians are finding lucrative placements in private colleges and universities not only after superannuation but some of them are opting to shift even before that. What needs to be understood is that private sector will make investments where the probability of returns is of high degree. For more than a decade, an acute shortfall in trained technical and professional manpower has been experienced in the business and industry. Though the number of unemployed and under-employed youth has grown to unprecedented mass, for many positions adequately trained persons are not simply available. Though the traditional college and university systems have made efforts to cater to the new demands, the change process is slow and inadequate. To fill the gap the system has responded by encouraging private players to enter the field and various governments, realising the deficit in manpower supply and also under pressure from private investors, have opened the flood gates for privatisation of higher education. Participation of the private sector in education is not at all a new phenomenon in our country. In fact, education is one sector where government and non-governmental efforts have co-existed in harmony for centuries. DAV and SD are the known brands in education. There are many other social organisations that have significantly contributed to the growth and development of higher education in the country. Some of these may belong to certain castes, but education provided by them is available to all. Their motives were social rather than economic. There used to be a regular flow of cash from these organisations to the colleges as the fee structure was moderate. Today participation of the private sector has economic motivations as education is one field where returns can be harvested even before investments are made. In all institutes the fee is collected before education is delivered. Having economic motivations rather than social commitments may not be a crime. Today when participation of the private sector is vital in major sectors like health, public distribution, defence production and infrastructure development, education cannot be an exception. Universities and colleges are also equally sensitive to the new demands of manpower. They have also responded to the changed scenario, but options before them are limited. The shift from the traditional courses to the courses tuned to the present manpower needs is very difficult and tedious. In addition to the inherent resistance to change the problem is also of the allocation of funds. With the grant-in-aid from the government invariably frozen to the year 2000 levels, universities and colleges have only two options. One, ignore the new developments, not to respond to the new demands in higher education and let the private sector take the lead. This option, when exercised, has proved suicidal as even the traditional courses gradually get starved of the students and there is pressure to close them. The second option is to respond with the same vigor with which the private sector has entered the field of higher education. It needs bold measures. With no help coming from the government, the only alternative before the universities and colleges is to create courses that take care of their own finances. For the overall good of society, encouraging colleges and universities to opt for the second option seems to be a right approach. There are two reasons for advocating this approach. One, greater element of social and ethical commitment of public colleges and universities is inbuilt in their structure and practices. Each public university is answerable to its Executive Council or Senate as also to the government that has established it. Second, the cost of education per student is going to be much lower in the established public colleges and universities. Much of the infrastructural facilities are already there, they have to be either used for more time or redeployed. The cost of putting classrooms, labs and libraries at the disposal of a larger number of students and for an enhanced time is minimal. Even the University Grants Commission repeatedly reminds colleges and universities to put their infrastructure to optimum utilisation. It also advocates sharing of facilities not only between the departments of the university but with other universities. While considering the desirability or otherwise of the self-financing courses in public colleges and universities, it has also to be kept in mind that their fee structure is much lower than that of private institutes. The costs are low because the existing infrastructure is used, profit motivations are absent and occasionally there are additional inputs from the funding organisations. In a situation of complete absence or even of lesser number of self-financing courses more students will end up paying more to private institutes. In fact, it is erroneous to call these courses as self-financing, alternatively a new category of subsidised self-financing courses could be created. Moreover, public colleges and universities have inbuilt systems to look after the socially and economically weaker students. Fee concessions, scholarships, free books are some of the measures that have helped the poor students to carry out their studies in adverse conditions also. These facilities need to be improved and extended to those students also who wish to pursue the courses falling under the self-financing schemes. In fact, the guiding principle should be that no student of merit should get deprived of studies because the expenditure on the course is beyond his or her means. New schemes like fee wavers, earn and learn, zero interest loans, alumni financing, individual and organisational stipends need to be introduced and the amount of funding should also be made commensurate with the fee structure. One of the factors that have contributed to the increased self-confidence of our nation and also to the changed perception as a country of smart people is the presence of highly motivated technical and professional young manpower in large numbers. To maintain this advantage for the years to come both the public and private sectors in education have to contribute. The public sector has to rise to new expectations and the private sector needs to add an element of social and ethical commitment for the overall good of society. The two should be in a mode of co-existence and must complement each other.
