mindless musings

The real heroes

2009-09-04T14:33:00.001+05:30

I had never been one of those person with an ardent nationalistic fervour within. Apart from the momentary goosebumps that one gets while hearing "Desh ki Darti" type songs, or a bit of guilt to see some pictures of our Army heroes slogging at the borders, I do not boast of any such feeling.

However, while watching the drama of the missing chopper of YSR and the massive rescue operation on television, there was a moment when my nationalistic pride actually perked up a little.

It was when the visuals of a mangled paper, wrapped in a Lifebuoy soap, appeared. The torn paper had some hurriedly scribbled mathematical jottings.

Later, when the reporter explained that the piece of paper contained some geographical calculations about the location of the falling chopper and that it was believed to have been dropped by the pilot of the ill-fated chopper, I was amazed.

I was stunned at the duty consciousness of the pilot who made his last effort to inform about the chopper's location when all the instruments on board malfunctioned.

Even while death was staring on the face, the pilot had the presence of mind to drop an SOS signal as there was a VIP on board. Though the note was found much later owing to terrain and weather conditions, it did help the rescue team to narrow down their search and locate the remains of the chopper.

Am sure such emergency tactics and SOS training are all part of the military curriculum and there would be many instances when officers, who died on their line of duty, had reacted But having witnessed one for the first time, I was amazed at the clear thought and precise action that impelled him to do so.

Kudos to our Forces and our humble prayers to captain Group Captain S.K. Bhatia and co-pilot Captain M.S. Reddy

Sen and the art of development

2009-05-11T16:22:00.002+05:30

C P SURENDRAN
There is not much you can do these days without making a festival of. The Free-Binayak Sen campaign scheduled to peak out on May 14, when Dr Sen completes two years in Chhattisgarh Central Jail, is aiming to rally one million people on line. Activists must hope that a few zeroes on the right side of any number will translate to Sen’s freedom. If only democracy were a matter of ciphers.

Again, there is not much you can say about Binayak Sen that is not already in the public domain. Sen is a doctor who decided early on to work among the poor in Chhattisgarh. He is the General Secretary of People’s Union of Civil Liberties (PUCL). In which capacity he campaigned for the rights of those who were victimised by the State, the police and Salwa Judum.

Salwa Judum, for the novice, is a “people’s movement” funded and armed by the respective state government and aimed at resisting Naxal overtures. The resultant violence in Chhattisgarh has killed and mutilated thousands of humans.

Quite a few of those Sen helped turned out to be Naxals or Naxal sympathizers. This might be considered natural in a state where tribals and scheduled castes form nearly 50 per cent of the population. They own and occupy substantial amount of forest and mineral land. Since the State has failed in considerable parts of Chattisgarh, the leadership of tribals and scheduled castes for the present rests with Naxals, not with parliamentary parties.

The natural resources in question are in fact central to the understanding of Sen’s personal tragedy. There’s a regular tussle in Chattisgrah for the appropriation of the riches by corporate houses and the government on the one hand, and by the indigenous people led by Naxals on the other.

In short, Sen is a victim of a certain kind of development model which seems to represent the top 25 % of the population. People like you and me. In India that translates to nearly 250 million people, and so the economy stays afloat on that critical mass. And land – whether setting up for plants or as a source of metals or minerals — as Ratan Tata would tell you is at the heart of India’s present and future unrest.

On May 14, 2007 Dr Sen was arrested under the Chhattisgarh Public Securities Act for collusion with Narayan Sanyal, a Maoist leader doing his time in the Central Jail. The authorities believe that Dr Sen was carrying letters --that furthered Naxalite activities in the state-- from Sanyal to one business man Piush Guha, who too was later arrested and locked up in jail.

Technically, as in the case of Josef K in Kafka’s The Trial, the case against Dr Sen is flimsy. Dr Sen’s meetings with Sanyal took place in the presence of jail authorities. The opening lines of The Trial capture the essence of Sen’s situation as well: “Someone must have been telling lies about Josef K: he knew he had done nothing wrong, but, one morning he was arrested.” And since Dr Sen was arrested under CPSA the authorities are exempted from giving an explanation for their conduct in court or elsewhere.

It is unlikely that Dr Sen will be kept in prison for too long in the face of escalating legal and activist pressure. But the appalling reality is that these missing years of Dr Sen’s life have already taken a toll. His wife, Professor Ilina Sen is living an unreal life. Unreal in the sense that she never thought she would be spearheading a public campaign for Dr Sen’s release. “If someone told me the story of my life two years ago, I would have told him, no, that’s not me.”

The family has been broken up. Both Sen daughters are in Bombay away from the primal politics of Chhattisgarh. Professor Ilina Sen, who is Dean at Wardha University, divides her time between her workplace and Chattisgarh. The professor is articulate and brave. But if you meet her you cannot escape the feeling that this is a beleaguered woman holding on to hope and reason by her finger nails, which seem well chewed. The arrest has changed at least the younger daughter’s outlook. She had wanted to do medicine. But after Dr Sen’s arrest,18 year old Aparajita wants to become a lawyer.

Since these are real people, they must hurt. But of course Dr Sen and his family are not the only ones hurting. There are 1135 prisons in India, housing 322,000 inmates. According to National Crime Record Bureau some 223,000 out of this teeming Republic of the Wretched are undertrials or people who don’t know what wrong they have done. A million Josef Ks.

Dr Sen’s case is representative of the major failings of the Indian state, be it democracy, development or speedy justice. And none of it, typically, figures in these general elections. That no political party including the morally high-horsed Left has succeeded in mainstreaming these crucial issues is proof of a real problem.

But equally Dr Sen’s case also showcases a dire possibility that the worst can befall the best among us. Take care. One of these days you and I are just as likely to swell the rolls of the undertrials. Don’t ask why. Shit happens. And in such an eventuality, unlikely as it may sound, the shame of our fate may outlive us, which was Josef K’s last thought as well as the knives went in.

Dr Sen will complete 2 years in illegal detainment on May 14, 2009.

My new blog

2009-02-04T17:27:00.002+05:30

Read my new blog about interesting news/events that can happen only in India.

http://huesofindia.blogspot.com/

I can hear you all telling me about why a new blog when I am not regular in updating this one. But the new blog is a news blog and is pretty much easier for me to post stories.

vaaaranam ayiram.. oh shanthi..

2008-11-21T14:02:00.001+05:30

another lovely song..

vaaranam ayiram.. mundinam parthene..

2008-11-21T13:55:00.001+05:30

I really love this song.. after a long time.. nice song.

So why are the Gujjars hungry for the ST pie?

2008-06-04T11:03:00.000+05:30

The Gujjar community in Rajasthan is fighting tooth and nail to downgrade its caste status in the government records. They want to be moved down to Scheduled Tribe (ST) status from their present categorisation under Other Backward Classes (OBC).

But why such a downgrading? All in the hope of getting preferential access to jobs and education for its youth. By being considered under the ST category, the Gujjars stand to benefit by way of more quotas in educational institutions and job quotas in government offices.

Government of India has classified various communities into a host of categories based on their social and economic status. Those under ‘Scheduled Tribes’ are people living in the forests or on the hills but are not necessarily socially backward, while OBC comprise castes that are not isolated from the society but still are educationally and economically backward.

In Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh, Gujjars already enjoy ST status, but in states like Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan and Gujarat, they fall under OBC category. This is so because in these states, the members of the community are a more settled lot, engaged in agricultural activities.

However, the Gujjar fight in Rajasthan is to get things even with other communities such as Jats and Meenas. The Jat community in Rajasthan was accorded an OBC status in 1989 following a ‘caste’ struggle akin to the present Gujjar one. Jats, being a powerful community in terms of the vote bank, were able to manipulate the Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s government to give in to their demand for OBC status.

Ever since then, the Gujjars were peeved at sharing their OBC pie with Jats. Gujjar youth have been complaining their Jat counterparts were garnering a greater share of the 27-per cent reservation quota in public sector for OBCs, thus grabbing their opportunities.

Hence, Gujjars insist on being downgraded to ST category that will enable them to enjoy the 7.5 per cent quota reservation as the Meenas, another nomadic community that has prospered through ST quotas.

Interestingly, this is not the first instance of a downgrade of the Gujjar community. Originally, the Gujjars had been branded as a criminal tribe and were brought under the infamous Criminal Tribes Act by the British in 1924, which was subsequently repealed by Sardar Vallabbhai Patel in 1951. Around the time of Mandal Commission, in 1981, Gujjars were enlisted as Backward Castes. But subsequently, in 1993, the community managed to downgrade itself to the OBC category.

Gujjars, who comprise more than 5 per cent of Rajasthan’s over 56 million population, had come up with this demand as early as 2003. The only Gujjar leader in the limelight was Rajesh Pilot. But after his passing, the community felt isolated with none to take up its cause.

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), however, had included the Gujjar demand in its 2003 election manifesto and even Vasundhara Raje, during her election campaign, reportedly promised to promised to look into their long-standing demand for ST category inclusion. The Gujjars even sent six legislators from their community under the aegis of BJP to the state assembly to press for their demand but in vain.

The reticence of Chief Minster Raje to accede to the Gujjar demand seems to stem from the fact that if Gujjars are granted ST status, they are bound to take jobs set aside for other ST groups like the Meenas, and Meenas, another major votebank, are threatening a backlash.

Meanwhile, the Gujjars in Kashmir, who enjoy the ST status, are up in arms against the same being conferred on the Paharis of the state, claiming that there is no provision to classify a community as ‘Schedule Tribe’ on the basis of language or location.

The new New Year

2008-01-25T10:52:00.000+05:30

The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, M. Karunanidhi, announced yesterday that Pongal, the first day of the Tamil month of Thai, will be announced as the Tamil New year’s day and a government directive to this effect will come into force very soon. He claimed that a group of 500 Tamil scholars after various deliberations had finally arrived at the consensus of making Thai as the first month of the Tamil calendar instead of Chithirai, which is currently followed and mostly falls on April 14.

But this disagreement over renaming the Tamil New year seems to have had its genesis in 1921 spearheaded by Maraimalai Adigal, a Tamil Scholar who lived during the early 19th century.

The Hindu calendar is based on both the solar and lunar movements and has been formulated based on their relative positions to earth. This is based on principles of Surya Siddhanta, a treatise of Indian astronomy written as early as 3rd century BC, which even Indian astronomers such as Arya Bhatta and Varahamihira too have made references in their works. It follows a 60-year-cycle culminating in a yuga or an era, which is even followed by the Chinese. As per this calendar, the Tamil New Year’s day follows the vernal equinox and usually falls on April 14. It also marks the Sun’s entry into Mesha rasi,

The astronomical significance of the Pongal festival is that it marks the beginning of Uttarayana, the sun's movement northward for a six-month period. Makara Sankranthi refers to the event of the sun entering the zodiac sign of Makara (Capricorn).
Uttarāyana is the six month period between Makar Sankranti around (January 14) and Karka Sankranti around (July 14), when the Sun travels towards north on the celestial sphere. The period from July 14 to January 14 is known is Dakshināyana

However, Maraimalai Adigal, a Tamil purist, while launching his Pure Tamil Movement in 1921, held a meeting at Pachaiyappa college in Chennai, to declare Thiruvalluvar time (31 B.C), to be used as a reference thereafter, instead of the 60-year cycle of the Hindu Vedic calendar, which does not contain any Tamil words. He also insisted that Suravam (thai), to be celebrated as Tamil new year month instead of sithirai. Tamil Nadu Government accepted the Tiruvalluvar year in 1971.For eg. jan. 17, 2008 is suravam, 2039.[2]

And guess it’s only from then on the Tiruvalluvar day on January 15 came into existence and was declared a state holiday!

Where is Value in education?

2007-12-18T17:33:00.000+05:30

Moments ago, I was reading a mail that enlisted the simple pleasures that people born before the 80s enjoyed. One which talks about the regular activiities of the kids of those times, rare for kids of these days, which involved simple pleasures such as jumping over the wall, climbing the tree, running in grounds, a fairly good immunity to eat anything that we want, so on and so forth. Just after basking in that cosy feeling, the first news to hit me from the ticker was that of a class 11 boy stabbing a class 8 girl for rejecting his "marriage" proposal.
Dejected over the girl's refusal to "marry" him, the boy had stabbed her to death and he consumed poison himself. Not long ago, was that incident in a Delhi school when a class 9 student fired gun shots at his classmates over some minor disagreement. A similar case of a school boy throwing acid in the face of a girl who rejected his wedding proposal also hit the headlines a couple of months ago.
Of late, the incidence of such violent incidents in school campuses are on the rise.It is appalling to note that children these days completely lack the basic human tenet of forgiveness, instead are gripped with cold feelings of hatred and revenge. How else would you explain such act of "revenge" and "rejection"?
This brings a few questions to the fore. Where is the eternal value called patience gone? Where is that wonderful virtue of forgiveness, for which India is known in history gone? What is the kind of education that these kids are acquiring? What are the values that the teachers and parents impart in their wards?
Just a mere school trip to temples or historical places or just showing them a few slides about a few animation films about saints, none of these so-called virtues will be imparted.
Virtues are not acquired,they have to be cultivated. It is the responsibility of both the parents and teachers to explain to children as to how to handle disappointments, failure, cheat etc and explain the importance of forgiving people and forgetting unpleasant things.
But in this competitive world, with success being recognised as the only positive virtue while anything else is considered a total fiasco, the parents and teachers themselves are out to invent numerous short cuts to reach the goal. So, driven by , both parents and teachers,children tend to believe that failure is taboo and fail to accept defeat and debauchery. This leads them to such extreme acts of violence.
Unless parents and teachers highlight the virtues of patience, perseverence, forgiveness to their wards, I am sure such headlines will continue to make it to news pages.

Cheats of Justice

2007-09-22T19:30:00.000+05:30

It is one of the most ironic judgments of an Indian Civil court. We all know that the mother is the natural guardian of a child. Even the animals acknowledge the fact. However, a local court in Jaipur refuses to believe the dictum.
Recently, a Rajasthan court has passed a judgment in a case filed by a woman under the Domestic Violence Act saying that that the mother cannot take care of her daughter because she is a HIV affected patient.
And how did she contract the virus? From her husband who was an army officer. Her husband who died March 19, 2003 gifted his wife both the daughter and the virus before his last journey. And the poor lady, ever since her husband’s death, has been facing the wrath of her in-laws.
With the diagnosis of HIV virus in her, she was even thrown out of the house. And now the in-laws have taken away her daughter and are even refusing to let her meet the child. Disgusted with her state of life, the lady had appealed to the court of law hoping for some justice and lo! What a judgment she has got!
It is a sad state of affairs in the country for the many women like her who contract the deadly virus from their husbands and are penalized for no fault of theirs. There have also been a few cases in Tamil Nadu, especially the interior regions of the state, where women who have contracted the HIV virus from their husbands have been asked to leave the marriage for no fault of theirs while the husband continued to enjoy a happy matrimony with another woman. The contention being that it was the fault of the woman and not of the man and that, “ She should have been careful to not to let her man go astray”. Some weird justification!
But why blame a few uneducated rural folks when the educated and highly respected seat of justices too stand by their words saying that a HIV infected mother cannot take of her child. It was the primary responsibility of the courts to act as a role model to the rural folks and let them know that HIV infection is not a stigma. Despite the government spending crores for its HIV health programmes, it is most appalling to note the Judiciary act in this manner.
Though a few women’s rights group have taken up the case for now and are planning to move higher courts, it is yet to be seen if the young widow will ever get justice.

My US Trav(ail)logue!

2007-09-20T17:48:00.000+05:30

Bitten by the blogger’s bug and also by my editor (who insisted that I produce at least a couple of copies after the month-long recess from work), here goes my first international travel tale (read travail).

Curiously enough, the start of the story was a sudden bolt from the blue in the form of a call from the US consulate in Chennai. They called up to let me know that I had been invited for a month-long trip to the US by the Bush Government. “Hey.it was not even the month of April?” I replied thinking that it was one of my friends trying to play a prank. But the lady at the other end assured me that she was an employee of the USIS and that she wanted my consent for the economic journalists programme immediately. Initially, it was a moment of pride to proclaim myself that I had been invited by the US State Department but later I realised that it was one of their annual event and many journalist colleagues have already been a part of this exercise. (May be I was the only one in Chennai who hadn’t been given an opportunity yet!) I was told that 5 other distinguished journalists from various parts of the country will accompany me and this was an exclusive programme for just the six of us!

My trip to the US started off smoothly with my baggage filled with all vegan kitchen goodies. (“You know how tough it is in the US,” insisted my mom and made sure that I had a bagful of food itemsf). Till now, she doesn’t know that the immigration officials trashed most of them.

The long wait in the check-in queue had a bit of surprise for me. Right in front of me was some familiar old man with an iphone in his hand. He seemed too familiar to me and I started raking my brain to match the face with my familiar list. Lo and Behold!! It was Narayanamurthy! The scion of Infosys! And boy! I have just read about his simplicity but this was very evident in front of me. He was just standing in front of me in the queue like the hundreds of old parents who are on their way to visit their sons and daughters and no airs about it. Thrilled about being with him, I requested for an autograph which he duly refused. “ Sorry, My company bars me from signing any paper,” he politely told me. Though a bit depressed yet determined, I asked him if I can take a picture with him and he readily agreed. And this was the first picture of my US trip at the Chennai airport with the Infy chief mentor. (Man! what a beginning! After that, at the end of the trip I had a count of 1100+ photos in my camera.)

After all the photo-ops with him from various angles, I was all set to the board the plane. Guess what was the first question at the ticket counter? “ Would you want to postpone your travel by a day? You can get 400 euros for that?” What a beginning. Now the business journalist in me started converting how many rupees does that translate into. But, nevertheless, I was determined that I should set aside all such petty pecuniary benefits and proceed with the programme on schedule as this was my first trip.

After much hesitation, I politely refused the offer and proceeded to weigh my luggage. It was one of those good old weighing scales as the electronic one was under repair. When the needle of the machine whirled so vigorously, my heart almost skipped a beat. What if my baggage was in excess, will they throw all the stuff out? Will I have to take out all my sweaters and swanky jackets that I had bought from the Globus sale? Well, thankfully, the needle just stopped at 23 kg and the clerk smiled at me saying,” Don’t worry, this always shows a kilo more”. Grabbing my bags from him, I rushed for my immigration check which went off smoothly and then after an hour long wait I boarded my Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt.

It was well past midnight and hence I happily dozed off in the window seat. But was suddenly woken up by a tap on my shoulder when the airhostess insisted that I have something to drink. She was so sweet and nice, she woke me up every hour to enquire if I want something to drink or eat. Thankfully, she took a break for some three hours and I caught up with my sleep for sometime only then. After the pilot’s call that we are about to alight in Frankfurt, the airhostess once again woke me up and asked me to fasten my seat belt. Wide awake by then, and complimenting her for good service, I asked her for a sip of water. Pat came the reply, “ Sorry the service is over”. So much for her hospitality. Furious yet helpless, I quietly got ready to get down at Frankfurt.

Frankfurt is a huge airport and though I had about two hours in between my next flight, by the time I arrived at my correct terminal, I had only 20 minutes left. Shoving my boarding pass into the attendant’s hand, I rushed inside to begin my second leg of journey. This one was mostly uneventful and thankfully the airhostess did not disturb me at all. But the sad part is I was wide awake throughout the 10-hour trip and was eternally feeling thirsty and hungry. The Asian Vegetarian food that they brought me was far more than palatable and I managed to survive on fruit juices and snacks throughout the trip. And finally, after what seemed like eternity, the pilot made an announcement that we were landing in Washington. And yes! America!!! , here I come..!!

Replacing the Big B

2006-11-27T13:46:00.000+05:30

Not just being satisfied with having donned the rold of Amitabh in Don, now Shah Rukh is going to take his seat in KBC too. This is sad news for all those KBC lovers who were held spell bound with Amitabh's antics and baritone voice. The show rose to be one among the top ten, mostly owing to Big B's charisma and presentation.

I am not sure how much will Shah Rukh be able to replicate Big B in dealing with the people in the hot seat. Definitely, it will be a let down for all those who had stayed glued to the programme. So much so, that even my son, who is a great of fan of KBC, is not happy with the idea of seeing someone other than the BIG B himself. Amitabh is so dear to children too especially with the kind of ads that he gets featured in. No wonder he is the top most brand ambassador in the country who endorses the maximum number of products.

But with rumours agog about his imminent entry into politics, and with his proximity with Amar Singh of Samajwadi party, it will surely be hard for Amitabh to find time. But will he endear himself to people as a politician as he had as an actor? I don't think so.

2006-11-24T11:55:00.000+05:30

Alkali metals

A coolest chemistry video! Am not sure its for real or not. However, interesting to watch. Behold the power of rubidium and cesium!!!

2006-11-24T11:10:00.000+05:30

Umrao Jaan

xlent song and xlent acting.

Art as investment

2006-11-24T11:04:00.000+05:30

I really found this article as quite an informative one. Though it is from my site, I was particularly happy with the presentation. Take a look.

http://sify.com/finance/specials/art-fund/

UMRAO JAAN: HM.. no.. jaan

2006-11-23T15:45:00.000+05:30

With the host of remakes in the run, I read an interesting article about Umrao Jaan remake. The bottomline, the review said, was that there is Aish as UMRAO looks beautiful with no JAAN in her. This line seem to have said it all.

The classic has been remade only to get such pathetic comments. It is disgusting to see Aishwarya as beauty without brains while the original Umrao in history, is known only for her brains though she lacked beauty.

Watch this clipping of Rekha in Umrao jaan and how delicately she conveys her feelings.

