O P I N I O N S

EDITORIALS

United against terrorism
Dhaka’s promise to cooperate with India
INDIA’S efforts to seek the cooperation of Bangladesh in the fight against terrorism appear to be bearing fruit. The two countries have agreed not to allow their territory to be used for spreading terrorism or any activity inimical to each other’s interests. This is the outcome of the two-day talks at the Home Secretary level that ended in Dhaka on Sunday.

Slackened growth
Inflationary pressures too real to ignore
THE latest data on the GDP growth released by the Central Statistical Organisation confirms the slowdown fears. In the first quarter (April-June) the economy grew by 7.9 per cent, the slowest in three years. This is close to the figure of 7.7 per cent given by the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council, though Finance Minister P. Chidambaram still insists on an 8 per cent growth in the year ending March 2009.

Call Raj’s bluff
This is not the way to popularise Marathi
THE Bombay High Court has restrained Maharashtra Navnirman Sena leader Raj Thackeray from targeting Mumbai’s shopkeepers who had not put up Marathi signboards. The court order is timely as Mr Thackeray and his hoodlums have threatened the shopkeepers with dire consequences if they failed to follow the diktat by August 28. Strangely, the Vilasrao Deshmukh government has done little to tame Thackeray and inspire public confidence.

• Thought for the Day
• Corrections and clarifications

ARTICLE

Tackling HIV/AIDS
Government is on the wrong track
by Rami Chhabra
Financial reforms are not the only high-voltage items on the UPA’s post-nuclear-trust-vote-reenergisation phase. Ironically, a neo-liberal sexual-libertine agenda is resurfacing with alacrity. Witness: Labour and Employment Minister Oscar Fernandes’s call for “legalisation of prostitution”; Dr. Anbumani Ramadoss telling international audiences in Mexico that India must revisit the Immoral Traffic Prevention Act (ITPA) amendments penalising “clients” of prostituted persons.

MIDDLE

Connected!
by Geetanjali Gayatri
After a hectic day at work, I reached office, sat on my computer, opened my mail only to find an overflowing inbox. The message “Over quota Error” was repeated after every mail I had received since yesterday evening. It was a warning by the computer engineers to do away with all the “trash” that had piled up in my office mail account before they acted.

OPED

Dragon shakes yet again
Another quake, familiar struggles
by Maureen Fan
BEIJING — It was a familiar scene: Rescue teams headed into an earthquake zone on Sunday to help frightened farmers deal with hundreds of aftershocks and a shortage of tents.

Mixed blessings on Iraqi home front
by Said Rifai
My family’s home was taken over by insurgents 19 months ago. On Sunday, we got it back. Until a couple of months ago, the people who had settled into my parents’ house were strangers. They were a Sunni Arab family displaced from a predominantly Shiite Muslim neighborhood during Baghdad’s sectarian conflict.

Delhi Durbar
Big Boss devotees
The Sangh Parivar’s various outfits like the Bajrang Dal and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad are the self-appointed custodians of Indian culture and often indulge in moral policing.

• Shastri Bhavan

• PM’s trip

EDITORIALS

United against terrorism
Dhaka’s promise to cooperate with India

INDIA’S efforts to seek the cooperation of Bangladesh in the fight against terrorism appear to be bearing fruit. The two countries have agreed not to allow their territory to be used for spreading terrorism or any activity inimical to each other’s interests. This is the outcome of the two-day talks at the Home Secretary level that ended in Dhaka on Sunday. They will soon initiate action against the militant and insurgent groups indulging in the smuggling of arms, ammunition and fake currency notes. In the past, Bangladesh had been used by Pakistan’s ISI-supported terrorist outfits like the Harkatul Jihad-e-Islami (HUJI) to cause havoc in India. HUJI is believed to have engineered the recent Jaipur blasts in which 60 people were killed. The insurgent groups active in India’s Northeast have also been using the Bangladeshi territory to carry on their nefarious activities.

