The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

India needs Iranian gas
But both sides must be accommodative

Iran has once again declared that it is going ahead with the pipeline project to supply its gas to Pakistan if India is not interested in it. So far, however, India has also been one of the parties to the ambitious project. It has been trying to sort out the issues relating to pricing and the security aspect of the pipeline, but it has maintained all along that it is interested in the project. The Iranians are not being fair when they say that India is disinclined to join what has come to be known as the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline project. Why should India abandon an option for energy supply when it needs this resource to meet its growing power requirement? Iran will have to be more accommodative so that India remains a part of the project, which may also help in promoting peace between India and Pakistan.

Yes, it is true that the security concerns expressed about the IPI gas pipeline are no different from those related to the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas project. It is also true that TAPI has US backing whereas Washington DC is opposed to India, Pakistan or any other country buying the Iranian gas that will be supplied through the controversial pipeline. But Turkmenistan has been flexible in negotiations whereas Iran is not. Yet India must find a way to ensure that it remains associated with the IPI in the country’s long-term energy interests, regardless of US opposition. When Pakistan is not bothered about US concerns, there is no reason why India should take a decision reflecting American influence.

Both pipelines will pass through Pakistan. In fact, TAPI, which will first enter Afghanistan to reach Pakistan and then India, will require stricter security arrangement because even now the writ of Taliban factions runs in many areas in Afghanistan. The US security guarantees make India comfortable, and this is not there in the case of the IPI. The security aspect of the IPI can be taken care of if Iran gives an undertaking for uninterrupted supply of gas. India should continue to remain engaged with Iran keeping in view the China factor. China is ready to join the pipeline once India dissociates itself from the project.

Safety and dignity
These are every woman’s right

Tomes have been written on women’s empowerment in India and a host of laws have been passed to enable women to fight oppression. Yet the ground reality remains as dismal as ever. Safety of women in India has always been a cause for consternation throwing to winds all talk of women’s emancipation. Now a new study that puts India as the fourth most dangerous place for women gives enough reason for us to hang our heads in shame. India cannot take comfort in the fact that it’s for high incidence of female foeticide and infanticide that it finds itself in the unenviable company of nations like Afghanistan that tops the list.

Denying female the right to be born is no less a heinous crime. If women are not safe in the wombs of their mothers, expecting their well-being in society at large and particularly in marital homes is like asking for the impossible. Violence at homes despite the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act is yet another shocking reminder of gnawing gender gaps. While female foeticide is believed to have led to disappearance of 50 million unborn daughters, violence at home is linked to the death of girls as well. Human trafficking is another grave area. What is even more shocking is that out of three million prostitutes in the country 40 per cent are children. Incidents of rape show little sign of abating and recently the National Commission for Women has expressed concern over fast growing cases of rape.

However, merely making the right kind of noises is not enough. While providing more teeth to existing laws meant to protect women should be welcomed the key lies in its proper implementation. Be it the PNDT Act or PWDVA, the law enforcing agencies must ensure that the guilty do not go scot-free. Women too must be encouraged to seek legal intervention for redressal of their grievances. In the 21st century the least that India owes to its women is the right to be safe both within and outside their homes.

Thought for the Day

The miracle is not to fly in the air, or to walk on the water, but to walk on the earth. — Chinese proverb

ARTICLE

The state of US-Pak ties
Emerging scenario after Osama’s killing
by P.R. Chari

Understandably, there was much exultation in the United States and gloating in India when Osama bin Laden, sequestered in Abbottabad by the Pakistan Army and its faithful ISI, was eliminated in a clinically executed operation by U.S. Navy SEALS. Pakistan protested loudly that its sovereignty had been infringed when its territory was invaded and Osama killed in Abbottabad. This is all very true. Recent reports from Islamabad inform that General Kayani is under pressure from his corps commanders to loosen ties with the US to express their dissatisfaction with Washington’s cavalier behaviour.