Similarly, Don is such a pathetic remake. Despite being a great fan of Shah Rukh Khan, I have to admit that the film stands no match to the original version. The characters are weird and for some reason, Shah Rukh fails to shine.

I saw an interesting review on TV sometime ago about how these remake makers are already branding their films as superhits just on the second week of their release. The justification that the distributors give is that the since the producer gets back his investment in the first week of collection itself, it actually does not matter to them if the film actually runs for the second week or not. Hm.. so much for their craving for superhits.

Born with the heart out!

2006-11-23T15:41:00.000+05:30

One of the medical wonders.

Using a piece of Gore-Tex fabric to make their repairs, doctors performed corrective surgery on a baby born with his heart outside his chest, and said on Wednesday that the youngster should be able to lead a close-to-normal life.

Naseem Hasni underwent surgery to put his heart inside his chest hours after being delivered by Caesarean section on October 31 at Holtz Children's Hospital.

"He's not going to be able to play certain kinds of sports where a blow to the sternum to you and me wouldn't be a problem, but in him it would be. So I think some competitive sports are going to be out," said Dr Eliot Rosenkranz, a cardiothoracic surgeon, "but he's going to be able to participate in other sorts of activities. Certainly the goal is as normal a childhood as he can achieve."

Before the surgery, Naseem's heart looked like a peeled plum sitting atop his pink chest, with the aorta diving back underneath the skin. Nevertheless, the heart was beating away normally.
During the six-hour operation, surgeons first wrapped Naseem's heart in Gore-Tex, then a layer of his own skin, to substitute for his missing pericardium, the sac that encloses the heart. The heart was then slowly eased inside his chest.

The baby was born with an extremely rare congenital defect, ectopia cordis, in which the heart grows outside the body and the chest wall and sternum fail to develop.

The defect was spotted in an ultrasound exam in late September after the mother, Michelle Hasni (33) began feeling unusual movement from the baby.

Models banned for being too thin

2006-09-18T11:47:00.000+05:30

A good one !
Madrid: Five models hoping to be booked for Madrid's major fashion show which begins on Monday were banned from participating because they are too thin, Spanish media reports.
This is the first time organisers of a fashion show have applied weight limits set by the world health organisation and those of the 44th "Pasarela Cibeles" said their decision was also based on a Spanish regional law aimed at fighting anorexia, a sometimes fatal disease in which women starve themselves to be thin.The 68 international models stepped on the scales, like boxers, on Saturday and five Spanish "featherweights" failed. The girls had a body mass index, calculated on a height-weight ratio, of under 18 (56 kilograms for 1.75 metres or 123 pounds for five feet eight inches), the limit set by the regional government of Madrid which co-finances the event.The girls were weighed by volunteer doctors recruited for the occasion by the Spanish society of endocrinology and nutrition.The organisers said they had not even allowed 30 to 40 per cent of the models who had taken to the cat-walk in last year's edition of the fashion show to attend the casting.There will be 27 fashion-shows in the five-day event during which 31, largely Spanish, clothes' designers will show their wares in a marquee set up in Madrid's Retiro Park.The "anti-thin" move was criticised in Paris and New York, two of the world's leading fashion centres.

'Hysterical' curse

2006-09-08T11:41:00.000+05:30

Very interesting news items.. though reported at.. two different places.. quite inter-related..

NEPAL - ‘Snake god curse’ creates hysteria

KATHMANDU: While psychologists explained it as mass hysteria triggered by fear and tension, an alarmed Nepal town began ritual worships to propitiate a dead snake whose curse was said to be causing dozens of school students to faint, weep and scream.
The Laxmi Secondary School in Lekhnath town in Kaski district, west of the capital city Kathmandu, presented a strange sight for two days in a row. Students, mostly girls aged 14 to 17, began falling down in a dead faint, weeping loudly, kicking and screaming and making signs of extreme fear and distress.
The first fits began on Tuesday, when nearly two dozen students displayed the symptoms. The alarmed school authorities and parents were nonplussed by the phenomenon and at a loss as to what to do. Nearly two dozen more students, including some boys as well, displayed the same bizarre behaviour on Wednesday as well, causing frantic parents to take their wards to the district hospital.
The principal of the school, Sribhadra Baral, decided to suspend classes for the rest of the week.
Shamans have been called to exorcise the slain snake’s spirit before the school reopens on Sunday.
Some teachers and local residents told visiting journalists, including private television channel Kantipur, that the disturbance had been caused by the curse of a snake god. Last month, the school authorities killed a snake found on the premises. According to local superstition, the snake was a deity that has been haunting the school to avenge its slaughter. Some of the afflicted students said they had fainted after seeing a huge snake that was poised to bite them.
A Kathmandu-based psychologist, Saroj Ojha, discounted fears of an unknown affliction hitting the school, saying adolescents, especially those who were weak physically or mentally, often showed signs of hysteria when under any emotional trauma.
----
Meghalaya school students exhibit 'unusual' behaviour

SHILLONG: The Meghalaya government is looking into reports that a number of students from Christian schools in the state were exhibiting "unusual behaviour" like uncontrolled weeping and convulsions.

There have been reports during the past few weeks that students of 15 schools in Shillong and other institutions in the Khasi and Jaintia hills region were fainting, weeping, chanting hymns and having convulsions.

Christians thronged a Presbyterian church in the Malki area of Shillong since Tuesday following reports of "unusual lights" surrounding a cross kept on the pulpit, a witness said.

Deputy Chief Minister Donkupar Roy, who is in-charge of education, said the government was watching the situation but wanted the heads of institutions to handle the matter.

P B Lyngdoh, principal of the All Saints Diocesan School, where students also exhibited "strange" behaviour, claimed, "This is a part of the Christian revival which took place 100 years ago in this region. This is god's answer to our prayers. The behaviour of students is very much part of this."

Some students appeared calm while others struggling with "the holy and evil spirits" were restive, said Lyngdoh, who is also the vicar of All Saints Church. He claimed the restive students calmed down after they were taken to church and prayers were said in their presence.

Parsi woman sparks furore over funeral rites

2006-09-08T11:00:00.000+05:30

Amazing customs and rituals of India! Sometimes.. quite disgusting too!!

DC story..
Sept 8, 2006

Pictures of rotting corpses piled at a centuries-old Zoroastrian funeral ground, secretly snapped by a Parsi woman, have sparked a furore over ancient rituals.
For centuries, the Zoroastrian dead have been wrapped in white muslin and left at a leafy, funeral ground in Mumbai’s Malabar Hill, where they are devoured by vultures. But with only a handful of the critically-endangered birds remaining in the city, authorities installed solar panels three years ago to dry out the bodies and speed up decomposition.
The sun’s rays are bleary, though, during the threemonth monsoon season. When Ms Dhun Baria, 65, learned her mother’s corpse would take at least a year to decompose, she slipped into the funeral ground to take her shocking photographs of a place that few people are even allowed to enter.
Orthodox Parsi elders said that the funeral system is working fine.
But Ms Baria is challenging that contention with her stack of pictures, a 15minute video clip and thousands of handbills she has been distributing in the community showing rotting corpses and body parts.
“Would you like to have the bodies of your mother, father, daughter piled up in a horrible state?” asked Ms Baria, whose mother died nine months ago.
“It is a terrible sight, the stench is horrible. It’s as if the bodies have been tortured. The dead have no dignity,” she said.
Parsis have placed their dead in a dhokma, or Tower of Silence, to await the vultures at Malabar Hill since 1673.
Followers of the Bronze Age Persian prophet Zarathustra, Parsis worship fire, so cremating the dead is a mortal sin, while burial is seen as a contamination of the earth. But the vulture is precious to Parsis who believe it releases the spirits of the dead. Over the past 15 years, millions of South Asian vultures have died from eating cattle carcasses tainted by a painkiller given to sick cows.
Conservationists estimate that more than 90 per cent of Indias vultures have died, creating havoc for Parsis’ funeral rites. The IUCN lists India’s three species of vulture — the oriental white-backed, long-billed and slender-billed vultures — as critically endangered, the category for animals closest to extinction. It could not provide exact population figures. And with 3-4 Parsis dying daily in Mumbai, it is clear that there are not enough vultures to consume the corpses. While bodies are coated with lime, scattered complaints are now heard about the smell wafting through the neighbourhood.
Ms Baria and other reformists are demanding that the Parsi Panchayat, or council governing the community’s affairs, permit burial or cremation within the funeral grounds.
She said that to allow bodies to decompose for months is a violation of the tenets of the religion, which says souls join the spirit world four days after death.
“After four days, the bodies of your loved ones should mix with the earth or how will their soul be released?” asked Ms Baria.
But Burjor Antia, a panchayat trustee, said Ms Baria has committed a religious offence. “Naturally you will find dead bodies there, and not a valley of flowers,” he said.
“If you open a grave, will you not find worms and a half-eaten body?” Mr Antia insisted, “We cannot cremate or bury, that is breaching our sacred religious injunction” he added.
Orthodox members are upset that Ms Baria entered the Towers of Silence, amphitheatre-like-structures set on pillars amid the 55-acre lush garden ceme tery atop Malabar Hill.

Vande mataram controversy

2006-09-07T11:45:00.000+05:30

Was anyway.. planning to vent out the same sentiments. This one reached me by mail. Almost the same idea....

We are Hindu or Muslim or of any other religion because our parents follow that religion. There is no contribution on our part ! The religion which doesn't respect Mother Earth has no right to stay on that land. Also religion that does not respect or supress women can only produce terrorist! God is one we gave different name to them. God does not tell anyone to do something.

When master artist Bismillah Khan fell ill, all over India many Hindus performed 'havan' and 'yagna' for his speedy recovery. Similarly, a seven-year-old Muslim girl from Agra, Praveen, was on fast for seven days to appease Hindu God Indra - so as to get rains.We often hear about Muslims taking care of Hindu temples and Hindus managing tombs of Muslim saints. At many places, Muslims make effigies of Ravana and also help organize Ganesh festivals.

Our President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam pays obeisance in temples and gurudwaras. The hymns sung in praise of Hindu gods and goddesses by the legendary Mohammad Rafi have left remarkable impressions in our minds. All this is due to the common culture and civilization of India, a country of Kabir and Rahim. It is not astonishing if a Muslims sings Hindu religious songs and a Hindu pays homage to Muslim saint.

But if we view all this through narrow prism, then we may be violating so-called Islamic law or even Hindu culture."Vande Mataram" is a song that in status equals the national anthem. It is a prayer to Mother India, in Sanskrit. Some so-called custodians of Islam in India are claiming that the song violates Islamic law.

Perhaps, these custodians are not aware of the Ganga-Yamuna culture, the culture that unites. These few custodians put out meaningless statements that isolate Indian Muslims. Hundreds of thousands of Muslim children get education in English medium schools run by Christian missionaries where the prayer taught is inspired by Christianity. How many Muslim children refuse to learn it?"Jana Gana Mana..." and "Vande Mataram" pay homage to our motherland. These are not songs of any religion or community but are inspirational songs that give us pride.
Every Indian is proud of them and will remain so.

It is the fundamentalists and religionists who pollute the pleasant atmosphere by their controversial, useless and baseless statements. These few people have no right to stop Muslim children from learning or singing "Vande Mataram". By doing so they affront Indian Muslims and give more fuel to Muslim bashers.It is said that some parts of "Vande Mataram" are against Islamic law.

But Islamic law needs to be seen in the context of Indian civilization and culture. Our Indian culture has a peculiar place in the world. India is the only country where Hindu caretakers can be seen at tombs of Muslim saints and Muslims sing in praise of Hindu gods. It would be a great misfortune for Muslims and India if our laws do not take such circumstances into consideration.

The so-called custodians of Islamic law must learn a lesson from Indian Hindus, who worship Muslim saints just like their own gods and goddesses. Islamic law in India cannot work as it has been adopted in Arab countries. It may be that those who obey Islamic law in Arab countries prefer Islam to patriotism. But that can never be said of India.

Hindus don't place their religion above their country.If we agree with these so-called custodians of religious law, then emperor Akbar was against these laws. President Kalam's going to temples and gurudwaras is also against Islamic law. Dilip Kumar, Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan and Aamir Khan are also against these laws. So are the music of Naushad and the poems of Shakeel Badayuni and Janisar Akhtar. The art of Meena Kumari and Waheeda Rehman will be pitted against Islamic law. If the fundamentalists are to be obeyed, A.R. Rahman committed a great sin by giving a new and attractive tune to "Vande Mataram"!

Indian Muslims have separate recognition in the world and are proud of Indian civilization and culture. They were proud of it and will remain proud of it. It was in India that the All India Muslim Women Personal Law Board gave full support to the singing of "Vande Mataram". It will be better if the opponents of "Vande Mataram", instead of advising Muslim children not to sing it, inspire their own kids to read and render the national songs.

Such children, when they grow up, will not need certificates of patriotism from any Hindu group. Nobody will dare to see such children through suspicious eyes. People of all religions and communities in India must learn "Vande Mataram". Vande Mataram!

Vande mataram

2006-09-06T15:48:00.000+05:30

Rarely has a composition given rise to such a diverse range of debates or has been subjected to such a close scrutiny as India's National Song Vande Mataram.
Glorified by many as the last word in patriotic manifestation, the song was composed by Bankim Chandra in an inspired moment and was set to tune and sung by nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore.
It has been translated into all major Indian languages and set to music by Rabindranath Tagore and recently by A R Rahman.
Know your Vande Mataram. Given below are the lyrics:
Vande maataram, vande maataram,
sujalam suphalam malayaja sheetalam
shasyashyamalam maataram - vande mataram

Shubhra jyotsna pulakitayaaminim,
phulla kusumita drumadalashobhinim
suhaasinim sumadhurabhaashhinim
sukhadaam varadaam maataram - vande mataram

sapta koti kantha kalakalaninaada karale
nisapta koti bhujaidhruta karakarvalea
balakeno maa eto bale bahubaladhaarinim
namaami tarinim ripudalavarinim maataram- vande maataram

tvam hi durga dashapraharanadhaarini
kamala kamaladala vihaarini vaani vidyaadaayini,
namaami tvam namaami kamalam amalam
atulamsujalam suphalam maataram
shyamalam saralam susmitam bhooshhitam
dharinim bharanim maataram, vande maataram

Ten Unusual Cell Tower Sites

2006-09-01T15:50:00.000+05:30

An excellent one. Cell towers at all odd spots.

read more | digg story

Are we desperate for miracles?

2006-08-25T14:54:00.000+05:30

Not a very comprehensive article.. but has quite a few interesting facts.

DNA
Thursday, August 24, 2006 22:01 IST

It’s been over a week since the news of the sweet water ‘miracle’, but many devotees are still thronging Mahim creek to drink the highly contaminated water at the risk of death. Warnings from doctors and BMC officials about the same continue to go unheeded in spite of the scientific reason for the change in the water’s taste.

Now we hear Ganesh idols (a déjà vu of the ‘96 miracle) are drinking milk, causing frenzy amongst his followers. So the question once again arises: Just what makes otherwise sound people give wind to logic? “Stress,” says psychotherapist Seema Hingoranny, “makes people desperate to cling on to hope and a higher power.”

She feels last year’s deluge and the recent train bomb blasts have made the city more vulnerable and gullible. Social commentator and columnist Anil Dharker agrees. “Both incidents were looked upon as some kind of punishment. So I guess people are looking for acts of kindness from God in hope of some kind of balance,” he says, adding that the pressures of living in a big city and dealing with its myriad problems are taking its toll.

Professor Nandini Sardesai has an interesting take. She blames the country’s education system for the ‘herd’ mentality and the inability to rationlise plausible phenomenon.

“Education doesn’t mean just getting a degree. Unfortunately, here we’re not taught to think for ourselves,” says the former head of the sociology department at St. Xavier’s College. The fact that people are being driven by blind faith is also a reflection of our social ethos. “There’s so much despair that people are willing to try anything for relief,” says Sardesai.

Says clinical psychotherapist Dr Varkha Chulani, “People who lack self-confidence need a crutch to solve their problems. They don’t have trust in their capabilities, so you’ll find them resorting to wearing rings, etc for luck.”

Of course, having faith is certainly not a crime, as Hingoranny sums up, “Faith should always be there. But one must set boundaries, as blind faith can cause both physical and mental damage.”

Lightning strikes under the bra?

2006-08-22T16:12:00.000+05:30

Saturday, August 19, 2006

Source: HindustanTimes.com

Women around Mumbai may just have more to worry this monsoon than just their make-up running and their hair getting wet. Did you know there is the possibility you could be struck by lightning if you're wearing underwired bras?

A recent scientific study strengthens the belief that metallic supports in modern bras could attract lightning and strike their wearers dead. An unconfirmed instance of this occured circa 2000 in Hyde Park, London, when two women hiding under a tree died after being struck by lightening. The forensic report said "lightning discharge was channeled into the metal brassieres, leaving burn marks on the women's chests."

Does this assume significance at a time when Mumbai's met department has issued a weather forecast for today that warns of the "possibility of thundershowers in parts of the city and the suburbs?" Question is, are the city's nymphets taking it seriously enough to change their underwear habits. From early reactions from most of them, it doesn't look like that's happening.

So what do the city's women have to say about all this? While some dismiss the story as "bullshit", others call it "attempts to hype a woman's skin" while still others say that "an underwire in a bra is as much a risk as wearing a metallic watch."

"The study is really bizarre. I can't believe someone is idle enough to do a study on this," model Mridula Chandrashekhar says adding, I think underwire bras and getting struck by lightning have nothing to do with each other." Item girl Kainaaz, who incidentally has come to be known for her aversion to bras period, dismisses the study as "absurd".

"Why would someone get struck by lightning just by wearing an underwire bra? After all it is covered by a piece of cloth, right? I think they're just trying to toss a particular issue by bringing a woman's skin into the picture" said Kainaaz. City designer Nikasha Tawadey too shared that view. "Whether you're underwired or overwired the fact is that chances of you getting struck by lightning are one in a million," she said.

Actress Kashmira Shah, also famous for outfits that leave precious little to the imagination, had a different point. "Forget underwire — what happens to all those with silicone breasts? Maybe it melts in the heat, then again, maybe all those actresses who have them can float if they're caught in a rain flood and say they were actually 'carried away'," she said.

It turns out there's no cause for concern, since some international foreign brands like Aubade, which are present in the city have no metal in their underwired bras at all. "I can't talk about other brands but the underwire in our bras is purely synthetic, so nothing to fear here,” Ferzin Nutres of Aubade said.

So, if you're used to being wired and confused what to do, try not to buy your delicates off Linking Road, at least not till the rains go away. And second, as that old line goes: Lightning never strikes in the same place twice!

Websites that changed the world

2006-08-22T16:00:00.000+05:30

A list of 15 web sites that created history by changing the world's Internet map.

read more | digg story

My video venture

2006-08-21T14:41:00.000+05:30

View my short video documentary on the changing face of the Indian rupee.

The human debuggers

2006-08-08T15:53:00.000+05:30

An Appalling story.. from DNA

Monday, August 07, 2006 22:41 IST
KOLKATA: Such is the level of impoverishment in rural West Bengal, that they are feeding their own blood to bedbugs, just to earn a paltry two rupees. This new ‘profession’ has emerged along highways, where dhaba owners have found this novel way to keep bedbugs away from their regular customers.

With pesticides and hot water too expensive or cumbersome to eradicate the pests living in the charpoys of dhabas, owners are recruiting poor people who lie on each charpoy completely nude for half an hour, to let the bedbugs feed on their blood. Once the bugs are satiated, they do not bite the customers who use the charpoys during the day. Once a charpoy is thus ‘debugged’, the human debugger shifts to another charpoy. He is paid Rs 2 for every charpoy that he lies down on.

According to Dalbir Khetri, a dhaba owner in Duttapukur, North 24 Parganas, it is not possible to disinfect the coir beds by washing them with boiling water. “These coir beds take at least 24 hours to dry, which would lead to a loss in business,” Khetri added.

Kartara Singh, of “Kaka Da Dhaba,” near Kolkata airport, finds usage of chemical disinfectants very costly. “Most of my customers are truck drivers and cleaners. My earnings are not enough
for me to be able to use chemical disinfectants every day.”

The ‘human debuggers’ however, are not complaining, as they take this profession as their destiny. Jhabua, one such worker at Singh’s dhaba, said, “At least I am earning something.”

Of Fibonacci and Da Vinci Code

2006-07-19T15:32:00.000+05:30

(Reuters)London, July 19 : If the numbers 13-3-2-21-1-1-8-5 ring a bell, it might be because you have been reading The Da Vinci Code.

Dan Brown's bestseller uses that series -- a mixed-up version of a sequence of numbers brought to the Western world by a 13th century Italian mathematician -- as a clue to a secret Swiss bank account.

As Brown's book, and the film, turned into a global entertainment phenomenon, the work of Leonardo Fibonacci of Pisa was given a new lease of life for millions of people.

Not so for Elizabeth Miller. The technical analyst had long been a devotee of the Fibonacci sequence which mirrors patterns found in art, music, architecture and nature.

Working for Redtower Research out of a farmhouse in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, Miller looks at charts of price movements to work out future financial market trends, and she says Fibonacci numbers help her.

Fibonacci numbers are used by technical analysts to determine price objectives from percentage retracements, or market corrections.

Miller says the Dow Jones stock index collapse from the dotcom boom that peaked in 2000 followed a Fibonacci pattern.

"Fibonacci retracements work on pretty much everything, but they work particularly well with stock markets--
it's natural mathematics."

However, the Fibonacci series' origin lay in something a little more earthy and tangible than stocks and bonds..

