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General options
Beyond HIV estimates
Guru O Guru
Dateline
Washington The labourers who died like warriors Chatterati
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Madam President PRATIBHA PATIL’S victory was a foregone conclusion the moment the United Progressive Alliance-Left combine announced her name as its Presidential candidate. The group enjoyed a comfortable majority in the electoral college consisting of MPs and MLAs. The BJP pinned hopes on Vice-President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat’s friendship with political leaders cutting across geographical and religious divides. His fate was sealed when the Third Front decided to abstain and the BJP’s allies like the Shiv Sena and the National Conference decided to support the UPA candidate, instead. BJP leader Lal Krishna Advani, who took the lead in mounting a personality-based campaign, hoped against hope that the mudslinging on her would have some beneficial effect. He also relied heavily on his call for a conscience vote. In the end, Mrs Patil got more votes than she was expected to get. Mr Advani, who hauled BJP chief Rajnath Singh over the coals for the party’s defeat in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly election, will have a difficult time explaining away the loss of face the BJP suffered in the Presidential election. Whatever be the nature of the allegations the BJP made against Mrs Patil, it did not have any impact on the voters for two reasons. One, she was the first woman set to become the President of the country. Two, the anti-BJP forces had decided to join hands against its candidate, Mr Shekhawat. Mrs Patil will definitely be seen as a symbol of women’s empowerment. She is not a greenhorn in politics, having held important posts like Deputy Chairperson of the Rajya Sabha, Governor of Rajasthan and Cabinet Minister in Maharashtra. Once she is sworn in as President, ideally, her political affiliation should cease to matter. Thereafter, she should be guided solely by the Constitution in letter and spirit. An ideal President is one who is not a parrot, nor a puppet, not even a mechanical ventriloquist but a person of higher authority and dignity commanding through her presence in Rashtrapati Bhavan respect for the norms and imperatives of the Constitution and its destination as a secular, socialist, democratic Republic. It is the fervent hope of the nation that Mrs Pratibha Patil will rise to the occasion and provide inspiring leadership to the country, despite the acrimony that marked the contest which threw up her as President.
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An excellent choice GIVEN the prevailing political calculus, the victory of Mr Mohammad Hamid Ansari as Vice-President is almost a foregone conclusion. Mr Ansari may not have a politician’s recipe of how to manage the mercurial Rajya Sabha but he has had wide and varied administrative experience, which will stand him in good stead. Within the country, he has been the Vice-Chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University as also the Chairman of the National Minorities Commission. Outside, he has been India’s Ambassador to the UAE, Afghanistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia, and High Commissioner to Australia. Besides, he has been India’s Permanent Representative to the UN in New York. His secular credentials are impeccable. What matters more in politics is that he is acceptable both to the Congress and the Left. That is why the negotiations to finalise his name lasted only a day. In fact, there have been murmurs that he has Left leanings, which the Congress has tried to scotch. It took pains to point out that he comes from the family of Dr M.A. Ansari, who was the President of the Indian National Congress in 1927. Besides, he also happens to be from the minority community. All that makes his candidature formidable for the August 10 vice-presidential election. Unlike the newly elected President, he does not carry any big baggage of controversies and scandals. That will help him to grow in his job and exert moral influence on the Rajya Sabha. In fact, his not being from the political background may be a blessing, considering that everyone is unanimous that high posts like that of President and Vice-President should be above political machinations, pulls and pressures.
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General options FRIDAY’S court verdict reinstating suspended Pakistan Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry can be interpreted in more ways than one. Obviously, it is a major loss of face for General Pervez Musharraf, who first made Justice Chaudhry “non-functional” and then sent him on “forced leave” with a presidential reference to the Supreme Judicial Council against him. The situation, however, took a turn for the worse for the government as Justice Chaudhry emerged as a powerful symbol of opposition to the Musharraf regime. The massive crowds he drew wherever he went to address public meetings organised by lawyers showed that people were sick of the style of functioning of the General. Under the circumstances, therefore, General Musharraf may find it difficult to gather courage to get re-elected as President by the outgoing National and Provincial Assemblies with his position as army chief remaining intact. After all, if the judiciary can go against him once, it can do so again also. He can no longer penalise an uncooperating judge with the Judges Compulsory Leave Order, 1970, having been declared utra vires the Constitution. But, interpreted differently, the court verdict has come as a great relief for the government. The lawyers’ campaign against the Musharraf regime, which was helping opposition parties, has ended through judicial intervention. Now it may be General Musharraf’s turn to make political capital out of the situation. After all, his government has honoured the adverse judgement, which can be used to convey a positive message to the people. The Opposition’s argument that the government has no respect for democratic institutions has been blunted. With a view to improving his electoral prospects, there is the likelihood of General Musharraf taking on religious extremists with greater firmness. The people in general are with him in the fight against terrorism and extremism. No opposition party can find fault with him after the Lal Masjid episode. If the operation to cleanse Islamabad’s mosque-madarsa complex can be cited as one major instance of the government’s commitment for establishing the rule of law, its honouring of the latest judicial pronouncement can be given as another proof of this kind. Thus, the historic ruling of the Pakistan Supreme Court can be seen as a blessing in disguise for General
Musharraf.
