The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Water on the moon
It opens new vistas for India, world

Finding water-ice on the surface of the moon has been the Holy Grail for space scientists during the nearly five decades of lunar exploration by western nations. It is remarkable that the biggest scientific discovery of the 21st century has come about through India’s maiden moon mission, Chandrayaan-1, launched on October 22, 2008, which was aborted on August 30 after its power systems failed and it lost contact with earth. Suddenly, the dreams of setting up a base on the moon to exploit the moon’s resources such as Helium-3, a clean nuclear fuel, and using the moon as a transit point for possible exploration of planets beyond, such as Mars, take a realistic veneer. It will also provide a boost to India’s own ambitions for deep space exploration.

Although water was spotted by the Moon Minerology Mapper (M3), a NASA probe and one of the 11 payloads on the spacecraft, India’s own Moon Impact Probe (MIP) aboard Chandrayaan had also picked up signals about the presence of water as it journeyed down to land on the moon. The “pathbreaking and real discovery” thus showcases the benefits of international cooperation in such matters. Researchers had found signs of ice in the moon’s polar region, located in deep craters that have never seen sunlight, in the past also but the latest findings indicate water on its surface. Hence the world-wide excitement and renewed interest in manned missions to the moon.

The sensational discovery has also silenced carping critics who were saying after the Rs 386-crore project was aborted last month that it was a failure. The whole gamut has changed, with Carle Pieters, the Brown University researcher who analysed the data from the NASA probe aboard Chandrayaan, acknowledging that “if it weren’t for them (ISRO), we wouldn’t have been able to make this discovery”. ISRO is set to follow up the triumph by landing a rover on the moon by 2013 and send probes to asteroids and Mars in the future. It is also targeting a human spaceflight by 2016 and even landing a man on the moon in the 2020s.

AIDS vaccine
A path-breaking achievement

Finally a ray of hope has dawned for the world living with the scourge of present times — AIDS. In what could easily be called a watershed moment in medical science, for the first time in 26 years since the AIDS virus became known, an experimental AIDS vaccine combination has delivered successful — even if limited — results. In a trial conducted on 16,000 volunteers in Thailand, the vaccine cut the risk of HIV infections by 31 per cent.

First detected in 1981, AIDS has cast its ominous shadow over millions around the world. Though by 1983 researchers had detected the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) causing the disease, since there are several types of HIV, vaccine development has been difficult. For nearly two decades vaccine trials had not yielded any success. Even the present vaccine protects against HIV-1 subtypes E and B which are prevalent in the US and Thailand, but not the subtype C, predominant in India. In fact, the actual vaccine production may take several years. Nevertheless, it has instilled hope and confidence among scientists. Dr Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases that co-sponsored the study, has expressed “cautious optimism about the possibility of improving this result”.

Right now benefits might not be exceptional, yet even partial success in AIDS vaccine can pave the way. Though global efforts to combat the disease have been concerted, a preventive vaccine alone can defeat AIDS. Thus the words of Col Jerome Kim, an army doctor who helped lead the study, “It’s the first evidence that we could have a safe and effective preventive vaccine”, acquire immense significance. For the world battling with the spectre of AIDS, nothing could be better news. Of course, future research has to not only guard against various health parameters like side-effects and immunity but also ensure equitable access as and when the vaccine becomes available.

Thought for the Day

The poor don’t need our sympathy or pity. They need our love and compassion. — Mother Teresa

ARTICLE

America’s AfPak options
US nowhere close to winning the war
by Sushant Sareen

The Americans insist that they are not going to leave Afghanistan in a hurry and will remain committed in the AfPak region for a very long time. But all the signs on the ground belie the resolute statements emanating from the US administration, Congress, Pentagon and the think-tanks.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the Americans are nowhere close to winning the war. Their military strategy is not working, their political strategy has foundered, and psychologically a defeatist mindset pervades the Western military and political policy-makers. Under the circumstances, nothing short of a miracle can prevent an ignominious, if tragic, defeat for the sole superpower in a place that is often referred to as ‘the graveyard of empires’.