Fibonacci published a book in 1202 which calculated the reproductive cycles of pairs of rabbits and showed that they followed a pattern 1-1-2-3-5-8-13-21 -- a sequence where the sum of any two consecutive numbers equals the next highest number.

Each gestation lasts one month and rabbits become fertile after two months, so that the reproductive cycle of one pair of newborn rabbits follows the Fibonacci sequence month-by-month.

If you calculate the ratio of each number in the Fibonacci sequence to the previous one, it evens out over time to the magic ratio of 1.618.

From music to markets
The Fibonacci sequence exists in nature -- in the arrangements of seeds on the head of a sunflower, the spirals on a snail's shell and the way that leaves arrange themselves to get the most sunlight.

Mathematicians have found the Fibonacci ratio in the building of the pyramids, in the aesthetically pleasing golden section in paintings, and also in music.

"Some people have found it in Mozart and Beethoven, though we do not know if it's there naturally or by design," said Ron Knott, visiting fellow in Maths and Computing Sciences at the University of Surrey in southeast England.

Interest in Fibonacci numbers as a way of forecasting markets started in the 1930s, with a stock-picking newsletter written by accountant Ralph Nelson Elliott.

Elliott developed his own technical analysis theory based on Fibonacci numbers called Elliott wave analysis -- which says that the market follows a repetitive pattern with each cycle made up of a five-wave rise followed by a three-wave fall.

A market bestseller published in 1978 on Fibonacci and Elliott wave boosted the Italian mathematician's popularity through the 1980s, and the attraction has not waned.

"It's amazingly common to read sentences written by technical analysts involving Fibonacci ratios," said Roy Batchelor, professor of banking and finance at Cass Business School in the City, London's financial district.

How does it work?
The main premise of the Fibonacci ratio for financial markets is that any large move is followed by a retracement, or counter-move, which works out as a Fibonacci-based proportion of the original move.

In percentage terms, 61.8 is among the key price retracement targets for modern traders of currencies, stocks and commodities. The ratio is known as the "golden mean" for its universal applications.

Another key retracement is 38.2 percent, which is 1 divided by 1.618 squared.

Technical analysts scour the charts for large moves followed by retracements, and then use Fibonacci to work out when these market corrections may end.

"When there is a big major upmove, the Fibonacci retracement -- 61.8 percent or 38.2 percent -- is a good target, a sign that maybe the latest sell-off is going to finish," said Miller who has been a technical analyst for 14 years.

Use of Fibonacci can become something of a self-fulfilling prophecy for stock markets where there is a crowd mentality and where everyone starts to watch out for the same levels.

Tom Pelc, chief technical strategist at RBS Financial Markets in London, finds Fibonacci patterns in recent moves in London's FTSE stock index.

"If you look at the FTSE's decline in May and June and its bounce since then, it's struggling right now at exactly the 61.8 percent retracement," he said in mid-July.

But some academics are unconvinced.

Batchelor and his colleagues at Cass Business School have looked at whether the ratio of rises to declines in the Dow Jones followed the Fibonacci rule.

"The evidence on this is contrary. People will show you a picture where it happened, not the 100 pictures where it did not happen -- but it's got entertainment value," he said.

In "The Da Vinci Code", characters follow a complex series of clues in a chase around Europe to discover a secret concealed for centuries. Batchelor says analysts are also chasing an elusive, and ultimately illusory, truth.

"Fibonacci is popular for the same reason that 'The Da Vinci Code' is popular. We suffer from the illusion of control, that things have to have an explanation -- people hate randomness."

Edit on Mumbai blasts

2006-07-14T12:40:00.000+05:30

Dear all,

Today's Mid-Day edit begins by saying that you don't need to be a rocketscientist to understand that the chain of events starting from theBhiwandi riots to the desecration of Meenatai's statue and what happenedas an aftermath, to the serial blasts on the trains yesterday, meanssomebody somewhere wants Mumbaikar's to spill out on the streets andgrab each other by the throats.
Incidentally, these same somebody-- the faceless outcasts that theystill are-- have at least succeeded in one part of their plan. Mumbaikars have actually spilled out on to the streets.

The catch here is that they have failed to succeed in the second andmost important part of their plan: that of getting Mumbaikars to grabeach other by the throats. Mumbaikars spilled onto the streets-- in acollective show of the middle finger to those who proposed otherwise.

I know very well that you are already aware of how Mumbai stormed ontothe streets to help the injured, the stranded and soothe the injuriesthat were still gaping along its life line. There were capsules and capsules of streaming video that showed themoffering water and refreshments to people stranded on SV Road and theEastern and Western Express Highways.

There were captures of students of Sydenham and SNDT college, who campedat Churchgate station with the sole purpose of offering a bed to thosestranded at the starting node of the life line.And there was also that memorable grab of people standing patiently infront of KEM Hospital-- all in a serpentine queue, to donate blood.

A result of which has been a no-shortage syndrome, when it comes to bloodat all the hospitals where the injured are being treated or arerecuperating.But this is not about all that. And yet, it is about all that and more. It is about the sights I saw and the people I met with, while travellingalong the Western Express Highway to Kandivali yesterday, between 7 inthe evening and one in the morning.

It is about that little kid and his grandfather near Dadar, who, perhapsin the absence of anybody else in the household, took to the streetswith bottles of water and packets of biscuits to contribute in whateverway possible in managing the crisis. "Uncle, you must be thirsty," thekid told me while offering the bottle. A parched me drank gratefully. And I saw in those eyes no fear. So what did those terrorists thinkwhile planting the bomb? That was at least the silent way of making onestatement-- "Terror, my foot.!"

It is also about those housewives in front of a housing society nearSanta Cruz, who were standing with pots of piping tea, water and Godonly knows what else to help those passing by. And they had this boardbeside them which read "Beyond Borivli, Can Stay'. I was lucky to get acab, but there were people who were trying to make it on foot. And theyneeded succor. Rest. Shelter. It was raining.

It is about the autorickshaw driver, who finally reached me home in theinteriors of Kandivali at 1 in the morning. And refused to take thenight fare, despite being legally empowered to charge extra. "Nehi saab,aaj ki baat alag hai. Aap thik thak ghar pohuj gaye, yeh hi kafi hai," he bade me goodbye at my doorstep.

It is also about the dabbawala who provides me with my dinner everyday. His shop is near the Borivli station, where there was one of the biggestblasts at 6:34 in the evening. Yet, at one o clock in the morning, thedabba was there waiting at my doorstp to be picked up. It didn't need anote. The piping hot food at such an unearthly hour said it all.

The terrorists succeeded in synchronising a series of blasts thatstopped the Mumbai lifeline for somewhere around seven hours. That wasall that they achieved on 7/11. The trains were back on track by 1:30 inthe morning and they plied all through the night.

I wonder if themasterminds will consider this before planning their next attack. Iwould urge them to-- if this reaches any one of them-- to rethink. Afterall, what did a year of planning, six months of smuggling dangerousexplosives, extensive netwroking and crores achieve at the end-- arond200 lives and just seven hours of disruption? Bus! I won't budge forthat. In the deal they united more than they dreamt to rip apart.

And by the way, I did not spot any member of the celebrated Readers' Digest survey team yesterday on the roads. Or perhaps they were there--reconsidering their statement. I request whoever receives this, to forward it to as many people aspossible. At least that way, we will build an opinion against thesefaceless faces of terror

Sudip Ghosh
Deputy Editor- Medianet
Times of India, Mumbai

Salaam Bombay (Mumbai)!

2006-07-13T12:44:00.000+05:30

TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ WEDNESDAY, JULY 12, 2006 12:00:00 AM]

MUMBAI: 'The spirit of Mumbai' isn't just a pretty phrase - it's a realitythat comes to the fore every time the city is struck by disaster. And it wasout in full force on 11/7.

Good Samaritans came in every shape and size on Tuesday evening - themuch-reviled slum dwellers living near the railway tracks, fellow commuters,local residents' groups and passersby, who without a second thought rushedto the help of victims.Slum dwellers were the first to run towards the local trains ripped apart inthe blasts.

Tearing through burning debris, people pulled out survivors,fashioned makeshift stretchers out of bedsheets and carted off the injuredto the nearest hospital in autorickshaws and taxis.On the choked roads, strangers were giving lifts to stranded commuters. One of our journalists on his way from the Bandra-Kurla Complex to Andheri saw heartening scenes of car owners, truck and bus drivers offering people aride.

On a road in Andheri, two women, without a moment's hesitation, got on to acomplete stranger's motorbike when he offered to drop them home.Outside many hospitals and blood banks, people were queuing up to donateblood for the injured. Fellow commuters came to the aid of persons strandedon railway platforms and desperately trying to call up relatives and friendsover the jammed phone networks.

"A man offered me his phone to call my mother and refused to accept anymoney," said Neha Nainkani (16), a college student who was stuck at MumbaiCentral.Residents' groups in Mahim, Bandra and Borivli arranged for water and foodfor people walking all the way home.

The indomitable spirit of the city had set the pace once more. What can we say but Salaam Mumbai?

Culture Mops

2005-11-18T12:23:00.000+05:30

The political parties are out to make an issue of nothing.
What wrong did Kushboo say when she said that women having premarital sex should exercise caution and use implements to prevent AIDS. When she suggested something as mundane and as practical as this one, suddenly the culture cops are out to cry at her as a blemish on the tamil culture and what not.
With India ranking in the top 5 nations in the AIDS affected country, what wrong did she do in advising the young girls to exercise caution. Anyway, none of these modern day girls are as docile and as innocent that these culture cops are claiming to be.
These folks cannot find an example of the so called Penn with high Tamizh morals. not even in their homes, lest in the city. If a doctor cautions you against tooth decay and insists that you wash your mouth everytime after you eat a chocolate, is he trying to put down somebody. Is he trying to insinuate something?
Why is this unnecessary hue and cry. Not just a decade ago, the fan's of 'this blemish' had even constructed a temple for her and had been doing regular aartis et. And overnight, she turns bad is it?
And if this actress gets some kind of support from another of her fraternity, then these folks immediately attack her too and blame her for being hand in glove with her.
And all these attacks only because, she happens to be a woman. The same thing has been time and again said by many men in public, who have publicly admitted to their personal experiences too, and they are deemed as martyrs.
Why is this bloody discrimination? When the Dalit Panthers cannot even practice equality to the basic level of human gender, what right have they to go and claim for equal rights on the basis of caste.?
All this self-proclaimed fighters of Tamizh freedom are not cops but just mops.. simple and dirty mops, who absorb the issues only at a superficial level and never even give it a thought before wringing them out.

(Un)Reality shows

2005-11-17T15:24:00.000+05:30

The so called reality shows that are now on air, are so unreal in the first place. And all those contestants, mostly in their teens and early twenties, take these shows as the end of life and work as if a life and death situation. And it is the organisers who are putting undue pressure on these folks, recording even their minutest movements and telecasting them for its viewers.
Bull shit. I seriously fail to understand why such hype is being created about jus another contest. Agreed that the prize money involved is big enough and enduring. But it doesn't mean that if I dont qualify in any of those, I become a dumbo and fit for nothing person. But this is exactly the idea that is being conveyed all these shows and its panel of judges.
Earlier, during my childhood days, such music contest programme was so much fun to watch and was quite relaxing. But nowa days with such dime a dozen reality shows (as they proudly proclaim) its more than disgusting to sit in front of the idiot box for some kind of relaxation. But it's not jus the advertisers or oganisers to be blamed. With a view to involving viewer participation, this idea of saving someone from the viewers' vote is all the more disgusting.
You see each one of those folks who watch these shows fighting with each other over this silly affair. But that's only a flip side of the show. The key factor is that some of these contestants, who fail to make it to finals, are so seriously rapped and are so mentally torn, that some of them are even known to have attempted suicide!!
So much for making their life out of these shows..

Of dress codes and colleges

2005-09-06T14:17:00.000+05:30

When I was at school, I had earnestly wished that I join college as early as possible. No, it was not that my school was taxing or anything, but it was purely for the sartorial freedom that those institutions offered me. But now, a host of colleges are busy drafting rules to enforce dress code among their students.
It started with a few autonomous colleges in North India and it has even extended down south to our very own Anna University. And now, even some government-aided institutions in Orissa, about 500 and odd, have introduced a uniform dress code for its students.
All this enforcement, after those boys and girls had worn school uniforms for more than 12 years in a row. Just when they want to get out of their school uniforms, come the colleges with another set of dress code. Is it right or wrong?
No, I am no judge to decide on whether the rule is politically correct or not. However, I feel that all this enactment only because a few students, especially girls, in the last 2-3 years, had gone overboard about their sartorial liberation and dressed, or should I say undressed, a little too much. The callous attitude of a handful of girls had resulted in the curbing of freedom of whole lot of students.
Uniforms, in general, and the basic principle behind them, is quite noble. It was enforced in schools mainly to avoid the display of differences in the economic status of the pupils which might result in any kind of discrimination both among students and teachers.
However, when you complete your higher and senior secondary levels of schooling, each mind is supposed to have matured enough to understand that one should not judge people based on their attires.
But again, when a bunch of dunces have disproved the same, and had used the freedom to show off not just their clothes but also their bodies, its time for the college officials to take some punitive steps.

Cities Raising Glasses to Help Big Easy

2005-09-05T16:49:00.000+05:30

Hey one more reason to booze....A very humanitarian one at that.

Sunday September 4, 2005
NEW YORK (AP) - The Big Apple will raise its glasses to the Big Easy - not for toasts, but to collect money for more than 80,000 hospitality workers from the hurricane-ravaged city.
In addition to New York, bars around the country also have promised to mix cocktails to help the Louisiana bartenders and hotel, casino and restaurant workers facing unemployment.
Four New York-based cocktail experts are spurring the ``Save New Orleans Cocktail Hour'' - a two-hour nationwide drinking session scheduled for Sept. 12 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Each $10 drink - Big Easy classics like the sazerac, the ramos gin fizz, the Pimm's cup, and even the hurricane - will be served with a set of free Mardi Gras beads.
New York bartenders stepped forward first, with dozens of establishments from Soho's tony new Pegu Club to the Central Park's Tavern on the Green and the lively Havana Central, agreeing to participate in the fundraiser. Organizers said the effort is spreading quickly and now includes the Sierra Gold tavern in Las Vegas, a half dozen businesses in Washington, D.C., and more in Arlington, Va., and Silver Spring, Md.
The New Orleans concoctions will also flow at watering holes in Cherry Hill, N.J., and various locales around Pennsylvania.
The idea for the fundraiser came from Anistatia Miller, a Manhattan-based co-founder of the Museum of the American Cocktail in New Orleans.
She said the old French Quarter-style building on Chartres Street survived Hurricane Katrina unscathed.
``But we're still looking for three people who worked with the museum,'' said Miller, a bartender and cocktail book author who founded the museum with three other New Yorkers - her co-author husband, bartender Jared Brown, and international cocktail authority Dale DeGroff and his wife, Jill DeGroff.
In helping New Orleans, ``we're only returning the favor,'' said Miller.
After Sept. 11, 2001, the Louisiana city raised money at its drinking establishments to send to devastated New York bartenders and restaurant workers.
``This is our livelihood and our business,'' Miller said. ``We think, 'What would happen to us if this were New York?' This fundraising is heartfelt.''
Teetotallers won't be excluded; donations are being accepted through the Web site of the New Orleans museum.

Online news lasts for 36 hours only

2005-06-06T14:52:00.000+05:30

[ MONDAY, JUNE 06, 2005 10:38:14 AM]
The shelf-life of an online news story is just 36 hours, says a recent research. This confirms what we have always suspected — yesterday’s news is stale
A team of scientists from Hungary and the United States has found that the majority of online news items have a lifetime of just 36 hours. As reporters have always suspected, yesterday’s news is stale, and the day before’s news is invisible.
Zoltan Dezs of the University of Notre Dame in Indiana and colleagues came up with the figure from an analysis of hits on Origo, Hungary’s main online news and entertainment portal. The researchers say that the result could help news agencies to determine how much impact their stories have, and how that depends on the online habits of their readers.
It has always been difficult to assess the lifetime and impact of newspaper stories, because it is hard to monitor buyers’ reading habits. But working out which stories they read, and when, is easier for online sites that can log the hits for each news item.
Dezs and his colleagues collected such data for a single day on the Origo portal, during which time it released 3,908 news stories. On a typical day, Origo logs a total of 6,500,000 hits. The researchers looked at the relationship between the number of hits per item and the date the item was released, as well as the patterns of visits to the site by individual users.
Not surprisingly, each item receives the most visits on the day it is posted, and the number of hits falls off rapidly after that. After just three days, most people who are ever going to read the item have already done so.
Of course, some news items do have lifetimes much longer than the 36-hour average. They are the ones picked up by the blogs or published by another website.

Lord Rama caught on the wrong foot

2005-05-26T13:30:00.000+05:30

Interesting read..

Indiatimes,
May 26, 2005

A pair of women's shoes allegedly showing Lord Rama made by French shoemaker Minelli has angered a pro-Hindu website, which has urged supporters to begin a letter-writing campaign to the shoemaker protesting against the product.
"It has come to the notice of Hindu Human Rights Group that you are currently marketing shoes with the pictures of our sacred and highly revered Hindu god Lord Rama printed on them," said a letter sent to Minelli by Web-based activist group Hindu Human Rights Group (www.hinduhumanrights.org) .
"We wish to point out to you that Lord Rama thus illustrated is actually worshipped by millions of Hindus across the world. It stands to reason that such a display of contempt for the spiritual beliefs and practices of a billion Hindus worldwide is causing a sense of fury and outrage in the Hindu community and we have received numerous complaints from Hindus in France."
The website also presents a photograph that shows a pair of women's shoes with faces drawn in the style of Hindu mythological art on their surface. From the website, it was difficult to tell exactly how many members the website has or what kind of support it has received for its campaign, for there are no named office bearers, address or contacts provided on the website.
The group wants Minelli to withdraw the product.
"Hindu Human Rights ask that you withdraw this line of shoes from circulation and sale immediately so as to prevent further unwarranted stress and distress to Hindus worldwide. Naturally, we also expect you to publish a fully apology to the Hindu community," the website adds.
Expatriate attorney Brij Mohan Dhir has supported the bid, and is himself mobilizing opinion to protest production and marketing of the shoe. In a letter to Minelli, he wrote, "Your act and conduct showing Lord Rama on shoes is rather degrading, defaming, agitating, upsetting, intolerable, outraging our religious beliefs and emotions, spreading ill will and hate between the communities, and against the norms of democracy and fraternity or brotherhood and against law and order as it may cause breach of peace in the world."
The San Francisco-based activist has circulated a copy of the letter widely on the Internet. If Minelli doesn't back down, he is considering filing a complaint in the European Court of Human Rights, he warned. Dhir has previously filed a complaint with the Eureka Police Department following the discovery that a beer company was selling its product with a caricature of the Hindu God Ganesha.

Go, marry a beast

2005-05-24T14:44:00.000+05:30

AFter a long, long time... Read this in TOI.
Pretty interesting..

MAJA DARUWALA[ SUNDAY, MAY 22, 2005 12:00:00 AM ]
Suppose, for a moment, your rapist wanted to marry you. Should you refuse? After all your life is blighted. You are 'spoiled' forever. You're no looker, especially after he has gouged out your eye. You should consider this offer flattering.
What would the wedding night be like: quiescent and calm because you know each other well enough or a maelstrom of violent passion again? Bound in the sacred sacrament of marriage, would you feel safe from all the wickedness of the world in his strong embrace? At least, would you feel financially secure that there was a man to provide for you?
Well, maybe not: Because he won't actually be bringing home the bacon for another 10 years because he will be in jail for your rape. It's all too unfair.
This is not Mills and Boon. This is real life and the absurdity of this line of thinking is only trumped by the absurdity of a court entertaining a real application by a real rapist to marry his real victim. What if she had agreed? Would it change the course of the law? Marriage as an escape clause for a criminal should not enter the framework of law.
Rape is forbidden in all circumstances. Rape carries a minimum of seven years and a maximum sentence of life. It is a grievous criminal act against the body of a person. In addition, in the case where the judge had given time for the victim to respond to an offer of marriage by her rapist there is the small matter of gouging out one eye and damaging the other.
There is no concept of blood money or personal solace as alternatives to punishment in our books. You can't make verbal amends or innovative offers to get out of punishment. Crime is against the individual but it is also against society as a whole. It is no part of our law to allow criminals comfortable options to a long stint behind bars. Maybe the judge was following a new trend: Forgiveness instead of punishment.
This approach was followed in Mumbai, where an additional sessions judge is reported to have acquitted a rape accused after the victim agreed to forgive and marry him. Surely here is an example for the world to follow in innovative criminal justice reform and a solution to overcrowded jails.
The solution is especially tailored to the Indian context when it is well known that our women are world famous repositories of compassion able to forgive, forget and absorb endless suffering to ease the tensions of our rapists. Maybe it is best if we formalise this with a law that says where a rape has been accompanied by particularly gruesome violence, like gouging out an eye, and the sentence is likely to be severe, then all convicted felons should be given a chance to repent by marrying the victim.
The victim should not be given any choice in the matter at all, especially if she is unmarried. If she is old, ugly or - horror of horrors for the poor rapist - a widow, it would be providential for her. An exception can be made if the woman is of a religion or caste unacceptable to the rapist. Then he needn't be required to hold good to his offer. After all there are limits to punishment.
Is a second chance for a rapist such a hard thing for women to swallow? Would we not want to suggest this kind-hearted end to our own daughters? With a convicted son-in-law at home, it might be a tad too difficult to take him into the family bosom unless we lock up our wives and daughters. And while we are cleaning house to welcome the impending nuptials and new groom, let's throw out the law books forever.

