EDITORIAL
Inhuman rights of
terrorism
Human rights are the most
sacrosanct of the tenets of this world. In a way human
rights is what the UNO is all about. That is also what
the democracy and liberties ultimately aim at - to allow
the humans to be free, to be respected as human beings
and to remove every impediment in that freedom. As such
human rights take precedence over most of the things.
Except for the considerations of decency and morality,
sovereignty and integrity of nations, the doctrine of
human rights accepts few modifications in its breadth and
sweep. That these sacrosanct principles should become a
handmaid of terrorism itself is the most shocking
travesty one may encounter. Of all the offending crimes
committed by the terrorists this is the most unforgivable
one. For it would not only degrade the purest of
principles humans have so far devised but would also
shake the human belief in the ultimate goodness of man.
If a terrorist thinks nothing of perverting the most
sacred right where would he stop at? Nothing, for sure.
Yet that is what the
terrorist have been doing without compunction. As the
investigations into the attack on Parliament, or 12/13 as
it is being codified now, deepen it shows that the prime
conspirators have been amongst the flashiest of the
'rights' activists. That the primarily accused university
lecturer should have not only have been in good contact
with the center's interlocutor on Kashmir, but should
have been arranging meeting of other 'activists' with K C
Pant, shows on one hand the spread of terrorist tentacles
and the total subversion of the most haloed principles on
the other. The security and other agencies engaged in
combating terrorism have often been thwarted by the
considerations of the rights violations. Indeed, right's
violations is what have been the most easy instrument
used to beat the police and security agencies away from
their targets. They have been used to malign the security
forces and even the other well-meaning citizenry. Terror
has been used to get the enforcement agencies besmeared
with the violations of most grievous nature, while the
public opinion that is easily supportive of very voice
crying against the violation of human rights
unsuspectingly lends its weight and support to such
campaigns.
There is a very thin line
dividing the law and right. As it is the concern with
protection of rights seriously limits the space within
which the law enforcement agencies work. Often the law
enforcer is on the brink of what is legal and allowed and
what would be a violation of rights. Upon that fine line
depends not only the security of nations but also the
protection of the very rights - human rights - of the
whole people. The 'human rights' of a terrorist is a
contradiction that is not easily appreciated. Often the
democratic space ends up giving the terrorists a free
sanctuary. When the terrorist usurps the human rights to
use as a tactic or weapon or even a cover, it becomes an
inhuman right that must not be allowed in any case. That
human rights have been so abused must be an eye-opener to
the people in general and the various rights activists in
particular, cautioning them not to jump to easy
conclusions and to be wary of every claim of the
violations of rights especially in terrorist infested
area. Nobody must be allowed to claim a right to be
inhuman.
Another massacre
One of the more cruel
apathies in this terrorism-ravaged State has been the
fact of the minorities being the primary targets of the
terrorists has not been appreciated. It has given a
wholly undeserved to twist to the whole perspective of
terrorism here and also made for a virtual denial of the
ordeals suffered by the people of this State. Today the
exodus of minorities from the Valley of Kashmir is one of
the 'lesser factors' in understanding or amelioration of
the terrorism here, when in fact the key to the whole
thing lies in that ethnic cleansing that has already been
effected in the Valley and is being implemented in the
remoter parts of the Jammu division. A conscious effort
has, in fact, been made to misunderstand and mis-portray
the terrorists and their activities which is not helping
the process of uprooting of terrorism but on the contrary
is giving much needed sustenance to the terrorists and
their unholy agendas.
For quite some time it had
been said that minorities were 'not the targets' of
terrorists in Kashmir. Many people even proffered that as
an argument for the 'return' of the exiled minorities to
the Valley implying that they do not face any threats. It
has even been said that the minorities were never the
targets of the terrorists there, when every misdeed of
the terrorists attests to their true aims. Apart from the
fact that thinking is a vast injustice to the people who
have been forced out of their homes in Kashmir or those
who are currently being ejected out of their ancestral
places in the hilly areas of Jammu, it makes for a
virtual denial of support and succor to the people who
have thus been turned virtual refugees in the State. That
the Doda migrants had to approach the State High Court to
get relief assistance, shows how hard the sufferers of
terrorism have been discriminated against. A view even
says that there is - was - no cause for 'migrations'. The
recent killings in Anantnag may not convince those
die-hard opponents but it shows that the campaign from
the remote Kishtwar jungles to hills and the dales of
Poonch and Rajouri on to plains of the Valley is one
sinister aim that must be seen, and shown, for the evil
it is and the objectives it pushes forth, in one garb or
the other.