The common perception in the region is that it is only a matter of time before the Americans throw in the towel in Afghanistan, a perception that has in fact guided the Islamist resistance from the moment the Americans entered Afghanistan after 9/11. Nothing that the Americans say or do is now going to alter this perception. Unlike the Americans who measure time in terms of the schedule of Congressional and presidential elections, the Islamists view time through the prism of relativity. Such an adversary cannot be tired down. The only way to win is to ruthlessly eliminate him. But soldiers who get traumatised by the sight of blood and who have to consult a manual before they can fire on the enemy are incapable of fighting, much less winning, against such an enemy.

In Afghanistan, the Americans are the only ones among the much-vaunted NATO forces doing the actual fighting. However, with the costs in men and material mounting by the day, and the military brass running out of ideas on combating the Islamists, public support for the war in the US is dwindling. Not surprisingly, the politicians are clamouring for pulling out (albeit with some face-saving political solution). With everything that can go wrong, the planned ‘surge’ is unlikely to help very much and could end up reinforcing failure.

A last ditch attempt is now underway to retrieve the military situation just enough so that the way is paved for some sort of a political solution. Once this happens, or so the theory goes, the Americans can affect an orderly exit from Afghanistan with whatever remains of their pride and prestige.

The trouble is that the very talk of a political solution, which will be effective only if it brings on board the real (or should we say ‘irreconcilable’) Taliban leadership reaffirms the widespread impression of the imminent defeat of the Americans at the hands of the Islamists. While any negotiations with the Taliban will almost certainly be facilitated by the Pakistanis, such facilitation will deal a body blow to not only Pakistan army’s operations against the Taliban but also to the developing consensus inside Pakistan to combat the Taliban politically, ideologically and militarily.

While it is entirely possible that the Taliban might give assurances to the Americans that they will not allow Afghanistan to become a base for Jihad international by Al-Qaeda and its affiliates, these assurances will not be worth the paper they are written on. The Taliban know that once the Americans leave, they can merrily violate all their assurances because the chances of the Americans coming back will be negligible. All that might happen is a few air strikes or missile strikes. Instead of cowering at the prospect of such strikes, the Islamists will use them to feed the religious frenzy among the people in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Many Pakistanis (mostly of the vernacular variety and all with right-wing, Islamist leanings) have convinced themselves that an American withdrawal from Afghanistan is a necessary pre-condition for ending the Islamist insurgency in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. But the fact is that a US exit will probably create more instability and upheaval than its continued presence in the AfPak region. Counter-intuitive though it may appear, a major power like the US can still afford to negotiate with the Taliban and/or abandon Afghanistan; it is Pakistan that can neither afford US negotiations with the Taliban nor a US exit from the region.

While the US will depend heavily on Pakistan to keep a semblance of control in Afghanistan, such outsourcing is destined to fail. No amount of US military and economic assistance to Pakistan will be enough to stop large swathes of Pakistani territory falling to the Taliban influence. The deep links that exist between important Taliban warlords and the Pakistan army will work only up to a point. Even when the Taliban were deeply beholden to Pakistan, they often defied Pakistan when it came to issues like recognising the Durand line or handing over sectarian terrorists who had taken refuge in Afghanistan. Having forced a superpower like the US to retreat, there is little reason for the Taliban to kowtow to Pakistani influence, even less so since Pakistan had collaborated with the ‘Great Satan’.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, a Taliban regime in Afghanistan will create a strategic nightmare for Pakistan. Instead of Afghanistan lending strategic depth to Pakistan, it will be Pakistan that will lend strategic depth to the Taliban, who will spread their influence inside Pakistan. In other words, the equations between the Pakistanis and the Taliban have already changed drastically.

Pakistan no longer has the ability to stand as guarantor and enforcer in Afghanistan. Nor can Pakistan remain insulated from a Talibanised Afghanistan. Given that on its own Afghanistan is no longer a viable state, the Taliban will naturally gravitate towards exploiting the resources and riches in Pakistan to gain a degree of viability. In the process, they will ensure that both countries become unviable.

Since Pakistan will find it very difficult to survive a Taliban dispensation in Afghanistan, any US strategy must take this factor into account. This means that the US is left with broadly four options: One, the US can continue with the current muddled approach which means pretty much following the failed policies of the last eight years with minor tweaks and reviews. Two, the US can try to firewall the AfPak region to prevent the virulence of the Islamists spreading. But firewalls are easily breached, more so in the geographical and political region in which this firewall is being attempted.