Bus to Pakistan

2005-04-06T21:10:00.000+05:30

After much hype, at last the kashmir bus to Pakistan is all set. But with just two days to go, the poilice have discovered explosives hidden on the road and two militants have already blown up the bus station where the passengers are all ready to board the bus.
Though the prime minister has stuck to his word about steering the bus tomorrow morning as per schedule, what is the guarantee that these passengers will have a safe passage? Despite the J&K's personnels' vigilant policing, bombs keep going off every now and then. And how secure would the passengers feel about boarding the much-awaited bus to Pakistan.
Peace seems to a far call for the silent valley where the echoes of bursting explosives seem to boom all the time. And amidst this, the government cannot risk the lives of innocent people just to prove its point.
Though this may be a very strategic step in terms of its political relationship with Pakistan, is the risk worth taking endangering the lives of Indian and Pakistani nationals? Unless the security of the passage is ensured and unless there is some kind of a ceasefire, the government has no right to put the lives of innocent people in danger

Friends

2005-04-06T19:17:00.000+05:30

I didn't realise that I had befriended so many at my work place. I was actually surprised to see a few sad reactions from unexpected quarters. I am really feeling a little heavy today.

Chip reads mind of paralysed man

2005-03-31T21:05:00.000+05:30

Ian Sample
The Guardian science correspondent
Thursday March 31, 2005
A severely paralysed man has become the first person to be fitted with a brain implant that allows him to control everyday objects by thought alone.
Matthew Nagle, 25, was left paralysed from the neck down after a vicious knife attack in 2001. He uses a wheelchair and is unable to breathe without a respirator, and doctors say he has no chance of regaining the use of his limbs.
But following an operation at New England Sinai Hospital in Massachusetts, Mr Nagle has become the first patient in a controversial trial of brain implants which could help disabled people to be more independent by tapping into their brain waves.
During the three-hour operation, electrodes were attached to the surface of Mr Nagle's brain. They were positioned just above the sensory motor cortex, where the neural signals for controlling arm and hand movement are produced. Surgeons completed the operation by fitting a metal socket to Mr Nagle's head so he could be hooked up to a computer.
The scientists, lead by Professor John Donoghue, a world expert in neurotechnology at Brown University in Rhode Island, used a computer to decipher the brain waves picked up by the implant. In early trials, Mr Nagle learned to move a cursor around a computer screen simply by imagining moving his arm.
By using software linked to devices around the room, Mr Nagle has since been able to think his TV on and off, change channel and alter the volume. "Eventually, we want him to be able to use it to control the lights, his phone and other devices," said Prof Donoghue.
In the most recent tests, performed earlier this year, Mr Nagle was able to use thought to open and close an artificial prosthetic hand and move a robotic arm to grab sweets from one person's hand and drop them in another. He has also sharpened his skills at computer games by playing the old arcade game Pong.
Prof Donoghue hopes the implant, called BrainGate, will ultimately allow paraplegics to regain the use of their limbs. "If we can find a way to hook this up to his own muscles, he could open and close his own hands and move his own arms," he said. "We're very encouraged by Matthew, but we're cautious. It's just one person. There's further to go, but we're absolutely on the way."

Yawning a lot? It may be sex not sleep

2005-03-30T21:11:00.000+05:30

Times of India
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 30
Don't drop off at the back there - yawning is really interesting. Proving this has become the mission in life of Dutch academic Wolter Seuntjens, whose thesis - The Hidden Sexuality of the Human Yawn - has earned him a well-deserved place on this week's Improbable Research tour.
"The yawn has not received its due attention," argues Seuntjens, of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, who set out to provide an encyclopaedic overview of all available knowledge about yawning, drawing on linguistics (semantics, etymology), sociology, psychology, the medical sciences (anatomy, physiology, pathology, and pharmacology), and the arts (literature, film, visual arts). He then explores whether yawning has an erotic side.
Not all readers will agree he has really proved his point about the erotic yawn, despite citing a passage from The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie as an example, but it is a good try.
Seuntjens believes there is no good explanation for yawning. He says the common explanation of hypoxia - that yawning is a way for the body to take in more oxygen - is untested.
Psychologically, too, it remains a riddle, Seuntjens has found after trawling through all sorts of literature. "In fact, we have really no idea what causes yawning and what purpose yawning serves or what mechanisms are responsible for yawning and even what the essential anatomical constituents of yawning are. In the age in which the human genome has been deciphered and space travel has become almost trite this verdict may sound like an affront," he writes.
But the yawn and the associated stretch of the 'stretch-yawn syndrome' have been linked to desire and even of being in love, figuring in the courtship process both in the West and in passages in ancient Indian literature.
Seuntjens has even found one pair of authors who described the feeling that accompanies the acme of yawning as a "mini-orgasm". He adds: "In discussing pathology I discovered that yawning and spontaneous ejaculation were mentioned concomitantly in terminal rabies.
"In discussing pharmacology I found a link between yawning and spontaneous orgasm in withdrawal from heroin addiction. Likewise, yawning and sexual response were associated as clinical side effects of several antidepressant drugs. In one publication an undeniable causal relation was reported: both spontaneous and intentional yawning provoked instantaneous ejaculation orgasm."
But there are times, concedes Dr Yawn, when a yawn is simply a yawn - "even if a 'simple' yawn is not simple at all" - and we have to interpret every individual yawn as the occasion arises.

Men of action

2005-03-29T21:24:00.000+05:30

It was jus another harassing night yesterday. With the pictures of tsunami devastation afresh in everyone memories, no one was taking any chance after the second quake in Banda Aceh on Monday night.
Though the government departments were on their alert, the bureaucratic diplomacy was seen to the core in the words and actions of officials. It was irritating to hear Kapil Sibal clearly washing his hands off the episode during such an hour of crisis.
When queried on what actions was being taken after the possible tsunami threat, he simply said "we've informed the home ministry about the quake and that's our duty. about what action would they act, its up to them to decide."
At such an hour, when everyone is confused as to what to do and where to look, being the first government representative to have appeared on screen, I felt it called for a little more responsible answer from his side. Instead of sticking to his bureaucratic parlance about "its not my department's job" , the matter surely called for some more human considerations. After its human life that's at stake.
Compared to this, it was heartening to hear about Cuddalore and Nagapattinam Collectors' taking stock of the situation instantly and not awaiting the arrival of the "official word" for any kind of evacuvation process.
Of course, the difference in both the cases, the latter had not just witnessed the disaster but suffered along with those affected while the former has only been watching it over his TV screen sitting in his cosy cabin.
Its time that ministers start visiting their constituencies and other places other than for election canvassing and foundation stone laying.

Pill that adds 30 years to your life

2005-03-28T21:16:00.000+05:30

IANS
Tuesday March 29
LONDON: It has been the ultimate goal of alchemists and sorcerers for centuries - the ability to increase one's lifespan. Now Scottish scientists say they have unlocked the secret to an elixir of life.
According to Scottish daily Scotsman, a pill by Aberdeen University professor John Speakman, if taken once a day would keep a person healthier, able to work longer and would also extend age limit by up to 30 years.
Medieval alchemists had earlier tried in vain to make an elixir of life by dissolving gold in different liquids, while ancient Egyptians believed they could harness the power of the earth to create the Aqua Vitae.
But Speakman has identified a more realistic candidate - a hormone called thyroxine.
According to him, by altering the crucial biological process called metabolism, it is possible to reduce damage linked to ageing inside animal cells. "If you increase the metabolic rate of a mouse then it increases its lifespan," he said.
This idea of metabolising fast and dying old turns traditional scientific thinking - which assumes an animal's lifespan depended on the amount of energy it burned up - on its head.
Speakman claims the normal metabolic cycle that occurs every time we breathe results in highly reactive, toxic molecules of oxygen called free radicals that damages the DNA and other essential building blocks - resulting in the ageing of body tissues.
According to him, animals with faster metabolic rates actually produce fewer harmful free radicals. By creating drugs to replicate the effect, it would take longer for the damage caused by free radicals to occur, he said. "Because free radicals also play a role in causing cancer and other diseases, reducing the number produced can not only increase the length of time someone lives but increase their healthy lifespan," Speakman said. "We found making the metabolism in cells less efficient meant fewer free radicals were produced. In effect, a pharmaceutical target would pump up the metabolic rate to reduce the free radical production.
"We could see people retiring at the age of 80, so they will be productive for much longer. The social and economic impact of that would be profound," he said.
Speakman, who is set to reveal details of his research during a lecture at the Edinburgh International Science Festival, has already attracted backing from powerful players in the scientific community. He has been given a grant of 450,000 pounds by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council to find a drug to stave off the effects of old age.
Over the next four years, Speakman and his team will examine the effects of thyroxine on mice to see if it helps them live longer. They also intend to look into what stage in life people would need to start taking the drug.
But he warned it could be at least 10 years before a drug finally reaches the market.

Hospital superbug kills two-day-old

2005-03-24T20:58:00.000+05:30

Agencies
March 23, 2005, London:
A two-day-old baby has died from the hospital “superbug” MRSA (Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus).Luke Day was born on February 2 and died 36 hours later from MRSA, with the Ipswhich hospital saying he was born without any sign of illness, though the birth had been complicated.
“We instigated an immediate investigation into the events surrounding this unexpected death,” the hospital’s acting chief executive Chris Dooley said in a statement.“This investigation included testing of the ward, the surrounding maternity facilities, all staff who have come into contact with Luke and the immediate family members for the presence of MRSA. All of these tests have proved negative.”
The cause of death was established by a Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children pathologist.Healthy baby Luke’s 17-year-old mother Glynis Day told Sky television she hadn’t noticed anything unusual with the baby. “His colour was fine, he was just crying for milk,” she said.
“Later one of the midwives touched him and he didn’t move. Then there were all these doctors running about.”
The baby’s father, Kevin Fenton said he initially refused to sign the death certificate because it had no mention of MRSA.“I told them that I wasn’t going to sign it unless MRSA was put on. We got a call two days later saying that it had been changed,” Fenton said.“I have no confidence in the NHS (National Health Service) now — if I ever have to go into hospital I will be afraid. I would never go to Ipswich Hospital now.”
Figures released earlier this month suggested that the number of MRSA infections in England had fallen to the lowest level since recording began. In the six months to September 2004, 3,519 NHS patients were treated for MRSA infection, a year-on-year drop of 6.3 per cent.
What is MRSA?
• Superbug MRSA, or Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus, is resistant to conventional antibiotics
• MRSA first appeared in the 1960s but has now reached epidemic levels
• Mortality rates were highest among older people
• The vast majority of MRSA cases occur in adults because they spend more time in hospital than children
• In children, about 53 per cent occur in those under a year old

Trustworthy but not lust-worthy

2005-03-24T20:51:00.000+05:30

ROGER HIGHFIELD
London, March 23: We tend to trust people who we look like but are not sexually attracted to, according to a study that shows the extent to which we use the face to work out how genetically related someone else is to us.
The study entitled “Trustworthy but not lust-worthy” shows that we are attracted by more than just someone with whom we feel something in common and underlines current evolutionary theory, which predicts we should trust our relatives but not have romantic relationships with them because of the dangers of inbreeding.
The conclusions of Dr Lisa DeBruine of the Universities of St Andrews and Aberdeen are published today in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Biological Series.
Students were shown pairs of face photographs, one that was subtly altered to resemble the student looking at the image and one that resembled another person.
The similarities were not noticed by the 150 undergraduates who were asked to decide between pairs of faces as to which was the most trustworthy. The majority selected the “lookalike” face from each pair. But when asked to decide which they found the most attractive for a relationship, the students preferred the face they did not resemble.
Dr DeBruine, said: “This supports the idea that people detect facial resemblance. It means to them that this person is ‘family’ and they are more trusting of them.
“However the similar faces were also deemed sexually unattractive by the students. These results back the notion that people trust kin but avoid them in a sexual setting due to the costs of inbreeding.”

An Indian of colourful vision

2005-03-24T20:47:00.000+05:30

AMIT ROY
Telegraph on March 24
London, March 23:
Naresh Patel, who has died, aged 63, while on holiday in south India, was a leading British Asian businessman who revolutionised colour film processing in the United Kingdom.
His company, Colorama, which he set up in 1972 with other members of his family, slashed the time needed to process a roll of film from, typically, two weeks to, first, an “overnight” service and, then, a “same day” service.
The £16 cost of developing and printing a 36-exposure 35mm roll, which was a large sum 30 years ago, was also cut drastically.
Described by family and friends as “a man of vision who could see things behind a brick wall”, Nareshbhai, as he was universally known, was the first to give customers a roll of free film with their printed holiday or family snaps.
His British rivals dismissed the move as “expensive madness”. Yet, Nareshbhai, who was a shrewd businessman, was the first to increase the standard size of prints to 6x4 inches from 5x3.5 inches.
The size is now the standard in India, too.
Another innovation was to offer prints with rounded edges instead of sharp corners.
When Nareshbhai and his brothers first began collecting films after setting up Colorama, they would travel by bus scooping up the undeveloped rolls from chemists who decided to try out their promised overnight service.
Bus conductors were never very pleased to see the young Indian brothers clambering on and off with their bags.
The rolls would be taken back to the first shop they had bought in Greenwich, south London, where they would work through the night.
The process of travelling by bus was repeated the next day, this time with the prints ready to be given back to delighted customers.
Today, the wealth of Nareshbhai’s family is estimated at upwards of £35million, though others have put it at twice that figure.
The story of Nareshbhai mirrors the experience of many who have flourished after coming to Britain via East Africa. In the case of Nareshbhai, his father, Mohanbhai Patel, who was born in Palana, Gujarat, took a dhow to Mombasa in 1938. Since the British had transported Indians to build the East African railway, Mohanbhai set up a grocery shop in Kisumu. Nareshbhai and his four brothers and three sisters were born in Kenya.
From the start, Nareshbhai’s interest was in photography. He would develop films at night in the bathroom.
When he was 16, his father scraped together enough money to buy him a one-way ticket to London where Nareshbhai studied colour film processing at the London College of Printing. He was shocked by the poor service customers received.
He set up Colorama in Nairobi in 1963 and shifted it to London nine years later, with his reluctant father’s permission.
Nareshbhai’s younger brothers, Mahesh, Vinod and Haresh, and a brother-in-law, R.K. Patel, from Uganda, made Colorama a family venture. The first breakthrough was getting a contract from Selfridges. Soon, Dixons, itself a photographic chain, outsourced some of its developing and printing to Colorama. Other chemists and photographic shops from all over the country began sending work to the brothers.
In 1992, Colorama set up an additional plant in Manchester, and 10 years later, Glasgow was added. Today, there are 120 red vans which race around in the cities collecting films, a far cry from the days when the brothers had to make do with buses.
With the money from film processing, Nareshbhai diversified into pharmacies and a supermarket chain called Europa, which was sold last year to Tesco for £56 million.
With the growing popularity of digital cameras, Nareshbhai and his brothers have adapted their business. Today, they encourage their customers to email their pictures to Colorama, which prints and sends back hard copies within two days at a modest cost (10 pence a print plus £1.99 postage and packing).
Nareshbhai’s private passion was Gujarati theatre. He loved nothing better than to act and bring over theatre groups from India. In one comedy-cum-thriller — “Who is the Wife of My Husband?” —he played the hero who solves a murder by using a photograph as clinching evidence. As he took out the photograph, he made sure that the audience saw the name of the company printed prominently on the red envelope, “COLORAMA”.
Nareshbhai’s body was flown back from south India, for a funeral in London. His wife, Harshavanti, whom he met and married in India when he was 21, died in October last year.
He is survived by his brothers and sisters and a son, Jayesh, and a daughter, Reshma.
When the Daily Telegraph colour magazine published the first Asian rich list in 1990, Nareshbhai and his son and daughter made the cover photograph. They posed before the family Ferrari, done up in red Colorama colours. The headline read: “My other car is a Rolls.”
Which it was.

Tolerance

2005-03-16T21:21:00.000+05:30

Vatican is upset with The Da Vinci code and calls it shameless and unfounded lies. But its one of the best seller of the times. Dan Brown's extraordinary story-telling skills are too good to be ignored and Vatican's such belated calls are sure to fall into deaf ears.
The book, which excellently explains or may be weaves a story behind every Da Vinci painting, ends on a note about the child that Jesus had with Mary Magdalene. The descriptions are too realistic to be disbelieved. And precisely, that's the reason why Vatican is jittery.
But come to think of it, how many such scandals keep roaming around about Hinduism and has it gone around making a hue and cry asking people to stop reading it (apart from a few fanatical organisation who act for political gains at times). That's the strenth of the religion.. TOLERANCE.

Company spirit

2005-03-16T21:05:00.000+05:30

Steve Job, CEO of Apple Computers, gets a salary of $1 only for years. And he is in the 74th position in the Forbes list of top 400 richest people in the world with an annual worth of $2.6 billion. After all, its his money. This man does it to keep up the spirit his company (firm).
But what about our Beloved Amma, chief minister of Tamil Nadu, with a show of Re 1 salary whose networth is yet to disclosed? Whose footwear and sarotarial penchant still hold people who are in the know of things at awe? And all of this from public money? Of course, its all to keep her company's (friends) spirits up!!

Prisoners turn to their humourous side!

2005-03-04T20:49:00.000+05:30

Asian News International
London, March 3, 2005
A British jail has employed stand-up comedians to teach prisoners how to develop a good sense of humour.
According to The Sun, the comedy course at the Winchester Jail teaches criminals the communication powers of empathy and humility, and also how to crack a joke in comedy workshops.
"We should be wiping smiles off the faces of these criminals," Ananova quoted Norman Brennan of the Victims of Crime Trust as saying to the paper.
The course is being funded with 3,500 pounds public cash and by comedy bar chain Jongleurs.

"Secular" States

2005-03-04T17:00:00.000+05:30

It can happen only in India. All such tamasha of dismissing a legally elected government just because the mandate is in contrast to the Government at the Centre and the Governors of the two states are Central Government sympathisers.
The tamasha at Goa is that Governor S.C. Jamir dismisses a legally elected Manohar Parrikar Government of BJP within hours of winning a controversial trust vote and sworn-in a Congress-led government headed by Pratap Singh Rane. All in a matter of few hours. He gives the latter a time of one-month to prove his majority while the former was just given two days.
And What in Jharkhand? Governor Syed Sibtey Razi refuses to accept people's mandate and does not let NDA form a government. Instead, sworns in Shibu Soren immediately without even verifying his majority. Despite NDA parading its MPs (literally as in a fashion show) before the President, he goes on to give Soren "some more" time to prove his majority.
Though all this high-tension drama had the tacit approval of Sonia Gandhi, with the way things are shaping up, the Congress is suddenly busy sending out press statements disowning the whole issue. Now Ambika Soni is there in all channels and meetings "clarifying" Sonia's stand.
Amidst their high-flying agenda of being "secular", is there a religious tinge somewhere? Think about it, its the Saffron government in both the cases; both the Governors are from "Minority" community; and the "secular" Congress chief is a "foreigner".

Hugging issue

2005-03-02T17:04:00.000+05:30

Hugs are best way to keep warm. Not just physically but also psychologically.
When my son hugged me for letting him possess some trivia, the action said it all. And similarly, when I had tried my best to lighten the mood of my mother after an incident over which she was very hurt, all that she could say, nay do, was to give me a big hug. And she said everything in it. I was quite moved.
Actions do speak louder than words. Especially hugs, don't they?

BJP offers cow urine as cure all

2005-03-01T21:27:00.000+05:30

Reuters[ TUESDAY, MARCH 01, 2005 ] NEW DELHI:

You can now buy lotions, potions and pills to cure anything from cancer to hysteria to piles - all made from cow urine or dung.
A new goratna (cow products) stall at the BJP's souvenir shop is rapidly outselling dry political tracts, badges, flags and saffron-and-green plastic wall clocks with the face of former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.
"You won't believe how quickly some of the products sold out," says Manoj Kumar, who runs the souvenir shop along with his brother, Sanjeev, at the BJP headquarters in a plush central New Delhi neighbourhood.
"The constipation medicine is a hot seller."
But the biggest seller is a "multi-utility pill" that claims to cure anything from diabetes to piles to "ladies' diseases".
"It's a miraculous cure" the container declares. A month's supply costs a little over $1.
Another cure-all is Sanjivani Ark, a liquid medicine that battles cancer, hysteria, and irregular periods, among other things.
In addition to medicines, the goratna products range from cow dung toothpaste, to detergents, a skin-whitening cream, baldness and obesity cures, soap and a cow urine "antiseptic aftershave".
Siddarth Singh, a spokesman for BJP, which has long campaigned on the sanctity of the cow, said the stall aimed to promote village industry, one of the biggest employers in India.
"If you go back in the history of India, this belongs to our culture. There's no commercial value to us. Village industry in this country needs to be promoted."
The use of cow products in India is centuries old. The five key products - butter, milk, curd, urine and dung - are collectively known as panchgavya and are an important part of ayurvedic medicine.
The goratna products, made by a cooperative in the "cow-belt" state of Uttar Pradesh, are rapidly gaining in popularity.
"Once they use it, they are coming back and they are bringing their friends and their family and their neighbours back with them," says Kumar.
Singh already uses the detergent and is thinking of experimenting further.
"I'm tempted to try something for the hair - let's hope," he grins, running his fingers through his thinning crop.

Knot now, darling!

2005-02-25T20:43:00.000+05:30

This is an article that I read in The Pioneer. Nice one!!