The move for an understanding on fighting terrorism began with the New Delhi visit of Bangladesh army chief Gen Moeen U. Ahmed a few months ago. It must be kept in mind that the caretaker government in Bangladesh is a creation of the country’s army. Gen Ahmed’s visit was followed by Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon’s talks with his Bangladeshi counterpart in Dhaka. After that, Indian Army Chief Gen Deepak Kapoor spent three days in Dhaka discussing initiatives to deepen the cooperation between the armed forces of the two countries. General Kapoor’s visit was significant in the sense that the India-Bangladesh border has been tension-ridden for a long time. The two countries have now agreed to hold joint patrolling of the border to ensure that it is free from any major incident involving each other’s armed forces.

The ISI’s use of the Bangladeshi territory to foment terrorism in India has been one of the major reasons for the thick wall of suspicion between the two neighbours. If Dhaka truthfully implements the promises it has made, India-Bangladesh relations will definitely scale new heights. This is in the interest of both countries as well as the rest of South Asia. In fact, there is need for a joint drive against terrorism involving all the countries in the region.

Slackened growth
Inflationary pressures too real to ignore

THE latest data on the GDP growth released by the Central Statistical Organisation confirms the slowdown fears. In the first quarter (April-June) the economy grew by 7.9 per cent, the slowest in three years. This is close to the figure of 7.7 per cent given by the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council, though Finance Minister P. Chidambaram still insists on an 8 per cent growth in the year ending March 2009. The immediate cause for the economy shrinking is, no doubt, the Reserve Bank of India’s steps to tighten liquidity. The measures were necessitated after inflation started moving up to reach a 16-year high of 12.63 per cent before dipping to 12.4.

What worries investors and economists alike is whether the RBI will hold the key rates at the present levels or hike them further. Although the fuel and food prices in the international markets have started cooling, these have not fallen enough to prompt the government to roll back the oil price hike. Banks still have sufficient funds, though there are not many takers for expensive capital. Fresh investments are on the decline. The 21 per cent increase in the Central staff salaries is expected to push up demand and prices of consumer goods, debilitating the RBI’s anti-inflation fight.

Another hurdle in the way of the economy picking up is the general slowdown in the US and Europe. Although the rupee has depreciated significantly, the exporters are not cheerful due to the financial turmoil in the US and its consequences on major economies. Foreign institutional investments have nearly come to a halt. Economic activity could pick up if the UPA government takes up some of the held-up reforms, especially since the Leftist red signal is no longer there. As the government is in the election mode, winning elections is more important than implementing reforms. The Finance Minister knows this and he is only trying to talk up the economy.

Call Raj’s bluff
This is not the way to popularise Marathi

THE Bombay High Court has restrained Maharashtra Navnirman Sena leader Raj Thackeray from targeting Mumbai’s shopkeepers who had not put up Marathi signboards. The court order is timely as Mr Thackeray and his hoodlums have threatened the shopkeepers with dire consequences if they failed to follow the diktat by August 28. Strangely, the Vilasrao Deshmukh government has done little to tame Thackeray and inspire public confidence. Taking a cue from the government, the police officers, too, have remained mute spectators to his antics. Last week, a Division Bench of the court grilled the government lawyer on the steps the government took after Mr Thackeray sent a letter to the traders, threatening to teach them a lesson if they flouted his directive on Marathi nameplates. It restrained him from making provocative speeches and resorting to violence and warned the government and the police commissioners of Mumbai and Thane that effective steps must be taken to safeguard public life and property.

Clearly, Mr Thackeray has brought disgrace to politics. He is not bothered about popularising Marathi or safeguarding the interests of Maharashtrians. He is interested only in sowing the seeds of linguistic fanaticism and communal disharmony through hate politics for his own political survival. His latest fiat on nameplates is totally unacceptable and needs to be treated with the contempt it deserves. Language is an effective vehicle of communication and persons like Mr Thackeray should not be allowed to use language to divide the country. If the state government treats such a person with kid gloves, this will only embolden him to become more irresponsible and run amok.

Not surprisingly, the court has disapproved of the government’s handling of the issue and has made it clear that it was the government’s foremost duty to enforce the rule of law and protect all citizens. What is particularly galling is Mr Thackeray’s audacity in writing to the police officers “to be soft on his party men”. The government would do well to enforce the High Court’s directive in both letter and spirit and sternly deal with the lawbreakers.