These overt protestations, however, are only histrionics meant for domestic consumption. Why? Pakistan is living far beyond its means — its defence budget reportedly exceeds its revenue income; it has to depend, therefore, on external assistance to remain solvent. Significantly, US financial aid to Pakistan since 9/11 — estimated around $20 billion — is much greater than the assistance provided to Pakistan by Saudi Arabia and China. This should be a sobering thought for Pakistan’s ruling elite, who might glibly calculate that if the US withdraws its subvention to its bankrupt economy, Islamabad could turn to the eager Saudis and/ or the Chinese to bale them out. In short, Pakistan’s current fulminations with Osama’s elimination in Abbottabad and its sovereignty being infringed are hugely contrived, and will settle down quickly. And Pakistan will hope to revert to its earlier status as the most favoured client ally of the US.

But will the US continue as before in its dealings with Pakistan? It had anointed Osama with a larger-than-life image as Al-Qaida’s supreme leader, who perpetrated the 9/11 outrage and diminished America’s global image. Osama’s capture or elimination had become the Holy Grail of US foreign policy, and it had expended considerable blood and treasure on this enterprise, which only makes Pakistan’s perfidy more perfidious. No doubt, the US remains dependent on Islamabad to permit logistics supplies for American and NATO forces in Afghanistan to use the land route from Karachi. In the past, Pakistan had connived at these supply lines being attacked and looted to convey its disapproval with some aspect or the other of American policy. This could be seen in the drone attacks that have Pakistan’s tacit approval, but have occasionally caused disproportionate civilian deaths or strayed into unapproved areas. Will Pakistan continue these blackmail tactics post-Osama?

Perhaps, the first indication that the US expects more credible cooperation from the ISI was the recent drone attack that eliminated Ilyas Kashmiri. Suspiciously, few details of this incident are available in the public domain. But timely and accurate information of Kashmiri’s presence had permitted this successful attack since the top Al-Qaida leaders have been observing great discipline in their use of electronic communications. The human intelligence regarding Ilyas Kashmiri’s location could have been provided by the ISI as part of a new post-Osama deal with the US. Ayman al-Zawahari is next on the list. Watch this space. Still, American concerns persist. Washington is disturbed by Pakistan arresting several persons who gave information to the CIA regarding Osama’s hideout. And the US greatly fears that Pakistan might proliferate nuclear-weapons technology to aberrant states and/or terrorist organisations like Al-Qaeda. Pakistan has a long history of proliferation to Iran, Libya and North Korea by the former head of its nuclear weapons programme, A.Q. Khan. There are further concerns that insiders could collect weapons-usable nuclear material from Pakistan’s nuclear facilities to build a crude nuclear device.

There are some indications, however, that the US is getting increasingly reconciled to a Taliban comeback in Afghanistan, and is preparing to abandon President Hamid Karzai. Hence the logic proceeds; it will compromise with Pakistan to establish a stable government in Kabul before it pulls its forces out in 2014. But there are other indications that the US is unlikely to commit the same error that it did in 1990 by abandoning Afghanistan, which enabled the Taliban to overrun the country, provide shelter to Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaida, leading to 9/11, and the present imbroglio. No doubt, there is tremendous domestic pressure on the US Administration to “bring the boys back home” and leave Afghanistan to its fate, but the inevitability of another Greek tragedy unfolding will influence Washington DC to continue its physical presence in Afghanistan, either in the form of training teams or airbases from which drone attacks and surgical strikes could be launched. It is most unlikely, indeed, that the US will leave Afghanistan in 2014.

So, what does all this portend for the totality of Pakistan-American relations? Quite obviously, the US will not loosen its grip on Pakistan. Nor will Pakistan, despite its protests and protestations, loosen its semi-alliance with the US. The glue will be American global interests in the oil-rich Gulf region, while checkmating China and Russia in Central Asia. Pakistan’s interests will largely be monetary. A new relevance will attend the hyphenation of Afghanistan to Pakistan constituting the Af-Pak nexus, which epitomises the current threats to international security — religious terrorism, Islamic fundamentalism, nuclear proliferation and the consequences of states’ facing disintegration. Clearly, the US, which occupies the apex of the international security system, cannot deal singly with these diffuse security threats emanating from the Af-Pak region, but will need to harness the neighbouring countries to grapple collectively with them. And, this harsh reality provides the most convincing reason for the US staying engaged with Pakistan and the Af-Pak region.

