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Real issue in Afghanistan
Compensation for rape? |
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It’s not cricket
Inflation is back
No fiddling with drugs
Mind over Matter
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Real issue in Afghanistan Most experts on Afghanistan are convinced that former US President George Bush’s strategy of using the military to establish peace in that strife-torn country has proved to be a failure. The various Taliban factions, the real source of trouble in Afghanistan, remain as potent a force as they were ever. Even the country’s capital, Kabul, is not out of bounds for them.
Nine Taliban suicide bombers, believed to be men of the Haqqani faction, attacked Kabul’s Intercontinental Hotel, popular with Westerners, on Wednesday in a daring manner. It is a different matter that they were soon killed by NATO forces. Yet 11 civilians and two policemen lost their lives. NATO’s intervention came because the authorities were not confident of the Afghan security forces successfully handling the situation. The Taliban factions continue to control large parts of Afghanistan despite the US-led multinational forces remaining there in large numbers. The extremists have not been defeated militarily and there is no hope of their getting vanquished in this manner in the future. The sceptics should revise their opinion now when one of the most respected experts on Afghanistan, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, Britain’s former Ambassador in Kabul, has expressed the view that it is not possible to achieve “the wider strategic goal of stabilising Afghanistan to the point where the Afghan authorities can secure and govern the country with only money and advise from outside”. Almost similar observations were made by senior military leaders of the US after President Barack Obama occupied the White House. Thus, the Obama strategy of withdrawal from Afghanistan is based on sound logic: Why waste your resources when the goal is not achievable militarily? The best way out of the Afghan imbroglio is to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table. This is what is being done in the case of what are described as the “good Taliban”. Keeping in view the emerging reality, India will have to review its strategy so that the enormous investments it has made in various sectors in Afghanistan do not go waste. Most Taliban factions are anti-India, but those who may join the government in Kabul as part of a future arrangement may change their thinking. They are basically power-hungry and may not behave the way they did in the late nineties when they ruled Afghanistan.
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Compensation for rape?
As
if the low conviction rate (a dismal 27 per cent) in rape cases was not enough to push up the rising graph of rape incidents, now comes a proposal from the Centre to compensate rape victims. The effort, claimed to be “restorative justice”, will, in fact, subvert the already slow process of justice for the victims. This unique way of delivering “justice” by offering financial assistance between Rs 2 lakh and Rs 3 lakh to a traumatised rape victim by the government supports former Chief Justice of India K.G. Balakrishnan’s view expressed during a speech. He said, “Due regard must be given to their (the rape victims’) personal autonomy since in some cases the victim may choose to marry the perpetrator or choose to give birth to a child conceived through forced intercourse.” In many societies which may be considered primitive, similar practices are followed under the garb of social justice. In Namibia, the parents of a rape victim get the issue settled through the traditional court; the culprits’ parents compensate them with money or cattle. In many countries, Islamic courts have asked the rapist to marry the victim. If these solutions are regressive for a modern society like ours that claims to offer equal rights to all, why should rape victims be treated perpetually as vulnerable, and not as equal contenders for their right to live with dignity? What justice will the government offer to a victim of rape whose financial needs are nil? At a time when human rights advocates are deliberating upon punitive laws for marital rape, is it not irresponsible to talk of financial compensation for rape victims? Like the practice of offering blood money, it will only absolve the perpetrator of legal and moral responsibility and the consequences of committing a heinous crime. If the government sincerely wants to control incidents of rape, it should allow rape cases to be handled by fast- track courts and free the administrative and law-enforcing machinery of its caste biases. There is need to ensure that another Bhanwari Devi does not waste her 15 years in the courts, without getting justice. |
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It’s not cricket The International Cricket Council’s decision to scrap the use of runners from all forms of the game, like every major issue, can be argued from both sides. On the one side are those who think this is a move in the right direction since this system has come in for abuse quite frequently.There have been many instances of batsmen feigning injury in order to bring in a runner.