The writer is a Professor at Kurukshetra University. |
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A blame game China ought to avoid LAST month the International Energy Agency announced that China would probably surpass the United States as the world's largest contributor of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide by 2009, more than a full decade earlier than anticipated. This forecast could spur China to adopt tough new energy and environmental standards, but it probably won't. China has already embarked on a very different strategy to manage its environmental reputation: launching a political campaign that lays much of the blame for the country's mounting environmental problems squarely on the shoulders of foreigners and, in particular, multinational companies. While still in its initial stages, the campaign has gained steam over the past month. Senior Chinese officials, the media and even some environmental activists have charged multinational firms and other countries with exporting pollution, lowering their environmental manufacturing standards and willfully ignoring China's environmental regulations. Faced with growing international and popular discontent over the country's environmental crisis, China's leaders are tapping into anti-foreign and nationalist sentiments to deflect attention from their own failures. In late October a top environmental official, Pan Yue, accused the developed countries of ``environmental colonialism'': of transferring resource-intensive, polluting industries to China and bearing as little environmental responsibility as possible. At the same time, a leading member of China's National People's Congress claimed that foreign companies were not only exporting their waste but also underpaying Chinese workers. When a Chinese nongovernmental organization released a list of 2,700 companies cited for violations of China's water regulations in late October, the ensuing media frenzy focused exclusively on the 33 multinationals, including 3M, Panasonic, PepsiCo and DuPont, and ignored the more than 2,600 Chinese companies similarly cited. Not surprisingly, Chinese bloggers have taken up the call, discussing the ``eco-colonialist'' policies of multinationals and calling for ``eco-compensation.'' Even environmental activists who have worked closely with multinationals have accused these corporations of not practicing what they preach. The logic behind the campaign is simple, if misguided. The rapidly approaching Olympic Games have brought an unwelcome spotlight on China's environmental situation. Beijing won its Olympics bid with the promise of the world's first ``green'' games. Five years later, there is no talk of a green Olympics, only of how extensive a shutdown of industry and transportation will be needed in Beijing and surrounding provinces just to ensure that the athletes can breathe. Moreover, the climate issue has focused the world's attention not only on China's contribution to global warming but also on its role as the largest contributor to a range of other global environmental problems such as ozone depletion, the illegal timber trade and marine pollution. Perhaps nothing is more troubling to China's leaders, however, than the environment's contribution to domestic social unrest. In May, China Daily reported that there were 50,000 environmental protests in China in 2005. Some of these demonstrations engaged upward of 30,000 people and resulted in serious injuries and even deaths. In such a climate, scapegoating foreigners can be an attractive policy option. Certainly, as with most Chinese political campaigns, there is a kernel of truth in some of the accusations. The multinational companies listed should take greater care to ensure that their own factories and those of their suppliers operate under only the highest standards. Yet, overwhelmingly, China's environmental crisis and its contribution to global pollution are of its own making. Most Chinese businesses are clearly unprepared to be environmental leaders. China's coal-based and largely state-owned power sector, for example, is the No. 1 source of China's air pollution. In a recent poll, only 18 percent of Chinese companies supported the idea that they could both thrive economically and do the right thing environmentally. China's leaders need to educate and reform Chinese industry, but beyond this they must establish an incentive structure to make it easy for local officials and business leaders to do the right thing. They need to open the door to greater transparency, official accountability and the rule of law to ensure effective environmental governance--a step they have avoided taking for fear of diminishing their political power. The environment has been one of the most fruitful areas of cooperation between China and the rest of the world for almost two decades. Billions of dollars in environmental assistance have flowed to China from foreign governments and international organizations. In most cases, multinational firms have been at the forefront of raising China's environmental standards, transferring best practices and cutting-edge technologies, and supporting a range of broader environmental initiatives. China should not risk all this--and its own environmental future--for the short-term and largely illusory benefits of playing an environmental blame game.
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Defence notes As the Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO) is trying hard to redeem itself following the recent scathing attack from the media over its repeated failures and inability to produce anything worthwhile, the government has again come to the rescue of the country’s premier defence research organisation. Last week Defence Minister A.K. Antony told Parliament that the DRDO’s “Trishul” missile project had not been put on the backburner. The minister told the Rajya Sabha that the DRDO was in dialogue with the Indian Air Force for its possible induction after jointly developing the user trial criteria. Incidentally, the DRDO has so far spent Rs 275.39 crore on the project, a whopping jump from its sanctioned cost of Rs 27.16 crore in 1983. The minister also said that other missile projects like Akash and Nag were currently under way as part of the Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme. The King with
the Skinners Jordan King Abdullah II Al Hussein, during an official visit to India, inspected an Indian armoured regiment-- the 1 Horse (Skinner Horse) - at Hisar last week. Accompanied by Minister of State for Defence MM Pallam Raju, the visiting King witnessed a tactical action by tanks and other training activities of the armoured regiment. He himself is the Honorary Colonel-in-Chief of the Light Dragoons, a British Cavalry Regiment affiliated with the Skinners Horse. The Skinners Horse regiment was raised in 1803 at Hansi in Hisar. In 1939, it was mechanised as a Motor Cavalry Regiment at Rawalpindi. With India becoming a Republic, the regiment got its present name, Skinners Horse. The regiment has participated in various actions in Afghanistan, France, Baluchistan, Sudan and Italy and it has 19 battle honours. Aerospace museum The Chief of Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal SP Tyagi, has laid the foundation stone of one of his pet projects, an aerospace museum near the domestic terminus of IGI Airport. The museum is meant not only to preserve the glorious traditions of the Indian Air Force but also to create awareness in the general public about India’s rich aerospace heritage. It is expected to be a major tourist
attraction. The IAF has a museum near the technical area of the Air Force Station, Palam. Spread over 43 acres, the aerospace museum will have indoor and outdoor displays. The outdoor display will have aircraft parked and hung in flying altitude with a mural depicting the era and atmosphere of its time of operation. The indoor display will have a history section, a section of aviation legends, history of IAF squadrons, major campaigns and battles fought by the
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God will make a joke of them, amplifying their outrages as they wander astray. The will of the One God alone pervades in all the worlds, as all creation is born of him. It is not easy to live among material objects and give up all attachment to them. The wise person is not disheartened by failures. He tries again and again till he masters the art. Perseverance and determination are facilitators to the way of success. Love is proved by deeds; the more they cost us, the greater the proof of our love. To my mind the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being. I should be unwilling to take the life of a lamb for the sake of the human body.
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