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He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god. — Aristotle
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Beyond HIV estimates THERE
is nothing yet to celebrate about the revised HIV estimates. India’s actual HIV-infected-numbers remain what they have been — half of that hyped the past seven-eight years as agenda-driven forces pushed inflated projections at the start of National AIDS Control Programme-Phase II (NACP-II) and secured knee-jerk strategies to tackle them. Only, the government has now conceded past projections as mistaken. The Health Minister rightly points the numbers as still large and worrying. But more worryingly, notwithstanding reduced gross numbers, Mr. Ramadoss pushes still more “vigorous funding” for limited NACP-II strategies intensified in NACP-III with a Rs11, 585 crore investment plan. This five-fold jump from NACP-II cleared by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) is based on 5.2 million HIV-infected and 9.4 million “new-infections averted” projected by 2012 through implementation. Significantly, the large-scale population-based blood-sample studies —NHFS-III and the Guntur district findings that contributed to estimate revision — were with the Health Ministry for the past year. Prior to it, independent technical reports contesting HIV-estimates- inflation-basis had been with the Health Ministry/NACO since 1999-2000 when estimates were initially substantially increased. That NACO did not review/ revise HIV-estimates before seeking NACP-III approval last month, nor the CCEA find it fit to await NACP-II-End-Evaluation before giving clearances comments sadly on the administration. More so, as NACP-III principally centre-stages a controversial strategic thrust — altogether consuming Rs6000-7000 crore on Targeted Interventions for High-Risk Persons (TIHRP), i.e. those in commercial-sex-prostitution, men-having-sex-with-men, injecting-drug-users and their sex-partners/ “clients”. This constitutes an unprecedented blitz, untested, untried on a scale anywhere in the world — to mobilise and “bond” high-risk persons for government-sponsored “services” for “safe sex” ! The colossal funds for TI strategy - and further support through “mainstreaming” partnerships with other sectors — constitute the real issue now requiring careful public scrutiny, never mind how the government got its figures so hopelessly wrong before. In 2004, at NACP-II’s original-term near-end, I pointed out in a technical paper circulated to experts: “Inflated baseline figures together with inflated projections of exposure can build an illusion of enormous numbers of notional infections averted that are not there in the first place! But the most intriguing aspect of the numbers game lies not in the actual size of the problem but on quite a different plane.” NACO data’s marginal reductions and external phenomenal projections share one common theme: NACO claims effective NACP-II implementation yielding results, the external hype builds pressure for more intense, widespread implementation of the same. “Either way, the condom-and-STD-centric-behaviour-change as priority thrust is emphasised and okayed as the correct strategic choice for this nation. It is this that needs challenge.” More so, today. What is questionable is: one, the veracity of NACP-III estimates of high-risk sex persons constituting NACP-III’s principal operational targets; two, evidence of the soundness of this narrow TI approach - “non-judgemental, non-interfering” identification, mobilisation, association formation, creating “communities” of high-risk sex persons supported by generous state funds for limited product-oriented services; three, the nation’s concurrence to this methodology is hidden in euphemisms so far. A quick rerun of some facts: the Report of Expert Group on High Risk Estimation is a fascinating re-run of cavalier untested assumptions/arbitrary selection of procedures/ processes such as resulted in faulty HIV-estimation earlier. High-risk-person-estimates have zoomed by coterie-consensus: men-having-sex-with-men identified by expensively researched NACP-II “mappings” as 0.01per cent of adult men pushed to 3.3 per cent of adult men, one-fifth or 2.3 million estimated engaged promiscuously at “cruising-sites”; half