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In
mercy He redeemed Us
By
Predhuman K. Joseph Dhar
St.
Augustine remarked- ''The body of man is,
in accordance with God's Supreme Justice,
his heaviest yoke, because of original
sin. The sole is tormented by the fear of
hardship and pain which follows when this
yoke is injured or disturbed and by fear
of death when it is taken away or
destroyed.''
Stripped
of grace, man is prey to a host of
weaknesses and evil inclinations. He
definitely needs God's help. But with
grace, which restores holiness, there is
no limit to the beauty and glory of human
sanctity. We do not bear personal guilt
for original sin, but it does leave us
with a nature which is no longer
strengthened by the special gifts of God.
Estranged from Him, we are vulnerable to
temptation and prone to actual sin for
which we are fully responsible due to our
free will.
Our
inheritance of Adam's Sin is not contrary
to God's justice or goodness.
We were
deprived of gifts which were not due us
at all. The human race fell to a natural
level, that is to the level of nature it
would have possessed if God had never
freely elevated man by grace. Moreover,
even after man's offence to God, our
loving Creator, immediately promised
saviour who would again draw grace on
mankind. ''I will put enmity between you
and the woman and you seed and her seeds,
he shall crush your head and you shall
lie in wait for his heel'' (Genesis 3:15)
from Man was in no way entitled to such
generosity.
This
promise, aroused in Adam and Eve the hope
of future salvation. From then onwards,
although alienated from Him by original
Sin, the human race was still ceaselessly
kept in God's care. In particular, the
Jews became His chosen people and through
their patriarchs and prophets He
constantly revealed Himself to them, and
through them, though in an indirect
manner, to the rest of the mankind. This
truth is clearly brought out in the Book
of Deuteronomy of the Holy Bible chapter
18, verses 15-22.
This
coming of God into human affairs has more
particularly within recent affairs come
to be known as ''Salvation history''. God
breaks into time through the religious
leaders of Israel and then when the
proper moment arrives, actually walks the
earth in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.
Everything we read in the old testament
of the Holy Bible was but a preparation
for this coming. The promise of a
Redeemer is the central message of the
Holy scriptures. According to prophet
Jeremiahn the qualities of the new
Covenant that make it different from the
old are (a) It will not be broken, but
will last for over (b) Its law will be
written in the hearts not merely on the
tablets of stone (c) The knowledge of God
will be generally shown forth in the life
of the people that it will no longer be
necessary to put it into words of
instruction. In the fullest sense, this
prophecy was fulfilled only through the
work of Jesus Christ.
Perhaps no
prophet has announced so clearly and in
such great detail the coming of the
saviour, what kind of a person He was to
be and the sufferings he would endure,
then Isaiah! ''Yet it was our infirmities
that he bore, our sufferings that he
endured, while we thought of him as
stricken as one smitten by God and
afflicted. But he was pierced for our
offenses, crushed for our sins upon him
was the chastisement that makes us whole
by his stripes we were healed. We had all
gone astray like sleep, each following
his own way, but the Lord laid upon him
the guilt of all (53:4-6).
Johan the
Evangelist (John 19:37) '' and again
mother Scripture says, ''They shall look
on him whom they have pierced,'' sees in
Zochariats (12:10) a prophecy fulfilled
in the piercing of Jesus Christ's side.
Prophet Ezekiel Book of Ezekiel (34:
22-24) in speaking of a ''Shepherd'' is
referring to a Messianic Davidic King who
will rule over the restored Israel in the
name of the Lord.