Mohinder Singh
Joan Erikson, scholar and wife of the famous pyschoanalyst Erik Erikson, was once asked what could be the secret of their celebrated marriage. The Eriksons had been happily married for 60 years and were known for radiating mutual love and respect in each other's company.
"Well, that's easy," she said, "A sense of humour. Humour is what keeps everything in balance."
Over and over again, it has been observed that shared laughter happens to be an important bond between happy couples. Not laughter in the sense of jokes making the rounds but something deeper. It's a state of marriage where the partners continue to find each other interesting, almost "funny".
Happily married couples have an intimate way of relating to each other. And this connection they are often seen to be keeping through a mild sort of spontaneous bantering. A majority of happily married couples are to a degree playful. Light-hearted attitude towards each other keeps them from acting defensive, combative or argumentative.
The same factor was operating between my parents. They enjoyed an enviably happy marriage extending over 65 years. As children we would hear father's marital banter, sometimes we also joined in the fun. If mother got upset misplacing her bunch of keys, he would banter about the manner she kept the bunch, while helping in the search. Father also had a knack of relating petty office incidents in their comic context. In later years when mother gained in self-confidence and education, she bantered in her own inimitable style. And she learnt to laugh over little household mishaps.
Right into their old age, you could see them teasing each other with light-hearted banter. Even under umpteen illnesses, they retained a capacity for amusement over each other's good-humoured remarks; their banter poking fun at the ups and downs of everyday life.
Good marriage that way is not a business partnership or a form of friendship or just a support system. The distinctiveness of a good and happy marriage lies in its electricity.
Humour, even otherwise, has its uses. Few strategies are more useful in defusing frustration or tension or restoring a wounded ego. No better tool for handling petty irritations that often cause disproportionate hurt and anger.
I remember when I was a kid Mahatma Gandhi visited our town. In the crowded public meeting my father got his purse picked, with 50 rupees in it. In the 1940s that was some money.
Anguished over the loss, father was saying, "Gandhiji was raising a fund. I wanted to contribute Rs 10. To my dismay, when I put my hand into my trousers' pocket for the purse, it was gone. Some rogue making merry with it." "Gandhiji would have welcomed all of Rs 50," said mother. "This is what happens when you defy a Mahatma." And her banter lightened the mood.
Once my counterpart from another state had come for an official discussion. When it finished it was lunch time. I asked him to come along; I was going home for lunch. This gentleman, a giant in size, gave proof of a gargantuan appetite. He ate so many chappatis that our maid had to kneed flour again.
On his leaving, I said to my wife, "Sorry for the discomfiture my visitor caused." "That's all right," she said, "but since when are you befriending hypos?" We both laughed. In fact, it became a private joke between us when we run short of food at a party.
Here are a few allied do's and don'ts for a happy marriage: Learn to laugh at yourself. Stay away from ultimatums. Learn to deflect occasional uncalled-for comments. Accept apologies gracefully. Allow your partner a few eccentricities. Stay away from comparisons and And don't let your children come between you.

How to stay young

2005-02-24T15:25:00.000+05:30

This is a nice article on aging that I happen to see in one of the blogs. Its jus too good...

George Carlin
"Do you realize that the only time in our lives when we like to get old is when we're kids? If you're less than 10 years old, you're so excited about aging that you think in fractions.
"How old are you?" "I'm four and a half!" You're never thirty-six and a half You're four and a half, going on five!That's the key.
You get into your teens, now they can't hold you back. You jump to the next number, or even a few ahead."How old are you?" "I'm gonna be 16!" You could be 13, but hey, you're gonna be 16! And then the greatest day of your life . .. . you become 21. Even the words sound like a ceremony . . . YOU BECOME 21. YESSSS!!!
But then you turn 30. Oooohh, what happened there? Makes you sound like bad milk! . He TURNED; we had to throw him out There's no fun now, you're Just a sour-dumpling. What's wrong? What's changed?You BECOME 21, you TURN 30, then you're PUSHING 40.
Whoa! Put on the brakes, it's all slipping away. Before you know it, you REACH 50 and your dreams are gone.
But wait!!! You MAKE it to 60. You didn't think you would!So you BECOME 21, TURN 30, PUSH 40, REACH 50 and MAKE it to 60.
You've built up so much speed that you HIT 70!
After that it's a day-by-day thing; you HIT Wednesday!You get into your 80s and every day is a complete cycle; you HIT lunch; you TURN 4:30; you REACH bedtime.And it doesn't end there.
Into the 90s, you start going backwards; "I Was JUST 92."
Then a strange thing happens. If you make it over 100, you become a little kid again. "I'm 100 and a half!"
May you all make it to a healthy 100 and a half!!

What's in a name

2005-02-22T20:38:00.000+05:30

My son was pissed off with me suddenly over his name. "Why didn't u name me Krishna?" he questioned and did not speak with me for half an hour.After much pacifying, he reconciled on the condition that he be called "Krishna" at home.Did I hear someone say "what's in a name"?

Two-year-old engaged to 40-year-old in Pakistan

2005-02-21T21:06:00.000+05:30

Where are we living...disgusting...
Monday February 21 2005 11:46 IST
IANS
ISLAMABAD: Two-year-old Ruby has barely learnt to walk but she finds herself engaged to a 40-year-old man in another shocking verdict by a village council in Pakistan.
Ruby was formally engaged to Rehmat Khan to settle a dispute between the two families, an incident reported by GEO television.
It said the decision was taken by the local panchayat (village leaders) to settle the dispute that started some seven years ago. The incident took place in Ratta village of Punjab province, about 80 km east of Multan city.
The report said Ruby's paternal uncle Sadiq had some land dispute with Khan. According to the channel, Sadiq had unlawfully seized some two acres of land that belonged to Khan and harvested different crops in seven years.Khan went to court.
But when the court could not come up with any decision, he referred the matter to the village council. The council met 11 times in three months and finally on Saturday decided that Sadiq would pay Rs.250,000 rupees to Khan and marry a girl from his family to Khan.
Since the only unmarried girl in Sadiq's family was his two-year-old niece, the council recommended that she should be engaged with Khan and marriage would take place when the girl reached puberty.
The GEO reporter from Multan, Jamshed Rizwani, told IANS that a complaint had been registered against the council members and police were looking for them while Sadiq had been taken into custody.
"I came to know about the incident the same day as one of my cousins lives in that area," Rizwani said.This is the second such incident in the Seraiki-speaking area of Multan that has drawn national attention.
Earlier, such a council in another village ordered the gang rape of a girl as a punishment for her brother.All those involved in the decision-making were arrested and punished at the orders of President Pervez Musharraf.
Rizwani said such incidents would continue to happen until stricter laws were enforced and "members of councils given exemplary punishment."

Sex kills

2005-02-20T16:59:00.000+05:30

Sex kills. At least for cockroaches.

This is what the US scientists have to say for now. Their recent research has shown that sex scents can be used to kill cockroaches at home.

In a bid to stop the usage of pesticides which are more harmful to humans too and which have been reportedly being misused with those with suicidal tendencies, a group of US researchers have got this to say. They have found that a particular kind of smell generating tablets, akin to those of female cockroaches, can be used to lure the male ones to assemble at one place which can be later eliminated easily.

The method which is still under trail stage could soon find its way into the market to stop misuse of pesticides.

A scenty and sexy way to keep cockroaches at bay!

Love bug can drive you mad

2005-02-17T20:57:00.000+05:30

Now, you know why love is blind....Beware, ye lovers....
by Roger Dobson & Sarah Kate Templeton, The Sunday Times, Monday, Feb 14
People who feel compelled to behave irrationally on February 14 (Valentine's Day) may not entirely be to blame for their actions. Scientists have found evidence that love really is blind.
Scans of lovers' brains show that they lose their critical faculties when smitten, making them less able to spot flaws or potential problems.
The blackout could be the reason lovers are said to behave impulsively or irrationally and why incompatible couples make whirlwind marriages they later regret.
Professor Semir Zeki of University College, London, has been studying lovers' brain scans and will present a paper on the research later this year.
"The scanning shows that love activates specific regions in the reward system of the brain, while reducing activity in the systems involved in making negative judgments," he said.
"Our research shows that the brain deactivates the networks used for critical social assessment and negative emotions while it bonds individuals through the reward circuitry. This explains the power of love to motivate and exhilarate."
The scans showed that in people involved in romantic relationships, the most activated parts of the brain were those which respond to oxytocin and vasopressin, hormones involved in the forming and maintaining of relationships.
Just which neurochemical suppresses areas of the brain responsible for critical judgments is not clear, although dopamine is a suspect.
Phillip Hodson, a relationship counsellor and author of How to Make Great Love to a Woman and How Perfect Is Your Partner? warns lovers against acting impulsively during the passionate first stages of a romance.
"People should not take any major life decisions when they are in this giddy state of love. People end other perfectly good relationships, they chuck in their marriage to run off with a Gambian beachcomber."

Baby talk!

2005-02-14T19:22:00.000+05:30

What do you do when you lose your child? You go and register a complaint with the police to find it. What do you do when your child safe after a long search and yet the authorities concerned refuse to give it to you just because they are not convinced that you are his parents?
This is exactly the dilemma that was faced by the Sri Lankan couple who lost everything in the deadly tsunami and were a bit consoled to find at least their child safe and alive after a long search. But to their horror, they were stopped by the hospital and other authorities from claiming the child just because these "authorities" were not convinced about their parenthood.
The Baby 81 issue which invited a lot of media attention amid the horror stories of tsunami is a queer one. Admitted to the hospital by a good samaritan who found the baby floating on a wooden log after 3 or 4 days of tsunami, the boy baby was admitted to the hospital and was given the tag baby 81 as it was the 81st patient to have been brought in.
But when its parents came to claim the child after a long search,the authorities dragged them to court and even forced them to undergo a DNA test to prove their parenthood. Though finally, the baby has been united with his parents, the queer behaviour on the part of the authorities does evoke some kind of despise and irritation.
Its good that they wanted to reunite the child with its "original" parents,but since there was no dispute about the ownership of the child, the hype around this matter is surely surprising one. Among millions of orphaned people, the baby atleast had someone to stake claim and obviously they weren't doing it for any other monetary purpose as they had about a handful of relatives to vouch for them.
But all this overprecaution to "safeguard" the child, if it may be called so, has it been taken in the case of other children. Amidst the tusnami reports, there are other horror stories about orphaned children being kidnapped to West Asia and other Arab countries for household work. Are enough steps being taken to prevent such heinous acts?
Instead of making a big hue and cry about handing over a child to its rightful parents, it would be better if these "responsible" authorities focus their attention on other orphaned children who have no one to care for and no way to go.

A sensible solution

2005-02-04T19:55:00.000+05:30

After the disgusting and horrifying MMS scandal at the Delhi Public School, the State governments have been reacting in panic. Many governments including Delhi, U.P., Kerala and Rajasthan had banned the usage of cell phones at schools and colleges.
The move, which was enforced with immediate effect, is akin to shaving off the head for fear of dandruff. This is more an escapist attitude rather than braving the rough weather.
The Governments surely cannot wash their hands off the matter having restrained the usage of cell phones. More the curbs, the more innovative the young ones are going to become.
What these governments have failed to think is that, it was not the cellphones which caused the trouble but only the images on them. In short, its the students who were the culprits.
However, it is heartening to note that one small school in a remote town in Tamil Nadu has some sense in all. The Kallar Government Higher Secondary School in Tamil Nadu located at Karunakkumuthampatti near Gudalore in Theni district has launched sex education programme, backed by the parent-teacher association and the state education department.
It has introduced sex education to all its adolescent students! It thought it was better to educate the children about sex problems, prevent sexual harassment and diseases rather than blacking them out form the whole issue.
Though there have been many arguments about whether this kind of education should be allowed at school level etc., in the present MMS age, this kind of approach would prove a plausible solution to the problem.
More so, under the guidance of a trained adult, the children would have better knowledge and awareness to prevent themselves from such danger in future.
Kudos to the school authorities.

BBC broadcast draws flak

2005-02-03T20:52:00.000+05:30

This is a very interesting and logical presentation of the Shankaracharya case protesting against a BBC radio show on Jan 31. Though the authenticity of the letter and that of the writer is unsure, the letter is reportedly to have taken from BBC radio web site. Look how logical and clearly has he stated the case. Wish this brings in some sense into the minds of people and police.

B.B.C. ComplaintsP.O. Box 1922Glasgow, G2 3WTUnited Kingdom

OBJECT(ION):
B.B.C. Radio 4 program, “View from India, broadcast first on Friday, 28 January 2005 and rebroadcast on Sunday, 31 January 2005 at 8.50 a.m.

Dear Sir/Madam,
I was appalled by the 'View from India' report about the Shankaracharya of Kanchipuram, Sri Jayandra Saraswati, and the institution of which he is the pontiff, Kanchi Shankara Matam.
Your guest speaker, the editor-in-chief of Outlook Magazine, happens to be one of the very people who have been relaying the lies and calumnies about the Shankaracharya and the Matam. Surely we are entitled to more objectivity from B.B.C. Radio 4.
Innuendos are one thing, facts another. If your guest had any pretensions of objective journalism, he could have, instead of churning the cesspool of slander and slime, alluded at least in passing to some of the following verifiable facts:
1) While on 11 November 2004, the Shankaracharya was performing religious rites in Andhra Pradesh, the Government of Tamil Nadu flew an armed commando there to arrest him. The shocking manner of the arrest of one of the highest icons of the Hindus was justified by the fact that he was going to flee to Nepal, more than one thousand miles away, in a helicopter! The 70-year-old diabetic was directly thrown into prison on charges of murder and subsequently refused bail by all the courts in Tamil Nadu. But when after two months the bail appeal finally reached the Supreme Court in Delhi, the latter declared that there was not the least prima facie evidence justifying the refusal of bail, no material evidence, and no proof of an evident motive for the accused to commit such a crime. Nor had the prosecution any witnesses. Among the 25 accused, two were said to have confessed to the crime and stated that it was ordered b y Sri Jayandra Saraswati. But they denied this before the court, saying that they had been tortured by the police and forced to undersign empty pages of paper.
2) The very day Sri Jayandra was let out, the Tamil Nadu Government thrust into prison the junior pontiff of the Kanchi Matam, Sri Vijayandra Saraswati, and refused him bail under the very same charges which, according to the Supreme Court, did not constitute sufficient reason for the refusal of bail to the senior Pontiff.
3) Determined to get the two Shankaracharyas out of the way and seize the Matam's vast assets, the Tamil Nadu Government and police tried a different strategy. Under a dubiously overstretched interpretation of the Goondas Act, any person who has three distinct charges against him is no longer eligible for bail. So they dug up two older cases of assault and battery and tried to foist them upon the Shankaracharyas. The accused having filed for bail, the judge reacted as follows:
Regarding the first case (Radhakrishnan accuses Jayandra Saraswati and co-assailants of assault with intention to kill), this is what Justice M. Thanikachalam of the High Court in Madras had to say to the prosecuting attorneys: "why wasn't the investigation conducted for the past two years? What are the intentions of the Government?...What have you been doing the last two years?...Does your case diary show the investigation was not pursued because of want of materials?"
The prosecutor admitted "some slacking off" and said that thanks to the recent murder case (in which the Shankaracharyas are the accused), the police had at last found the weapon used against Mr. Radhakrishnan two years earlier. The judge snapped back: “You found the weapon after two years _ the Court should believe this? Where is your forensic report?"
Regarding the second case (Madhavan accuses Sri Jayandra Saraswati and co-assailants of assault), the same judge wrote: “Considering the facts of the case, as well as the inordinate delay in preferring the complaint, and considering the towering fact that at the earliest opportunity, the complainant reported that he sustained injuries only in a road accident, I am of the undoubted view that this case must be a foisted one."
4) In order to bolster the case for rejection of bail before the Tamil Nadu courts, the police illegally videotaped Sri Jayandra Saraswati without his knowledge or consent and announced to the public that he had confessed to the crime. After the bail was granted by the Supreme Court, the police illegally gave or sold portions of the videotapes to television stations. Viewers could sees a groggy-eyed Sri Jayandra stretched out on the floor as if he had been drugged. But ironically enough, instead of confessing he said he was innocent. Needless to say, these “leaks" were illegal and their content disavowed by the Shankaracharya.
5) Samples of supposed sexual misconduct: The police claimed that Sri Jayandra Saraswati spent long hours of the night speaking to a certain lady on his cell phone. She was moreover wanted as a key member of the gang that had leagued to slay the victim. For 48 hours two T.V. stations and the press out-did one another in spreading rumors about this affair. Finally the truth came out: She was a 53-year-old advanced cancer patient who had undergone some 130 chemotherapy sessions paid for by one of the Shankara Matam charity organizations.
The day after the police admitted this lady's innocence, a Tamil writer went on television and accused the Shankaracharya of having tried to abuse her “modesty" 12 years earlier. The media now used this “news" for weeks to sell their muck to the public. Meanwhile, the Shankara Matam produced proof that, at a ceremony at one of their hospitals, this same lady had made a speech in praise of Sri Jayandra Saraswati only last May. But this item got very little print footage.
Speaking on B.B.C. Radio 4, the Outlook Magazine editor stated that there were so many complaints of sexual aggression against the two Shankaracharyas that the Kanchipuram police have been obliged to create a special squadron of policewomen to investigate the cases. The truth of the matter is the reverse: It was the police and the muck media that accused some female visitors of the Matam of sexual relationship with the Shankaracharyas and subsequently pretended to “probe" the cases. (To transpose this to your own country, you would have to imagine the British police accusing women of having sex with the priest simply because they go to church to attend mass or whatnot.) It is here that the media have totally betrayed their profession. Instead of independent investigation, they have simply cashed in on the lies of the TN Government and police by amplifying them.
6) Samples of supposed financial malfeasance: The police first claimed that the money paid to the killers was drawn from the Matam's account at the ICICI Bank. The Matam authorities pointed out that they had no accounts there, and indeed no documents of any such accounts could be found by the police. The latter then pinpointed another account in another bank. But investigation showed that no unaccounted-for withdrawls had been made from that account prior or after the crime. The police finally told the Supreme Court that the money had come from the sale of a piece of land belonging to the Matam. This, too, turned out to be a lie: The Matam lawyers proved that the payment received in cash for the land had been deposited in their Indian Bank account four months prior to the crime and the total sum was still in the same account.
All the above facts have been reported by the press. The Matam has set up a website (Kanchi-sathya.org) where, under the heading “Mediascan", press reports about events related to the case are presented everyday. The articles are from major nation newspapers such as The Times of India, The Indian Express, The Hindu (for which “Anti-Hindu" would be a more appropriate appellation!), and The New Pioneer. If you consult “Archives" and the click on “Media archive", you will find past articles reporting all the above facts.
Thus far, the TN Government and police have not been able to substantiate their accusations of misuse of funds. But once again the media have served as a handmaiden. They have magnified the assets of the Kanchi Shankara Matam, referring to them as if they were Sri Jayandra Saraswati's personal possessions.This has created suspicions in the minds of a portion of the public. The philosophy of the TN Government and police and of the hostile media is simple:Repeat the same lies over and over again until they take root in the public's mind.
It is true that the Matam has vast assets coming from donations made by the devotees in India and throughout the world. But the money is spent in charity works and various social services. The Matam's accounts are regularly examined by several independent auditing houses. Shankara Matam has always helped the poor. Now under the present senior Shankaracharya, Sri Jayandra Saraswati, these activities have vastly increased. He has erected over 50 schools and a large number of hospitals, child-care centers, charitable trusts for aiding poor families, old-age homes, food donation projects, rural development trusts, research projects, professional colleges and universities throughout India. The services in these institutions are free of charge or available at nominal fees.
Sri Jayandra Saraswati is also singularly known for three other initiatives: 1) He has combated untouchability and endeavored to integrate the Dalits (“untouchables") religiously, socially and professionally; 2) He has vigorously opposed mass conversion of poor Dalits, agreed to by a handful of their leaders at the instigation of Western evangelists. (Gandhi used to call such destitute converts “rice Christians"); 3) In the explosive Ayodhya dispute between Hindus and Muslims over a temple/mosque site, Sri Jayandra Saraswati has tried to find a solution acceptable to both parties. The issue remains unsettled. The Shankaracharya is understandably sympathetic to Hindu causes. But his efforts as a peacemaker have also been lauded by a few Muslim observers such as the distinguished columnist Saeed Naqvi.
His social and political initiatives created enemies as well as friends. As he and the Shankara Matam grew in national stature, they became the targets of financial, political and religious jealousies. More conservative Brahmins, too, were unhappy: Whereas his predecessors walked the length and breadth of the subcontinent barefoot, the present Shankaracharya uses the Matam's modest mini-bus or at times boards a plane. He even appears on television to discuss religion and social matters.
Trustworthy observers now feel that the prosecution has no case whatsoever against the Shankaracharyas. They say Sri Jayandra Saraswati was framed. Why would a well-known figure, who was described as the seventh most powerful man in India, take the risk of killing a former employee, and that in broad daylight in a temple before witnesses! They feel it just doesn't make sense.
Then who has foisted the case upon him and for what reasons? The political motive would be that he was becoming too powerful, not only in Tamil Nadu but in the whole of India. His anti-evangelical stand made him enemies as far away as Mr. George W. Bush's America. And the financial motive is too obvious for knowledgeable observers of the Tamil scene: By beheading the Shankara Matam, the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister is hoping to seize the Institution's vast assets and use them for her own personal and political purposes. She is known for her dictatorial ways and her penchant for riches, as well as for her ruthlessness against any opposition and her paranoia. Commenting on her handling of the Shankaracharya case, Sri R.V. Venkataraman, former President of India, recently went so far as to publicly declare: “Jayalalitha has gone mad."
It should be added that both the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Ms. Jayalalitha, and the Tamil Nadu police superintendent in charge of the murder case, Mr. Premkumar, have a long history of unlawful activities. A former movie actress, Ms. Jayalalitha did a stint in prison herself some years ago, between two terms as chief minister, on corruption charges. On her arrest she incited her followers to riot, which caused the death of three school girls, burnt in a bus set on fire by the rioters. The charges against her in this case as well as other charges of corruption, assault and abuse of power are still pending in Tamil Nadu courts. There are also complaints rotting away in the same courts against the police superintendent, Mr. Premkumar (torture, abuse of power, manhandling of nuns, etc.) In recent years Human Rights Watch and several other bodies have pointed fingers at the Tamil Nadu police for torture and other atrocities.
The fact is that, in the last two decades, Tamil Nadu has become a rogue region. Assault and acid throwing on public officials (judges, political opponents, etc.) and private individuals have been rampant. In the present case against the Shankaracharyas, among the co-accused one is a notorious mafiosi criminal with ties with the DMK party; at least two others are petty criminals, whom the police can easily manipulate.
The Muslim and Christian clergy were among the first to protest the arrest of Sri Jayandra Saraswati. So were the Dalits. The average Hindus have once again shown themselves to be a peaceful and dignified people. One of the dearest icons of their faith has been dragged in the gutter, humiliated, drugged in jail to confess, mediatically crucified. And yet his people have not taken to the streets, have not rioted, have not burnt buses. Sri Jayandra Saraswati has told his followers: “I want everyone to hold their peace and be patient. Have faith that truth and dharma will prevail."
Though they know from past experience that in Tamil Nadu the law courts have not always been impartial, to say the least, the Hindus are patiently waiting for “the law to follow its course" in this highly electrified case.
But at the same time there is great fear that if the Shankaracharyas are tried in Tamil Nadu, justice will not prevail. There are increasing demands that the case be shifted to another state. In India such trials can take ten years or more. Whatever the judicial outcome, the damage has already been done.To add injury to insult, the Tamil Nadu government has blocked all the Matam's accounts and assets. The Matam and its various services are fast running out of funds even for day-to-day expenses. The Matam is a religious institution whose accounts are regularly verified by three independent auditing houses. Under the constitution of India, the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu has committed an illegal act in depriving the Matam of its operational means. The separation between the secular and the religious domain has been violated. But who will, in all this confusion, stand up for the constitution?
In this tsunami-devastated region, the government of Tamil Nadu is further aggravating the lot of the poor by paralyzing the Shankara Matam _ one of India's most prestigious NGOs - and preventing the normal operations of its social and charitable services.
It is in view of these facts that the remarks of the editor of Outlook Magazine struck me as particularly ugly and obscene.
B.B.C. 4 owes the Shankaracharyas of Kanchi and the people of India an apology. Wittingly or unwittingly, you have allowed yourself to be used as a vehicle of slanderous falsehood. You now have a moral obligation to undertake an impartial first-hand investigation of the entire affair and broadcast it at the earliest date.
I am not a Hindu; I happen to be a person from a Muslim background and another country. But there are well over one billion Hindus in India and across the globe. If you donÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t fulfill your more moral obligation, you can be sure the word will get around, and the majority of them will never trust or tune into B.B.C. 4 again.
Sincerely yours,
Farokh Merat
Retired professor
University of Paris VIII
France