million “mapped” prostituted women escalated to 1.2 million. From such desk-inflated universes NACP-III has picked up 80 per cent coverage as prime operational targets. Thus, topping NACP-III core-monitoring-indicators of achievements -2100 TIs to organise, reach 4 million high-risk persons with condoms, STD treatments, HIV-testing and ART. NACP-III strategies gun for commercial-sex treated as “sex-work”, human rights appended to the activity, condom outlets’ expansion — from six lakhs to 30 lakhs (mostly “non-traditional”!) in 3 years, ensuring 3.5 billion condom offtake annually. The crass condom bar in Chandigarh — now drawing protests from large numbers of women’s groups/socially-minded persons — provides a classic example of the tenor of the coming times. We live in hindsight times: AIDS-affected-Africa, Thailand and Cambodia that earlier bought and implemented the “sex as work/recreation and condoms as magic-bullet solution” prescriptions presently reel under high HIV-prevalence levels; many countries as victims of a second more-virulent round severely compromising the young/ vulnerable. Their experience cautions India to pause, rethink, rework strategies while it can. The HIV estimates revision to 2.47 million (0.3 per cent HIV-prevalence) provides an opportune moment for such introspection. Two trajectories lie before us: focus on creating comfort-zones-for-high-risk-sex population that even by NACO hyper-estimation account for no more than 1.5 per cent of the population or reinforce India’s ( all South Asia’s) advantageous situation of 98-99 per cent low-risk-lifestyle population with universally applauded low-risk lifestyle values. The two pathways are poles apart. Since last year a number of concerned experts have attempted to draw the Prime Minister’s attention (he also chairs the National HIV/AIDS Council) to a serious NACP-II lacunae and NACP-III’s flawed numbers/approach, furnishing insights. A larger band of field-based women’s/ social organisations/citizens, including eminent social scientists and health experts, wrote early in May to the Prime Minister deploring the “virtual legitimisation of the sex industry” besides a host of other issues of concern with NACP-III and calling for NACP-III’s reformulation to a “holistic-ethical and wholesome paradigm”. It is strange that a Prime Minister, known for his academic learning and democratic ways, should choose to ignore listening to alternative viewpoints on a key issue that remains mishandled -remember family planning? This portends tremendous political and social backlash, particularly, as the statistical downturn highlights serious past miscalculations. State policies co-opted to condone the base can only provide a fillip to malgovernance and corruption. The Prime Minister as GOI/CEO & AIDS Council chief must find time to personally understand the complex HIV/AIDS issues from perspectives other than the sponsored briefings hitherto provided. Hopefully, he would stand persuaded to re-direct policy perspectives to a new paradigm-shift in line with his own much-acclaimed upright and ethical outlook. HIV/AIDS prevention urgently needs another vision and clear perspective-statement from the highest political level: recognising HIV/AIDS as a huge problem and giving the country a clarion call to control it before it is too late, but through social reawakening of this nation’s unique spirit and capacity that not so long ago could lead the world on a very different but extraordinarily successful journey overcoming centuries’ old oppression. The clearly articulated goal of HIV/AIDS prevention in such a vision would be HIV-incidence reduction through a clean and caring society that proactively creates an enabling ethos to enlarge the pool of low-risk sex behaviour, diminish the pool of those practising high-risk sex behaviour through a mix of measures that combine education, persuasion and strict implementation of laws punitive to purchase/exploitation of commercial/casual sex but with adequate safety nets to assist those forced to sell their bodies/suffering from disease. The nation must — and can — grow the wholesome cake with win-win strategies that include HIV/AIDS control, not simplistically pit it against all that is otherwise held dear. It can be done. Only if the Prime Minister chooses to listen and
lead.