Three, the US can attempt to put the AfPak region under some kind of international trusteeship which will take over this area and reconstruct it and ensure an ideological transformation of both these countries. And finally, the US can just pack its bags and leave. In this last option, the US could either break Afghanistan along ethnic lines or underwrite a loose coalition government in that country or even outsource Afghanistan to Pakistan.

The immediate consequence of a US withdrawal will be a massive global upsurge of Islamist militancy and influence. Eventually, however, the international community will put in place a global security architecture to fight Jihad international, much in the same way it fought Communist international.

As far as India is concerned, if the US is successful in ridding AfPak of radical Islamism, it will in large measure solve India’s terrorist problem. On the other hand, if the US loses in Afghanistan, then while on one hand, India will become the frontline state against the spread of radical Islam, on the other, it can enjoy the munificence of dollars pouring in to keep the Islamist threat at bay.

MIDDLE

US immigration and us
by Rajbir Deswal

Holidaying in the US this summer, I did keep myself informed of happenings back home in India through the net, but had a total eclipse of the Shah Rukh Khan issue, which on landing I learnt, had put the entire country and Bollywood on the boil, on a “near blasphemous and sacrilegious” act on the part of US immigration.

Being a cop myself, I don’t find any reason why someone should not be questioned, if he needs to answer some queries. And all the more justifiable it is if the man on duty wants him to. But I have had different “tastes” of, and “treatment” from the US immigration, having made it to that country seven times, during the past nearly seven years.

First time at Baton Rouge, Louisiana, I was not at ease with myself to reply to a curt, “What brings you here?” Since it was an official assignment under an Indo-US programme, I had the cheek to tell the officer, “It’s your own country!” He looked up after scanning my official passport and smiled back to say: “A cop! Enjoy your stay!”

The second time I and my wife were questioned on our “visiting interest” in Denver, Colorado. To amuse the officer I said, “We want to have a view of the world from your mile-high city!” “Be careful not to miss out on Molly Brown House at California Street.” He smiled and “stamped” us suggesting a visit to the “Unsinkable” Titanic survivor’s History-home.

Then at Seattle, the immigration officer put to us all the leading questions and answered them himself. “And you have come to visit your son. And he works for Microsoft. And he lives in Redmond. And you will meet your grand-child. And you will do baby-sitting for him...!” All this while he was processing our passports too, which he returned duly stamped. We wondered why do they call the playful activity “baby-sitting” and not “being-baby”.

Entering the US from Canada after a visit to Vancouver, the officer, this time a woman, was informed by our son saying, “Three of us live in Redmond and my folks are from India”. Reacting to this rather American “introduction” of us, Anaysa, our three-plus granddaughter, chipped in, uninvited. “But they are my Dadi and Dadu, Papa!”

“What did the baby say?” Sawan explained it when to the Immigration Officer’s other question he replied that he worked at his West Lake office in Seattle. “But you work in Redmond, Papa!” Anaysa again connected. “Yes Beta, I work from both places. Will you play with your Leapster” said Sawan in disgust. We were let in with the woman officer waving a “bye” to Anaysa who had a longish “baaaye” to reciprocate, without lifting the eyes from her screen.

When we narrated this to a friend there, he came up with an interesting episode involving one of our own desis, who on having been otherwise cleared for immigration, was told he could not carry a basket full of mangoes from the Canadian side.

“Well, can I eat them?” he pleaded and was allowed with a “Here and now”! And the fellow ate them all in a corner, holding each piece the way a baby holds his milk-bottle. With a loud burp he thanked the US immigration for their “kindness and generosity.” Smile SRK, and forget about it!

OPED

Water on moon: What it means for space travel
by Michael McCarthy

The American space agency Nasa announced on Thursday that three separate missions examining the moon have found clear evidence of water there. The discovery has huge implications not only for science, but geopolitics as well.

Water, as on Earth? Water you could float a boat in?

No. We are not talking oceans here, or rivers, or lakes or even puddles. What researchers claim to have found are molecules of water and hydroxyl (hydrogen and oxygen) that interact with molecules of rock and dust in the top millimetres of the moon’s surface – in essence, water-bearing minerals, rather than water that is in any way free flowing. But water is water. And water is the essential element for life on earth.

Might it have more than just scientific interest?

Forty years after Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men to walk on the lunar surface, we seem to be reaching a new turning point in space and, specifically, lunar exploration. The pace is being set in Asia, mainly by the Chinese, who since 2003 have been putting their own astronauts into orbit and are now actively developing a lunar lander.

