ISSUES AND CONCERNS

EDITOR'S COLUMN Friends We are well into 2012 with January having gone, and Budget month in the offing. What Union Finance Minister shall offer to the nation has to be seen. The change that we started from Dec 2011, in the editorial presentation continues to receive responses. We have presented two of them one for and one against. Of course there may be others too, wanting to tell us. We shall continue to present any feed back that would come our way. Yes, Month in Perspective shall have its usual inputs. India is a vibrant democracy with all kinds of things happening all over the country - good, bad and ugly. We could do justice to only to a part of such happenings in our coverage due to the space constraints. Hope readers will appreciate our limitations. In focus, we have tried to understand the dynamics of the ever evolving relationship between two emerging power centres in the region - India and China. However the Chinese playing difficult had come to head in some areas of diff...

Hindee-Chinee Bye Bye! It was way back in 1998, former Defence Minister in the NDA government who had famously observed that "China was India’s potential enemy No: 1. Some were shocked, some were surprised, and some smiled and probably muttered "Buddha smiled". Mostly these reactions were ideologically and politically motivated. Since then George Fernandese (GF) was, as the cliché goes "in the eye of the storm". Fernandese was always on the opposite side of Chinese since the days of Chinese annexation of Tibet in 1949. GF was in PSP (Praja Socialist Party) then, and PSP always looked at China as a danger. Somehow Chinese leadership from Mao down to the current leadership did not make things better by either words or actions to change this perception. In fact they did the reverse and sustained a veiled reference to it as "China has an aggressive strategic culture". As for Tibet, the whole world is aware what China is doing to Tibet and Tibetans. It is ...

B M Hegde Education must make healthy minds; not just wealthy careers. (contd. from last issue...) Inclusive education for a country like India: India is a very rich country with the largest world population of the poorest of the poor existing along with the super rich; the former are, of course, in a large majority. Nearly sixty-seven million children in India have a peculiar disease, Nutritional Immune Deficiency Syndrome, (NIDS) which is deadlier than AIDS. While the whole world population of AIDS is just about 33 million about which there seems to be so much interest among the public and the medical profession, NIDS is not even mentioned in textbooks in medical school! Those children die in hundreds daily. The question of their going to school does not arise. Even if they did they would not be able to go any further as they have inherited small hippocampus major, the part of the brain vital for memory, recall, creativity and learning. The reason for that defect is again poverty in ...

GANG LEADER FOR A DAY Black and Blue A few weeks later, Reggie invited me to a South Side bar frequented by black cops. "I think you’re getting a real one-sided view of our work," he said. His offer surprised me. Reggie was a reserved man, and he rarely introduced me to other police officers even if they were standing nearby. He preferred to speak with me behind closed doors – in Ms. Bailey’s office, inside the Boys & Girls Club, or in his car. We met at the bar on a Saturday afternoon. It was located a few blocks from the precinct and Robert Taylor. It was nondescript on the outside, marked only by some neon beer signs. On either side of it lay fast-food restaurants, liquor stores, and check-cashing shops. Even Reggie didn’t know the bar’s actual name. "I’ve been coming here for fifteen years," he said, and I never even bothered to ask." He and the other cops just called it "the Lounge." The place was just as nondescript inside: a long wooden bar...

An Open Letter to Anna Hazare Dear Annaji, I write to you as someone who has closely monitored your movements in your quest for the Jan-Lokpal bill. I am a twenty something, & a proud Indian not in the context of the times we live in, but also for much of what India has stood for down the ages. Please don’t claim to say that you represent the voice of more than 120 crore people of India. I am not your fan, nor your supporter in anyway. Along with me, I have my dalit brothers, adivasis & many more religious minorities to whom your movement has turned a blind eye for. We are also included in the Idea of India. No doubt the publicity you got has put the issues of corruption both in high places of government and into lives of common man. But you know what, 65 years later, we have still managed corruption, if not tolerated. There are far too many issues to deal with urgently & the way in which you point a finger at the government and the amount of hurry your team exhibits is una...