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Guru O Guru GURU is a much abused term and has come to connote a person skilled in the art of trickery of some kind. “Guru” is also an honorific given to god-men and evangelists of all kinds, most of whom are of the con-man variety. And now we have the Management Gurus, the Sports Gurus, and Gurus of every shady variety. However, in the traditional sense it was a term used for a teacher and it simply meant “one who is so weighty or profound that he cannot be shaken”, one who is so deeply established within himself that nothing can affect the complete dedication he has towards his vocation. The dedication of the guru-teacher is not to scholarship or to esoteric intellectual pursuits or to promoting an ideology or to personal advancement of any other kind. It is to the process of self-actualisation in his “shishya”, his student. “A teacher, if he is wise.” Says Gibran, “does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.” Given this approach real and true scholarship will follow. Now, everyone who teaches is not a “Guru”. If a sense of personal gain or self-promotion comes in the way of this dedication then one is not a “Guru”; one is only a vendor of the information commodity. Obviously as a vendor his approach is governed by the laws of the market place. If on top of this he happens to be an unethical vendor (and such a breed is not entirely unknown) he sells spurious stuff, he under-weighs, he shortchanges his students. Therefore in the Hindu scriptures we are, again and again, enjoined to select our Guru very carefully. Just as we cannot be carried away by his personal appearance so we cannot be swayed by his oratory — anyone with a bit of effort can turn a good phrase. We cannot be carried away by his show of scholarship — the hallmark of a true teacher is not the show of scholarship but the ability to absorb and internalise his scholarship in a manner that it functions at the level of his most disadvantaged student. Similarly, it cannot be his intellect because unless the intellect is totally focused on the value of the student it can become an instrument to confuse and confound. So how does one identify the true Guru, the genuine teacher? The significant test is that of “authenticity”. Does a teacher’s life accord with what he professes? Is he in the pandering business or the elevating mode? In other words how does he understand and express his function as a teacher. This function is not to enable the student to pass examinations just as it is not to teach him the ways of the world - this the student will learn anyway. The basic function is to ‘sensitise’. Does the study of literature “sensitise” his student to the importance of human emotions and feelings? Does the study of history sensitise his student to the forces that propel human existence and bring misery or happiness in their wake? Does the study of economics sensitise his student to the importance of material needs required for a meaningful existence? Does the study of science sensitise his student to the rhythms and patterns in nature to so awaken his mind to the need to live in harmony with it and his heart to the great mystery of existence? In short, a teacher becomes a “Guru” if he sensitises — because in doing so he carries out the most important function of education: to humanise. And this is what differentiates a teacher who is ‘Guru’ from a teacher who is a vendor of
information.
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Dateline
Washington THE decision by Pakistan’s Supreme Court to reinstate Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry will weaken President Pervez Musharraf and complicate his election strategy, according to some analysts. Others say it may actually strengthen the general by taking the lawyer unrest off his plate and allowing him to focus on a role he’s best suited to play – that of an Army man going after terrorists. What started off as a bad week for General Musharraf turned progressively worse. First Washington tore his peace plan with tribes along the Afghan border to bits, blaming it for allowing al Qaeda and the Taliban breathing space to regroup. Then came the Supreme Court decision, voiding Musharraf’s decision to suspend Justice Chaudhury in March. Husain Haqqani, director of the Center for International Relations at Boston University, said the ruling demonstrates the unwillingness of Pakistan’s civilians to endlessly obey the military’s commands. He believes Musharraf now has two options: “He either recognises the reality and moves towards reconciliation with civilians or continues with his concept of ‘unified command’, which would only plunge Pakistan deeper into crisis.” Ambassador Teresita Schaffer at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington points out that the ruling “dramatically complicates” Musharraf’s election strategy. For Musharraf to remain in uniform the National Assembly will be required to extend the current waiver of Pakistan’s constitutional ban on those “holding an office for profit for the state of Pakistan” from running for election. “That legislation will be challenged in the courts,” Schaffer said, predicting the courts are likely to strike down the legislation. Not everyone agrees Musharraf has come out a loser in his standoff with the judiciary. In fact, says Marvin Weinbaum of the Middle East Institute, the ruling will boost the general. Had the court ruled in his favour, it would have energised the opposition, Mr. Weinbaum said. “With this crisis behind him, General Musharraf can now take a clear shot at the extremists. The army’s honour has been challenged [by the Lal Masjid crisis] and he will focus his attention on the militants.” Mr. Haqqani admits General Musharraf could