We
discover in the Book of Daniel Chapter 9
verses 13,14,'' I saw one like a son of
man coming, on the clouds of heaven, when
he reached the Ancient one and was
presented before him, he received
dominion, glory and Kingship, nations and
people of every language serve him. His
dominion is an everlasting dominion that
shall not be taken away, his Kingship
shall not be destroyed''.
The
Dogmatic constitution on Divine
Revelation of the vatican Council, II (n.
15) says, ''The Principle purpose to
which the plan of the old Covenant was
directed was to prepare for the coming of
Christ, the Redeemer of all and of the
messianic Kingdom to announce this coming
by prophecy, and to indicate its meaning
through various types. Now the books of
the old Testament, in accordance with the
state of mankind before the time of
Salvation established by Christ, reveal
to all men the knowledge of God and of
man and the ways in which God, just and
merciful deals with man.....''
What I
have said in the previous paragraphs
makes it sufficiently clear that after
the fall of our first parents. God
promised a redeemer and that the prophets
kept this thought continually before the
people of Israel. They were continually
looking forward to the advent of the
messiah but scourged by tribulations and
opposed by invaders, had come to think of
Him as an earthly conqueror, one who
would free them from bondage for ever.
However, when the Messiah did break into
Israelite history, He was no more human
being. He was the second person of the
Blessed Trinity in the person of Jesus of
Nazareth, true God and true man.
Two
thousand years ago on this day in a poor
cave in Bethlehem the Lord and our
Saviour was born filled with heavenly
joy, the virgin Mother Mary wrapped Him
in Swaddling clothes and laid Him on the
straw of a Manger.
The Lord
had come upon earth to show men the way
to heaven and he taught us by example
even at His very birth.
Men are
greedy for power, riches, and pleasures.
These are all things which bind man to
the earth and keep him from seeking God.
Jesus Christ showed us that happiness
does not consist in these things, for he
chose poverty, suffering, silence,
humility and loving abandonment to the
will of His father. What a lesson !
The
divinity of Lord Christ Jesus forms the
core of historical books called the Holy
Gospels according to Mathew, Mark, Luke
and Johan. From the study of these Holy
Gospels we came to know that Jesus Christ
did in fact, claim to be God. He did not
do this directly- in other words, no
where can we find Him stating bluntly. I
am God; But He made the claim
equivalently that is to say, He implied
it by His Manner of speaking and acting.
On at least four occasions did Jesus
Christ claim equality with God, the
father. Of these to quote one shall
suffice. He cured the beggar at the
probatic pool of Bethsaida. The healing
occured on the Sabbath, and it was
objected to that He had broken the law.
But Christ answered His critics ''My
father works even until now, and I
work''. (John 5:17)
''O my
Jesus, forgive us our sins. Save us from
the fires of hell. Lead all souls to
heaven, especially those who have most
need of your mercy.'' Amen
Merry Christmas 2001
to all
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Indianness:
Long
history of hard beating
Dr. R L
Bhat
Intellect
has always been respected as a worthy
thing in India, as else where. Around the
middle of the last century
intellectualism in India came to be known
as leftism. Those who were cardholders of
the communism became the more revered
sages; others took leftist leanings. You
were either a leftist or not an
intellectual at all. There were some
stray Gandhians around, but they were
tolerated not respected. They certainly
were not listened to; Gandhi's own
formulations being rejected as
'impractical' and 'not very useful'. They
were called pious, good-intentioned too,
but were seen as 'backward' and not very
relevant to the times we lived in. Others
suffered even worse; they were denigrated
as 'reactionary' meaning that they had
neither depth nor substance. Jayaprakash
Narayan was the shiny example. Others
numbering thousands, spread over the
countryside, in the universities and
colleges, suffered virtual rejection
until they came to adopt the prevailing
colour. You were either 'backward' or a
'reactionary' or you were a leftist
meaning an intellectual. Of course, these
intellectuals looked to other things,
too. To Britain and America, the European
tradition too, but always moulded and
coloured by the unpinning of communism.
That was the socialist perspective.