As senior batsmen grow in age and girth, they tend to slow down between the wickets. So, injuries are feigned and a runner is called, who almost always is younger and faster. Two things are achieved — the senior batsman gets some rest and the younger lot can convert singles into twos and twos into threes, shoring up the team total. But on the other side are veterans like Sunil Gavaskar, who think that the bowlers and fielders also flout fitness norms, even more than the batsmen do. This is true to an extent since fielders can call in substitutes at any stage, and the penalties for not being on the field for the entire session or day, and then coming in to bat, are minimal. Gavaskar is right in saying that bowlers get energy drinks at the boundary after every over but, then, even batsmen have extra fielders running in at the drop of a hat with drink bottles. The rules of cricket are far too flexible and all cricketers bend them as per their own convenience. While Gavaskar himself may not have used a runner, everyone in the game takes the advantage of these rules somewhere down the line. In any event, cricket is a batsman’s game, and this ban on the use of runners is not something that shifts the balance radically. Even the adoption of the Decision Review System shows how rules can be bent. As the BCCI agrees to the principle of using reviews, they have not really moved an inch from their original stand. In the end, the BCCI still gets away with its stand while the ICC portrays that it has prevailed. That is not quite true. |
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If you stop struggling, you stop life. — Huey Newton
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Inflation is back
High
inflation is back with us — it is reflected by the Wholesale Price Index
(WPI) which rose to 9.06 per cent in May 2011. Now the diesel, kerosene and cooking gas price hike will make things worse for the common man. Food inflation, which had receded on June 4 to 8.9 per cent, is also back at 9.13 per cent. India is experiencing the fastest increase in prices among the big emerging market countries (Brazil, Russia, China) which is already having deep ramifications on foreign investment and its stock markets. Inflation in China, causing problems of competitiveness to its manufactures, is almost half (5.5 per cent) of that in India. Basically, the Government of India is facing problems of mismanagement and lack of governance in being able to control runaway prices. The Central government is not taking enough strong steps either to stop corruption or arrest the rising inequalities or tackling inflation. Regarding stock markets, India’s is one of the worst performing ones and even Pakistan’s stock market is doing better. Inflation in India is discouraging foreign institutional investments. The Reserve Bank of India has raised interest rates 10 times since March 2010 to control inflation, and its adverse impact on the demand for goods and services, investment and corporate profits is already visible. The Index of Industrial Production fell to 6.3 per cent in April from 8.8 per cent in March 2011. The GDP growth has also slowed down to 7.8 per cent in the three months ending March 31. Unfortunately, the multiple rate hikes have not been able to tame inflation. Some basic problems of the Indian economy also remain unresolved. In agriculture, inadequacies in infrastructure, mainly in storage space, irrigation and transport of perishable goods, remain. The minimum support prices for
foodgrains, on the other hand, have been raised again which means that there will certainly be higher foodgrain prices next season despite the bumper crop. The hike in diesel prices will hit all transportation costs and it will have a cascading effect on the prices of all commodities. Another petrol price hike is also imminent, given the current losses of the government oil companies. The excise and customs duty cuts on petroleum products, aimed at relieving the burden on the common man, will mean Rs 49,000 crore revenue loss for the government’s exchequer which will cause problems in controlling the size of the fiscal deficit. How will the poor cope with high food and non-food inflation? Even going by the Planning Commission figures, there are over 300 million people living in abject poverty. According to it, there are less poor today than three years ago and poverty is supposed to have come down from 37 per cent to 32 per cent in 2009-2010. But there are many more millions who are just “above the poverty line” and are still miserably poor. India’s growth story could indeed be spoilt if we have large numbers of poor without skills, employability and good health, and also have high inflation. This is because with meagre incomes in times of inflation, poor people spend a large chunk of their earnings on food which leaves them with very little for other essential requirements like health, education, housing and nutrition of children. It is a dangerous situation as it affects the welfare of the future generation. In many parts of India, poverty is persisting and people are getting deeper into it. This is the case in tribal areas where the level of human development is very low, and people inhabiting those areas have for centuries depended on forest produce. With their land taken away from them by the state and sold to private mining or manufacturing companies, a sizeable tribal population has nothing to live on. They are not trained in skills and cannot get jobs. They are easy recruits for the Maoists, who keep looking for disgruntled youth having no future. Unskilled