Thought for the Day

History books that contain no lies are extremely dull. — Anatole France

Corrections and clarifications

n The name of the Jharkhand Governor in the front-page item “Shibu Soren invited to form govt” (August 26) should be read as Syed Sibte Razi.
n In the writeup “Learn from UK” (Aug 17), Sub Tularam Gurung (retd) was inadvertently mentioned as Sub. J. Gurung.
n The item “MC to include penal action in bylaws” (page 4, August 15) should have referred to Mr Rajeev Sharma as Commissioner of Municipal Corporation, Gurgaon.
n The item “BJP: Shabana’s comments very unfair” (page 20, August 18” should have read: Mr Venkaiah Naidu said Muslims had gone on to occupy high positions in India….

Despite our earnest endeavour to keep The Tribune error-free, some errors do creep in at times. We are always eager to correct them.

We request our readers to write or e-mail to us whenever they find any error. We will carry corrections and clarifications, wherever necessary, every Tuesday.

Readers in such cases can write to Mr Amar Chandel, Deputy Editor, The Tribune, Chandigarh, with the words “Corrections” on the envelope. His e-mail ID is: amarchandel@tribunemail.com.

H.K. Dua
Editor-in-Chief

ARTICLE

Tackling HIV/AIDS
Government is on the wrong track
by Rami Chhabra

Financial reforms are not the only high-voltage items on the UPA’s post-nuclear-trust-vote-reenergisation phase. Ironically, a neo-liberal sexual-libertine agenda is resurfacing with alacrity. Witness: Labour and Employment Minister Oscar Fernandes’s call for “legalisation of prostitution”; Dr. Anbumani Ramadoss telling international audiences in Mexico that India must revisit the Immoral Traffic Prevention Act (ITPA) amendments penalising “clients” of prostituted persons.

Both UPA Ministers broke Cabinet ranks. Weeks earlier, the ITPA amendments received Cabinet approval for re-tabling in Parliament after the Home Minister, Chair, Ministerial Group addressing ITPA issues reported back to Cabinet. At Mexico, Mr Ramadoss also pitched for the removal of IPC Section 377 criminalising homosexuality, claiming impediments to HIV infection control outreach.

Inappropriateness of timing and location for discussing Indian laws, implicit undermining of the Home Minister grappling with the country’s serious internal security crisis aside, what is the importance of such legislative changes to HIV disease control? Incidentally, no other country has made them to stem its HIV epidemic!

Ongoing is a strange, deliberate mixing of emotive human rights issues with public health strategies. It needs disentangling. Citizen/health rights need not conflate with worker rights as is argued for prostitution legalisation. Rights specifically for the “sex-work-as-an-occupation-identity” are a different proposition from an individual’s rights to citizen identity, health-care, etc, on which few dispute. Sexual-orientation concerns ignoring male-sex-trade/abuse aspects cloud public health agendas.

Men-having-sex-with-men or women-having-sex-with-women because of sexual orientation’s biological bias requiring non-discriminatory human rights for persons seeking committed relationships within their gender is another cup of tea, an issue that Indian society must separately deliberate. Legal rights remain elusive even in most Western countries where it is an almost iconic but deeply divisive social concern. Does India, beset with grim divisions, need yet another polarising, potentially lumpen-violence inviting front even as communal/social harmony stands endangered? Secular-sexual fundamentalism mirror-images religious fundamentalism, adds more combustible fuel.

Significantly, strategic NACO programmes for HIV-infection control are not about human intimacy – hetero-or-homosexual. Their focus is on the commercial/casual one-night-stands between/within gender. Therefore, this is not about “adult consensual relations” but blatant commercial/casual sex transactions with devastating societal implications, well beyond personal choice.

The oppression/high risks for women-in-prostitution are well known. But the oppression/ risks of male-to-male-sex are being glossed over. HIV /AIDS male-to-male-sex arena is that of “cruising”, “more-than-five-partners” sex-exchange, macho, often predatory/violent pick-up-networks. Indirect legalisation for this?