focus on the militant problem and see the court judgment as a blessing in disguise because it ends a crisis of his own making. “But that is not Musharraf’s personality. He suffers from a messiah complex, believes the army alone has the right to run Pakistan and is very self-righteous,” he said. “He will read this judgment as a snub and will most likely get into further confrontations with the judiciary as well as other elements of Pakistan’s civilian society.” Lisa Curtis at the Heritage Foundation agrees the reinstatement of the chief justice removes an immediate source of protest among the civil society and political parties. However, she says, the political situation remains extremely fragile, and respite from the protests may not last long, particularly if General Musharraf tries to move forward with his original plan of getting himself re-elected by the sitting five-year-old parliament and refuses to remove his uniform by the end of the year. “He has lost a great deal of credibility with the Pakistani public over the judicial crisis and although there seems to be general support for his decision to confront the extremists at the Red Mosque, it is unclear whether that has translated into a boost to his overall popularity,” she said. Pointing out that over 180 Pakistani civilians and military personnel have been killed in attacks in the past week which seem aimed at provoking chaos and weakening the Pakistani state, Curtis said, “If there was ever a time that the mainstream secular parties and the military actually needed to work together for the sake of stability in Pakistan, now would be it.” The developments are unlikely to shake support from Washington for General Musharraf, a trusted ally who signed up for the war on terror after the September 11 attacks on America. At the State Department, spokesman Tom Casey said the court’s ruling was a “positive resolution” of the situation. “It was a decision that – not insignificantly – was not the position that the president had taken, but that nonetheless the president and his government showed respect for that institution and for the rule of law by saying they accepted it,” he said, adding General Musharraf was a useful ally. Haqqani suggests Washington rethink this alliance with Pakistan. “The United States has to recognise that the strongman they have been supporting so far is not as strong now as he was earlier but there are no visible signs of a substantive change in U.S. policy at the moment.” “Sooner or later, however, U.S. policy makers will have to face the reality that there is more to Pakistan than Musharraf and once that realisation reaches the higher echelons of decision-making in Washington, the U.S. will start reaching out to other major political players in Pakistan,” he added. From Washington’s perspective, the best scenario probably involves General Musharraf remaining at the helm for a limited period of time in which he leads a crack down on the extremists as well as spearheads a smooth transition to democracy. “But the situation is highly unstable at the moment, and Washington is adopting an extremely cautious position,” Curtis said.
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The labourers who died like warriors FEW outside South Africa have heard of the SS Mendi. To South Africans, its sinking was a defining moment. Ninety years on, a ceremony off the Isle of Wight last week honoured 649 men who died in circumstances that remain both shocking and inspiring. About 12 miles south of the most southern tip of the Isle of Wight, at the bottom of the English Channel, lies the upright, rusting wreck of a naval ship and the bones of its passengers and crew. There it has lain for 90 years, an almost forgotten casualty of the First World War. It was as if the waters had not just closed over the ship, but over all memory of a horrible, humiliating episode. But the memory is returning. What made the victims of this disaster different from the millions of others who died in the Great War? There are two answers. The simplest is that they were black and, as such, not considered proper combatants. The contribution to the Allied war effort by South African recruits has been quietly forgotten, until recently. Nearly 25,000 black men left their homes to travel thousands of miles to the killing fields of France and Belgium – but not to fight. They were members of the Native Labour Corps, sent halfway across the world to dig quarries, build and repair roads and railway lines, load and unload ships, and cut timber. They worked alongside Chinese, Japanese, Indian and Egyptian labourers, and German prisoners of war. Fighting was the white man’s business. When they got home, they were rewarded with medals and land. Black recruits from neighbouring British protectorates were also decorated. But the South African government decided not to award any medals to its black citizens. Those who did make it back to South Africa were not given land, like their white compatriots; instead, they were given bicycles. The 823 men of the 5th Battalion South African Native Labour Corps who boarded the SS Mendi in Cape Town in January 1917 were among the last contingents to travel north for the First World War. Just before 5am on 21 February, the Mendi was struck by a much larger vessel, the 11,484-ton British mail ship, SS Darro. Anxious to avoid German submarines, the Darro had been travelling at full speed, in thick fog, without sounding its fog warnings. It penetrated about 20 feet into the Mendi. An unknown number of men were killed straight away. Others were trapped below deck. The ship had been pushed over sideways, submerging all the lifeboats on the starboard side. The lifeboats and rafts on the port were launched, but having been ripped almost in two, the