So, what are India’s options in this milieu? There is little reason for it to be apologetic about its strategic interests in Afghanistan by rebuilding its shattered economy, or by strengthening its governance structures. But a greater coordination of its efforts in these and other feasible directions with the US is required. An opportunity for discussing these issues post-Osama will come next month when Mrs Hilary Clinton visits New Delhi for the Indo-US Strategic Dialogue.

MIDDLE

A prayer to the doctor
by Ravia Gupta

“Doctor doctor I have a prayer,

For all you have given,

I thank you even before God.

I thank you for making me accept things I couldn’t change.

I thank you to have made me realize about my strength and courage.

I thank you for all you have withheld,

I am glad for all you have permitted.

Doctor doctor I am thankful you were there…

to show me the way to hardships,

And adding to my pain.”

Who says changing times has nothing to do with the way we offer our prayers? Except for God, which is now replaced by a doc. Everything is same, long queues, longing to be able to have the first glimpse, same wish to be able to stay for a minute more with God and above all the same trust and faith. Nothing, absolutely nothing has changed in the way we offer our prayers.

A prayer to a doctor is perhaps as important as remembering God in times when your dear ones take to bed. For them, you don’t mind queuing up for hours just to have a word with the modern “talking God”, who measures each word before uttering and write in a language that you often don’t understand, but you simply trust that they will do wonders and all your sufferings will vanish.

I, too, prayed to the modern God, when my dad fell ill and trusted him blindly. Some prayers were answered just, too, quickly and some were delayed. First, I didn’t understand and later the picture became clear. The “quick heal” was to make some quick bucks and the delayed ones were perhaps a way to keep the source of “income alive”. With the instant recovery I, too, became happy and slowly with the delay I became suspicious, so much so that, with each visit to the “modern temple”, I started losing hope in the God and with the system. To make things worst, one day we (I and my dad) reached the “modern temple” (hospital), the doors were closed and suddenly we found there was no God there. All our hopes were dashed and instead of protesting I, helplessly, again prayed to God, but this time to the traditional one. Sadly, Gods, whether traditional or conventional, don’t answer prayers.

Gosh, why do these Gods come from big cities to small towns? Do they come to do some serious healing work, to do some charity, to get some fame or just to find bait, which they think, is easy to find in small towns?

“Doctor doctor I thank you again,

For opening my eyes and killing my emotions,

Now, I truly owe you a lot for what you have prepared me for!”

OPED HEALTH

As Europe and the US face up to the menace of superbugs, in other nations, including India, the use of drugs by farmers has increased manifold
How antibiotics threaten humans
Jeremy Laurance

The use of modern antibiotics on British farms has risen dramatically in the past decade, fuelling the development of resistant organisms and weakening the power of human medicine to cure disease. Three classes of antibiotics rated as “critically important in human medicine” by the World Health Organisation — cephalosporins, fluouroquinolones and macrolides — have increased in use by up to eightfold in the animal population over the past decade.

Widespread use of antibiotics

Resistant genes for toxic forms of E.coli can jump from animal to human strains

Over the same period, livestock numbers have fallen by 27 per cent in the case of pigs, 10 per cent for cattle and 11 per cent for poultry. Experts say intensive farming, with thousands of animals reared in cramped conditions driven by price pressure imposed by the big supermarket chains, means infections spread faster and the need for antibiotics is greater. The widespread use of antibiotics in livestock farming is recognised as a major contributor to the growth of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Last month British scientists identified a new type of MRSA in milk, the first time the resistant organism had been found in farm animals in the UK. Although the superbug is killed by pasteurisation, there are fears it could spread from cattle to humans.

Resistant genes for toxic forms of E.coli can jump from animal to human strains. The outbreak of a virulent antibiotic-resistant strain of E.coli in Germany last month, which has claimed 39 lives and left more than 3,300 people requiring hospital treatment, has been blamed on the overuse of antibiotics in farming.