HIV-transmission risk via anal-intercourse is manifold —- higher than vaginal-intercourse (Mexico reports: nineteen-fold) —- because greater tissue-trauma is possible. Other STI-risks, such as syphilis and gonorrhea, are as much as 1 in 2-5 for every male-to-male-coital-act. These scientific facts cannot be pushed under the carpet by “political correctness” that seeks carpet-bombing-condom-campaigns instead.

The questions then are: do “structural change” strategies, canvassed to “de-stigmatise” individuals but de facto de-stigmatising unacceptable high-risk-multipartner-sex activities/networks forestall HIV-epidemic spread? Or in India’s context, unscrew society’s hinges, foment the very conditions that flourish, spread HIV virus – and other damaging sexually-transmitted-viruses, impacting youth as principal victims of experimentation within social-anomie? How does legalisation-of- prostitution-as-human-rights-approach square with inevitable, undemocratic enforcement of crude compulsory-physical-check-ups/coerced-treatments that ensure sanitized-beings “service” those that buy?

That commercial/casual sex, including male-to-male, is the principal route of HIV sexual transmission has been long known. (Innocent monogamous-partners of HIV-infected-by-any-route are another major concern requiring very different strategies not prioritised within present programmes.) There is need to heed respected HIV/AIDS analysts highlighting that HIV-sexual transmission does not just leap out of limited sexual networks to spread like wildfire in the general population unless and until there is considerable multi-partner, concurrent sex in that society —- the larger and more open the sexual networks, the more inimical for HIV infection.

Simply put, the more people indulge in commercial, casual sex, the oftener they do, the more sexual partners they have, the more ease with which they move in-and-out of sexual networks the greater the dangers of catching HIV infection and its epidemic spread. (These are besides other consequences of sexual networks to society’s stability/social cohesion which are principal constraining factors in HIV spread.)

Now categorically discounted are past-projections of “forthcoming earthquakes” of HIV/AIDs epidemic in India. Remember the US National Intelligence Council’s 18.5 million-HIV-infections-in-India-by-2010 prediction? International experts concede sexual relationship patterns within much of Asia differ markedly from those in Africa and the West. India’s major saving grace: vast majorities do live within strict social/cultural sexual norms.

The facilitating factors – STDs — arise from the same sexually-promiscuous-behaviour patterns, resulting often in cuts/sores on intimate parts that allow greater quantity of exchange of bodily fluids (including blood). Protective factors: regular, correct condom use, also male circumcision. Protective factors mitigate but do not eliminate the inherent risks of sexual promiscuity, which increase in proportion to the frequency of sex-exchange and riskier behaviour.

The most explosive or rapid epidemic transmission pattern has been noted in the almost daily sex-partner-exchange within large, open-sex networks. In the West and elsewhere gay bathhouse-settings who may have had up to 10-20 different sex-partners in a single day/night and prostituted persons in large brothel-type establishments have provided prime examples of an explosive epidemic transmission pattern.

Should not India concentrate on down-sizing its yet-limited undergrowth networks? Does legalisation down-size or legitimise growth?

I have long argued that legalisation/legitimsation of prostitution and sexual promiscuity in Indian society is not only a social disaster but also a precise recipe for an Africa-like HIV/AIDS flare-up in India. India’s low HIV-prevalence (2.5-3 million absolute numbers constitute: below 0.3 per cent population) is not because externally devised/funded HIV/AIDS-prevention strategies have succeeded, but because the existing life-styles of an overwhelming majority of Indians precluded a high-risk sex behaviour. India’s principal saving factor, irrespective of class, caste, creed, urban/rural location, social disapproval of casual/commercial sex of any type. This kept numbers of those breaking bounds low. The forces unleashed in recent years – of which misguided HIV-prevention strategies are no small part —- are foundationally loosening primary preventive strengths. Surely, what is required is structural reinforcement, not a structural change.