labourers, who have no assets but only labour to sell, are also at the risk of remaining poor for generations and with high inflation, their expenditure on education and health of children will fall further. While it is true that the Indian middle class is growing and more than before people are enjoying foreign travel, can afford private schools for their children and own cars, houses/ flats, yet there are millions who are outside this charmed circle and are suffering multiple kinds of deprivation. The middle class does not mind a hike in petrol/diesel prices because it is a small proportion of its budget, but the poor have to pay higher prices for all goods. Inflation is making the poor poorer. Instead of concentrating on controlling inflation through hikes in interest rate and expecting people to save more and spend less by raising EMIs (equated monthly
instalments), the government ought to make its public distribution system, health care, water supply, education and public transport facilities more efficient and accessible. In times of high inflation, subsidised foodgrains help the poor because these provide for their basic nutritional needs. But, instead of trying to improve it by plugging the loopholes, the government seems keen to dismantle it and substitute it with direct cash subsidies from next year. The poor ought to have more access to public goods than the rich which is the basis of an egalitarian society. Here in India, more and more people are going for personalised transport — cars and two wheelers — choking the roads and highways and increasing congestion and air pollution because of lack of a satisfactory public transport system. All industrialised countries have spent huge amounts on an efficient public transport system over decades, and have encouraged people to use mass rapid transport facilities, but this is not the case in India so far. This lack of efficient/cheap transport will affect the poor more. The EU members, Canada and Nordic countries also have an efficient health care system and a good public schooling facility. In India, even the poor have to go to private clinics and hospitals. The water supply system is also good in most developed countries, where everyone has access to tap water. In India, water treatment plants are not doing a sufficiently good job, and most urban people (even the poor) drink filtered, boiled or bottled water, adding to the cost of living of the average citizen. As for rural India, inflation is having a severe impact on the health of children and their schooling. Higher kerosene prices will increase the lighting and cooking expenditure of the rural population. The rural poor will suffer in many ways and this will have long-term effects on human development in the
country.
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No fiddling with drugs
The
intoxication caused by bhang (cannabis) is probably the worst, especially for an unassuming victim. Years ago, I became one such hapless victim consuming it by mistake. For three days, I floated in a vicious endless circle, gripped in fear and reliving the events that took place immediately after I was tricked by my two colleagues in Patiala into taking a strong dose of bhang as prasad on Shivratri day. It was all fun for others though. I just remember putting a paper into the typewriter until a colleague shook me. He saw me staring fixedly at the plain paper with my hands in the air and fingers pointing towards the keypad, “Bhang has gripped your head,” he said. I felt fear. He took me to our boss who laughed as I repeated many times, “Sir, I have taken Bhang
prasad. I am intoxicated.” He ordered the colleague to take me home and directed me that I should take some rum or whisky that was a good antidote. Riding pillion on the colleague’s black
Vespa, I kept repeating, “I have got bhang nasha(intoxication). Bhaji (Sir) said go home and take rum. I will recover.” The colleague recalls much more. I pulled his hair and ears at the sight of vehicles, especially trucks coming from the opposite direction. I shrieked in fear and gripped him so tight that he was almost strangled. At the same time, I kept repeating, “I have got bhang nasha…..” My mom had a fit of laughter as I kept saying the same sentence again and again. She gave me three glasses of buttermilk and later a huge quantity of mango pickles on the advice of concerned
neighbours. In my mind, events repeated themselves. I was at the office, sitting, telling the boss, on the road, coming home, seeking rum, made to lie down, getting up out of fear and people laughing and lying down again. My boss called me a couple of times only to be flabbergasted when I said, “Bhaji, I got bhang nasha…” and repeated everything. Eventually, on the third day, my father returned from some outstation work and gave me rum. I came back to reality within a few hours. By that time I had consumed buckets of buttermilk and over a kg of pickles as well. The two tricksters had their own harrowing time. One of them belonged to a hill station and was for the last few days crossing a narrow trench dug for laying telephone wires, on the way of our office. That day he couldn't dare ply his scooter on a small plank over the trench, “It is a deep khud (gorge).” It took 8 or 10 people to lift him across while he resisted his best. The second one got stuck at traffic lights. He kept accelerating his Chetak scooter without putting it in gears as the lights turned red to green to red to again green and so on. Eventually, a friendly cop helped him by pushing his vehicle with the help of others as my colleague sat on the vehicle shouting ‘vroooommm’. He used gears later but got stuck at the next intersection and the next as well before somehow reaching home. We all laugh at it now but we tell all not to play such
tricks.