The developments highlight the global threat from the spread of untreatable superbugs. An estimated 25,000 people die each year in the European Union from antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections, according to the WHO.

Global public health concern

The world cannot afford to ignore this biological menace
There are two ways to launch a biological assault on the human race. The first is to evolve a lethal bacterium or virus against which we have no defence. The Aids, Ebola and Hanta viruses are examples.
Less feared, but just as deadly, are organisms which have found a way around our defences by evolving protection against the antibiotic drugs we use to destroy them. It is their indestructibility, rather than toxicity, which makes them lethal.
Forty years ago, the Swan report warned that the practice of adding antibiotics to animal feed as growth promoters was endangering human health.
The reckless use of the drugs was fuelling the growth of resistant organisms against which we would have no defence. Antibiotic growth promoters were phased out in the UK from the mid-1990s and the practice was finally ended by an EU-wide ban in 2006.
Now the use of modern, more powerful antibiotics is growing again because the conditions in which animals are reared, crammed together in sheds, favour the spread of infection.
Four decades ago there was less worry about antibiotic resistance because new drugs were coming along to tackle resistant bacteria. But the supply of novel drugs for humans has dwindled to a trickle.
Discovering new agents has proved increasingly difficult and costly; they are only taken for a short period and the returns are low. Drug companies have had no incentive to search for them.
Overuse of antibiotics over the past 60 years, in human and animal medicine, has created this microbiological threat. It is time to revisit the Swan report.
— Jeremy Laurance

The Health Protection Agency (HPA) of the UK has published the latest figures showing a sharp rise in bacteria resistant to carbapenems, a new and strong type of antibiotic, which it says are a “global public health concern”. The first resistant organisms were identified in 2003 and until 2007 there were fewer than five cases a year. This year 657 cases have been identified up to May, more than twice the total for 2010. In some patients they caused fatal blood poisoning.

The HPA, the European Medicines Agency and independent scientists have warned about the link between the use of modern cephalasporins and the incidence of MRSA. Use of the drugs has also been linked to the emergence in farm animals of resistant organisms, including E.coli and Salmonella. Mark Holmes, lecturer in veterinary medicine at the University of Cambridge who led the research into the new type of MRSA, said: “(Cephalosporins) are some of the most effective, most modern antibiotics which are heavily used in farming. Maybe we should hold them back for human use.”

Norway, Denmark and Sweden have strict controls on the use of antibiotics in farming, requiring a specific diagnosis to be made with laboratory tests to show which antibiotic is required. But in Britain, the drugs are used routinely in cows to prevent mastitis, an infection of the udder, which occurs much more frequently in animals that are intensively milked.

Selling directly to farmers

“We are the only country in the EU that allows drug companies to market antibiotics direct to farmers. I think it is unreasonable for the authorities to expect individuals to restrict their use,” Dr Holmes said. “There are 18,000 dairy farmers and many are barely making a living — to point at them and say stop using antibiotics is ridiculous. The authorities should be more proactive — they need to think very hard about how we can guard against generating antibiotic-resistant strains.”

The Soil Association has demanded an end to routine antibiotic use in dairy farming and the introduction of comprehensive tests for MRSA of farm animals, farm workers, milk and meat.

Richard Young, policy adviser to the Association, said the increasing medicinal use of antibiotics was driven by the unnatural demands of intensive farming. “The basic problem is that supermarkets see animals as cogs in a big industrial process. The profit margins are incredibly tight. Most of these problems can be avoided by having less intensive systems so the animals are naturally healthier,” he said.

Scientists have been warning about antibiotic resistance for decades, but the problem has become acute as the supply of new drugs has dried up. At a WHO briefing last month, they warned that the reckless use of antibiotics could return the world to a pre-antibiotic era where infections did not respond to treatment.