It is increasingly clear that the international response to HIV/AIDS control has not only failed but trails a long-tail of gross miscalculations of statistical data, biased research-findings/donor-funding (UNAIDS, Global Fund not exempt). So much so that HIV/AIDS experts call HIV/AIDS-aid an “ATM”! This, and more, stands exposed in several recent books authored by those earlier deeply involved with global HIV/AIDS work. Other epidemiologists– notably Elizabeth Pisani, author of a dozen annual/biannual UNAIDS-state-of-HIV/AIDS-reports and Wisdom of Whores: Bureaucrats, Brothels and the Business of AIDS —- testify to considerable miscarriage of research/field work, donor-dictated priorities, ignoring scientific findings that rock the boat while “beating-up” small studies/mis-findings into macro-projections for global advocacy! These Western authors steeped in the HIV/AIDS-high-risk-sex-human-rights paradigm yet reveal how HIV/AIDS hysteria has been whipped up to corner mammoth funding and sacrament of such formulae.

Yet we subordinate Indian “political correctness” to perceived political correctness of international lobbies. Individual ministers cosy personal networks, but India pays dearly for a crucial programme gone awry. The UPA’s neo-liberal sexual agenda will boomerang badly.

MIDDLE

Connected!
by Geetanjali Gayatri

After a hectic day at work, I reached office, sat on my computer, opened my mail only to find an overflowing inbox. The message “Over quota Error” was repeated after every mail I had received since yesterday evening. It was a warning by the computer engineers to do away with all the “trash” that had piled up in my office mail account before they acted. There were important mails that were yet to find their way into the address book and I certainly could not afford to lose them.

So, after much reluctance and deliberation, I began deleting my mails. As I scrolled down, I found one by a journo friend, Arunkumar Bhatt, the Deputy Chief of Bureau of The Hindu in Mumbai. It was six years since we became friends; courtesy my husband.

Bhatt and my husband had together attended the Defence Correspondents Course in 1997. They had kept in touch only off and on. However, after our marriage, I was given the responsibility of mailing to Bhatt, giving him the good news as also the task of explaining the run-up to the hurried affair. I did the needful and got a warm mail from him after which the exchange process was set in motion.

In these six years, we had become “sensitive friends”, always in touch when we needed it most. We were “connected” in an odd sort of a way and were there in each other’s mailbox whenever an occasion arose whether my daughter’s birth, Bhatt’s doctorate, my husband’s job switch-over, my mother’s passing away. We were just there.

Given the “connection”, it may sound odd but we had never met, spoken just a couple of times on phone and exchanged one-odd mail in two months. Yet we were friends. Though a couple of occasions presented the opportunity of meeting in Mumbai, we missed each other and never really did get to see each other. In fact, every mail from me would have a joke on the jinx of not being able to meet up which needed to be broken.

So, as I clicked on his last mail to me in April this year, I was oddly surprised to read its content. It mentioned that he was going through his address book and his eyes fell on our names. He wanted to call but found he only had the office numbers. Right afterwards, he opened his mailbox to find a mail from me. He said that I had “pre-empted” him as always.

Surprises sure are fun and it prompted me to call him, for the first time from Chandigarh, and “pre-empt” him yet another time. “Arunji”, I asked with great enthusiasm. A shaken male voice answered at the other end.

On disclosing my identity, he gave me a shock I was clearly unprepared for. He said Bhatt, my only mail friend, had passed away the night before of a massive heart attack. As tears welled up, I felt Bhatt had pre-empted me in the most unexpected fashion. He had, however, remained as “connected” to me in death as in his life. The jinx will now never be broken.

OPED

Dragon shakes yet again
Another quake, familiar struggles
by Maureen Fan

BEIJING — It was a familiar scene: Rescue teams headed into an earthquake zone on Sunday to help frightened farmers deal with hundreds of aftershocks and a shortage of tents.

Less than a week after the close of the Olympic Games, which brought mostly good news to China's government, officials struggled with the aftermath of a 6.1 magnitude earthquake that killed at least 27 people and injured hundreds on Saturday.

The official New China News Agency said it was unclear how many more people were buried in rubble near the epicenter of the quake, about 30 miles southeast of Panzhihua, a city in southern Sichuan province.

The temblor destroyed nearly 400 houses in Panzhihua and 1,000 in neighboring Liangshan, the China Earthquake Administration said on its website.