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Mind over Matter
Modern-day
parents are facing new challenges in the growing needs of their
children, which directly impact their academic results, behaviour and
concentration. Junk food, coupled with an increased intake of
processed food by growing children, is not adequate enough to take
care of their nutritional needs. Most of us have had a harrowing time
with these problems, despite expecting great performance from them by
sending them to the best of schools that we could afford. Some common problems in children can be anxiety, depression, aggression, mental performance, temperament, relationship disturbances with friends and family, poor-school performance, behavioural regression, phobia, thumbsucking, repetitive movements of muscle groups, stuttering, dysfluent speech, anxiety disorders, fearfulness, disruptive behaviour, arson, anti-social behaviour, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, careless mistakes, avoiding sustained mental effort, fidgeting, impulsiveness, sleep disorders and a score of more such problems. The world-over scientists, researchers and doctors have documented some studies, which are as surprising as revealing. There is mounting evidence to suggest that children, who eat a diet containing sufficient Omega 3s, are better behaved, more intelligent and even show lower levels of allergies. What is Omega 3? Two fats, which are essential to good health, are called Omega 3 and Omega 6. These belong to a family of polyunsaturated fatty acids known as “essential fatty acids” or EFAs. These fats are vital for good health and normal growth. These are called “essential” because the body cannot manufacture these fats, or store much of these fats. These fats have to be taken through the diet. In other words, they have to be eaten regularly. To make matters more complicated — Omega 3 and 6 only maintain their status as “Good Fats” when these are eaten in the right balance. The typical diet that our children eat contains too much of Omega 6 and too little of Omega 3 fats. That’s way we need to increase our intake of Omega 3 in isolation, as our Omega 6 intake is normally sufficient. Alpha Linolenic Acid (ALA) is the principal Omega 3 fatty acid, which a healthy human being will convert into eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), and later into docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). EPA and the gamma-linolenic acid (GLA) synthesised from linoleic (Omega-6) acid are later converted into hormone-like compounds known as eicosanoids, which aid in many bodily functions, including vital organ functions and intra-cellular activity. Omega 3s are used in the formation of cell walls, making the walls supple and flexible, and improving circulation and oxygen uptake with proper red-blood cell flexibility and function. Omega 3 deficiencies are linked to decreased memory and mental abilities, tingling sensation of the nerves, poor vision, increased tendency to form blood clots, diminished immune function, increased triglycerides and “bad” cholesterol (LDL) levels, impaired membrane function, hypertension, irregular heartbeat, learning disorders, menopausal discomfort, itchiness on the front of the lower leg(s), and growth retardation in infants, children and pregnant women. In an intensive trial conducted by Dr Alex Richardson, a senior research fellow in physiology at Mansfield College, University of Oxford, and Madeleine Portwood, a special educational psychologist with the Durham Local Education Authority, it was reported by the BBC, UK, that statistically significant improvement was seen in the school performance in the group of children who were given Omega 3 supplements. The dramatic effects of Omega 3 fatty acids on the children in the Durham trial may hinge on several functions of fatty acids in the brain. It was found that Omega 3s may make it easier for signals to cross the gap between brain cells and also improve brain function at the very simplest level, by improving blood flow. However, studies such as the Durham trial suggest that all is not lost, and that boosting Omega 3 intake may still confer significant benefits. Western diets contain very little Omega 3 fatty acid. Hydrogenation, the process used to give foods a long shelf life, removes them. But certain people may break down Omega 3 fatty acids faster than others. Some of the children, who showed greatest improvement in the Durham trial, might fall into this category. According to the American Dietetic Association, adults should receive 20 to 35 per cent of energy from dietary fats, avoiding saturated and trans or “bad” fats, and increasing intake of Omega 3 fatty acids. The association also found that substitution of canola oil for fat commonly used in the US would increase compliance with dietary recommendations for fatty acids, particularly in lowering saturated fat and increasing heart-healthy monounsaturated fat. Dr Basant Puri, a consultant psychiatrist and senior lecturer at London’s Imperial College, released his findings on Omega 3 and its effect on brain function and depression. l