But they are being followed by their rivals, the Indians, and it is a cause of immense national pride in India that one of the instruments which picked up the water traces, Nasa’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper, was being carried on board an Indian lunar orbiter, the Chandrayaan-1; this will be seen as a significant boost to India in its space competition with the Chinese.

Yet these two nations are not alone; the Japanese successfully sent up their own lunar orbiter two years ago.

We may scarcely have noticed it, but these Asian economic giants are now determinedly set on lunar exploration, whether the West is interested in it or not, and sooner or later, one of them is going to send astronauts back once more to our nearest neighbour in space.

Where does that leave the Americans?

In something of a quandary. America’s dispatch of humans to the moon was history’s most stunning technological success, sparking endless dreams of deep-space exploration, yet only three years after Armstrong and Aldrin’s initial voyage in Apollo 11, the Apollo programme was brought to an end.

There were six lunar landings and twelve men walked on the moon’s surface and were brought successfully home, but after Apollo 17 returned in December 1972 there were no more missions. Instead, the US developed the Space Shuttle and restricted its space programme to Earth orbits.

Why was Apollo cancelled?

The cost was enormous and increasingly questioned within the USA; it was thought that the billions of dollars involved might be better spent on domestic problems. Furthermore, the original impetus to go to the moon had disappeared.

It had been a product of the military rivalry of the Cold War with Russia, and of the initial space race. The Russians seemed to have establish a clear lead, and potentially a political advantage, when they sent up the first artificial satellite, Sputnik-1, in 1957, and the first man into earth orbit, Yuri Gagarin, in 1961.

As a result of this President John F Kennedy vowed to put an American on the Moon by 1970.

But once this had been done, it was clear that the Russians were not going to follow suit, and so the space race was over; the Cold War began to thaw.

It might also be said that in the 1970s America’s national self-confidence had began to crumble, with the nation bitterly divided over the Vietnam War; the space programme also divided opinion.

What’s the US position regarding the moon now?

In 2004, George W Bush decided America would return to the moon by 2020. As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama endorsed that decision in principle, but he has delayed taking a formal decision to go ahead with the plan.

Instead, he set up a commission under Norman Augustine, the former head of the giant aerospace company Lockheed Martin, to study America’s space options and report back to him. The Augustine commission’s preliminary report appeared on September 9 and in some quarters this was seen as the death-knell for the idea of returning to the moon, not least because the first sentence announced: “The US human spaceflight programme appears to be on an unsustainable trajectory.”

But, as you might expect with issues surrounding space travel, the position was more complicated than that. The commission was saying that Nasa could not put a man on the moon again within the Bush timescale and with the budget it had; that does not mean that the timescale, or the budget, could not be changed, and these are essentially political decisions for President Obama. He will make them after the commission’s full report is presented to him shortly.

But it seems reasonable to assume that yesterday’s announcement about lunar water will have relevance. Do we really think the timing is a coincidence – of a Nasa announcement about lunar water which implies that establishing a moon base might be more feasible than we thought in the past?

Does it really imply that?

It would seem to. According to Britain’s leading spaceflight expert, Professor Colin Pillinger of the Open University – the scientist who led Europe’s ultimately unsuccessful mission to Mars, the Beagle 2 project in 2003 – a significant supply of water on the moon, in whatever form it is found in, opens up enormous possibilities for a lunar base and for further exploration starting from the moon itself.

Water can be converted into spacecraft fuel, Professor Pillinger says, either as hydrogen or oxygen, which would eliminate the need to transport vast amounts of fuel from earth; it might even be used for growing vegetables.

However, the difficulty, he points out, is that converting water found chemically bound up in minerals – as it seems to exist – into water as we know it, would require a great deal of energy on the moon (it would be done by heating). “You would need to heat up a lot of lunar soil to 200C to get yourself a glass of water,” he said. But even if the conversion is technically difficult, the presence of water on the moon will have another effect.

What’s that?

India’s involvement in the discovery will spur on the Asian version of the space race; it will make the Chinese intensify their efforts to get to the moon first.

And this is the point. At the moment the US in general, and Barack Obama in particular, may feel that the costs of returning to the moon are simply excessive.