"All the houses in our village have nearly collapsed, and right now we are risking our lives to bring our belongings out of our homes," said Xiong Mei, a farmer from Nanhai village in Liangshan prefecture, who spent the rainy night in the courtyard of her partially destroyed home.

"In our village, there are 60 to 70 people who are seriously injured and staying in the playground of our elementary school," she said. "We don't have enough clothes or canvas to shelter ourselves, so we have to sew plastic bags together."

Xiong, 37, was near the epicenter of the massive May 12 Sichuan earthquake that killed nearly 70,000. On Sunday, there was only one tent assigned to her production unit in the village - a way of organising and managing rural residents by their jobs - and it was not enough for the elderly and weak.

"From yesterday to this afternoon, we've only eaten once. I am very frightened. The year of 2008 is a year full of disasters," Xiong said. "I have experienced enough torture. I cannot tolerate more."

A man in the rescue supplies office of the Panzhihua Municipal Civil Affairs Bureau said the city needed several thousand more tents and possibly other supplies, such as food and clean water.

"Currently, the biggest problem for us is a shortage of big tents and blankets. We have already distributed more than 2,000 tents," said the man, who gave only his surname, Cao. "We sent most of our people to the countryside to see if any people are still buried. The situation there is still unclear now."

Many Chinese believe 2008 has already brought more than their fair share of bad luck. Crippling snow storms struck Guangdong province during the Chinese New Year commute and many Chinese include the Tibet riots and protests against the Olympic torch relay in this year's negative news.

"There are so many disasters this year, and the people's mood is very low here," said Ju Guihua, 46, nurse at a hospital in Panzhihua that had admitted two quake survivors with broken legs. "The earthquakes are a serious and somber topic around here."

Xu Zhencong, 51, a teacher in Dalongtan town in Panzhihua, was riding a motorcycle home when the quake struck.

"I saw dust in the air from the collapsed houses. And just now, I felt two aftershocks - how can I not be worried?" Xu said. "Today the government sent people to the village to check, but we only have four tents, so I have to buy rain clothes and set up a shelter by myself. Our school was planning to start the new semester tomorrow, but I think that must be postponed now."

News researcher Zhang Jie contributed to this report.
By arrangement with LA Times-Washington Post

Mixed blessings on Iraqi home front
by Said Rifai

My family’s home was taken over by insurgents 19 months ago. On Sunday, we got it back. Until a couple of months ago, the people who had settled into my parents’ house were strangers. They were a Sunni Arab family displaced from a predominantly Shiite Muslim neighborhood during Baghdad’s sectarian conflict.

Like many Iraqis, they went somewhere friendly to their own sect and moved into a vacant house. In this case, it was our home, in the west Baghdad neighborhood 
of Adel.

Then, the Iraqi government ordered squatters in Adel to leave by Sept. 2. Luay Mahmoud, the man staying at my home with his family, called and asked if I could talk to security officials so they would let him leave safely with his belongings.

I agreed.

My good friend Caesar Ahmed offered to come with me Sunday to the old neighborhood. The drive there was uneventful. There was no excitement on my part. It was as if the past 19 months and the ordeal of losing a house, first to gunmen and then to squatters, had never happened.

The neighborhood hadn’t changed much, with the exception of Iraqi soldiers and their armored vehicles manning every corner in place of the Sunni fighters and other gunmen who once controlled the area.

We reached the gate of the stucco duplex just before 11 a.m.

“It looks fine, huh?” Caesar said as we stood there.

“Looks fine from the outside. God knows how it looks from within,” I answered.

A small man in his late 20s or early 30s approached from the other side of the gate. We cordially greeted each other.

Luay, who had lived there about a year, seemed decent and soft-spoken. I had feared I would lose my temper when meeting him, but it was as if my emotions were depleted. I didn’t feel anything. I wondered whether Luay and his family weren’t victims, just like me and my family.

Most of my mixed Sunni-Shiite family had left Iraq in the fall of 2006 because of violence. I had stayed behind and kept watch on the house until January 2007, when Sunni insurgents took over the neighborhood and its homes. Over time, the insurgents were driven out, and squatters moved in.