Daily supplements of Omega 3 fatty acids will boost the brain development of children by three years in only three months. Scans showed their brains developed three years in as many months as nerve fibres grew additional branches. l Children given capsules of Omega 3 grew additional “grey matter” which helps intelligence. l Brain scans, which showed the evidence of changes, were reinforced by results in tests of reading, concentration and short-term memory. l Children, who took part in the study, increased their reading ability by an average of a year and a quarter during the Omega 3 trial. The average increase in their reading age was a year and a quarter and their handwriting became more accurate. Studies over the past two years have consistently confirmed that Omega 3, a substance lacking in today’s diet, is a key component in the brain’s development and proper functioning. While the benefits of Omega 3 fatty acids can be noticed on many levels, the biggest breakthroughs documented have occurred in improved mental functions and health. Omega 3 has been reported to be effective in the treatment of depression. The main reported benefits of Omega 3 for the body occur in the heart. The American Heart Association recommends including oils and foods rich in alphalinolenic acid (canola, flaxseeds and walnuts) in order to reduce the likelihood of heart disease. While research is still ongoing into the effects of Omega 3 on the heart, research so far date has shown that Omega 3 fats decrease the risk of arrhythmias, which can lead to sudden cardiac death, decrease triglyceride levels, decrease growth rate of atherosclerotic plaque, lower blood pressure. Additionally, Omega 3 has been reported to be effective as an anti-inflammatory. And according to an article by Judith Horstman for Arthritis Today, there is strong evidence that oil supplements with Omega 3 fatty acids can ease rheumatoid arthritis (RA) symptoms. The problem is to identify the most commonly used diet without changing your lifestyle a lot. It can be seen that cooking oil can be the one common link in each one of our lives. It can be a good source of Omega 3 nutrition for not only our children but also for the parents too, if chosen carefully. It is said the Japanese have been found to have very low incidence of depression, heart diseases and their children have been found to be the most intelligent, due to their Omega 3-rich diet. Any good doctor or nutritionist will tell you that the best way to get any nutrient is to go right to the source and eat it through the foods in which they originate. In the case of Omega 3, this would most likely be in the form of canola oil, fatty fish, flaxseed, walnuts etc. And it is a relief to know that finally a small change in dietary habits like switching over to healthier oils like canola can bring about a turnaround in the family’s health. It is said “you are what you eat” but now it also seems that “you act what you eat”, too. (Dr D. S. Samloke is a practicing physician, child psychologist and researcher in the fields of child behaviour and intelligence). Tall claims l Most of the cooking oils lay tall claims as being Omega 3 rich but the truth is that, either their percentage of Omega 3 is too less or the ratio of Omega 3 to Omega 6 is badly skewed. The lower the ratio, the better the oil. l Here are the Omega 3 content and ratios of Omega 3 to Omega 6 fatty acids in some common cooking oils: l Canola oil like Jivo (content 11 per cent), Ratio 1:2 l Olive oils like Figaro and Leonardo (1 per cent), 1:13 l Sunflower oils like Sundrop and Sweekar (1 per cent), 1:71 l Safflower oils like Saffola 1:88 l Soybean oils like Fortune and Nature Fresh (7 per cent), 1:7 l Corn oils (1 per cent), 1:57 l Groundnut oils (negligible Omega 3) and l Palm oils like Ruchi Gold (negligible Omega 3). l Typical Western diets provide ratios between 1:10 and 1:30 - i.e.,
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