Anti-stress peptide in brain could help treat alcoholism Washington: Scientists have highlighted the power of an endogenous anti-stress peptide in the brain to prevent and even reverse some of the cellular effects of acute alcohol and alcohol dependence in animal models. The work by scientists at the Scripps Research Institute could lead to the development of novel drugs to treat alcoholism. Specifically, the study led by Scripps Research Associate Professor Marisa Roberto examined the interaction between two competing agents – one a stress peptide that promotes excessive alcohol drinking the other an anti-stress peptide that opposes it. The results confirm that drugs derived from the anti-stress peptide nociceptin could play an important role in treating a complex and multi-faceted disease. Roberto and her team focus on the central nucleus of the amygdala, a region of the brain that has long been implicated in the elevated anxiety and excessive drinking associated with alcohol depende...

Broccoli, sprouts prevent cancer Washington: Scientists have found how a substance, which is produced when eating broccoli and Brussels sprouts, can block the proliferation of cancer cells. Researchers at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center-Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solve Research Institute (OSUCCC-James) have found compelling evidence indicating that the substance, indole-3-carbinol (I3C), may have anticancer effects and other health benefits. These findings show how I3C affects cancer cells and normal cells. The laboratory and animal study discovered a connection between I3C and a molecule called Cdc25A, which is essential for cell division and proliferation. The research showed that I3C causes the destruction of that molecule and thereby blocks the growth of breast cancer cells. "Cdc25A is present at abnormally high levels in about half of breast cancer cases, and it is associated with a poor prognosis," said study leader Xianghong Zo...

Son acts & mother pays Hyderabad: Upset with RTI queries seeking information on its funding, a city school terminated the services of a teacher whose son had filed the applications. KN Saikumar, a 20-year-old BSc student of Osmania University had sought information using RTI from the district education officer (DEP) about the school where his mother was working for the past one and a half years. The two queries filed with the department, however, angered the management that asked the teacher to leave. Saikumar had filed two RTI applications on July 15 and October 10, 2011 regarding Bharatha Abhyudaya High School, Jiyaguda, a government aided school run by Bharatha Abhyudaya Siksha Samithi Trust. In his queries, he sought details about the functioning of the school, which included funds utilized and received, number of teaching and non-teaching staff, their salaries, student strength, number of sanctioned and unsanctioned posts among others. The school management first warned Saikum...

SEC permits eunuchs to contest civic polls Nagpur: In a major decision, the state election commission has permitted hundreds of eunuchs residing in the city to enter the fray in the civic elections as per their gender listed in voters’ list or in the open category. In a letter to the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC), SEC’s additional secretary DM Kaned stated that eunuchs are demanding reservation in the civic elections. The SEC received many letters in this regard. There is no provision in the Act to reserve any ward for eunuchs. They may contest the elections as per their gender listed in the voters’ list or in the wards reserved as open for all, the letter said. SEC issued the letter to all collectors and municipal commissioners. Accordingly, NMC also issued a press release to make the SEC communication known to citizens. "If a eunuch has listed the gender as male in voters list then he can contest in the wards open for men. Almost all eunuchs register their gender as male. B...

Rs 2 crore worth study - US to tell how India can improve its politicians Washington: The US is funding a study-worth more than Rs 2 crores – on how local politicians in India can improve as elected officials through better communications, which a key American Senator has determined as a waste of taxpayers’ money, PTI reports. "With record-low approval ratings for US lawmakers, it is unclear why taxpayers are paying for this type of project in another country", says the report "Wastebook 2011: A Guide to Some of the Most Wasteful and Low Priority Government Spending of 2011," released by the Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn. In April last year, the National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded USD 425,642 to research the effects of providing information to citizens on the performance record of local lawmakers. The investigators will follow citizens and officials in Delhi for two years, seeking to measure how much of an impact the dissemination of information among the citize...