Topping its program of modernizing India
was trashing India.
Trashing
India, Indians and Indianness was the
rule of the intellectual world during the
most of the nineteenth century. Even as
Gandhi relied on an emphatic assertion of
the Indian ethos to rouse Indian nation
from its slumber and the world saw people
responding enthusiastically to it, the
intellectuals dismissed this high truth
as a tactic. The reasons were not all
extra-territorial loyalties. There was an
ironical reason, too. They were 'good
people' who had been genuinely troubled
by the trashy image of India that the
theories presented. The 'theories' proved
that there was nothing worthy in India
and the intellectuals set out to correct
this by bringing in all things 'good'.
Like the British justice; like the
American humanism; like the communism's
(read USSR's) rejection of nationalism.
The catch was that Britain was never
just, America was not humanist and
communism could never get over
nationalism (Russia or USSR being always
steeped in nationalism). Somehow that
truth was not seen and when it is pointed
out the stock response, of the
intellectual bridge, was that they
'stood' for the 'universalism of the
ideals' irrespective of what the others
have done with them. Later, when the
flaws in their 'model societies' became
too obvious they were distressed and
ended up condemning the 'models'
themselves for 'betrayal'. Indian
leftists have not forgiven Gorbachav,
remember!
There was
yet another factor. It was the worry with
the preservation of the Indian composite
culture. Years ago Gandhiji had himself
laid the foundation for this when he had
advocated the unnatural case of
Hindustani, as the language of the
country against the prevalent Hindi. Of
course, it was all Hindi and he did not
deny it. He was himself propagating Hindi
as the future lingua franca of
the country. But in deference to the
Muslim sentiments he advocated that it be
called Hindustani and be written in both
Hindi and Urdu scripts or better still in
neither and proposed Roman as a
compromise script. The latter day
intellectuals insisted that Indian
composite entity is supreme to everything
even the Indianness and must be enforced
even if at the cost of the real Indian
identity. As a follow up, the ancient
fonts of Indian civilization came in for
a rounding up if not total condemnation.
There was
born a whole tribe that became busy,
either in mistaken intellectualism or as
open propagandists, in ridiculing the
Indian entity. The emphasis was on
pointing to the 'un-Indianness' of the
whole thing. Here the empire-boosting
theories of race, culture and language
came in handy. They helped in 'proving'
that there was no Indianness. With no
Indianness in view it was easily pointed
out that all things Indian came from
outside, preferably from the central and
west Asian regions. That was 'the proof'
that the culture was all composite, being
a hotchpotch of different traditions. The
west Asian connection also helped to
assuage the Muslim sentiments just as
Gandhi's Hindustani was to reassure the
Urduwallas. Thus whether it was dress,
architecture or language the Indian
contribution was deemed mediocre if not
totally absent. And, all things good
whether fruits or Taj Mahal were lauded
as having come from outside.
Perhaps
the greatest of untruths were piled upon
the history of the country. The last
millennium, which had been nothing but
one extended travail for India, was
presented as the epoch of the greatest
synthesis. Akbar's hesitant din-I-ilahi
which he did not fully follow himself
came to be presented as the 'idea' of
this thousand years when, in fact, the
defining character of this period was
Mahmud Gaznavi raiding India for loot
with hordes of Ulema in tow to 'teach the
Indian heathens the faith'. Even
Shahjehan, the most enlightened of Mogul
kings after Akbar had, in the very
beginning of his reign, explicitly banned
construction of temples and ordered that
those under construction be demolished.
But, those truths were not told. Instead
as bigoted a king a Aurangzeb was
portrayed as a kindred soul.
After that
there was no question of detailing the
persecutions Indians suffered during this
thousand years. None have been written
into the 'approved' histories of this
period. Instead the 'histories' have been
filled with untruths that support the
peculiar, sometimes personal, obsessions
of these intellectuals. They insist that
Sir Syed was an Indian leader who never
told the Muslim masses 'to rise against
their Hindu neighbors' nor assured them
'that hordes of Afghan tribals would came
down to help them in the task'. In a
classical prevarication it lied and told
that Iqbal only 'read' the presidential
Khutba at the 1930 Muslim league
conference, and not that 'he presided
over the session and raised the demand
for a separate Muslim State in the north'
for the first time there. The founder of
Pakistan became an undeclared poet
laureate of India. The brigade has more
untruths in its bag.