Muslim women set up own law board

2005-02-03T20:45:00.000+05:30

At last, some relief and respite for Muslim women!! Wonder, why it took them so long to realise their own state?!!

Amita Verma
Lucknow, Feb. 2: Muslim women on Wednesday formed the All-India Muslim Women’s Personal Law Board barely a week after the Shia community set up its All-India Shia Muslim Personal Law Board.
Announcing this here on Wednesday, the president of the newly constituted board, Ms Shaista Amber, said that since the All-India Muslim Personal Law Board had failed to effectively tackle issues related to women and their rights, Muslim women decided to set up a separate board to focus on women’s issues and their rights under the Shariat.
"The new board, which pledges to work under the tenets of Islam, will ensure protection of women’s rights. Islam gives equal rights to women, but the interpreters of the religion have reduced women to the status of a commodity. Millions of Muslim women are suffering after being given talaq by their husbands in a wrong manner and the All-India Muslim Personal Law Board has done nothing to stop this malpractice. If the board had done its duty, Muslim women would not have been lining up in front of family courts. The women’s board now takes it upon itself to educate illiterate and poor Muslim women about their rights and offer them protection under Shariat," said Ms Shaista Amber.
She added that despite the presence of over two dozen women on the All-India Muslim Personal Law Board, the board has failed to offer justice to the two Muslim daughters who had been raped by their own father, Mohammed Hashim, and had even borne his children. "The father is in jail but the daughters are facing social ostracism. The family has no means of income because no one is ready to even interact with them. What has the board done in this case? Similarly, the board has chosen to turn a blind eye to the case of Gudiya, who was forced to choose between two husbands in Meerut, or that of Nazia, who was married off to a 70-year-old man in Faizabad. In such circumstances, we had no option but to form our own board in order to deal with problems specific to women in the community," she explained.
The board, which has Ms Zakiya Jaffrey, widow of slain MP Ehsaan Jaffrey of Gujarat, as its adviser, now plans to set up units in every state and then in every district. "We are organising a convention next month in which the board will get even more broad-based," Ms Amber said.
Interestingly, the All-India Muslim Women’s Personal Law Board on Wednesday rejected the concept of triple talaq which, according to them, is a violation of the Shariat. The women’s board is not averse to maintaining constant contact with other personal law boards on common issues and is also open to the idea of setting up its own Darul Qaza (Islamic court).
Meanwhile, the formation of the All-India Muslim Women’s Personal Law Board has given a major jolt to the All-India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB).

Radio jocks deride tsunami strike

2005-01-27T21:02:00.000+05:30

Look at the gall of the **** American Radio jockey..

NDIATIMES NEWS NETWORK
[ THURSDAY, JANUARY 27, 2005 04:12:30 PM ]

First it was Indian call centres, now its the victims of the tsunami that struck Asia in December.
American radio has found the ultimate way of ruling the air waves – get racially offensive.
The first case that one heard about was that of Philadelphia radio jockeys Star and Buc Wild getting racially abusive on their early morning show. The duo dialled an Indian call centre and proceeded to call the female executive a "b***h" and a "filthy rat eater".
Many US-based Indians were understandably offended and the radio station very magnanimously suspended the two for a day. Far from deterring others, Star and Buc seem to have inspired more such potty mouths.
The latest in the RJSS (radio jockey s**t strike) is the 'Tsunami song' aired by RJ Tarsha Nicole Jones aka 'Miss Jones' and Hot 97 on New York's WQHT-FM .
On the morning of January 18, Miss Jones greeted the listeners with the 'Tsunami song', set to the tune of 'We are the world' and with lyrics that went:
"And all at once, you can hear the screaming chinks. And no one was saved from the wave. There were Africans drowning, little Chinamen swept away. You can hear God laughing, 'Swim you b*****s swim.' "
That is just one paragraph of the song. While the song was being aired, one could hear one of the deejays laughing in the background and saying "I am gonna be shooting some Asians."
Whoever wrote the lyrics got really creative, the next few lines go as:
"So now you're screwed. It's the tsunami, You better run and kiss your ass away. Go find your mommy. I just saw her float by, a tree went through her head. And now your children will be sold. Child slavery."
While the lyrics are particularly nauseous and absolutely not funny, what is ridiculous is that Hot 97 had posted a notice on its website saying that they along with other broadcasters were planning to collect funds for the tsunami victims.
First insult and then assuage with monetary promises?
Yes, Hot 97 's parent company Emmis Communications Corp. has suspended the programme and Miss Jones indefinitely; but if the earler incident with Star and Buc Wild is any indication - the two simply shifted jobs - Miss Jones will be back giving words to her diseased thoughts elsewhere.
And of course she too has issued an apology that goes, "I apologize to all who have been offended by my poor decision to go along with playing that insulting (to say the least) tsunami song. I should have known better, and I didn't. So I'm sorry and hopefully we can move forward from this, or I can move forward from this being a better hostess, because I am better than that and I know better than that - and you deserve better radio than that."
So, is American empathy only reserved for tragedies on American soil only, like 9/11?
American lives lost is a tragedy and anyone else dying and suffering is a parody, right?
America may not be apathetic as a nation, but when a country allows diseased people to rule the airwaves, there is something seriously wrong.

TV talk

2005-01-27T20:26:00.000+05:30

In continuation with the irritant images on the TV:
More recently, Sun TV, overplayed its bid to invite relief for tsunami victims. To ensure that the channel garnered the maximum relief amout (there was a competition among the media firms to prove their mettle!!???), it telecast the most disgusting scenes of the diaster as a 4-minute short film.
But the film was so frequently shown that the aid part of the message lost its impact after sometime and many were seen switching to other channels with disgust and irritation when the film was being shown.
What a noble way to way to garner relief?!!

The 24-hour irritation

2005-01-27T20:23:00.000+05:30

The so-called 24-hour news channels have become more a source of irritation than one of information. Among the worst irritant are the scenes of any tragedy that are being repeatedly telecast by these channels. In their bid to catch the news "hot" there is not an iota of consideration to the impact of certain crude images may have on the vast masses who are watching the channel.
The latest one, after the tsunami of course, is the coverage on Manidiradevi Devi temple stampede in Wai in Satara district, Pune. The repeated focussing on the dead lying on the road coveys more a feeling of revulsion than one of horror or pity.
The worst of the coverage are the news presenters, who akin to us are watching the events unfold for the first time, but are forced to quiz the reporter on the spot for want of more news ( or is it that they are instructed to stretch the conversation to show better coverage??) and end up asking some stupid questions.
One classic example was cited by a Sri Lankan TV news reporter who presented a "byte" for Headlines Tdoay on the tsunami wreckage in Galle district. ***..............I get connected to the anchor. First he mangles my name. Then he asks me what I think the total death toll is GOING TO BE. (Not what it's at right then)Man I was pissed. Had a few questions I wanted to ask him...a) Do I look like the bloody Holy Seer of Colombo to you? What else do you want me to predict momma's boy? Like who you're going to get married to?b) Is this like some cricket match? Why's everyone dying to know the fucking score? In that case Sri Lanka seems to have soundly beaten both Indonesia and India.But I didn't. I just told him that I expect the final death toll be in the higher 6,000s. End of story. ..***
No, am not telling that such 24-hour channels are a worthless lot nor are all those presenters in the studios are dull-heads. But they could surely do more to it by giving it a 15-minute break between each of their news telecast... yes, jus a 15-mintue break.
Such a short recess will give the news presenter to look up more facts personally rather than reading out the text scrolling in front of him. He would be able to gather himself to understand the impact of the event and would be able to ask some better questions and clarifications to the reporter on the field.
And it would undoubtedly help the reporter on the field,who instead of repeatedly jibbering off with whatever little facts he manages to collect within that time for the non-stop bulletin, would be able to contact more people and can form a better idea of himself rather than going by the police or Govt statements. More so, he may not have to tackle certain stupid questions from the desk once these people get the hang of what's going on.

The Secret Lives of School kids

2005-01-17T18:45:00.000+05:30

This is a article that appeared in the latest issue of India Today... it surely makes me feel dizzy....

Shefalee Vasudev
India Today Jan 17 2004

Let me hold you. You got me going crazy. Turn me on, turn me on,"crooned reggae singer Kevin
Lyttle. So turned on were the 200-oddschoolchildren by the seductive notes that the dense cigarette smokebarely veiled the edgy anticipation on their faces. Inside a posh newpub in Delhi, the partying adolescents had turned up in body glitter,diaphanous stockings, crimped hair, micro-skirts andcleavage-revealing tops. As the music became more frenzied, so did thejiving students. They sipped fluorescent drinks with adult-likehauteur, remixing morals, manners and mama's instructions.
This was a Conti (continuation) party hosted by Class XI students forthe outgoing Class XII batch from a prominent Delhi school. Contiparties are a big trend in Delhi, but schoolchildren partying in apub? After the infamous mms incident involving two schoolchildrenhaving oral sex in November last year, wasn't the school worried?After all, the incident had spurred the Kerala authorities to instructschools and colleges to ban mobile phones, dance and fashion shows,even skirts for girls. But the Delhi schoolteachers had been kept inthe dark.
Some students had collected Rs 500 each from theirclassmates, booked the pub and sold entry passes with the school'sname printed on them to fool the parents into thinking that theinstitution was involved. The parents who refused to allow theirchildren to visit the pub at night were sent a circular signed by the"principal". Little did they know that their own children had printedit and faked the signature. Some went so far as to print an inflatedfee of Rs 1,000 on the fake circular and pocketed the additional Rs500. The organiser-a foul-mouthed Class XII student-made a neat profit of around Rs 9,000 after the money was paid to the pub.So what's new?
Schoolchildren in every generation break rules, drink,smoke, smooch and hide their activities from parents? Isn't the end ofinnocence an age-old story? It is. But like every other tale of modernIndia, it has new, never-before plots. Boys always smoked their firstcigarette in their teens, but now schoolgirls are doing it too. Thatthey are having sex doesn't surprise anyone, but the kind ofexperimentation they are indulging in, the access to pornography andthe technological accessories of fun are making the secret lives ofschoolchildren more dangerous.
Unmonitored Internet surfing, gangs inschools, availability of speed drugs like Ecstasy and the easy entryinto pubs and bars for children's parties trace the lines of change.This is not a naive generation which needs to be sat down and educatedon safe sex or warned that the road to drug addiction has no U-turnsafter a point. They already know this. They are smart, capable,articulate and tough. But at the end of the day, they are justthat-children. Overconfident and confused at the same time.
Earlier boys smoked secretly but now schoolgirls are also doing it,besides trying drugs."Don't write our names," say the Conti students, threatening onemoment, pleading the next. "Our parents will find out and then we'vehad it." It is not as if the parents are ignorant, but whether theyhave the ability to handle sensitive issues involving their childrenis another story.
The mms scandal is a classic example. A Class XI boyfrom the Delhi Public School, one of the capital's most prominent, wasarrested for allegedly forwarding to his friends a cell phone clipshowing his girlfriend having oral sex with him. Within days the sexclip was available on computer screens across the country. But theboy's parents shielded him and sent him to Nepal, initially refusingto either cooperate with the police or acknowledge their son's fault.It is a stark illustration of how modern lifestyle has changed theparent-child relationship.
Earlier, the biggest intervention byparents in the lives of their children was unquestioned discipline. Now, affluence has led to over-indulgence and discipline has beenreplaced by blind trust and buying of affection with latest gifts andgadgets. It has resulted in a generation of spoilt, well-to-dochildren flooded with expensive gadgets and hi-tech computers who arechallenging the moral authority of parents like never before.
"Children need parental presence, not presents. But what they get istoo much freedom, and gifts to compensate for lack of time. They areno longer taught to delay gratification," says Rupa Murghai,counsellor at Delhi's Naval Public School.
In the past, childhood was an extended phase of life. Now children aregrowing up faster, reaching virtual adulthood before they are out oftheir teens, while parents, focused on their own social whirl, traveland symbols of affluence, have lost touch with their children. Manyhave little idea about what their children do after school hours. SaysSubha Garimella, a Chennai school counsellor: "In many cases, parentslead a life alienated from their children's."
A Delhi school clerkrevealed that of the students who had paid fees to use the school busin the past academic year, 30 per cent had boarded it onlyoccasionally. The parents realised it only when they were slapped witha Rs 6,000 penalty at the end of the session for breaking the rule. Says Kusam L. Warikoo, principal, Sardar Patel Vidyalaya, Delhi:"There are instances where children host parties for their friends athome but don't allow the parents to enter their rooms."
That distancing from parents is due to judgmental and censoriousattitude was the common refrain among students interviewed across thecountry by India Today. "I don't like talking to my father," saysAbraham, a Class X student from Mumbai. "All he does is order me aboutand tell me to study. He never sits down with me to listen to what Ihave to say." Adds Chandini, a Class IX student from Jaipur: "My momis always preoccupied. She has no time for me." Chandini's boyfriendcalled her to his home and forced her to dance in the nude in front offive friends. The incident has left her greatly disturbed but she darenot confide in her parents.
Pubs, bars and discos, regarded as adult haunts, are being rented bystudents for parties.It is surprising that in an age when sex is such a big issue, no realdialogues take place within families. In an Expressions studyconducted by VIMHANS in 110 schools of Delhi and neighbouring citiesin April-May 2004 among 1,560 boys and 1,040 girls in the 14-17 agegroup, 100 per cent Class VIII students said sex education was a must.As many as 85 per cent children said that parents must find time fordiscussion and health-related communication, while 78 per cent saidthey needed a non-judgmental person to discuss their personal lives.Murghai feels that contrary to the openness that parents boast of,their communication with children often gets locked in moralising andsermonising instead of acceptance. In many cases, says Warikoo, theparents don't know what to do. "They are almost afraid of correctingtheir children," she says, adding that the school and parents seldomagree on the extent of freedom that should be given to children.Most parents trust their children unquestioningly without the bufferof day-to-day guidance or discipline. As a result children often leadsecret lives-spend on undesired things, bunk school for doubtfulreasons, surf for porn at cyber cafes, fake marksheets, manipulatefacts to enter adult pubs and furtively change into clothes they wouldnot dare wear at home. "We carry a change and dress up as we want infive-star hotel toilets or wherever we find washrooms," says Ananya, abrazen 16-year-old from Delhi. The forbidden clothes include thongs,padded bras and micro-minis.
The moral nakedness is as revealing as the skimpy outfits. Words like"normal", "no big deal", "cool"and "hot" come up so often in thecontext of booze, cigarettes, sex and porn that it is indicative ofhow morality and values are perceived differently by children asopposed to what most parents assume they have taught. The reinventionof school life may be largely an urban phenomenon, but its glimpsesare seen all over India.
In Patna, schoolchildren throng cyber cafeswhich have become notorious as sex cafes. Here, along with hiredcabins to surf the Net, children are offered X-rated CDs. Interest incyber cafes has replaced the keenness to visit science museums, pubshave replaced public gardens, oiled plaits have given way to gelledhair, old fashioned hand-holding has been taken over by unabashedkissing, petting, and in quite a few cases, "some kind of sex". Batasandals, puri-bhaji in tiffin boxes, antaksharis and outdoor picnicsare passe. It is all about dating, downloading, SMSing, swinging andspending.
Cyber cafes in Patna hire cabins for children to surf the Net for pornand also offer X-rated CDs.That is what peer pressure is all about. Dating now begins as early asClass VII. "You are considered uncool if you don't have a boyfriend,"says 15-year-old Jigisha from a suburban Mumbai school. But what doesone do with a boyfriend in Class VII? "Hang out, go to parties,whatever. It is important to have one," is a common answer. "Pettingand kissing is very usual, but I don't know how many have poora (full)sex," says Devyani, a 14-year-old Delhi schoolgirl who doesn'tunderstand why people have a problem with children having sex.
Booze was always a big attraction for schoolchildren but now liquorparties are organised in bars and discos raking in a whole lot ofother liberties. Parents usually find out only if someone gets sick orgoes home reeking of alcohol. "Usually children feign ignorance whenthey are caught, alleging that someone might have spiked their drink,"says Mumbai-based school counsellor Husna Vanjara.
Dr S.Virudagirinadhan, a clinical neuro-psychologist in Chennai, says thatmany students who come to him suffer from serious alcohol addiction.Prasad, a Class X student of a posh school in Adyar, Chennai, talks ofsix students who came drunk to school and misbehaved with girls.Safwa, a Class IX student from another school, says it is normal forthe authorities to check students' bags for liquor bottles.
It is, however, the change in the choices of girls that are causingmany tremors on Planet Childhood. In Mumbai, counsellors are gettingused to 14-15-year-old girls who smoke. Doing hard drugs like cocaineor heroin may be restricted to a minority, but getting stoned withEraseX, the ink-erasing whitener, gets more nods. "Some pour theliquid on their sleeves and sniff it in school going all glazed-eyed,"laughs 16-year-old Tarun from Gurgaon.
The twin realities of overconfidence on the outside and scaryconfusion on the inside define many schoolchildren. It is somethingsociety can no longer ignore as the malaise of spoilt, publicschoolchildren. Government school students may not have access tofancy gizmos or camera phones but they have their own ways of testingboundaries. A few weeks ago, two Class VII children from a governmentschool in Ghaziabad were caught coercing a Class II girl into oralsex. Meenu Bhargava, a senior government school counsellor atSarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya, Delhi, agrees that the causes may bedifferent but drug addiction, alcoholism, rebellion and sexual affairsare common among children in government schools too.Studies validate these trends. A 2004 national survey on drug abuse inIndia by the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime (UNODC) foundthat 9 per cent of alcohol users were introduced to it before 15 yearsof age, and 28 per cent between 16 and 20 years. Similarly, 11 percent of the patients at drug treatment centres had been using cannabisbefore they were 15 years old as were 9-12 per cent who wereintroduced to opium and heroin. Chennai-based psychiatrist Dr M.Suresh Kumar, coordinator of UNESCO's Rapid Assessment Survey on DrugUse in 2002 conducted among established drug users in 14 cities, saysthat the number of referrals of children below 18 years on drugs hasincreased significantly in the past five years.PICTURE SPEAK Slashing of wrists and depression are on the rise among children, sayevaluations in schools.Parents and teachers may shrug it off as media's "habit" of sellingbad news but Mumbai's Anjali Shah, mother of two, says that behindevery cell phone given to a child is a parent who gives in. "If yougive children the freedom that they can't handle, you have to dealwith the consequences," she says. Adds Annie Koshi, principal of StMary's School, Delhi: "Children are reflecting the society. Before wecreate a big fuss about what children do secretly, why don't adultsask this question of themselves?"She also points out that children being treated on the basis of theirmarks is a matter of concern. "Behavioural liberty is accepted if thechild is doing well academically, as if morality was a separateissue," she says. Koshi's remark may explain why the girl in the mmsclip initially defended herself saying she was a scholar and what shedid in her "private life" was not the school's business. Packed intothe "what's cool is hot" school life is fecklessness. More concerningthan sex in the mms case was the boy's frivolous attitude towards hisgirlfriend. False intimacies and friendships for favours are the bigworries.Experts attribute the sexual stimulation to excessive exposure. Easyaccess to pornography hasn't given children the maturity to cope withthe emotional fluctuations that it may lead to. Two months ago,Ludhiana-based clinical psychologist Rajiv Gupta dealt with an11-year-old patient who suffered from poor concentration despite agood academic record. His mother revealed that she had caught him andhis 14-year-old brother watching a blue film at home.