— The Independent

Cheap meat and deadly greed
Factory farming is a scar on our conscience and also dangerous to our health
Johann Hari

Here is a news story that could determine whether you live or die. Many of the world’s scientists are warning that one of the mightiest weapons doctors have against sickness is being rendered useless — so a few people can get richer, for a while. If they aren’t stopped soon, the World Health Organisation warns we are facing “a doomsday scenario of a world without antibiotics”. It will be a world where transplant surgery is impossible. It will be a world where a simple appendix operation will be as routinely lethal as it was in 1927, before the discovery of penicillin. It will be a world where pneumonia and TB and gonorrhea are far harder to deal with, and claim many more of us. But it’s a world that you and I don’t have to see — if we act on this warning now.

As the scientists I’ve interviewed explain it, antibiotics do something simple. They kill, slow down or stall the growth of bacteria. They were one of the great advances of the 20th century, and they have saved millions of us. But they inherently contain a problem — one that was known about from very early on. They start an arms race. Use an antibiotic against bacteria, and it kills most of it — but it can also prompt the bacteria to evolve a tougher, stronger, meaner strain that can fight back. The bacteria is constantly mutating and dividing. The stronger the antibiotic, the stronger some bacteria will become to survive. It’s Darwin dancing at super-speed.

So the more we use antibiotics, the more we lose them. It’s a battle played out on human bodies and in human wounds, with sky-high stakes. In many developed countries today, MRSA kills more people than Aids. The obvious conclusion, then, is that we should use antibiotics sparingly, and only when they are really needed to treat the sick. But in one crucial area we are doing the exact opposite — for the sake of a few people’s profits.

In the United States, Latin America, and Asia, animals being farmed for meat and milk are being automatically given antibiotics in their food all day — irrespective of whether they are healthy or sick.

To some degree, this arms race is an inevitable part of nature — but our factory farms are massively artificially accelerating it. They are bringing the day when antibiotics won’t work much closer.

Why? Why would factory farms automatically feed antibiotics to healthy animals, given the obvious risk? If you cram animals together, give them little room to move, and make them grow and produce far beyond the level they would in natural circumstances, they will routinely get ill — and they do. It is cheaper for their owners to simply automatically and pre-emptively drug them all than to try to treat their illness individually, or to create an environment where sickness is not standard.

The animals in these factory farms can become reservoirs of stronger superbugs. Sometimes it spreads to us through contamination of raw meat, but more often it filters out through workers who have contact with the animals. Dutch pig farmers are 760 times more likely to be carrying pig-MRSA than the rest of the population. This story ends eventually with the death of antibiotics — and routine operations becoming deadly once more.

We always knew factory farming was a scar on our conscience, but it turns out it is also an urgent threat to our health. Of course, factory farming is not the only source of growing antibiotic resistance. Doctors have been overprescribing them, and patients have too often not been taking their full course, enabling tougher bacteria to survive and thrive. But this is the most egregious cause.

A few years ago, it looked like the European Union had taken the lead, by banning the routine use of some types of antibiotics simply to promote the growth of animals. But research published this week by the Soil Association suggests farmers are sidestepping the real issue. The prescription of modern cephalosporins, the antibiotics which are most widely believed to promote stronger variants of MRSA in animals and humans — has quadrupled in the past decade in Britain. Why? They are advertised to farmers, who are under greater pressure than ever to get more and more out of their herds because supermarkets have ratcheted up the pressure for quick profit. Decent small farmers who want to resist these trends find themselves out of business.

It might seem strange that governments all over the world are taking such a gamble with public health, in the face of the best scientific advice. But Big Agriculture has armies of lobbyists and open chequebooks, while the people trying to protect the public have only the facts and reason and truth on their side.

Small groups of rich people, determined to maximise profits, are buying or bamboozling politicians into serving their interests and into ignoring the interests of the vast majority of the population. This is the trend that is making it so hard to (say) re-regulate the banks to prevent another global crash, or prevent the unravelling of the climate.

It doesn’t have to be this way. The majority of the population can organise and shout louder than these self-interested juntas of profit.

Fighting back on issues like this works — and we need to step it up. Otherwise, the history books will record something startling. Our demand for cheap meat turned us, in turn, into cheap meat.

— The Independent