They say
it was the British who brought about the
partition of the country. But would not
speak of the activities of the Christian
missionaries during and after the Raj in
unethically luring men and women to
conversions. Because these missionaries,
and the converts they produced, too are a
part of the composite fiction that has
been woven to deny the Indian-ness of
everything Indian. Indeed, everything
that rubbishes Indianness is an essential
part of this composite construction. The
bundle is then presented as the essence
of India. Here Persian legacy takes
precedence over the Sanskrit, Urdu
becomes more of a concern than Hindi,
Ayodhaya is not called Ramjanamboomi but
is remembered as the place where
Babrimasjid stood, and even Aesop's tales
become more moralizing than Panchtantara.
All histories, all peoples are relevant
except the history and traditions of
India. The Indians who protest against
this are labeled revivalists,
obscurantists, fundamentalists and
Sanghis and broadly condemned. There you
may teach Latin but not Sanskrit, you may
talk about Cheiro but not astrology. And,
certainly not about Vedas and Aryans
except in the idiom and understanding
that has been 'fixed' for them.
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The
attack on Parliament is an act of war
By Kedar Nath Pandey
The terrorists
have struck at the very soul of Indian democracy,
are we going to keep ourselves busy taling,
debating, nit-picking on what to do? It was
appalling to see that some of the stalwarts of
Opposition parties who lost no time in appearing
at different television studios once they were
safely escorted out of the besieged Parliament
House and parrot the same, insipid barrage of
words against the government for letting in the
suicide bombers. How pathetic they looked, safely
ensconced in airconditioned studios, safe and
protected unlike the brave security men who took
the bullets for them and waited on ice-blocks for
morticians to stitch their bodies up after the
post-mortem as the venerable leaders held forth
on security lapses. Forget Israel. Our leaders
should learn some lessons from the Americans.
Remember how the
Republicans and Democrats stood as one nation,
howsoever bitter opponents they might have been
in the past, when terrorists demolished the World
Trade Centre. India is not a political party. It
is our motherland, our nation, our pride, our
identity, the very fabric of our existence; it is
our soul. Terrorists have dared to defile this
soul of our’s. You have to be an Indian to
know this, feel the rage, the pain. Drop petty
politicking. Stop working for the next election.
Get out of the time warp in which most of you
live, far removed from the realities of a nation
on the move, a nation being wounded by enemies.
India is today a nation that needs bold leaders,
courageous not before television cameras but
before the people who dream of making this nation
a rising star in the comity of nations.
Let there be not
even a shred of doubt. The perpetrator of this
dastardly attack on our soul is Pakistan. After
the Taliban, if ever there is a fountainhead of
terror, it is Pakistan. There is any amount of
evidence. For years, Pakistan has been feeding an
insidious terror network whose sole aim is to
dismember India. Its intelligence agency, ISI is
a hydra, spreading its tentacles across India,
funding and arming anti-nationals, fanning hatred
between communities, creating an atmosphere of
terror. Terrorists, like the ones that attacked
the Indian Parliament on 13 December, are
Pakistan’s tools. They go by the name of
Lashkar-e-Toiba, Al Badr or Jaish-e-Mohammad.
They are funded
and armed by Islamabad. They are trained by
officers of the Pakistan Army. They are given
shelter and logistical support by sleeper agents
and operatives of the ISI in India. They draw
moral support from organizations propped up by
foreign powers, including Pakistan, like the All
Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC) leaders who are
paid Rs. 3 lakh per month to foment dissension
and propagate hatred against Indian security
forces.