What is seen as independence by children is mired in vulnerability andhead-on collision between desires and reality. Which is why, saysDelhi psychologist Arpita Anand, it is important to introduce adialogue on the mms incident. "It will force the people to move awayfrom denial," she says. Otherwise one form of high-risk behaviour maylead to another. Teenage pregnancies and abortions are one of theattendant risks of premature intimacy.
According to who, 10per cent of all abortions in India every year, or about five million ayear, are among girls between 15 and 19 years of age. "At least halfthe women seeking abortions are adolescents and a disturbing numberare below 15 years of age," writes development specialist Anita Anand,in an abortion assessment by Mumbai's Cehat organisation.On the other hand, instances of depression, slashing of wrists andother self-destructive behaviours are climbing the charts in lifeskills evaluations in schools. "The stress tolerance quotient amongchildren is getting lower by the day," says a Chandigarh psychologist."The parents are oblivious to training the kids to deal with negativeemotions," adds Gupta.While people are realising that parenting is an acquired skill, not anatural one, schools are grappling with extreme disciplinary measures.So much so that a Delhi school has even started alerting parents ifchildren hug each other. "It is important to point out the differencebetween good touch and bad touch," says Warikoo defending the move.Koshi suggests that schools must help children deal with the dichotomyin society and parental attitudes through regular, value-basededucation.
Despite the disbelief and denial shrouding this story, most parentsand teachers agree that the buck must stop somewhere. No longer canIndia duck under the tired excuses of "western influence". Almosteveryone thinks that sex education must be made compulsory in schools.The Karnataka Association for Psychiatric Disabilities has launched avalue education and mood management programme for 600 adolescents inrural and urban schools through five NGOs. VIMHANS in Delhi andNIMHANS in Bangalore have been conducting life-skills educationprogrammes where teachers are trained to counsel students onpsycho-social issues.But the real outcome of these measures depends on whether adults canmeet children half way instead of expecting them to obeyunquestioningly. The growing up of parents and the education ofteachers may become a part of the new order of things.

Pioneer editorial

2005-01-12T17:22:00.000+05:30

The following is an editorial that appeared in the Daily Pioneer. At last, some sane analysis in a newspaper though a Delhi-based one. Wish more read it down south too.

Plot against mutt
The Pioneer Edit Desk (January 12, 2005)
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa has never been known for restraint. Even so, she had one redeeming feature: She normally ensured she could not be tripped for her draconian actions on technical, if not moral, grounds. But her Government's anti-Kanchi mutt rampage has no such mitigating factor. On Monday, the Supreme Court granted bail to Shankaracharya Jayendra Saraswati, passing a scathing stricture on the prosecution's failure to furnish even a shred of evidence on why his two-month-long detention should not be terminated.

Within hours of the order releasing the pontiff, junior Shankaracharya Vijayendra Saraswati was dragged into custody on charges of 'conspiracy' in the Sankararaman murder case. The timing of the arrest leaves no room for doubt that the mutt's authorities are targets of a premeditated witchhunt. It only reinforces the widely-held belief that a state-sponsored takeover of the highly influential religious body, deliberately rendered headless, is at hand. That the mutt has considerable resources may not be the sole reason driving Ms Jayalalithaa's reprehensible politics of vendetta.

A larger, more insidious, agenda seems at play: The majority community's sentiments are being attacked via the brazen assault on a revered symbol of the Hindu faith. Desecration of the Kanchi religious seat, where rituals and prayers have been disrupted, seems part of the pre-written script. Worse, no-holds-barred meddling in a sensitive case smacks of political obstructionism with regard to the law taking its own course.

In fact, it is perhaps no accident that the Jayalalithaa regime's anti-Shankaracharya virulence has burgeoned in direct proportion to mounting evidence that the seer has been sinned against: His counsel ripped apart the prosecution's case so successfully that the apex court described the stated grounds linking him to the Sankararaman murder as unconvincing. That the pontiff's judicial reprieve was followed by an immediate backlash against another mutt representative merely gave the conspiratorial game away.

Since the cause of justice seems open to sabotage, the Centre cannot play mute spectator. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh did write to Ms Jayalalithaa, with cautioning advice. But, as her action against the junior seer makes plain, his counsel fell on deaf ears. The UPA should realise the explosive potential of the events running riot in Tamil Nadu-it can have a very nasty social fallout, since Hindus are unlikely to take steamrolling insults to their faith lying down. It should think twice about adopting a hands-off approach for another reason as well: The judiciary is being mocked, and it is the Centre's duty to rein in the offender.

Ms Jayalalithaa has been exposed as using state machinery to conduct a pogrom against the mutt-police ham-handedness is only one proof. The Prime Minister is right in saying the law should take its own course. But he should be equally anxious to prevent a travesty of the law and its provisions. Only recently, the Chief Minister told the State Assembly that "shocking evidence" existed against the seer. If that were indeed the case, her bid to conduct a 'trial by media' would hardly have fallen flat. It has been thought that the AIADMK leader is after the 'secular' constituency of her rivals. Hence her new anti-Hindu avatar. She should know that riding roughshod over religious sensibilities is akin to playing with fire. Ideological cynicism can boomerang, since the targeted social groups are rarely the dupes politicians think they are. Post-Shah Bano, Rajiv Gandhi learnt this the hard way when he played the Ayodhya card. A similar lesson seems in store for Ms Jayalalithaa.

Media Circus

2005-01-07T15:24:00.000+05:30

This is an article that appeared in the columns of The New Indian Express today.
It is very sickening to note as to how some mediamen stoop to such low levels to get their scoops and bytes. A reporter is expected to report the event without being affected by a tragedy; however, he has not right to be indifferent towards the victims's feelings. Amidst his enthusiasm to pip his counterparts in giving out the news in the "best-possible" manner, most of them end up giving a go-by to the emotions of others.
As this was not enough, one of our fellow blogger had quoted something worse by a BBC Correspondent in Sri Lanka. Standing amidst the decaying bodies which are being put in a mass grave in a village dominated by christians.
Mr. Jeremy Bowen of British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) asked.
"Isn't it a shame they are not getting Christian burials?"
How terrible this is!
The question looks more abominable when we come to know the answer given by the priest.
"I don't think the Lord is very fussy about this."
The following is a sad yet true report of the current status of most of the media and media-savvy orgnisations.

Personal tragedies provide fodder for cameras in Nagapattinam
Friday January 7 2005
NAGAPATTINAM: Death and devastation have fawned endless photo opportunities in Nagapattinam: the cameras that have landed here do not seem able to have enough of the bloated corpses or the ululating women.
In fact, the more the merrier it is for some newsmen and NGOs.Sample these:
* On Monday, 28-year-old Vijaya (name changed) who lost her husband and two children to the tsunami and has just a three-month-old son to call family, was asked to carry the infant in her arms and ‘‘walk a few steps’’ because a national TV channel thought it would ‘‘set the mood’’ for a report on child survivors!* A relief worker pulling a decomposed corpse out of the debris at Akkaraipettai on Sunday was asked to ‘‘hold up the body just a little’’ by a vernacular satellite channel!
* On Monday, when a child died at a relief camp, a group of mediapersons landed within half an hour. The family wanted the baby cremated but the pressmen wanted the camera to roll. The baby was placed on a towel on the floor, the parents and a sibling were asked to sit around.
Some reporters told the mother to start crying! And if you thought it was just the local media playing purveyors of death, you could be mistaken. Correspondents of foreign networks, both print and television have been eager to latch on. No dignity for either the dead or the survivors of the Asian tsunami who are a different colour and race from the 9/11 victims when news cloaked itself in civility and decorum.
Minutes before one of the mandatory daily press briefings at the Nagapattinam collectorate last week, the correspondent of a foreign news agency was overheard asking a policeman: ‘‘I need a picture of a mass grave. I heard there are quite a few around. Can you show me how to get to one? And what time is the best to go?’’
If you thought that was bad, take this. A woman correspondent who was also volunteering for a Netherlands-based social forum had come with a bag full of stuffed toys. At a relief camp, she handed out the toys and asked the children to smile, even as other children who had no toys watched forlornly. Minutes later, she went on air: ‘‘For the children of Nagapattinam, smiles like these are few and far between... these innocent smiles may not last forever (she motioned the camera to pan towards the toyless), only despair seems to be their lot.’’
On Monday, when the first State-run orphanages became functional in Nagapattinam, a nifty young correspondent of a national news channel cradled a baby on her hip, flashed a smile and ad-libbed: ‘‘Lots of beautiful babies are available here for adoption...’’ You could be forgiven for thinking the tsunami had made the children beautiful instead of rendering them destitute.
And then there are the NGOs: a handful of genuine ones but swarms of frauds, mostly accompanied by a videographer who records every food packet handed out, every child cuddled.All one has to do is to walk into the Nagapattinam Collectorate on a day when any of the top IAS officers are present. One would find the man or woman running the NGO patiently waiting. The moment the official car drives in, out come both the camera and the smile and after a few handshakes are faithfully recorded for the sake of sponsors and foreign funders, the man/woman’s mission is accomplished.
One such NGO even has a cellphone-toting man stationed at the collectorate to inform whoever it is at the other end when a particular IAS official is driving out to a relief camp. No prizes for guessing what happens next.
As earthmovers scan the Nagai beaches, throwing up more of the dead, the cameras only get hungrier.

The cucumber seller of Chennai

2005-01-05T15:21:00.000+05:30

This is one of the best forwards that I have received till date!!

SUBROTO BAGCHI
(The author is co-founder & chief operating officer at MindTree Consulting. )
On a hot July day, my colleague Moses and I were trying to locate our car on Chennai’s Nungambakkam High Road in front of Nalli Silks when I saw a roadside cart laden with cucumbers.
The seller was vacantly gazing at passersby. Clad in a white shirt and a dhoti worn in the traditional Chennai style, he had long hair and an unkempt beard. I did not know Tamil, and asked Moses to find out the price. One rupee apiece, came the reply.
We wanted one piece each. The cucumber seller began deftly slicing them to put salt and the delectable red chilly powder on the neat halves. As we bit into the cucumber, I asked Moses to tell him that his pricing was too low, and that he should raise it. Moses conveyed this. The seller shook his head, and replied that "customer satisfaction" is more important than extra profit. The words ‘customer satisfaction’ were in English. I gulped my patronizing comment.
At this time, Moses excused himself to find our car. After a few moments, the seller asked me in English where I was from. From Bangalore, I replied. What follows here is our conversation. His statements are highlighted.
Isn’t the Karnataka budget due to be presented tomorrow? Yes, that is true. Living in Karnataka, it was easy for me to concur on this.
I wonder how the governments of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu will ever solve the water-sharing problem. Man cannot solve this problem. It has to be God. After all, it is an issue of how much rain is going to fall! I nodded. I was not sure if I had a view at all.
See the way the monsoon is progressing. It does not look good. The progress of the rains is leaving a ‘V’ of a dry patch as the clouds move north. Bihar, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and the states up north will have problems. Politicians are the ones who use such problems to create a divide among people. They always do it. They use water, religion, anything they can, to create a divide. Look at the way Amarinder Singh of Punjab is taking a stand. I looked at him, in part admiration and part disbelief.
You’re from Bangalore. Things are going well for you folks. But I don’t understand how people with shady business interests can become representatives of public opinion there. It was part complaint and part observation.
At this point, a fellow peddler arrived — helped himself to some of the cucumber, and the two had a quick conversation on some issue I did not understand.
After the other person left, I asked him if selling cucumber was his full-time vocation. He told me that right now it was. Earlier, he sold lottery tickets, the trading of which has since been banned. As a result he had to switch his business to selling cucumbers on the wheeled cart. No complaints and no issues. Meaning to engage him further, I asked him his religion. This drew an instant look of disappointment from him: "Sir, I am an Indian. That is my religion. In my eyes, all people are equal, and it does not matter to me at all."
The clarity of his response and his conviction took me completely by surprise. His net worth was probably equal to his day’s turnover. The newspaper and magazines he reads, to keep abreast of things, wipe off the disposable income he generates.
Bare feet on this busy, dusty road, he sold a low-value, perishable product from a rickety cart. At peace with himself and with the world rushing past, this man was dressed in poverty. But in his presence, it was I who felt poor.
We are not complete if we are not connected. It is only when we are connected that things make sense. Only when things make sense, we can form an opinion. Standing there, I wondered how many in the corporate world know who the chief minister of Punjab is, and about the progress of the monsoon! How many have an informed view on river water politics and budget proceedings of another state. Soon, Moses appeared with our car. It was time for me to go. I shook hands with the nameless cucumber seller of Chennai. Actually, I wanted to touch his feet.

Human traffickers preying on kids in Aceh: UNICEF

2005-01-04T20:42:00.000+05:30

God! how are we going to save them!

AFP, Tuesday, Jan. 4, 2005
JAKARTA: Human traffickers are targeting the children made homeless or orphaned by the tsunami disaster in the devastated Indonesian province of Aceh, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said.
UNICEF's spokesman for Indonesia, John Budd, said that there had been a confirmed case of a child being smuggled out of Aceh to the nearby North Sumatran capital of Medan for trafficking purposes.
He said UNICEF's Malaysian office had received an SMS on Tuesday advertising 300 orphans from Aceh aged between three and 10 who were for sale.
He also said that Medan was a well-known centre for the child-trade. Authorities have, in the past, arrested people on child trafficking charges in Medan, for selling babies for adoption to people in Malaysia and Singapore.
"It's chilling," Budd said. "What this indicates is that they have got children or they have a network where they can identify a child and take them." Budd said that UNICEF, local non-government organisations and the Indonesian government had been trying to confirm the reports of child trafficking in Aceh over the past few days.
Budd also said that UNICEF had received reports from local non-government organisations that "hundreds" of children from Aceh had been taken to Jakarta since the disaster happened. "We don't know if they have been brought to Jakarta for their own protection or whether it is something more sinister," he said.
To prevent trafficking, the Indonesian government has also placed a ban on any child under the age of 16 leaving Aceh without their parents. It has also banned adoptions in Aceh for the same reasons.
"The aim of the travel ban is to ensure there is no adoption and to prevent any sale and trafficking of children from Aceh," Social Affairs Ministry spokesman Heri Krisitanto said. National police detective chief Commissioner General Suyitno Landung said that the issue was of deep concern and authorities were trying to register all homeless or orphaned children so they could be tracked.

Ordeals of the orphans

2005-01-03T17:16:00.000+05:30

10-year-old Mahesh, who lost his parents in the tsunami, ailing at the hospital, was suddenly surrounded by an uncle and aunt, claiming to be his mother's sister. But the truth of the matter was that his mother was the only daughter to his grand parents. Luckily, his grand father, who is also a fisherman, who had been out on the sea and was deemed dead, returned alive to stake claim of his grand son.
Such stories of suddenly-sprung aunts and uncles are abound in most of the tsumani hit areas in the State. Many of them, mostly orphans, suddenly seem to have too many unseen and unheard of relatives around them. But all these uncles and aunts are not here not to take care of them but to take away their Rs 1-lakh solatium announced by the chief minister for tsunami victims. The district authorities and the voluntary organisations are having a tough time in ascertaining the veracity of the claims of such con men.
But with everything lost for all these children, it's the duty of the government to ensure their future. Its quite disgusting to note that amidst such an apocalypse, how some conmen have the heart to deprive these young ones of the little aid that they are being offered. With the stench of decayed bodies and wailings of forlorn parents around, one cannot imagine how can such heartless heathens are ever ready to play their tricks for material gains.
But, there has to be a way if not to eliminate, atleast to check these tricksters. With too many pressing demands now, it's indeed difficult for the government to stop the children from being handed over to their so-called relatives. However, before disbursing the solatium, the government can atleast ensure that the money is being deposited in the name of the children and its withdrawals are being monitored by a separate authority to ensure that the children are really benefited. Or as it had happened in Mumbai, where a Thane-based NGO had offered to adopt the orphans in Andamans and give them boarding and education to secure their future, the government can approach such reliable NGOs to take up the task of setting up orphanages and hand over the money to them to ensure the young ones's safety.
Their parents have become a thing of past for these children and may be some of them do not even want to think about the dreaded black sunday. But, at least, it has to be ensured that they have some support to look forward to their future with a little hope.

Is the world coming to an end?

2004-12-31T20:31:00.000+05:30

Weird!!! But sounds logical!!!

INDIATIMES NEWS NETWORK
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 31, 2004 08:28:59 AM
NEW DELHI: Top astrologers in the country are hinting that the tsunami strike might indeed be a step towards Nostradamus' prediction - End of the world in 2010. Minutes after panic gripped southern India following warnings of a fresh tsunami strike on Thursday, one of India's top astrologers, Kewal Anand Joshi, warned: "It's not over yet." "We (a group of astrologers) are currently diagnosing the calamity. There's going to be another major strike in June 2005, somewhere in the world. It will continue in 2006 and even in 2007 taking millions of lives," Joshi almost assured. "And we have reason to believe, besides tsunami strikes, there'll be a series of natural catastrophes which could destroy parts of the world," he added. Toll in Saturday's tsunami-strike has already reached 80,000 of which 13,500 were killed in India alone. Experts feel the total count "will rise to 1 lakh", making this one of the most catastrophic natural disaster to have struck the world ever. Delhi-based Tarot Card reader, Pinki Vaid, took time to make some sense out of this through her cards. "It's a sign from God," she says.
"He wants us to know that materialism means nothing if compared to the lives around us. He's giving us a sign that we must learn fast or else we'll be the cause of our own destruction." "Our destiny is in our own hands now," Pinki says. She adds, "If we want, we can change Nostradamus' prediction. But we first need to learn that working in a multi-national company or making a lot of money is not what was meant to be our nature of existence." Pinki's colleague, Deepak, however, analyses the tsunami strike a little differently. "Since 1999, humans started becoming a lot more spiritual. But then there are still a lot more people who are not. So there's a big clash. The transmutation of positive and negative energies was the cause of this strike. It's the planet Earth's way of reacting to humans," he explains. "If we hope to survive, we need to erase negative energies and transform them into positive energies. Else, chaos is just round the corner," he said.

Sixth Sense in animals

2004-12-31T20:25:00.000+05:30

REUTERS
Posted online: Friday, December 31, 2004 at 1127 hours IST

JOHANNESBURG, DECEMBER 31: Wild animals seem to have escaped the Indian Ocean tsunami, adding weight to notions they possess a 'sixth sense' for disasters, experts said Thursday. Sri Lankan wildlife officials have said the giant waves that killed over 24,000 people along the Indian Ocean island's coast seemingly missed wild beasts, with no dead animals found.
"No elephants are dead, not even a dead hare or rabbit. I think animals can sense disaster. They have a sixth sense. They know when things are happening," HD Ratnayake, deputy director of Sri Lanka's Wildlife Department, said Wednesday.
The waves washed floodwaters up to 2 miles inland at Yala National Park in the ravaged southeast, Sri Lanka's biggest wildlife reserve and home to hundreds of wild elephants and several leopards. "There has been a lot of anecdotal evidence about dogs barking or birds migrating before volcanic eruptions or earthquakes. But it has not been proven," said Matthew van Lierop, an animal behavior specialist at Johannesburg Zoo.
"There have been no specific studies because you can't really test it in a lab or field setting," he told Reuters.
Other authorities concurred with this assessment.
"Wildlife seem to be able to pick up certain phenomenon, especially birds ... there are many reports of birds detecting impending disasters," said Clive Walker, who has written several books on African wildlife.
Animals certainly rely on the known senses such as smell or hearing to avoid danger such as predators.
The notion of an animal 'sixth sense' -- or some other mythical power -- is an enduring one which the evidence on Sri Lanka's battered coast is likely to add to.
The Romans saw owls as omens of impending disaster and many ancient cultures viewed elephants as sacred animals endowed with special powers or attributes.

The Urban-Rural Divide

2004-12-30T20:59:00.000+05:30

The ever extant ,urban-rural divide, seems to have seeped in providing relief for tsunami victims too.
For, the folks in the urban areas are better placed in terms of access to relief materials that there were even reports of they exercising choices about what to eat and what not. Its not that they don't have a right to choose the food of their choice; but certainly not when they themselves are homeless and are wholly dependent of such good works of a few voluntary groups.
The quote of a local fisherman in one of the dailies was quite irritating. He said: "I am fed up of eating puliyodarai and pongal and so I opted for puris instead. Though I'd like to have some meen kozhambu, I know that these relief people will not give non-veg." Isn't it ironical that jus about three days ago, he had lost all his belongings and was right now sheltered in a corporation school and yet such comment.
Whereas the same tsunami victims in an interior hamlet of Kalpakkam, far away from the attention of the media, were desperate to get something to eat as their children had not been fed anything for the last two days. This was reported by a friend of mine who happen to visit the area to give away some clothes. The whole village is plunged in darkness literally as the transformer had been washed off by the wave. The corporation and municipality staff light up the path till the point where the ministers come and just leave these folks, who are a little interior, in darkness.
Will the Government machinery, in its right earnest, provide enough relief to all those in the interior villages too? Or at least will the good samaritans, who had immediately taken up the task of offering a helping hand, be ready to stretch themselves a little further to all these interior hamlets?