ship sank in just 25 minutes and most of the men still alive were pitched into the icy water, unable to see more than a few feet ahead. Very few could swim. All 33 British crew members, nine white officers and NCOs, and 607 Africans died. There were two ships nearby. The destroyer, HMS Brisk, lowered its lifeboats to help bring more than 200 survivors to safety. But the Darro, whose captain was responsible for the tragedy, did nothing. It is possible that Captain Henry Stump simply panicked, but a long, lingering suspicion is that he and his officers deliberately left the men to die in icy water, rather than have black men on board their ship. An inquest had judged that Stump was to blame for the accident, and issued what was considered to be a suitable punishment. His licence was suspended for a year. There is a story that when the authorities went to convey the news to the black tribes, they already knew what had happened. As Black South Africa has rediscovered its history, the fame of the victims of the SS Mendi disaster has grown. South Africa’s highest award for courage is now the Order of the Mendi Decoration for Bravery. Old eyewitness stories of the bravery exhibited by the doomed men have become legendary. The most famous story is that of the death dance that the men performed as the ship went down. They were led by the chaplain, the Rev Isaac Dyobha, whose grandson was in Britain for the memorial ceremonies. Mr Dyobha was heard calling out: “Be quiet and calm, my countrymen, for what is taking place is exactly what you came to do. You are going to die, but that is what you came to do. “Brothers, we are drilling the death drill. I, a Xhosa, say you are my brothers. Zulus, Swazis, Pondos, Basothos and all others, let us die like warriors. We are the sons of Africa. Raise your war cries my brothers, for though they made us leave our assegais back in the kraals, our voices are left with our bodies.” Later, the voices of men dying from hypothermia in the sea could be heard through the fog, calling out: “Ho, ‘so-and-so’, child of my mother, are you dead that you do not hear my voice?” By arrangement with
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Chatterati NEVER before in the history of India has the public seen so much lobbying or throwing of dirt in a presidential election. This is the era of coalition governments and the emergence of regional parties. To keep all in good humour, the Congress President Sonia Gandhi hosted dinner for her allies at the Ashoka Hotel. The dinner was actually scheduled to be on the lawns of 10, Janpath. But keeping in mind the unreliable mood of the times, even the rain gods could not be trusted. So, the venue was changed to Ashoka. The Left and the NCP were there but Maya Behenji was not present. Taking a cue from Sonia’s dinner and egged on by Shekhawat, Vajpayee had a dinner for Shekhawat at his residence’s lawns, which was more or less attended by only the BJP guys. After all, if nothing else, the divisions in the NDA are clear for all to see. No doubt, though, one can learn a lesson from Kashmir. Farooq’s NCP, Mufti’s PDP and the independents all voted for Patil. Obviously the Congress leadership is doing something right there to achieve this unity. The formation of the UNPA, Mamta’s own tantrums, and the revolt of MLAs in Gujarat, point to a sad situation for the NDA. In this era of sharing power, one thing is clear as of now – the UPA stands united and has been able to divide the NDA into small factions speaking different languages. Rahul’s return Rahul Gandhi’s return from a long sabbatical after the UP debacle, is something that the party faithful were waiting for. But he is not about to get on to the dusty streets of Mayawati’s UP immediately. Perhaps the Presidential elections had something to do with his avoiding a high-profile UP entry. But choosing to target education within the confines of the parliamentary committee on human resources is a good move. Crossing swords with Brinda Karat is a brave act but Gandhi’s message is clearly targetted at India’s youth. Ask anybody who is young and they are all hoping for more accessible degrees from abroad. Rahul’s defence of foreign universities must touch a chord with the young, whom he hopes to attract. Hopefully, taking on the Left in a frontal attack will not be too expensive politically.
Blueline terror The never ending saga of the Blueline bus services in Delhi is really pathetic. The Chief Minister promises time and again that things will improve but no one trusts her now, on this issue at least. In the last one week, school children, a doctor and a housewife have been crushed to death, thanks to the rash driving of reckless drivers. The sight of a Blueline bus on Delhi’s streets is a frightening one. It is common knowledge that the real bosses of these deadly buses are actually old time politicians and some very powerful wheeler-dealers. With the Delhi elections not too far off, can the Chief Minister annoy them? Or is it that the nexus of these fleet owners is too powerful for the Chief Minister?
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The deathless self sees all, knows all. From him springs Brahma, who embodies the process of evolution into the name and form by which the one appears to be many.” — The Mundaka Upanishad A truly religious man should think that other religions also are paths leading to truth. We should always maintain an attitude of respect towards other religions. — Shri Ramakrishna “As the web issues out of the spider and is withdrawn, as plants sprout from the earth, as hair grows from the body, even so, the sages say, this universe springs from the deathless self, the source of life. — The Mundaka Upanishad
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