Our security
forces absorbed the brunt of the attack without
flinching, and that this was an attack that was
repulsed very successfully. Not a single MP was
hurt, and the terrorists failed even to get close
to any of their primary targets. The edifice of
Parliament remains unscathed. This is staunch
evidence of the fact that the security of
Parliament was not effectively breached, despite
the fact that the terrorists did secure entry
into the compound. Another fact that was
underlined by the incident at Parliament is that
institutional responses – despite the
disarray and directionlessness of our day-to-day
politics – do work in situations of crisis.
When confronted with extraordinary challenges, we
respond, not on an individual basis, but as a
state apparatus.
There was,
however, a certain inevitability about the attack
on Parliament. Over the past months, there have
been direct threats, repeated intelligence
reports and leads received from the interrogation
of arrested terrorists suggesting that the
Parliament – as well as the Prime Minister,
the Home Minister and the Minister for Defence
– had been identified as the prime targets
of the Pakistan-ISI backed Islamists who had, in
the past, concentrated largely on the State of
Jammu and Kashmir. There is, consequently, an
urgent need to seriously review the entire
security, not only of Parliament, but of the
entire complex of higher governance of the
country – the President’s Estate, the
North and South Blocks and Parliament itself. It
is essential, here, to approach the security of
this complex, not as a problem of protecting a
number of independent buildings, but an
integrated, crucially interdependent and
interconnected complex.
Among the most
significant aspects of a review of security must
be the multiplicity of agencies charged with the
security of the parliamentary complex. The CRPF,
the Delhi Police, the NSG and the Watch and Ward
Staff of Parliament share various aspects of
security within and around Parliament, and there
is significant scope for friction, and for the
breakdown of coordination and communications.
It is now
imperative that the whole area should be looked
at as a singular and contiguous complex, and that
there should be no duplication of
responsibilities. One organisation under the
clear administrative and operational control of
the Delhi Police should be charged with all
aspects of security – including the issue of
passes, and the processes of search and
regulation of movement within the area. There
will also have to be an addition of greater space
around the complex to expand and deepen the
security arrangements, and to provide adequate
"cushioning" – the required
sanitised space between the access points and the
actual area of the Parliament. There will also
have to be an increase in the number of blockades
in and around the compound, pillboxes, and stages
of checks and searches in the security process.
What is needed,
equally and urgently, is a national consensus on
how to fight terrorism. There are too many
discordant voices today, and these are not raised
on the basis of any principles, but are largely
dictated by electoral and other partisan
considerations. It is high time that the
compulsions of partisan politics should not be
allowed to override the compulsions of national
security.
A point that has
been consistently neglected, not only by the
national leadership and the international
community – a point that has been made is
that there is a terrorist international, and that
all democracies in the world are under direct and
immense threat. The ISI-Taliban-Al Qaida-Islamist
fundamentalist network has, of course, been
substantially damaged and dispersed as a result
of the US campaign in Afghanistan, but it has not
been destroyed. Indeed, the "squeeze"
on these forces as a result of the US campaign
and the international focus on the earlier
Afghanistan-Pakistan terrorist axis has resulted
in the heightened probabilities of their movement
into and consolidation in other theatres –
particularly those where earlier linkages had
already been established, and where such
displaced mujahideen can find potential safe
havens. Many areas in India certainly offer
options for such potential relocation. The old
ISI-Taliban-J&K nexus will not go away so
easily. Organsiations such as the ISI, its
sponsored terrorist groups and the Taliban do not
change their spots overnight. General Pervez
Musharraf’s recent cosmetic and symbolic
purge at the top is not going to secure any
fundamental changes in the situation.
The attack on the
Parliament House is an act of war. And this act
of war has been master-minded and executed by
groups that are funded and armed by Pakistan Army
and the ISI, both an integral arm of the Islambad
establishment. Musharraf might have condemned the
attack but he cannot absolve his share of
responsibility in waging a proxy war against our
nation. He needs to be told this in no uncertain
terms. The only way to do it is to destroy the
terrorist camps in the Pakistan Occupied Kashmir,
cut off the supply lines, and neutralize his
supporters in Kashmir. INAV
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Mosquito
menace
By Jyotshna Pandit
The mosquito may
be nature's most effective bioterrorist,
accounting for millions of deaths each year, But
the end of its eons' long reign of terror may be
in sight. Scientists have begun to apply the
power of genomics and molecular biology to
understand how the mosquito detects the subtle
chemical cues that lead it to its targets.
