ISSUES AND CONCERNS

Friends, It’s been pretty hot all of April. Passing shower here and there has been of little use both in terms of water augmentation as well as tempering the rising mercury. Will May bring some respite with some south west monsoon! Or will it be worse than April? Will have to wait and see. Hope weather Gods decide to smile on the parched land across the country or sun strokes cannot be ruled out. As usual Month-in-Perspective has covered most of the issues of relevance with our usual take. However, we have taken-up here two of the latest happening for the importance it deserved. The killing of some 27 CRPF personnel by Maoists in Sukma, Chhattisgarh has been the worst of its kind in recent years. Although it’s not as bad as the 2010 attack in which 76 CRPF men perished, it’s bad all the same, since there have been improvement in security apparatus to deal with Maoists menace. What is reprehensible is Maoists attacked the police who had come to provide security to the road construc...

Punjab: Promising cleaner and leaner administration in Punjab, the new Chief Minister Captn. Amrinder Singh has reportedly banned foreign junkets for ministers. In India, political office, especially that of a minister is looked upon as a privilege and license to indulge in personal pleasures at the cost of state exchequer. That is fairly normal. In the past, we have heard of MLAs travelling to foreign countries, ostensibly to study and experience developments in those countries. That is only for public consumption. In their itinerary, visiting nightclubs were also included. So, it’s always been ‘Kiska baapka kya jaatha hai’. Hence, the pre-emptive strike by the Chief Minister is a welcome development. Deciding issues in the first cabinet meeting, reportedly, all VIP culture shall be done away with. Except High Court judges, Ambulances and fire brigades, there shall be no red & coloured beacon lights on vehicle tops. Similarly no foreign travels for MLAs and ministers for the ne...

I am referring to your perspective on Mr. S M Krishna, former CM, Karnataka and former Minister of MEA at the federal government (p.8, Issues & Concerns, March, 2007) You are, first, critical of Krishna's personal political behaviour and second, based on his age, you think he is in no way significant politically or socially. Thereby, you are condemning all those who are old just because Krishna is 84. On the other hand he feels personally he was humiliated by the leadership; based on my readings, he was shifted from MEA, as leadership desired to have close relations with China. I have called it since Narasimha Rao, Government under Congress has played second fiddle to China. You can assess the differences by comparing and contrasting Indian handling of China and its all weather friend, Pakistan. Hence, if he joins BJP, it might offer him a post of governor. He can, then write his memoirs. He was a Fulbright fellow. Prof. P M Kamath, Director of VPM Centre for  Internatio...

THE 14TH PRESIDENT OF INDIA J. Shriyan On 25th July 2017, the first citizen of India, the current occupant of Indian presidential palace, the Rashtrapathi Bhavan, Pranab Mukherji, shall relinquish his office as the 13th President of India. He is a politician with over 60 years of political exposure. Has done a fair and non-controversial job as Supreme Commander of India’s Armed forces. These last 5 years he tried to be a statesman, so late in the day. Occasionally he has been mouthing platitudes of a visionary. Knowing his journey in the political party he belonged, his sanctimonious utterances appeared somewhat boorish. Be that as it may, his 5 years term was marked with bonhomie with the government of parties opposed to his own political lineage. There has been no acrimony of any visible kind between two parts of the executive, defacto and dejure, head of the government and the head of the state. This is good for the country. Now that the present incumbent is on the verge of...

Are we in the dark age of money? Prof. B. M. Hegde, hegdebm@gmail.com "This is the latest whiz kid among cardiac stents. Nowhere else in the world you will have a stent like this. I have done 56 so far. No complications at all, affordable too."  This is how a cardiologist starts his live streaming video at the National Interventional Council (NIC) conference in a five start hotel in Delhi where the conference organisers received several crores of rupees for the extravaganza. Paper advertisements and TV serials are old hat now medical advertisement and publicity look like kindergartens stuff. Now live streaming of a flamboyant cardiologist in a so called medical conference where normally science of medicine has to be debated is the in-thing. Even the Chinese device maker whose stent is not passed by the "great" FDA has beena part of the sponsors and must have also paid Crores. How much will this brand ambassador, the flamboyant cardiologist,get?  Where is m...

Has cancer found its bane in Vitamin C? Washington: US researchers have found that giving Vitamin C intravenously can produce super-high concentration in the blood, which has ability to attack cancer cells. The findings, published recently in the journal Redox Biology, revealed that vitamin C breaks down easily, generating hydrogen peroxide, a so-called reactive oxygen species that can damage tissue and DNA, says ANI. Researchers from University of Iowa Health Care in the US also showed that tumour cells are much less capable of removing the damaging hydrogen peroxide than normal cells. They also found that giving vitamin C intravenously -and bypassing normal gut metabolism and excretion pathways- creates blood levels that are 100-500 times higher than levels seen with oral ingestion. “In this paper we demonstrate that cancer cells are much less efficient in removing hydrogen peroxide than normal cells. Thus, cancer cells are much more prone to damage and death from a high am...

THE PERSISTENCE OF CASTE Beyond Varna: CASTE IN THE 21ST CENTURY Anand Teltumbde Stated Aims and their Failure Modernization in India was validated by the colonial intellectual tradition, which considered caste a precapitalist institution that would lose its basis, potency and relevance with the consummation of the modernist project. Most people visualized such a trajectory of transformation as an answer to the problem of caste (and even communalism) in Indian society. After all, modernization meant displacing tradition, removing fetters and pushing the country onto the path of progress. As a model of development, its success in Europe was there for all to see. There was therefore a unanimity of sorts in endorsing the Nehruvian project. Even the Ambedkarite perspective- though differing from the majority viewpoint in holding caste as an institution specific and central to India - had laid emphasis on state intervention towards reducing caste oppression. Modern secular educat...

Thou Art That Nilesh P Megnani The wisdom of the Absolute posing a challenge to the intellect of human is the whole of human predicament. The perennial questions about god, self, soul, afterlife, purpose and meaning of personal and impersonal existence – all point towards the enormous gulf between our limited capacities to understand on one hand and the infinite wisdom on the other. The bridge of language, logic, poetry and symbol seem to be ill built to travel from one to the other, from the limited self to the infinite Absolute. It is not that human is grappling in the dark but she is perplexed with the subtleties of the wisdom that existence eternally exhibits. A large number of human do not and intend not to decipher these subtleties. Others grasping a little instantly wish to freeze the mysteries into principles or norms of spirituality. In doing so the wisdom flies far away. We do not know what to make of the bounties and the cruelties that surround us. We pickle the myste...

Clean water is a mirage to 63 million Indians Kochi: India has the maximum number of people – 63 million – living in rural areas without access to clean water, according to a new global report released to mark World Water Day. This is almost the population of the United Kingdom, said “Wild Water”, a report on the state of the world’s water. Lack of government planning, competing demands, rising population and water-draining agricultural practices are all placing increasing strain on water, said the WaterAid’s report. Without access to clean water, 63 million people are living in rural areas in India. Diseases such as cholera, blinding trachoma, malaria, and dengue are expected to become more common and malnutrition more prevalent, it said. Rural communities dependent on farming to make a living will struggle to grow food and feed livestock amid soaring temperatures, and women –typically responsible for collecting water –may have to walk even greater distances during prolonged ...