But what if the Chinese – or the Indians, or anyone else – goes ahead with an attempt to establish the first true lunar base?

Will the US, the nation which planted its flag there, really stand by and let that happen without becoming involved itself? We shall see.

Does the discovery of moon water make a new space race more likely?

Yes...
It means there is certainly a potential source of fuel in-situ on the surface of the moon
The fact that India played a part in the discovery will most likely intensify the Asian space race
The US won't just idly stand by and let other countries go back to the moon first

No...
Extracting water from minerals on the moon itself would be technically hard to do
The presence of water doesn't lessen the difficulty of getting to the moon in the first place
For the US at least, the expense of a new manned lunar programme may be too great

— By arrangement with The Independent

Inside Pakistan
How close are Pakistanis and Saudis?
by Syed Nooruzzaman

It is no secret that Saudi Arabia has been very close to Pakistan for a long time. It has also been successful in bailing out the troubled leaders of Pakistan. First it came to the rescue of PML (N) leader Nawaz Sharif and then Gen Pervez Musharraf.

Mr Sharif, who had been most vocal in demanding the General’s trial for treason, changed his tune following Saudi Arabia’s intervention. General Musharaf is living a life of freedom mainly because of the role played by the Saudi leadership.

President Asif Zardari, however, does not bother as much about the Saudis as Mr Sharif and General Musharraf do. The latest proof is Mr Zardari’s decision to send his representative Niaz Naek to represent Pakistan at the launching function of Saudi Arabia’s first technical university, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) at Thuwai on Tuesday. Mr Zardari preferred to go to New York to attend a Clinton Initiative function. But this was not liked by many in Pakistan.

The Nation described it as “Zardari’s costly omission”. The paper further said: “Given the close and strategic ties Pakistan has always had with Saudi Arabia, it has been unfortunate that since Mr Zardari’s election as the President of Pakistan, relations with Saudi Arabia have not been given the importance that is their due.”

Commenting on the new university, The Frontier Post described it as “a historic bridge between 1932 and the reunification of the kingdom by King Abdul Aziz and the extraordinary modern society that Saudi Arabia has become today. The remarkable pace of change is epitomised by KAUST itself.”

The plight of Pashtuns

The Frontier Post of September 24 carried an interesting article lamenting the plight of the Pashtu-speaking population of the North-West Frontier Province and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan. The writer, Dr Tanvir Orakzai, blamed the Pashtuns (Pakhtuns) themselves for not throwing up a leadership that would care for their interests. It pointed out that the Pashtuns were harming their own interests by indulging in violence for the redress of their grievances. This has led to their getting exploited by the different kinds of forces active in the area.

Dr Tanvir believes that the Pashtuns do not have the kind of leadership which can help them get out of the morass they have fallen in. “The Pakhtuns have provided an opportunity to the ANP (the ruling party in the NWFP) to prove itself as the party of the people. The main agenda of the ANP in this time of crisis should be to rally Pakhtuns from all over the world and use their skill and potential for the sake of people in order to survive as a political power —- which is not happening.”

The Pashtuns, as the writer says, need to be reminded of the “message of unity and non-violence” given by the ANP founder, Bacha Khan. He gave “the message of peace to his people at a time when violence and revenge was the common practice of the day. The people understood what he preached and the ANP became the most powerful political force of the Pashtun-dominated area. They are suffering because there is no Bacha Khan in their midst.

Concept of national happiness

The challenge posed to the concept of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the conventional method of measuring the economic performance of a country, may lead to the emergence of a different picture of the situation in Pakistan, an underdeveloped country. Those like French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who described the present system of measuring the well-being of people as flawed, may be happy to know that the idea of Gross National Happiness may lead to “a higher ‘output’ (in countries like Pakistan) largely due to the fact that presently most of the productive activities inside the household or in the informal sector are not included in the national accounts”, as Business Recorder pointed out in one of its informative editorials.

It is possible that the proposed new yardstick of measuring the economic performance of a nation, prepared by a commission of economists led by Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz, may find greater acceptance in Pakistan, where a lot of activities take place inside the household. The new idea, first highlighted by Bhutan, has great merit, no doubt. People in many countries —- particularly the developed ones — have a lot to fulfil their needs, yet they aspire for more. This greed-driven approach has led to environmental degradation to a dangerous level. The concept of national happiness may help reverse the trend.