"The mosquito
is the most dangerous animal on the planet. It
relies on its sense of smell to find the source
of its blood meals. So understanding how its
olfactory system workers at the molecular level
should suggest new and novel ways to keep it from
spreading catastrophic diseases," says
Laurence J. Zwiebel, assistant professor of
biological sciences at Vanderbilt.
His laboratory is
the first to have identified the genes that code
for proteins, called odorant receptors, which are
a key part of the mosquito's olfactory system.
These proteins extend outside olfactory neurons
and, when they come into contact with specific
chemicals in the form of odours, initiate the
cascade of electrochemical events that produce
the sense of smell. Writing in the online version
of the Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences, Zwiebel and his colleagues at
Vanderbilt, the University of Illinois,
Urbana-Champaign and Yale University report
isolating four genes from the genome of Anopheles
gambiae an African mosquito that feeds primarily
on humans and spreads malaria that are extremely
similar to genes generally considered to code for
odorant receptors in the fruit fly Drosophila,
which serves as a scientific model for insects.
The researchers also determined that these genes
are only expressed in the mosquito's antennae and
maxillary palps, which serve a role similar to
the nose.
There is a general
misconception that mosquitoes pick prey based on
the taste of their blood. Actually, previous
studies have shown that mosquitoes are primarily
attracted by body odour and other emissions such
as carbon dioxide. "We all produce a cloud
of chemicals and mosquitoes can track the odour
trail that we leave for quite a distance,"
says Zwiebel. Many of these chemical cues are
created by the bacteria that cover our bodies.
Studies have shown that fewer mosquitoes attack a
person after they have taken a shower. If the
person showers with anti-bacterial soap, the
number drops even further.
Despite the large
evolutionary distance between man and mosquito,
at the molecular level both are equipped with
basically the same chemosensory system.
"Ever since evolution figured out how to
sense different chemicals, it has kept the same
molecular switches and machinery. The system in
your nose and my nose recapitulates that found in
insects," says Zwiebel.
The fact that the
olfactory system is so highly conserved helped
the researchers identify the A. gambiae odorant
receptor genes. They found four potential genes
by scanning the six percent of the mosquito
genome that was then available for sequences that
looked similar to odorant receptor genes found in
Drosophila. Once they identified the genes, they
were able to determine that all four were only
expressed in the antennae and maxillary palps
that are part of its olfactory system and not in
any other tissues.
In the fruit fly
some 60 receptor genes are involved in olfaction,
so Zwiebel and his colleagues expect to find
about the same number in the mosquito.
Furthermore, the researchers were able to show
that one of the newly identified odorant
receptors appears to be associated with the blood
feeding patterns of the female. In mosquitoes, it
is only the female that is responsible for biting
people and spreading disease. The female needs
blood to reproduce. Previous studies have found
that for about 72 hours after feeding, female
mosquitoes don't respond as strongly to human
odours as they do normally.
Suggestively, the
Vanderbilt group found that one of the new
receptors is expressed only in female antennae
and exhibits decreased expression levels during
this post-feeding period. The researchers hope
that these kinds of discoveries will eventually
suggest new and effective ways to keep mosquitoes
from preying on people that will be less
poisonous than the insecticide and repellent
sprays now in common use.
For example, a
compound might be found that reduces the
mosquitoes' response to human odours. "The
obvious goal is to make effective repellents.
There is a
widespread need for a good mosquito
repellent," says Zwiebel. There are other
possible approaches as well. If a potent mosquito
attractant could be found, it could be used to
lure them into a container filled with a potent
insecticide. In addition, the highly conserved
nature of the olfactory system means that similar
approaches are likely to work in other insects
that pose threats as agricultural pests. So
research of this sort may ultimately lead to ways
to reduce insect damage to crops and stored food,
along with a number of other useful applications.
INAV
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