Inside, the heavy furniture was still there, but everything else was gone: the chinaware, crystal, silver, family pictures, Persian rugs and God knows what else.

Luay insisted that this is how it was when he got here. We found some of the doors upstairs broken down and pocked with bullet holes.

“We’ll come some other day and sort through this stuff,” Caesar said.

We made our way to the local Iraqi army headquarters so I could register my name as the homeowner and Luay could leave with his meager belongings. The place was filled with people wanting to leave and their returning counterparts. We waited two hours. Caesar continuously bugged the guard at the door to let us in.

Just as we were losing hope, we got in to see an officer called Maj. Haytham.

Caesar explained that I had come to reclaim my house and asked if Haytham would sign off on Luay and his family leaving. We showed him documents proving my ownership.

Haytham signed a form giving Luay the right to take his things and go. With that official bless, the house was ours again. The process didn’t take more than five minutes.

“You contact me if anyone gives you a hard time,” Haytham told me.

Caesar and I said our goodbyes to Luay, who promised to be out within two days.

I was overwhelmed by a feeling of emptiness during the walk back to the car. Had I achieved anything? I got my house back, but it had been plundered. But just getting it back should be a good thing, right? I tried to convince myself.

Back at the Los Angeles Times’ Baghdad office, my colleagues asked how it went. Our office manager noticed that I didn’t seem very happy. I told him I didn’t really care anymore.

I described how all the furniture was there but the valuables were gone. Then I went on a rant.

“I will never forgive anyone who supported and still supports this war,” I said. “My whole family’s legacy is gone. Other people have lost so much more, including their lives.”

I haven’t called my mom yet to tell her the “good” news.

It is true that I have reclaimed my house, but I don’t think any of us could live there anymore, not after everything that has happened. I finally came to the conclusion that you don’t have to be without a house to feel homeless.

By arrangement with LA Times-Washington Post

Delhi Durbar
Big Boss devotees

The Sangh Parivar’s various outfits like the Bajrang Dal and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad are the self-appointed custodians of Indian culture and often indulge in moral policing.

One, therefore, expects that its members would be tuning into one of the many religious channels being telecast these days. But a recent visit to their North Avenue office revealed their great passion for the programme Big Boss, the Indian version of the British reality show Big Brother, which catapulted Indian film actress Shilpa Shetty to international fame.

Many of their members apparently watch this show religiously even as they give a discourse on “ Bharatiya sabhyata”. And why not? After all, the show features the late Pramod Mahajan’s son Rahul Mahajan, who is seen frolicking with a bevy of young girls while dressed as Krishna.

Shastri Bhavan

Central government ministries are facing a new security threat these days. This one is not from terrorists who attack from the front, but from junk furniture, which was, until recently, strewn on all the floors in Shastri Bhavan, which houses a dozen-odd ministries.

After desperate appeals to the ministries concerned to remove their junk, the Central Public Works Department (CPWD) has now written a stern letter to the administrative heads of all departments in the building.

The letter reads, “It is regretted that despite repeated requests made by this office, the abandoned furniture is still lying in common areas like corridors and lift lobbies…This material is causing a security threat to the building as any element may plant some explosive material in the jam-packed areas…”

A hapless CPWD has now moved in to remove the junk furniture and will be auctioning it later this week. As if anyone cares!

PM’s trip

Speculation is rife whether Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will also visit Washington during his upcoming visit to America for the United Nations General Assembly meeting.

A section in the South Block, which houses the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), is of the opinion that the PM’s final itinerary will depend on the fate of the Indo-US nuclear deal.

If the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group approves the waiver for India at its September 4-5 meeting and the Bush administration secures the approval of the US Congress for the 123 agreement, Manmohan Singh could go to Washington to sign an accord to operationalise the nuclear deal, which has been touted by the PM and US President George Bush as their biggest achievement on the foreign policy front.

It may well be Manmohan Singh’s longest foreign trip as he is also expected to go to France for the India-EU summit and a bilateral visit to Paris.

Contributed by Faraz Ahmad , Aditi Tandon and Ashok Tuteja