Communication gap

2004-12-29T19:24:00.000+05:30

It takes a tsunami to let the world know about the numerous good samaritans that it harbours. The aftermath of the tidal tragedy has left many dejected and directionless. But amidst this mayhem, is a group of people who have managed to recover themselves from the tragedy and extend a helping hand to the victims. Numerous voluntary and non-governmental organisations have sprung into action to provide succour to those bereft of the basic needs - food, clothes and shelter.
But a major problem that many of them seem to be facing is the lack of communication. Most of them are ready to help but do not know where to begin and how to go about it. The State Government, undoubtedly, is now burdened with a mammoth task of saving all these people and is quite busy with this task. But, surely it can provide some sort of guidance and information to all these voluntary groups who are share its burden. The lack of communication has left most of these groups in a soup and many are dejected with the government's callous attitude towards their ardent feelings.
There was an instance in Chennai when a group on its own had taken up the task of supplying food to all those fisherfolk who have been rendered homeless. But while they reached the spot with the supplies, they found that the people had just been fed by another such organisation. The victims in the Chennai city are by far better placed in terms of the number of people ready to help them immediately. Its only those who are in the interior region who are stuck in the stench of decaying bodies for want of food and water.
Will the State government machinery wake up to this gross contrast and provide direction to all these good samaritans?
The dead are already gone but let's atleast save those who are alive.

Tidal tragedy

2004-12-27T18:03:00.000+05:30

Its a gory display of nature's fury reminding us once more that not all are automated or computer-controlled. The devastating tsunami has left everyone spellbound.
The fact that Chennai, considered to be a safer haven among all the Indian metros, could be rocked by something so natural was quite unnatural.
Unfortunately, the year has been a sad one for all young ones. Even in this tragic tidal terror, it was the women and children who have been hit. Young ones who had been playing a game of cricket or hockey, who were jus building castles on the sand, who were simply waiting for their fathers to return or those who had religiously gone off with their mothers to offer prayers at the Velankanni church were sweeped away in jus no time.
After the Kumbakonam tragedy and the Beslan massacre, this is the third time in 2004 when the young ones had been affected in huge numbers. It's heart-rending to hear the tales of anguished parents with the dead bodies of their wards in their hands. Some parents have not even been able to get the dead bodies while some others seem to have 'gone off' with their loving ones!!
Why is God wreaking his anger like this?!! Why should he let down his children like this?!!

The Nataka in Karnataka

2004-12-23T20:12:00.000+05:30

I really enjoyed reading this..!!

Karnataka film ban
A cosmopolitan culture going nuts
SUJATA SRINIVASAN
Posted online: Thursday, December 23, 2004 at 0000 hours IST
Every nation has its share of nutcases. But Dr Chandrashekar Kambara, a venerable gatekeeper to Kannada literature, certainly deserves the epithet Chief Nut. ‘‘Everybody should join hands to protect the Kannada language,’’ he declared grandiosely, in a display of solidarity with a breed of fellow nuts—protectionists in the Kannada film industry who have ‘‘restricted’’ the viewing of other language films, including Hindi, Tamil, and English, in the state of Karnataka.
In a sickening web of double standards, a section of producers and directors has launched the pro-Kannada language Kannada Film Chamber of Commerce, to take over the Karnataka Film Chamber of Commerce! We all know why this jittery bunch want to ‘‘ban’’ competition—the lot doesn’t have stomach enough to gulp a good, strong dose of fair play. And what do you do if you’re a coward and you’re losing your share of business? Well, you gang up with fellow cronies and cry foul. Then you concoct some nonsensical story of protecting the Kannada language, while in reality, all you and your schoolyard bullies want is to protect your own profit margins. But no, you can’t even say it straight to the face that it’s margins you’re terrified about. So you hide behind your phony image as guardian of language and literature.
I’m as proud of my native language—which incidentally is Tamil—as the next person. Who can ever read classics like Kalki’s Ponniyin Selvan and not feel goosebumps on the back of one’s hands? Sivasankari, Akilan, Sujatha, Asokamitran, R K Narayan; they all make you so proud to be a Tamilian. The Kannadigas have their own stalwarts: scholar B M Srikantayya, Dr U R Ananthamurthy, pioneer of Dalit literature in Karnataka, Shivarama Karanth, and many more. But guess what? We Tamilians adore Kannada authors and playwrights as well. Girish Karnad, for instance.
So isn’t it time that frogs in the well discover the world beyond? It will be quite an experience. The frogs will learn, with great difficulty, that no, this is not 500 BC! The world has moved on. People’s definition of home has changed. And yes, it’s quite possible to feel at home from 10,000 miles away, with hyphenated identities such as Indian-American, or Indian-British. One of my friend’s daughters describes herself as Chinese-American-Dutch, half-Jewish, half-Christian. She’s 10 years old. And yes, there are such things as Hinglish and Tinglish, and Bollywood Broadway plays in New York and London.
Still, such cowardice on the part of the Kannada film industry is understandable. After all, they are protecting their own back against losses. But what’s astounding is how literary giants like Dr Kambara are applauding the cause! It’s true the award-winning playwright and poet has always taken an antagonistic stand against ‘‘foreign’’ influence, nevertheless since when was English, or Hindi for that matter, ever foreign to Karnataka? How is it all right for English-speaking countries like America to outsource jobs by thousands to tech capital Bangalore, but not all right for English films from Hollywood to run in Bangalore theatres? Such hypocrisy is indeed enviable—there are few parallels. And journalists like me who live in the US and write articles supporting outsourcing take flak from a section of the readers after every piece runs in the American newspapers.
But we keep going because we’re convinced that this is how the world works. If you want a world without borders, a veritable international village where people, goods and services flow back and forth, crisscross and diagonal across the globe, you’ve got to shape up or ship out. I’m sorry if this is bad news to some producers. But guess what, it’s great news for consumers. And in today’s world—thankfully—that’s what counts.
The writer is a Connecticut-based freelance journalist

Begging to be killed

2004-12-20T21:08:00.000+05:30

He begged to be killed. But, not out of fear or pain, out of his sincere desire to help at least five other patients who were in need of various organ transplants. However, the last wish of the 26-year old Hyderabad chess player, K. Venkatesh, reamined unfulfilled.
Venkatesh, who was suffering from Duchenne's muscular dystrophy, begged for euthanasia so that his organs can be harvested in good condition. Despite his mother's best efforts, she was unable to win the legal battle to fulfil her son's last wish. The Hyderabad high court had rejected both her pleas of advancing Venkatesh's death to enable organ transplant and for including non-heart beat deaths in the organs transplantation act. Despite his sincere desire to help five more patients, none of his organs, barring eyes, were useful for transplant as Venkatesh had been on a ventilator for a long period.
The courage and compassion displayed by this sportsman, even at his death bed, is something truly awe-inspiring. The humaneness displayed by this young man, in this selfish world, is certainly commendable. Kudos to him.
Inspired by this incident, another terminally ill man with the same ailment, K. Srinivas, wants to donate his body for medical research. The 35-year-old has been suffering from this ailment for the last 17 years and desperately wants some cure, if not for him atleast for others like him.
Though it is truly beyond my capacity to comment on whether euthanasia should be allowed or some revamp of Organ Transplantation Act should be done, the Government can certainly make some amendments in such 'extreme' cases. If the patients are unable to get any effective treatment in such distressing cases, atleast they should have the option of getting an "honourable exit".

Raids on Agra cyber cafes reveal sleaze

2004-12-20T20:57:00.000+05:30

Some more terrifying incidents!!!

December 21
IANS
AGRA: Raids on cyber cafes in this Taj Mahal city have revealed disturbing ramifications of how Internet porn was influencing morals and leading to sexual escapades in the most unlikely of places.Police raids on two cyber cafes, following complaints, found schoolboys and girls in various stages of undress and some of them also in intimate contact, a police official alleged.The raids on in the Sanjay Place commercial complex in the heart of the city found that many of them were showing pornographic films online. The cafes have been sealed."Many cabins just did not even have computers. Several girls hurriedly put on their clothes after they were caught with their boyfriends with their pants down," said an officer of the Hari Parbat police station."The cyber laws are too vague and just not understood here," said a criminal lawyer, who felt that the 15-odd couples in the two cyber cafes at the time of the raids could be charged with obscenity.According to an occupant of the building, young girls skipped their schools, came to the cyber cafes, and changed from uniforms into jeans and tops before watching the movies with their boyfriends.The Hari Parbat police station, meanwhile, was crowded through the day on Monday with parents and hangers on as the drama unfolded and the police considered which laws to book the offenders under.These raids are seen here as a sequel to the much publicised school episode in Delhi in which two students filmed their sexual act through a camera phone and transmitted it by via MMS.This has led to the arrest of three people, including the boy, an IIT student who was allegedly selling the MMS clip and the auction portal baazee.com CEO on which the clip was being sold on the Internet.A police officer said they had swung into action after complaints were received against the cyber cafés."The DPS (Delhi Public School) case in New Delhi has lent an urgency to tackle such crimes," he said.

In tune with times

2004-12-17T16:38:00.000+05:30

The 'porn-maker kid' is the hot news story of the day. There is an alarming trend seen among the children who have been misusing the modern gadgets such as computers and camera mobiles, much to the chagrin and horror of their parents. The children and youth of the day are increasingly resorting to such pervert ideas.
Look what has happened in the case of the Delhi Public School student. Its a class XI boy and girl who have ventured into this and gone to the extent of recording it on their mobiles. After they broke up, the boy has circulated to everyone of his friends for a price!! What kind of thinking is this?Is this a way of seeking revenge?
And what do the parents of these children do? The guy has been having such obscene photos in his mobile for so long and yet his parents, who are wealthy enough to afford him one at such a young age, are totally unaware about the uses that he subjects the gadget to. And in the case of that IIT student, his computer at home (!!!!) is full of such obscene pictures with his girlfriends (?!!!) in various positions and he has been supplying the same to others for a price for quite sometime now.
Sex, no doubt, is a basic instict and need of all. But isn't there a time in your life for it? Even before they bloom, most young girls of the day venture into carnal experience jus to be 'informed' and 'updated'. This, most seem to think, is their way of being modern. In their bid to prove that they are "in tune with the times", most young girls and boy resort to sexual acts even before they realise the significance and sanctity ( see all our scriptures as to in what high regard has been accorded for it) associated with it.
What is the 'time' that these fools are referring to and what 'modernity' does such behaviour accord to them? Unable to realise the impact of their own actions, most boys and girls of the day are simply indulging in such cheap tricks. With AIDS cases on the rise in the country, such unsafe and unhygienic behaviour is sure to mar their whole life. Will they ever realise this? Who is to teach them? With parents hardly having any control over the children's life and on children themselves, who is to guide them? Should the teachers be delegated the task of driving this point? Where is the time, who is to do and how is to be conveyed?
Discipline - both mental and physical, has been an inherent trait of our tradition. If we (i mean both parents and teachers) try to inculcate some aspects of our own culture in children, will they (the children) realise the danger? Aren't the parents themselves giving a go-by to our own values and traditions in our effort to seem modern and for our own convenience? Aren't we falling a prey to our children's obstinate, adamant and unnecessary needs and attitudes? Aren't the parents (especially the working ones) deceiving themselves by getting the child all that he demands just to make up for the valuable time that they do not spend with it? Could dusting our age-old traditions and values, with slight modifications, help us a little? Will allowing us a little time apart from our daily rut, and introducing our children to our scriptures, tradition and music replete with moral values and way of living, help? Will practising all these ourselves rather than just preaching aid? Shouldn't the parents rather than the children be in tune with time? Only time will tell.

The porn-maker kid

2004-12-17T16:34:00.000+05:30

IIT-ian peddled girlfriends' pics
IANS
[ THURSDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2004 02:28:41 PM ]
NEW DELHI: The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) student arrested for selling a pornographic video clip of two Delhi students had earlier tried to vend obscene photographs of his girlfriends on the web, Delhi Police officials said.
Investigation has revealed that Ravi Raj Singh, suspended from IIT Kharagpur, had a history of perversion, police sources said. "Scanning of his (Singh's) computer and mobile phone revealed that he had earlier tried to sell obscene photos of his girlfriends on the web," an official said
Cops arrest porn-maker kid
INDIATIMES NEWS NETWORK[ THURSDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2004 05:46:41 PM ]
NEW DELHI: After the arrest of an IIT-Kharagpur student for peddling the infamous DPS pornographic MMS clip online, Delhi Police are now gunning for the standard XI student who shot the clip.
Senior Police officials said they were now focussing on unravelling the entire chain. "Action will be taken against all those who created and then transmitted the clip," said an official. The incident had happened a little over a month-and-a-half ago, when two standard XI students of Delhi Public School RK Puram, a top south Delhi school, had filmed themselves on the boy's mobile phone during a sex act "just for kicks." But the boy started circulating the clip, reportedly soon after breaking up with the girl. Three weeks ago it hit national headlines after the clip started doing rounds all over the country. According to the boy's peers, he began sending out the clip via MMS and e-mail to his batchmates for Rs 100 each.

Tripping on acid, Viagra cocktail

2004-12-10T21:09:00.000+05:30

TIMES NEWS NETWORK
NEW DELHI: The youth of India just won't stop experimenting with intoxicants.
A few weeks ago we told you about school and college-goers pasting Iodex, a pain-relieving ointment, on bread and eating it for a high. Now, a new trend among hard-core drug addicts has come to light is of a cocktail of acid (LSD) and Viagra. Apparently for "prolonged mind-blowing sex." This new addiction is not just limited to a handful. In Delhi it is revealed by a telling statement of an addict, "I was at a rave in Mumbai (which has the highest number of LSD users in India) and almost everyone there had a Viagra pill which they'd pop after doing acid. That's where I started doing it. But now almost every acid-doer in Delhi carries Viagra pills with him." But no longer restricted to just Mumbai, this deadly new trend is on its high at any farmhouse rave party that take place on the outskirts of metropolitan towns almost every week away from public view. Sameer Gupta (name changed), 21, spares no words - "It's awesome", though he saves his 'trips' for when he is with his 20-year-old girlfriend. "Acid makes your mind rush at a zillion waves. You cannot possibly concentrate on just one thing. So erection is near impossible. But once you take the Viagra pill, you would just go on having sex through out the night.

Sameer says he has tried taking Viagra even after Ecstasy, a synthetic party drug. "But Viagra is more significant after acid. Once you begin to do something, you just go on and on doing that. That's the amount of energy you have. Viagra only helps in erection."
The peddlers are never too far - keeping up with the trend, catering to varied tastes. "Hardly anyone buys acid alone. They mostly expect a Viagra pill with it," one such peddler adds, sporting dark shades, sitting inside a room of the farmhouse. A couple of drops of acid on a small blotting paper costs about Rs 450 while a Viagra pill about Rs 400. Sameer Parekh, one of the top psychologists of the country, confirms that the cocktail trend is increasing. "This new addiction is becoming common, even after taking alcohol or marijuana, not just acid." "Either they have a lot of insecurity or they've just become dependant on Viagra because it obviously gives them a lot of pleasure once their energy level is at its peak," Parekh adds. Revealing the effects, Parekh says, "Hardcore drugs like acid and ecstasy are extremely harmful as it is. And Viagra is known to have affects on the heart. It's not meant for young kids of the age that are coming to me saying they're dependant on it." Only if the Indian youth wished to learn without experiencing things themselves!

The 'serial' killer

2004-12-07T20:34:00.000+05:30

A killer is at large. Killing in broad daylight daily with thousands of witness; still reamining scot-free. The target of destruction are mostly young children; yet, both the parents and the police, are unaware of the destruction being wreaked upon their wards. More so, they even unwittingly await the arrival of this serial killer with eager with their eyes glued on to the idiot box. Yes! we are talking about the television serials.
Look at the kind of muck that goes into each one of them. All of them have a vamp or a villain trying to debase the hero or the heroine or the entire family. The most disgusting part is that the villanous character is also shown as a member of the family. To cite a few of this highly rated tamil serials are Sorgam, Avargal, etc..
A recent study carried out by the Centre for Media Studies has revealed some alarming findings with regard to television serials and children. Gone are the days when one's teacher was the role model that every kid vied to be; or even its father or a historic hero. Today, its the TV serial characters (mind you, I am talking about the characters and not the stars) who are the role models of our children!
With most children watching only serials or movie-based programmes, whose themes are built around debauchery, deceit and violence, what is the moral that we are conveying to them? That one should deceive one's own brother for money, that one should resort to mean methods to achieve his ambitions, and that one should resort to berating, beating and killing one's own people if they stand in the way of one's goal?
No wonder that there is a rise in violent activities of today's children. There have been more complaints from the kintergarden teachers that the students of these classes are now more into fighting than learning. To get things done in their way, their tongues don't speak anymore, its only their hands.
Can't the serial makers think of any fresh and interesting themes rather than debasing one's own kin? Doesn't Balaji Telefilms, especially, have any new story idea apart from projecting the heroine as sober, quiet and toiling woman with a vamp-like relative hurling all kind of accusations? Why have the story writers run out of ideas and why should they stretch a short story to 400-episodes?
"Because that's what sells," is their retort. "Look at the high TRP ratings for our "emotional" serials (if u may call them one) and that's what the masses want," say they. So now, who is to be blamed?
Though most elders and housewives argue that "TV is their only source of entertainment", can't they at least act responsible in desisting to watch all such stupidity along with the kids. Knowing that all these muckish serials are murdering the morals of our children, should we continue to sit like idiots before the box?

A 'blow' job

2004-12-06T21:01:00.000+05:30

Its better to skip reading the papers, especially the vernacular ones, in the morning if you don't want your day to be spoilt. All that they carry is about murder, sex, rape and cheat... Are only such items worthy of being classified as news? Anyway, one such report in December 6th edition of Dinamalar, a Tamil newspaper, definitely made me feel sick and worry about the thoughts running in the minds of our children. It was about a 11-year old boy being brutally beaten up after being subjected to sexual torture..Not that such news is something new now-a-days. But this was reported in some village in Coimbatore.
The boy, hailing from a poor family, was asked by his mother to get some balance money on some milk account from a house in the next street. While returning, a 20-year old lured the young boy to his home to watch a movie on TV and when the boy entered the house, he locked all the doors, tied the boy and forced him to cater to his carnal needs...A 11-year old.. and for a blow job??? When the boy refused, the elder one forced some alcohol into his mouth till he was unconscious and beat him black and blue and threw him on the road...Luckily, someone in the road rescued him and took him home from where he was rushed to the hospital.
I simply can't imagine how bruised would that young fellow be carrying this wound till his death and what impact will this make on his mind. Look at the values instilled by the 'Sex-education' of our media and cinemas in the minds of our youths. Aren't we too responsible for this?
Sex matters need not be a taboo especially at a time when AIDS is spreading its tentacles fast. India is closely trailing Africa in the spread of AIDS disease. Hence, an awareness is definitely necessary.
Here's where the role of powerful mass media such as cinema, tv, satellite channels come in to paly. However, they are more bothered about sex than education in most of their stories and films which result kindling such mean and carnal instincts in youth. Will they ever realise the onus that rests on their shoulders?

Deadly designs

2004-12-06T19:07:00.000+05:30

The Kanchi Shankaracharya issue is the current rage. With intial reports about his 'indirect" involvement in the murder of Sankararaman, the manager of Varadaraja Perumal Koil, to his "direct" links with Usha of Srirangam, the Tamil Nadu government has been successful in its mission to malign the 2000-year old institution and the its chief, Jayendra Saraswathy. As if this was not enough, the suicide of some hapless student at one of the hostels run by the Kanchi institution too is now being probed for possible links to the Shankaracharya's "murderous" instincts..
And the press in Tamil Nadu has dutifully played into the hands of the Chief Minister of the State forgetting all the ordeals and humiliations it had been subjected to by her just a couple of years ago!
Whether Jayendra Saraswathy is the real culprit or not, this is yet to be decided...However, amidst all the ongoing drama, the designs of the State Government (read the Chief Minister) is all too obvious. And this is now being so easily interpreted that even an illiterate labourer is now bored (yes bored!) with the daily "revelations" of the prosecution.
With every case being filed without any valid proof (though the prosecution claims of ample evidence, hardly any has come out in favour of the case filed by it), the High Court on its part, is simply refusing to do its duty and has been eternally "reserving" its order both on the case and the seer's bail application.
Now, it's close to a month since the seer has been jailed and whether the case stands or not, the chief minister's mission of avenging him for his "careless comments" about her and his refusal to oblige to her "bidding" has been accomplished.
The age-old yet effective design of character assassination has proved handy for Jayalalitha to enact a "deadly" drama. Of course, with good number of years of experience in the tinsel world, scripting such a drama would be a child's play for her. But unlike in cinema, where the hero sticks a beard and a mole to cheat the villain gang, despite her assurances about the "deepest pain that she endured in arresting the seer", her hand behind the police's and prosecution's arguments is too pronounced.
Will the public (whose memory is shortlived) be prudent enough to remember this for long?

Blogging all the way

2004-12-06T19:03:00.000+05:30

With blog being the most searched and researched word in Webster's site, even I fell for the lure of a blog today to say hello to all the Netizens. A better way to register your thoughts...